WATERS REPORTS INCREASED THIRD QUARTER SALES.

Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT), Milford, Mass., has reported that third quarter 2002 sales increased by 4% over prior year levels before favorable currency effects. After currency effects, reported sales growth was up 7% over the prior year. Earnings per diluted share (E.P.S.) were $0.29 for the quarter.

Douglas A. Berthiaume, chairman and CEO, said, "Financial performance for the quarter was slightly below our expectations due to lower than planned mass spectrometry shipments. Our HPLC business continued to grow nicely with broad based strength across all geographical regions providing revenue growth in the low double digits. Cash flow continued to be very strong and exceeded our expectations, with $52 million of free cash flow for the quarter and $132 million year to date.

"We made significant progress on many fronts during the third quarter including the recently announced acquisition of the rheology product line of Rheometric Scientific and the initiation of a stock buyback program with $54 million of stock purchased to date. Also noteworthy, is the progress on the integration of our HPLC and mass spectrometry field operations which is advancing according to plan. We remain confident that the combined organization will enhance both the effectiveness and efficiency of our operations. We plan to record a restructuring charge in the fourth quarter."

Waters Corporation holds worldwide leading positions in three complementary analytical technologies -- high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), mass spectrometry (MS) and thermal analysis (TA). These markets account for $4.2 billion of the overall $19 billion analytical instrument market.

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