Santiago-Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile SA (SQM) reported a 33 percent increase in net income for the first quarter ending March 31, 2009, to $86.3 million ($.33 per ADR) on sales of $320.9 million, compared to the year-ago $64.8 million ($.25 per ADR) and $326.3 million, respectively. Operating income was $119.5 million, versus the year-ago $86.2 million. “Considering the current global economy and the difficult circumstances of world markets in general, the increase in our quarterly operating income and net income is very good news,” said Patricio Contesse, SQM CEO. “The company’s different business lines prevent us from depending on a single product or market and provide us with diversified sources of revenue that allow us to deliver higher operating margins. Higher sales prices during the first quarter of the year compared to the same period of the previous year, combined with lower operating costs, have allowed us to offset the lower sales volumes in our SPN (specialty plant nutrition), iodine and lithium businesses, which have in general followed the downward trend, observed in different sectors of the economy during recent times. As anticipated, higher production levels of potassium chloride have translated into significantly higher sales volumes and have positively impacted our margins. We remain confident that the fertilizer and industrial markets that use our products should recover by the second semester, increasing results in the second half of the year compared to the first half of this year.” SQM noted that SPN sales were down during the quarter to $145.7 million from the year-ago $170.5 million; however, the company was able to expand its potassium chloride sales by 366 percent to $72.1 million, up from the year-ago $15.5 million. SQM said year-ago sales in this segment were mainly in Chile, and the company has since moved into other markets.
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