Weak Demand Forecast Slows Ciena Down

December 13th, 2012 by · 1 Comment

The quarterly results from Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) offer up a regular off-month peak into the market, and today’s was a bit wintery.  The company’s fiscal fourth quarter results were in the right ballpark as compared with guidance, but the company’s forecast for their fiscal Q1 were on the light side in an echo of what we saw three months ago:

$ in millions FQ4/12 FQ1/12 FQ2/12 FQ3/12 FQ4/12 FQ1/12
(guidance)
-Packet-Optical Transport 296.2 266.3 318.0  298.5 289.4
-Packet-Optical Switching 41.2 43.4 31.0 37.8  20.5
-Carrier Ethernet Solutions 28.8 21.9 30.6 31.3  47.9
-Software and Services 89.3 85.1 98.0 106.5  107.7
Revenue 455.5 416.7 477.6   474.1 465.5  435-460
Adj. OPEX 180.8 175.4 172.9  175.6 191.8  high 180s
Adj. GM% 43.2% 41.9% 39.6%  39.6% 42.7%  low 40%s
Adj. EPS 0.03 -0.17  0.04  -0.04 -0.07

Packet-optical took a bit of a hit, compensated in part by strong Carrier Ethernet sales.  Adjusted opex was on the high side, but gross margins were better than anticipated.

As for guidance, the market was looking for $458, a number that Ciena’s projected range of $435-460M just barely included.  It’s generally not a big quarter for Ciena regardless though, and the range seems reasonable to me.  But with 100G starting to hit its stride and Ciena’s 100G gear winning plenty of deals, one might wonder when it will start to help the numbers.

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Categories: Financials · Telecom Equipment

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