LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Syngenta on Thursday became the latest agribusiness firm to report strong demand, saying first-quarter sales will top its own expectations on demand for crop protection and seeds.They said first-quarter sales, at constant currencies, grew 20%. While that's a rate the Basel, Switzerland, firm won't be able to sustain through the year, it now expects annual adjusted earnings per share growth that will "likely exceed" 20%.
Analysts polled by FactSet had expected earnings per share growth of 14.8%.
Shares in Syngenta, formed in 2000 when the agribusinesses of Novartis and AstraZeneca were spun out and merged, rose 5.4% in Swiss trading, and are up 26% over the last year.
Martin Voegtli, an analyst at Oppenheim Research, noted that Syngenta's guidance had been for double-digit earnings growth, which he interpreted to mean between 10% and 20% growth.
"Obviously the market was too low and we were too low on expectations," he said.
Rivals like Monsanto (MON:monsanto MON 117.95, +5.95, +5.3%) and Bayer (DE:575200: news, chart, profile) also have benefited from strong demand, which has been driven by a number of factors, including surging demand for biofuels as oil prices surge and rapid growth in emerging economies. See Wednesday's story about Monsanto.
"Biofuel is one element of demand growth, the other one is crop commodity prices at very high levels," Voegtli said. "We don't have any signs that (prices) should come down in the short run, and that is supporting agribusiness sector-wide," he said.
Syngenta is benefiting even as Monsanto is showing clear signs of taking market share in corn seeds, he added, with its triple-stack corn seed product on the market now.
Syngenta's product is due next year, Voegtli added.
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