Brocade Soars After Q3 Results Beat Estimates

released its fiscal third-quarter earnings results after the closing bell on Tuesday. The company reported both earnings per share and revenue that was well ahead of analysts' consensus estimates. In late trading, the stock was last up better than 15 percent to $7.95.

“In Q3, Brocade exceeded our guidance for revenue, non-GAAP operating margin, non-GAAP EPS, and cash flow,” said Lloyd Carney, CEO of Brocade. “The storage market is recovering more quickly than we had anticipated entering our third quarter and, coupled with continued strong adoption of Gen 5 Fibre Channel, contributed to good Storage Area Networking (SAN) revenue results. In IP Networking, our Federal sales were disappointing while Brocade VDX TM switch revenue showed continued strong growth in Q3, underscoring our leadership in Ethernet fabrics. We are making great progress toward our spending-reduction goal, and are already seeing the benefits in our financial results and cash flow.”

Brocade reported net income of $119 million or $0.26 per share, compared to $43 million or $0.09 per share, in last year's corresponding period. On an adjusted basis, net income was $87 million or $0.19 per share. This easily topped analysts' consensus EPS estimates of $0.12. Revenue in the quarter fell to $537 million from $555 million last year. This also came in well above Wall Street consensus expectations of $518.84 million. Gross margin in the quarter was 63.0 percent from 61.3 percent in last year's third-quarter.