Telecom Ramblings

Like all telecommunications equipment providers, router specialist Juniper Networks [NASDAQ:JNPR - chart, news, filings] has had a rough year.  While the weather stopped getting worse during Q2, there has been apprehension that it might not get better quickly enough.  Hopefully today’s third quarter results will not be an isolated case of unexpectedly swift recovery.  Third quarter revenues were $824M, up almost full 5% from $786M last quarter.  Earnings per share of $0.23 was also up from $0.19 sequentially.  Both numbers were beyond both guidance and expectations.

That doesn’t mean that everything is ok now, revenues are still down 13% from the same quarter last year, but at least we have two quarters of growth in a row. As for the rest of the year, Juniper said only that visibility is improving but that the economic environment remains uncertain.  And by the way, water flows downhill too.  Ah well, given the past year I can’t blame them for being a bit gun shy on forecasts.

EDIT:  further guidance was given for revenues of $860-895 mln in Q4 according to Reuters which is actually fairly strong.