Outlook for the future

Future outlook published by Oriola-KD on 29 June 2010

Oriola-KD's outlook for 2010 is based on external market forecasts, agreements with suppliers and customers, order intake and management assessments. Long-term fundamentals and growth prospects are expected to be favourable in the pharmaceutical market.

Oriola-KD expects that the pharmaceutical market in Finland and Sweden will grow by about 3-5 per cent annually over the next few years in the local currencies, which is in line with the longer-term average growth rate of these markets. The Russian pharmaceutical market is expected to see annual growth of approximately 10-15 per cent in Russian rubles in the next few years. The growth of the Russian pharmaceutical market in 2010 is expected to be significantly slower than in the long term, mainly because of the difficult state of the Russian economy, very intense competition and the price control system. Competition in the Swedish retail market is expected to be stiff in 2010 as a result of the deregulation.

Oriola-KD's net sales from its continuing operations for 2010 is forecasted to be higher than in 2009 and operating profit is forecasted to be lower than in 2009. Pharmaceutical Trade Russia's operating profit is forecasted to be clearly lower than in 2009.