NetApp shares up after better-than-expected fiscal Q3 earnings
After Wall Street upped its expectations from previous estimates, NetApp answered the call with much higher results for its fiscal third quarter earnings statement.
The data storage business reported a net income of $158 million, or 43 cents a share (statement). Non-GAAP earnings were 67 cents a share on a revenue of $1.630 billion.
Adjusted slightly from the forecast at the end of the second quarter, Wall Street was looking for NetApp to report fiscal third quarter earnings of 56 cents a share on revenue of $1.62 billion.
Following the positive announcement, NetApp shares were up by approximately 2.2 percent in after hours trading.
CEO Tom Georgens commented in prepared remarks:
NetApp delivered solid financial results again this quarter. The value proposition of Data ONTAP for shared storage infrastructures and the price performance characteristics of the E-series for dedicated storage infrastructures helped drive strong growth in our branded business. The robust adoption of clustered Data ONTAP, our industry-leading flash portfolio, and our best-of-breed partnerships position us well for continued growth.
While fourth quarter guidance expectations relatively line up with Wall Street, NetApp still looked wary, offering the caveat that projections relies upon "continued uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment."
Still, NetApp is estimating fiscal fourth quarter revenue to be in the range of $1.700 billion to $1.800 billion with non-GAAP earnings of 65 to 70 cents per share.
Analysts are expecting NetApp to report fourth quarter earnings of 65 cents a share on revenue of $1.75 billion.
Highlights from NetApp's third quarter:
- Completed the acquisition of enterprise software company ionGrid
- Expanded partnership with Cisco on go-to-market strategies for next-gen cloud infrastructure solutions
- Introduced NetApp Private Storage for Amazon Web Services, designed to enable enterprise customers to replicate data from on-premise NetApp storage environments to NetApp Private Storage as well as use AWS Direct Connect for on-demand cloud services