3M has reported second-quarter earnings of $2.02 per share, an increase of 5.8% versus the second quarter of 2014. Sales declined 5.5% year-on-year to $7.7 billion. Organic local-currency sales grew 1.8% and foreign currency translation reduced sales by 7.3% year-on-year.

Operating income was $1.8 billion and operating income margins for the quarter were 23.9%, up 1.1 percentage points year-on-year. Second-quarter net income was $1.3 billion and the company converted 74% of net income to free cash flow.

3M paid $646 million in cash dividends to shareholders and repurchased $1.7 billion of its own shares during the quarter.

Organic local-currency sales growth was 4.9% in Safety and Graphics, 3.4% in Health Care, 3.4% in Consumer and 1.4% in Industrial; Electronics and Energy declined 3.0%. On a geographic basis, organic local-currency sales grew 4.1% in the U.S., 0.8% in Latin America/Canada, 0.5% in Asia Pacific, and 0.4% in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).

“In the face of a mixed economic environment, the 3M team delivered positive organic growth in all geographic areas while expanding worldwide margins by over a full point,” says Inge Thulin, 3M’s chairman, president and CEO. “We also continued to invest in our future, including strategic acquisitions.”