Akamai: Commerce, media customers showing stronger volume

Akamai said its fourth quarter revenue and earnings are looking better as commerce and media customers are seeing "stronger volume growth."

That's a good sign considering that Akamai, which features applications that deliver Web pages faster via a content delivery network (CDN), has good insight on its customer base. And it looks like e-commerce and media are seeing better-than-expected demand from a year ago. The year-ago quarter is a low bar to hurdle, but it's something.

Akamai said that it expects fourth quarter to be $230 million to $235 million, up 8 percent to 11 percent from a year ago (statement). Earnings will be 42 cents to 43 cents a share excluding charges. The company previously projected fourth quarter revenue of $217 million to $224 million with earnings of 39 cents a share to 41 cents a share.

Wall Street was expecting earnings of 40 cents a share on revenue of $221 million. Akamai revised its forecast ahead of its financial analyst meeting.

Analysts say that business for Akamai is improving. Piper Jaffray Michael Olsen recently polled 36 Akamai customers and found that they plan to spend more money with the company in the year ahead. In a research note, he said:

Existing customers intend to shift their CDN business increasingly towards Akamai and away from competitors in CY10, indicating Akamai has room to gain additional market share within the core customer base. Bottom line: Survey of Akamai's loyal customers shows solid spending intentions into CY10 and potential for share gains within the existing base.