Ciena Corp. swung to a profit in its latest quarter, as optical
sales jumped and the Telecom-equipment maker saw growth across
geographic regions.
Better-than-expected results helped push shares 2.3% higher in
premarket trading. Through Thursday's close, shares gained 27% this
year.
Higher demand in the optical-gear market has been helping the
company improve its revenue in recent periods. Last month, Ciena
struck a deal to buy Cyan Inc., which provides software and
platforms for network operators, for about $400 million. The move
was Ciena's latest to upgrade and diversify its offerings while
broadening its customer base.
In Ciena's converged packet optical market, which represents
nearly two-thirds of overall revenue, sales in the most recent
quarter rose 21% to $432.9 million.
Software and services segment revenue also increased, but packet
networking and optical transport sales declined.
North American sales rose 5.1%. Sales in international segments
also grew, despite the impact of a stronger dollar.
For the current quarter, the company expects to report revenue
of $610 million to $640 million, which represents expected sales
growth of 1% to 6%. A gross margin of about 43% is expected.
Analysts have projected 35 cents in earnings per share and $632
million in revenue.
In all for the April quarter, Ciena reported a profit of $20.7
million, or 17 cents a share, compared with a loss of $10.2
million, or 10 cents a share, a year earlier.
Excluding certain items, like costs stemming from the Cyan
acquisition, per-share profit rose to 35 cents from 17 cents.
Revenue grew 11% to $621.6 million.
Ciena had guided for sales of $585 million to $615 million.
Analysts had predicted earnings of 24 cents a share and sales of
$606.5 million.
Gross margin expanded to 43.8% from 42.4%. The company expected
a gross margin of 42% to 43%.
Write to Lisa Beilfuss at lisa.beilfuss@wsj.com
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