Brocade Beats on Top, Bottom Lines

November 19, 2012 by Paul Ausick

Source: Thinkstock
Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: BRCD) reported fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year 2012 earnings after markets closed today. For the quarter, the networking company posted adjusted diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.17 on revenues of $578 million. In the same period a year ago, the company reported EPS of $0.16 on revenues of $550 million.Third-quarter results compare to the Thomson Reuters consensus estimate for EPS of $0.14 on $566.6 million in revenues.

For the full fiscal year, the company reported adjusted diluted EPS of $0.66 on revenues of $1.89 billion, compared with EPS of $0.50 on revenues of $1.79 billion for fiscal 2011.

The company’s CEO said:

Our product portfolio across all areas of our business is the strongest it has ever been and we are driving industry transformation in emerging areas of growth including virtualized data centers, cloud computing, and software-defined networking. We believe Brocade is well-positioned for continued growth in fiscal 2013.

Brocade did not offer guidance for the current quarter or for the new fiscal year, but the consensus estimates call for first quarter EPS of $0.16 on revenues of $571.3 million. For the full 2013 fiscal year, consensus estimates call for EPS of $0.61 on revenues of $2.3 billion.

The company’s storage area networking division grew revenue by 9% in the quarter and 7% for the full year. The IP networking division saw revenues fall 3% year-over-year for the quarter, and fall “slightly” for the full year. GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 62.4%, up from 59.5% in the same period a year ago.

The company’s shares are up 2.4% in after-hours trading today, at $5.65 in a 52-week range of $4.18 to $6.44. The consensus target price for the shares was around $6.25 before today’s report.

Paul Ausick

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