Arista shares drop 16 percent after Q4 earnings report
Arista Networks reported in-line fourth quarter financial results Thursday, but its shares fell more than 16 percent after hours on soft guidance.
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The company reported earnings of $103.8 million, or $1.29 a share, on revenue of $467.9 million, up 42 percent from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings were $1.71 a share.
Wall Street was looking for non-GAAP earnings of $1.41 a share on revenue of $458.67 million.
For 2017, Arista had earnings of $5.61 per share on revenue of $1.6 billion, an increase of 45.8 percent from the year prior. Analysts were expecting $5.32 per share on revenue of $1.64 billion.
In terms of guidance, Arista is calling for sales of $450 million to $468 million for the first quarter. Wall Street was expecting sales of $457.9 million.
As a challenger to industry leader Cisco Systems, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Arista builds switches that handle traffic at Internet data centers for companies such as Facebook, Yahoo and Citigroup, and is led by former Cisco exec Jayshree Ullal.
In prepared remarks, Ullal said the year had been a "market tipping point" as the company's products gained mainstream acceptance and "surpassed 15 million cumulative ports of cloud networking"