BASF post slight Q1 earnings drop but beats forecast

BASF SE is No. 1 worldwide in the chemical industry. Net sales break down by family of products as follows: - functional products (44.1%): catalysts (38.9% of net sales), performance materials (23.9%), monomers (22.7%), and coatings (14.5%); - high-performance materials (21.6%): care chemicals (33.1% of net sales), dispersions and pigments (31.8%), performance chemicals (20.8%) and nutrition products (14.3%); - chemicals (15%): petrochemicals (71.5% of net sales), and intermediate products (28.5%); - agrochemicals (14.6%); - other (4.7%). Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: Germany (9.9%), Europe (27.9%), North America (27.3%), Asia/Pacific (25.4%) and South America/Africa/Middle East (9.5%).