Ixia Shares Fall on Lowered Q2 Expectations

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Ixia shares fell nearly 24 percent on Friday, a day after the company released preliminary second quarter results that were lower than expected.

After the Thursday markets closed, the Calabasas provider of converged IP and wireless network test products said sales came in lower than expected in the Asia Pacific and from some large customers.

The company said it also received some key orders too late in the quarter to be fulfilled in time to book the revenue. However, the approximately $10 million in revenue received its largest customer, Cisco Systems, and additional sales from service provider customers, was in line with expectations.

Ixia, which will report earnings on July 21, now expects to report between breakeven net earnings per share to a net loss of 1 cent, compared with prior guidance of net earnings of 8 to 12 cents per share. The company also cut its adjusted earnings outlook to a range of 7 to 8 cents per share from its prior outlook of 14 to 17 cents. Revenue is expected to be in a range of $67 million to $69 million compared with earlier guidance of $78 million to $82 million.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters on average had been expecting the company to report adjusted per-share profit of 16 cents on revenue of $80.5 million. On Friday, both Deutsche Bank and Capstone Investments cut their recommendation on the company’s stock from “buy” to “hold.”

“We are disappointed with our revenue performance this quarter, which was impacted by several factors,” Chief Executive Atul Bhatnagar said in a statement. “We believe that we are well positioned to participate in the current network upgrade cycle, and we look forward to growing Ixia from this point forward through both organic and inorganic means.”

Shares on Friday closed down $3.11, or nearly 24 percent, to $9.96 on the Nasdaq.

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