Aflac (NYSE: AFL) reported Q3 EPS of $1.03, $0.04 better than the analyst estimate of $0.99. Revenue for the quarter came in at $5.6 billion versus the consensus estimate of $5.45 billion.

OUTLOOK

Commenting on the company's results, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Daniel P. Amos stated: "We are pleased that our third quarter results in both Japan and the United States reflected solid performance overall and advanced our progress toward achieving the company's objectives for 2018.

"Aflac Japan, our largest earnings contributor, generated strong financial results for the quarter and first nine months of the year. In yen terms, results on an adjusted basis were better than expected for the quarter, resulting primarily from strong investment income and benefit ratios. Third sector sales in the quarter performed in line with our expectations, including sales growth in our new cancer insurance offset by a natural decline in medical insurance sales. We anticipate similar results in the fourth quarter, which would result in low-single- digit third sector sales growth for the year. Additionally, we continue to expect that third sector earned premium will maintain steady growth in the 2% to 3% range for the year, reflecting Aflac's stable sales and continued high persistency.

"Turning to our U.S. operations, we are pleased with the financial performance and continued strength in profitability. Our results on an adjusted basis reflect higher investment income and a lower benefit ratio. Consistent with our guidance, we expect expenses to increase in the fourth quarter of the year as we accelerate investment in the platform and follow through on our commitment to reinvest tax savings back into the business. Our third quarter new annualized premium sales results, together with our sales outlook, put us on track to come in toward the lower end of our anticipated 2018 new annualized premium sales growth of 3% to 5%. We believe we have the right strategy in place for continuing to grow our franchise in the U.S. We believe that our investments in distribution and our customer experience objectives will continue to yield sales growth and stable persistency, driving an earned premium growth outlook of 2% to 3% for the year.

"We remain committed to maintaining strong capital ratios on behalf of our policyholders and balancing our financial strength with increasing the dividend, repurchasing shares and reinvesting in our business. We continue to anticipate share repurchase will be in the range of $1.1 to $1.4 billion in 2018. At the same time, we recognize that prudent investment in our platform is also critical to our growth strategy as well as driving efficiencies that will impact the bottom line for the long term. It goes without saying that we treasure our record of dividend growth. With this quarter's declaration, 2018 will mark the 36th consecutive year of dividend increases. As we communicated earlier this year, the Board reserves the right to look at the dividend on a quarterly basis, but we have reset our review cycle for the dividend increase to the first quarter.

"Consistent strong performance in the first nine months of the year puts us on track to achieve the high end of our revised 2018 adjusted earnings per diluted share guidance of $3.90 to $4.06, assuming the 2017 weighted-average exchange rate of 112.16 yen to the dollar. As always, we are working very hard to achieve our earnings-per-share objective while also ensuring we deliver on our promise to policyholders."

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