Alcoa CEO Weighs In On Second-Quarter Results And Concerns Regarding China Slowing Down

Alcoa Inc AA reported second-quarter numbers on Wednesday which came below analysts' expectations. Revenue for the quarter rose 1 percent year-over-year to $5.9 billion, while earnings increased to $140 million from $138 million it reported for the same quarter last year.

Alcoa CEO, Klaus Kleinfeld, was on CNBC post the results to weigh in on the numbers.

Getting Transformation Of The Company Done Is What Counts

"This is a strong quarter 16 percent profit growth year-on-year," Kleinfeld began. "We over performed on our value add businesses. Our engineered products and solutions business had the best ever quarter in profitability. The midstream business nice profitable growth. The integration of our acquisitions is going very well on track."

"And then you look at the commodity business...the commodity business had faced a lot of headwinds, but here we see the alumina business perform the best first-half since 2007 and the primary metals business showed real resilience in face of all of this headwinds. Metal prices have dropped 22 percent over the course of this year."

Kleinfeld continued, "This is good and then when you look at productivity - very, very good. And when you look at cash - excellent. And you put all this together, you basically see all of this has been done by many Alcoans day-in, day-out working tirelessly on getting the transformation of this company done. So, this is really what counts for us."

Impact Of China Slowing Down

On concerns regarding Chinese economy slowing down, Kleinfeld said, "Well, China is going from a real high-growth economy to a medium high-growth economy. The leadership is taking actions around this. And I think we are seeing some of this happening, but at the same time honestly for Alcoa the most important thing is we have to do the things that we control. I cannot control what China is doing, but I can control what we are doing and that's our strategy."