Bergen Brunswig Sees 2nd-Quarter Profits Drop 31%

Despite rising sales, Bergen Brunswig Corp. said its fiscal 1987 second-quarter profits dropped about 31% to $4.4 million from year-earlier profits of $6.4 million, largely because of sluggish demand for its lines of consumer electronic and home video products.

For the quarter ended Feb. 28, the Orange-based distributor had revenues of $839 million, up 11% from the $752 million recorded last year.

Emil P. Martini Jr., chairman and chief executive, blamed the performance on lower sales of the company’s prerecorded videocassettes and other consumer electronic products.

He said the company’s Commtron Corp. subsidiary has begun a new sales push and would probably benefit from the release later this year of “a larger number of box office hits . . . into home video.”

Martini said the company’s drug and health-care operations improved during the quarter as a result of earlier “consolidation, redirection and expense cutting.”

For the first half of the year, profits were $7.4 million, down 41% from the year before. Revenues were $1.68 billion, up 11% from the year before.