Despite the fact that the United States is experiencing a permanent alert environment due to fears of recession and the fall of the stock market, companies such as Honeywell remain strong and continue to report profits. For example, the company recently announced that in the first nine months of 2008 it earned $2.085 billion, up 18.8 percent from the same period a year earlier, when it had a net profit of $1.755 billion. In the third quarter of the year alone, the company earned 719 million dollars, 16.3 percent more than in the same period of 2007 when it achieved a net profit of 618 million dollars.
The company reported between January and September net sales of 27,844 million dollars, which represents an increase of 9.9 percent compared to the same period of 2007, when it billed 25,314 million dollars. However, despite these positive results, the company has not been oblivious to the effects of the North American crisis, proof of this is that in recent days its shares fell 2.26 dollars (-7.31%).
Although it is possible that some of the stronger business areas may be affected by others with lower market positioning, Dave Cote, president of the company, stated that "we have positioned ourselves to participate strongly in macro economic trends such as security, oil and gas, energy efficiency and defense" and added that the company tries to maintain a balance between its long- and short-term sales as well as sales outside the United States, which account for a little more than half of total revenue and indicated that "we continue to benefit from our extensive base installation, presence in emerging regions and the balance between long- and short-term businesses".
In addition, Honeywell has seen the highest growth in sales in the area of building controls, as the international construction boom created strong demand for the company's thermostats and security systems. According to Revere Data, sales of its automation and control unit grew 37.4% to reach 3.6 billion in the second quarter of the year.
