F5 Networks CFO: Growth Via Added Sellers, Upped Quotas
By RICK JURGENS
SAN FRANCISCO -- With three consecutive profitable quarters under its belt, F5 Networks Inc. (FFIV) has a business plan and a beefed-up sales force to propel further top- and bottom-line growth, Chief Financial Officer Robert Chamberlain said Tuesday.
F5 is comfortable with Chase H&Q analyst Erik Suppiger's estimate that sees F5 posting net income of 13 cents a share for its third fiscal quarter, which runs through June, Chamberlain told Dow Jones Newswires after his presentation at the bank's technology conference.
The Seattle, Wash., maker of Internet traffic management products now has 1,600 customers and is ringing up revenue at an annual rate of $100 million, Chamberlain said in his presentation. Fiscal 1999 revenue was $27.8 million.
Driving sales growth is an increase in what Chamberlain termed the company's "quota-carrying" direct sales force. That force included 43 sellers with an annual quota of $650,000 at the end of March, up from 12 sellers with an annual quota of $400,000 a year ago, he said. By the end of September, F5 wants to field a sales force of 62, each with a quota of $800,000, he said.
In the past year F5 has also quadrupled the number of resellers that market its product, to 121, he said. The number of resellers is expected to grow to 140 by the end of September, he said. Exodus Communications Inc. (EXDS), an Internet-server host site operator, accounted for 16% of that revenue in the March quarter, down from 24% in the previous quarter.
Chamberlain said that F5 wants to continue to lessen its dependence on sales through Exodus and its dependence on sales of its primary product, Big IP, which directs traffic among a customer's Internet servers. Big IP accounted for 62% of revenue in the March 2000 quarter, down from 82% a year earlier.
F5 also has set a target for operating income of 20% to 25% of revenue, up from 14% in the most recent quarter.
-Rick Jurgens; Dow Jones Newswires; 650-496-1367;
richard.jurgens@dowjones.com
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So 0.13 for the quarter is the new number. They earned 0.18 the previous quarter per Zacks. Increase in operating revenue is positive.
Jack |
