Healthy sales of enterprise network products helped Juniper surpass fourth-quarter expectations.
Revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 31 was US$809.2 million, an increase of 36 per cent over 2006’s fourth-quarter revenue. Analysts queried by Thomson Financial were expecting revenue of US$786 million.
Net income on an adjusted basis was US$151.5 million, an increase of 42 per cent from the fourth quarter of a year ago.
For the full year of 2007, Juniper posted a 23 per cent hike in revenue to US$2.84 billion. Net income, on an adjusted basis, increased to US$504.3 million from a 2006 adjusted profit of US$440.4 million.
Juniper’s enterprise business played a key role in the higher-than-expected results. The company’s Service Layer Technology (SLT) business unit — comprised predominantly of enterprise-class products — grew 20 per cent from 2006 and 29 per cent in the fourth quarter.
“It seems like enterprise business is turning the corner, although it may be too early to call victory yet,” states UBS Warburg analyst Nikos Theodosopoulos in a report on Juniper’s quarter.
Juniper will provide an update on the enterprise business this week at an event in New York, where the company is expected to announce a LAN switching line and a partnership with a larger enterprise systems company, perhaps IBM.
“The new product and potential partnership should help achieve improved SLT profitability in ’08 vs. ’07,” Theodosopoulos notes.