CIEN) 76 13/16: Reports Q1 net of $0.18 a share (exclusive of payroll tax on stock option exercise) vs the First Call mean of $0.15; revenues rose 131% to $351.99 mln... Company raising revenue growth guidance to 95%-105% or $1.67-$1.76 bln.
CIENA ($84=ISLD now )Reports First Quarter Revenue of $352.0 Million, Adjusted Net Income of
$0.18 per Diluted Share; Level 3 Announced as New MultiWave CoreDirector
Customer
Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers
LINTHICUM, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 15, 2001--CIENA Corporation
(NASDAQ:CIEN) today reported revenue of $352.0 million for its first
fiscal quarter ended January 31, 2001.
CIENA's first quarter sales represent sequential revenue growth of
more than 22 percent over the Company's fiscal fourth quarter revenue
of $287.6 million, and an increase of more than 130 percent as
compared to the same period a year ago when the Company reported
revenue of $152.2 million.
Adjusted net income for the first quarter, exclusive of payroll
tax on stock option exercises, was $54.1 million, or $0.18, earnings
per diluted share.
This represents an increase of approximately 31 percent compared
with adjusted net income for the previous quarter, exclusive of
payroll tax on stock option exercises and provision for doubtful
accounts, of $41.3 million, or $0.14, earnings per diluted share.
For the same period in the previous year, the Company reported
adjusted net income of $9.1 million, or $0.03, earnings per diluted
share.1 Consensus of First Call estimates for CIENA's first quarter
fiscal 2001 was $0.15 earnings per diluted share.
"CIENA continues to see robust growth opportunities across its
family of next-generation intelligent optical networking products,"
said CIENA Chairman and CEO, Patrick Nettles. "We believe CIENA's
strong growth and good order visibility in an otherwise uncertain
carrier spending environment results from our exclusive focus on
next-generation optical networking equipment and our position as a
strategic supplier to leading service providers."
"There is no question that economic factors are causing service
providers to more carefully scrutinize where they spend their budget
dollars," said Gary Smith, CIENA's president and chief operating
officer. "It is just this sort of dynamic that we believe is
benefiting CIENA by accelerating the shift from cumbersome, legacy
network architectures to less costly, more efficient, intelligent
next-generation optical network architectures."
CIENA continues to diversify its customer base, adding three new
customers in the first quarter, one of which, MetroRed, has been named
publicly. In addition, CIENA also made initial optical networking
equipment shipments to Level 3, a significant new MultiWave
CoreDirector(TM) customer, during its fiscal first quarter.
The Company's total revenue-generating optical networking
equipment customer base now totals 43, of which, 30 contributed to
CIENA's revenues during the most recent quarter.
The first quarter marked the third sequential quarter in which
CIENA recognized revenues from sales of CoreDirector, its
next-generation, intelligent optical core switch and the first quarter
where CoreDirector sales surpassed ten percent of total revenue.
The Company believes that it has lengthened its industry lead in
this critical product area, meeting its stated goal of achieving ten
commercial customers for CoreDirector by the end of the fiscal first
quarter.
"We believe CIENA is positioned to successfully navigate and grow
our business through the recent concerns about carrier spending," said
CIENA's Smith. "Our exclusive focus on next-generation equipment means
that we stand to be a primary beneficiary as carriers shift spending
away from legacy equipment to intelligent optical networks that will
enable them to lower capital and operating costs while delivering new,
revenue-generating high-bandwidth services. Among next-generation
equipment providers, only CIENA has both the breadth of products and
the critical mass required to install and support these new optical
networks on a global basis."
Business Outlook
Commenting on CIENA's business outlook Nettles said: "We expect
our business will continue to grow faster than the overall market,
provided we execute successfully. As a result, we are raising our
revenue guidance from the 75 to 85 percent growth over fiscal year
2000 we offered last quarter. Based on current visibility, and
factoring in the expected completion of our announced acquisition of
Cyras Systems, Inc. by the end of the first calendar quarter of 2001,
we now believe we will be able to achieve 2001 revenue growth of
between 95 to 105 percent over last year, which translates into a
revenue range of between $1.67 to $1.76 billion for fiscal year 2001."
Live Web Broadcast of Q1 Results Discussion
In conjunction with this announcement, as previously announced,
CIENA will host a discussion of its first fiscal quarter results with
investors and financial analysts on Thursday, February 15, 2001 at
8:30 AM (Eastern). The live broadcast of the discussion will be
available via CIENA's homepage at www.CIENA.com.
An archived version of the discussion will be available shortly
following the conclusion of the live broadcast on the Investor
Relations page of CIENA's website at: www.CIENA.com/investors.
ABOUT CIENA
CIENA Corporation's market-leading intelligent optical networking
systems form the core for the new era of networks and services
worldwide. CIENA's LightWorks(TM) architecture enables next generation
optical services and changes the fundamental economics of
service-provider networks by simplifying the network and reducing the
cost to operate it.
Additional information about CIENA can be found at www.CIENA.com. |
