Comverse first-quarter profits up 40%
By Deborah Adamson, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 5:46 PM ET June 4, 2001
WOODBURY, N.Y. (CBS.MW) - "Comverse Technology reported Monday that first-quarter profits rose by 40 percent as the company gained market share in all major areas of operation.
Shares of Comverse, down 1.6 percent during the regular trading session, rose by $2.09, or 3.6 percent, to $60.75 in after-hours trading.
The provider of software and systems for the communications market (CMVT: news, msgs, alerts) recorded a net income of $78.96 million, or 43 cents a share, compared with profits of $56.2 million, or 32 cents a share, in the prior year.
Comverse's first quarter beat Wall Street's profit expectations by a penny, according to analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial.
Sales rose 36 percent to $365 million, up from $268.5 million.
At the end of the quarter, Comverse hit a record level for cash and cash equivalents of $1.7 billion. Order backlogs also hit a record, to $325.2 million.
Comverse executives confirmed the profit estimates for the next three quarters and also for the whole of 2002.
"We're clearly gaining market share," said Kobi Alexander, Comverse's chairman and chief executive, during a conference call with analysts. "We are optimistic about this business."
The company's network systems unit accounted for 86 percent of total sales - growing faster than Comverse overall, Alexander said.
More than 370 companies - mostly wireless but also including wireline -- use its enhanced services systems and software.
Comverse's services include call answering with one-touch call return, short messaging services, providing voicemail, fax and email in one mailbox, wireless data and Net-based services.
Alexander said that as phone services become more commoditized - consumers increasingly don't care which company connects their phones - providing enhanced services such as unified messaging become more attractive since they help telecom companies set themselves apart from their rivals.
Deborah Adamson is a reporter for CBS.MarketWatch.com in Los Angeles."
- Fred |
