CMNT-Excellent News! 1st Q EPS Up 450%!!
Computer Network Technology Reports First Quarter Record Revenue of $36.9 Million, Up 18 Percent
First Quarter Earnings Per Share Increase 450 Percent From 1998 to $.11
MINNEAPOLIS, April 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Continuing its series of strong financial results, Computer Network Technology Corp. (CNT®) (Nasdaq: CMNT - news), today reported record company revenues for the first quarter of 1999. Revenue of $36.9 million for the first quarter ended March 31, 1999 represents an increase of $5.7 million or 18 percent when compared to revenue of $31.2 million for the same period of 1998. Net income for the first quarter of 1999 totaled $2.7 million or $.11 per share, compared to net income of $369,000 or $.02 per share for the first quarter of 1998.
During the 1999 first quarter, CNT received a $667,000 payment from the sale of its Vision product line in December 1997. This product line was part of CNT's October 1997 acquisition of the Internet Solutions Division of Apertus Technologies, Inc. Excluding this payment for the Vision product line, net income for the 1999 first quarter totaled $2.3 million or $.09 per share.
''Increased demand for our SAN products and solutions resulted in record quarterly revenues and generated a 450 percent increase in EPS from the first quarter of 1998,'' said Thomas G. Hudson, president and chief executive officer of CNT. ''This growth is due in part to increased product revenue for the quarter which totaled $25.8 million, up 15 percent when compared to the first quarter of 1998.''
''Revenue from the sale of Networking products increased 17 percent to $20.8 million, driven by strong sales of our remote disk mirroring and other Storage Area Networking applications. Sales of SAN-related applications increased 91 percent when compared to the 1998 first quarter,'' Hudson continued. ''Enterprise Integration product revenue increased 9 percent to $4.9 million, with sales of EAI products increasing 81 percent to $1.1 million from $611,000 in the first quarter of 1998.
''Service revenue increased 26 percent from the first quarter of 1998, to $11.2 million, due to an increase in the sale of professional services in both the Enterprise Integration and Networking divisions,'' added Hudson. ''CNT's expertise is valuable to customers who are short on staff and time. Professional services revenue was up 253 percent compared to the first quarter of 1998 to $2.2 million.
''As part of our pledge to shareholders in 1998, CNT continued to improve its operating expense and margin,'' Hudson said. ''Operating expense as a percentage of revenue decreased to 50 percent from 58 percent in the first quarter of 1998, and operating margin improved to 9.4 percent from 1.7 percent in the 1998 first quarter.
''In the first quarter of 1999, CNT announced a number of new alliances while continuing to strengthen our relationship with disk mirroring partner EMC,'' Hudson added. ''The Enterprise Integration Solutions Division announced an important alliance with Siebel Systems to provide real-time legacy access to Siebel's Enterprise Relationship Management (ERM) customers. CNT's Networking Solutions Division is responding to customer demands for validated solutions with an agreement to resell a Fibre Channel switch from Brocade, certification testing with Legato's SAN Ready solutions, and providing the open systems-to-mainframe connectivity for Compaq's SAN initiative.''
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