Veritas CFO says on target with third quarter
Wednesday September 4, 5:37 pm ET
BOSTON, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Veritas Software Corp.'s (NasdaqNM:VRTS - News) chief financial officer on Wednesday said he expects the company would meet its prior quarterly guidance and does not see a rebound in spending for storage software until next year.
Ken Lonchar, Veritas chief financial officer, told investors attending the SG Cowen Technology Conference here, that the results for the third quarter were "tracking."
In July, Mountain View, California-based Veritas, whose No. 1 revenue producer is software that backs up data, said it expected third-quarter earnings, excluding charges, to range between 11 cents a share to 13 cents a share on total revenue of $350 million to $370 million.
Analysts, on average, expect the company to earn 13 cents a share, in the third quarter on average revenue of $357.41 million, according to research firm Thomson First Call.
"We're not counting on a year-end budget flush," Lonchar said. The company has said it expected third-quarter results would be flat to modestly up from the second quarter, and does not expect a surge in spending in the fourth quarter, he said.
For the year, analysts on average expect the company to earn 57 cents on revenue of $1.475 billion.
"Q1 (the first quarter) is typically down for technology spending," Lonchar said. "That's going to be a tough quarter." However, as companies continue to collect information, demand to store that data will build, he said.
Lonchar said he expected Veritas to benefit from that pent-up demand to store the growing volume of data. "Q2 (the second quarter) and the second half of the year -- I'm very optimistic about what we're going to see," he said.
Shares of Veritas closed up $1.48, or almost 10 percent, at $16.64 in Wednesday trading on the Nasdaq stock market. The shares have traded in a 52-week range of $14.52 to $49.89. |
