Fortinet delivers strong Q4, bolsters FortiOS with Zero Trust Network Access
Fortinet delivered strong fourth quarter growth and updated its FortiOS operating system with more than 300 new features including Zero Trust Network Access capabilities and tools to better secure networks and proliferating end points.
The updates come as the company said it will focus on growth for the quarters ahead. Fortinet delivered fourth quarter revenue of $748 million, up 21% from a year ago, with net income of 89 cents a share.
As for the fourth quarter, Fortinet's non-GAAP earnings of $1/06 a share were above expectations. The company said demand for its security platform was strong. Wall Street was expecting Fortinet to report fourth quarter earnings of 97 cents a share on revenue of $722.4 million.
For 2020, Fortinet delivered earnings of $2.91 a share on revenue of $2.59 billion, up 20% from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings for 2020 were $3.35 a share.
Ken Xie, CEO of Fortinet, said "given the many growth opportunities that lie ahead for us, we plan to shift our focus more to growth for at least the next several quarters."
For the first quarter, Fortinet is projecting revenue between $670 million to $685 million with non-GAAP earnings of 70 cents a share to 75 cents a share. For 2021, Fortinet is projecting revenue of $3.02 billion to $3.07 billion with non-GAAP earnings of $3.60 a share to $3.75 a share.
FortiOS 7.0 lands as Fortinet is aiming to create a platform that will cover data centers, clouds, edge computing end points and networks. Fortinet Security Fabric is powered by FortiOS.
Among the key updates:
- Zero Trust Network Access for Remote Access and Application Control for FortiGate firewall customers. The Zero Trust set-up is designed to replace traditional VPNs and cut the attack surface by verifying the user and device for every application session.
- Cloud-based SASE security as a service.
- Self-healing SD-WAN tools with remediation tools that can adapt for passive application monitoring as well as various cloud deployments.
- Security for 5G and LTE.
- Adaptive cloud security to manage hybrid and multi-cloud deployments.
- Network security tools to improve efficiency and integrate with FortiManager/FortiAnalyzer.
- The FortiGuard security service with advanced tools for remote work.
Fortinet said FortiOS 7.0 will be available at the end of the first quarter.
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