F5 Networks, Citrix, PTC all beat earnings expectations
F5 Networks published its first quarter FY 2019 financial results on Wednesday, delivering mixed results.
Non-GAAP earnings came to $2.70 per diluted share on revenue of $543.8 million, up 4 percent year-over-year.
Analysts were expecting earnings of $2.54 per share on revenue of $547.36 million.
"F5 continues to advance its position in multi-cloud architectures with growing demand for software solutions driving 4% year over year total revenue growth in our first quarter," CEO François Locoh-Donou said in a statement. "We also delivered continued product and services revenue growth and stronger than expected non-GAAP earnings in the quarter."
Locoh-Donou explained to ZDNet why the trend toward multi-cloud deployments is working in F5's favor.
"What's becoming very clear is that our customers are gaining agility by being able to choose the best cloud for each application," he said. "Some are remaining on premise, some are going in public cloud environments, and it's not always a CIO that makes that decision... It can be very decentralized."
At the same time, he said, the CIO is still responsible for providing consistent security and performance across those applications. Responding to that need, F5 can now support applications in both private and public environments. In the first half of 2019, the company will introduce a SaaS solution that extends dramatically the number of applications it can touch.
"As you can fast forward to the second half of 2019, you will be able to go to F5 and say, 'I want all my applications to have a web application firewall with this policy, regardless of whether they are in Azure, Google Cloud, Equinix, in my data center -- the exact same policy," Locoh-Donou explained.
F5 is seeing a lull in its business with service providers, Locoh-Donou said, due to the transition from 4G to 5G.
"Right now we have some 4G projects that are tailing off," he said, while 5G business "hasn't quite picked up" yet.
Still, he said the transition to 5G is good for F5 in the long run because it means more capacity on service provider networks.
"In the service provider space, we scale with the amount of capacity that's going through their networks," he explained. "When the 5G radios are deployed and we start to see the growth in traffic, we're going to see more extension of F5 solutions."
For Q2, F5 has set a revenue goal of $543 million to $553 million with a non-GAAP earnings target of $2.53 to $2.56 per diluted share.
PTC also reported its first quarter fiscal year 2019 results, beating market expectations.
Non-GAAP net income was $67 million, or 56 cents per diluted share, on revenue of $335 million
Analysts were expecting earnings of 41 cents per share on revenue of $324.65 million.
"Our financial performance in the first quarter was solid, with revenue, operating margin and EPS results exceeding our expectations," CEO James Heppelmann said in a statement. "We continued to make important strides against our major strategic initiatives during the quarter, most notably, we successfully completed our transition to a subscription business model."
Citrix reported its fourth quarter fiscal year 2018 results, beating market expectations.
Non-GAAP earnings came to $1.67 per diluted share on revenue of $802 million, representing 3 percent revenue growth.
Analysts were expecting earnings of $1.59 per share on revenue of $791.95 million.
Annual non-GAAP net income for FY 2018 was $791 million, or $5.65 per diluted share. Annual revenue was $2.97 billion, compared to $2.82 billion for FY 2017, a 5 percent increase.
Citrix also announced that its Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of 35 cents per share.
"Today, I believe we have the best product portfolio we've ever had and our long-term vision is resonating with both customers and with partners," CEO David Henshall said in a statement. "The opportunities we see in both Digital Workspace and Networking combined with the investments we are making in the business give me confidence in Citrix's outlook in the years ahead."
For the first quarter of FY 2019, Citrix expects net revenue to be in the range of $700 million to $710 million. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $1.15 to $1.20.