3M Co. said Thursday that it will cut 300 jobs from its display and graphics division as sales continue to decline for its optical films used in flat-screen televisions and computer monitors.
The cuts, mostly in the United States, make up 20 percent of the optical films staff, the Maplewood-based company said. Optical-film sales fell 36 percent in the second quarter, 3M said.
The display and graphics unit, however, was the only one of 3M's six divisions to show a sales decline when the company reported second-quarter earnings Thursday. 3M's overall results topped analysts' estimates as demand for safety equipment in Asia and Latin America compensated for slower growth in the United States.
3M makes more than 50,000 products, including Post-it Notes and Filtrete air filters.
The company said profit excluding some costs rose to $1.39 a share, exceeding analysts' average estimate of $1.35. The news sent the company's shares up on a day when the rest of the Dow Jones industrial average fell sharply.
About two-thirds of 3M's revenue comes from overseas, where sales increased three times faster than in the U.S., as fuel costs and falling home prices hurt American consumers. Sales rose 9.7 percent to $6.74 billion, aided by a 32 percent jump in Latin America and 3M's April purchase of Aearo Technologies Inc., the maker of Peltor earplugs.
"This was certainly a healthy rebound from the first quarter and reflects the fact that the company's industrial, transportation and health-care businesses were pretty strong," Nicholas Heymann, a New York-based analyst at Sterne, Agee & Leach Inc., said in an interview.
Net income rose 3.1 percent to $945 million, or $1.33 a share, from $917 million, or $1.25, a year earlier, the company said. Excluding charges to exit a business and a loss from a sale, 3M said earnings increased to $1.39 from $1.23. The average of 13 analysts' estimates compiled by Bloomberg was for earnings of $1.35 a share on sales of $6.68 billion.
