Symantec scores solid quarter

Stephen Withers
Friday, 25 January 2008 05:08

IT Industry - Listed Tech

Symantec's results for the quarter ending December 2007 were well up on the year-before period.

The company logged gains in revenue (up 15 percent to $US1.53 billion), net income (up 13 percent to $US132 million) and earnings per share (up 25 percent to $US0.15).

The biggest growth came from the company's services operation, with 40 percent year-on-year growth. But this segment represented just 6 percent of total revenue.

The mainstays of the company's operation are still consumer (29 percent of revenue; 8 percent growth), security and data management (29 percent of revenue; 9 percent growth) and data centre management (29 percent of revenue and 11 percent growth.

The remaining 7 percent of revenue came from the Altiris business, which includes the Ghost, pcAnywhere and LiveState Delivery products.

"The team's continued focus on operational improvements and product quality produced great results in the December quarter," said chairman and CEO John Thompson.  "I'm very pleased with the strength of our business and our outlook for the March quarter."

That outlook isn't especially rosy. Guidance numbers provided by the company for the present quarter are up on previous estimates but predict a relatively flat period on a quarter-by-quarter basis, with $US1.50 to $US1.54 billion revenue, and earnings per share between $US0.16 and $US0.18.

But the market liked the news. Symantec stock rose sharply on opening, and gained a total of 10.9 percent on the day - considerably better than the tech-heavy Nasdaq index which rose just 1.9 percent.