Another take on Quarter and CC:
(from Street.com)
Top Stories: Ascend Posts Strong Results but Offers Little Info on New Contracts
By Kevin Petrie
Staff Reporter
4/9/98 8:00 PM ET
Here's one networker that refuses to kneel before mighty Cisco (CSCO:Nasdaq).
Ascend (ASND:Nasdaq) Thursday after the market's close reported first-quarter net income of $52.4 million, or 26 cents per diluted share, compared with a net loss of $163.2 million, or 88 cents a share, one year earlier. Revenue was $305.1 million, up from $292.7 million in the year-ago period. Ascend beat the First Call consensus estimates by one penny.
While careful to temper expectations, Ascend largely gave investors what they wanted -- assurance that revenue will flow robustly in the spring. The book-to-bill ratio, a measure of order strength, exceeded one, a strong figure.
However, the company offered little information on rumored big contracts with the likes of AT&T (T:NYSE) and Williams (WMB:NYSE), but investors still expect announcements in the near future.
Ascend is performing well largely because phone carriers and Internet service providers are lining up to deploy its large asynchronous transfer mode, or ATM, and "frame relay" switches on their networks. Carriers typically slow their spending in the March quarter, but this time revenue in that segment crept up 1% from the prior period. In the June quarter, Ascend will start filling hungry orders for its CBX500 and GX550 products, CEO Mory Ejabat said in a conference call.
Ascend also sold a healthy dose of new remote-access gear to North American ISPs, which use the boxes to connect customers to the Internet. And rivals have eased on their vicious price-cutting in this area, Ejabat said. This segment grew about 8% from the prior quarter.
Since it is flexing its muscles in other areas, Ascend can ease its fight with Cisco the routing business, which Cisco leads. Ascend says sales of its big GRF router slipped a bit from the prior period.
It's hard to find skeptics on this stock, but analyst Amar Senan at Volpe Brown Whelan is one.
"The call was cautious," Senan says. He believes Ascend execs are choosing their words carefully to avoid disappointing when its European customers take their summertime rest in the September quarter. Senan has rated Ascend a neutral for some time, although in the last month he recommended that clients trade the stock for short-term profits. He doesn't expect to change his rating, and will make only minimal changes to his estimates of $1.13 per share for 1998. The First Call consensus is $1.17 a share. |
