NetApp boosts revenue

Network Appliance reported near-record revenue of $598m (£319m) for its fourth financial quarter on Thursday, a 32 percent rise year on year, with the company's turnover for the year topping $2bn for the first time.

Once a supplier of network attached storage (NAS) aimed at the mid-range and low end, NetApp now sells storage products across the board and is the fourth largest supplier in the market after EMC, Symantec and IBM.

But while orders and turnover are booming at the company, profits lagged a little with it reporting fourth quarter income of $59m for the three months to 30 April.

This contrasted with net income of $63m in the same quarter last year, and was partly blamed on a "non-recurring income tax expense of $22m".

Revenues for fiscal year 2006 totalled $2.07bn, an increase of 29 percent compared with revenues of $1.6bn for fiscal year 2005.

Dan Warmenhoven, the company's chief executive, said in a statement: "Our fourth quarter performance tops a year of accelerating quarterly growth."

During the year NetApp broadened its line with new products at the low end to compete with new entries into the small business space such as Hitachi Data Systems and EMC, and new high-end storage servers as well.

Warmenhoven claimed the outlook was rosy for NetApp: "We look forward to fiscal year 2007 with optimism as we further increase our market opportunity with a new ultra high-end product and launch our next-generation operating system."

The company estimates growth in revenue for the first quarter of the 2007 financial year will "be in the range of 2 percent to 4 percent, which translates to 36 percent to 39 percent growth year over year".