Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from the line of Rick Wise with Leerink Swann.
Frederick Wise - Leerink Swann
Turing back to this year in growth, obviously you had a tough comp in the Q2 of 2008; you knew that going in. OUS was sequentially higher despite the higher effects. Can you talk a little bit more about the US number? Appreciating the comment about the weeks, did you expect going in that the US business would sequentially decline and maybe yet, I’d be curious if you have a thought in your mind, how would you have us adjust for that holiday week in terms of a more normalized number?
Daniel J. Starks
The question of precise adjustment for fiscal quarters under these circumstances is a challenge for us. We only have this kind of fiscal year mismatch year over year once every 5 years, so we really don’t have a good organizational expertise in exactly how to account for it. I think what you’ll see is you’ll see the impact of the short quarter in Q2 reverse itself with the impact of a long quarter in Q3, so think the best perspective would be to appreciate that normally we have a sequential quarter reduction in sales of almost all product classes including our CRM sales in Q3 versus Q2 due to seasonality including the impact of holidays and vacations in the summer season, and you see from the CRM guidance that we gave here for Q3, you can infer that we expect a sequential quarter increase in CRM sales in Q3 versus Q2, and so that would be the best way to give you some color or commentary about our expectations of the impact of a short quarter in Q2 and a long quarter in Q3.
I think another way to get at it would be to look at our sequential quarter increase Q2 versus Q1, and this would really apply to all of our product classes. You would see that all of our major product categories’ revenue increased sequentially, Q2 versus Q1. Even though Q2 was a short quarter, we actually delivered about 4.4% increase on sequential quarter basis Q2 versus Q1. FX accounted for some of that, but less than half of that 4.4% sequential quarter increase, so that would give you an additional indication of the ongoing strength of our CRM sales growth.
Maybe another way to look at and triangulate the strength of our CRM sales in Q2 in spite of the short quarter would be to look at the percentage increase growth for CRM sales that we’ve reported this morning versus what Boston reported yesterday. In Q1, it was clear to everybody I think that St. Jude Medical continued to gain share with robust results in both on the pacing and on ICD side in the CRM segment of our business. With that strong Q1 on a sequential quarter basis, our CRM sales grew 4.1% Q2 versus Q1, again even though Q2 was a short quarter. Boston’s sequential quarter sales growth was lower than that, Q1 to Q2. On the total CRM sales growth, our trend was on a comparative basis favorable, sequential quarter on the pacing side. There was even a stronger favorable comparison on the ICD side. It was more of a wash on our ICD sales; on a sequential quarter basis, it increased about 1.8% versus Boston’s on a sequential quarter basis increased about 2.3%, and exactly how much of that reflects short quarter versus other dynamic is something that would really very visible with comparative Q3 results.
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