Eastman Chemical’s Q4 2020 revenue fell 0.9% to $2.19 billion from $2.21 billion last year. For the full year 2020, the company’s sales revenue decreased 9 percent, mostly attributed to the negative impact of COVID-19 on global economic growth and on demand for certain products. “Volume / mix was lower by 5 percent, which was resilient given the challenging market conditions. The slowdown in the global economy impacted all segments, particularly product lines used in transportation, building and construction, consumer durables, and textiles end markets. Pricing declined 4 percent with the largest impact in Chemical Intermediates. The drop in prices in 2020 was primarily driven by lower raw material and energy prices. Currency exchange impact was neutral for all segments,” the company said in a release. 

"Despite unprecedented challenges related to COVID-19, our financial performance in the fourth quarter and for the full year demonstrates the resilience of our people and our portfolio," said Mark Costa, Board Chair and CEO. "We delivered record fourth-quarter adjusted EPS and resilient full-year EPS, reflecting the value of serving a diverse set of end markets, the benefit of our innovation-driven growth model, and our continued aggressive management of costs. We did an outstanding job of protecting our employees and maintaining the operational integrity of our facilities around the world during the global pandemic. In addition, given the uncertainties through the year, we took aggressive actions to prioritize cash flow and liquidity that resulted in greater than $1 billion of free cash flow for the fourth consecutive year. I'm incredibly proud and appreciative of all that our employees did to deliver these excellent results."

Commenting on the outlook for full-year 2021, Costa said: "We enter 2021 having delivered record fourth-quarter 2020 adjusted earnings per share (EPS) and strong free cash flow, as the global economy continues to recover. However, we still face uncertainty due to COVID-19 as we move forward into 2021. In this uncertainty, I am incredibly proud of how our team is focused on what we can control, starting with growing new business revenue by leveraging our innovation-driven growth model, which is enabling us to perform better than our recovering end markets, particularly for many of our specialty products. We also continue to aggressively manage costs and remain focused on disciplined capital allocation. Building on our strong recovery in the fourth quarter, we expect 2021 adjusted EPS to be 20 to 30% higher than 2020 adjusted EPS. And with our continued emphasis on cash generation, we expect our free cash flow to be greater than $1 billion for the fifth consecutive year."