Earnings :: VoIP Biz-News.com

Number of results 25 for earnings

23/04/2012 - Polycom comes back to Earth in Q1

What a difference a quarter makes... Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM) in January blew through fourth quarter earnings estimates, saw its stock bump better than 9 percent and rode the excitement that surrounded its RealPresence product line to record results.

Not so in the first quarter of 2012. The company has come back to Earth with a thud, posting net income of $15 million or 8 cents per share, down from $34 million, or 19 cents per share, last year, a 56 percent drop and its first decline since 2010.

And, said CEO Andy Miller, the company isn't too optimistic about the second quarter. Polycom said it expects to earn between 20 and 22 cents per share on revenue of $367 million to $377 million. Wall Street was looking for a forecast of 25 cents per share and $387.3 million in revenue.

Miller said Polycom's first quarter woes stemmed from slower than expected sales in Asia and North America; APAC sales were up 7.3 percent, sales in the America's edges up 1.7 percent and EMEA revenues rose 16 percent.

"We saw government spending in several key geographies including China, Australia, India and in U.S. federal civilian come in lower than expected. This was combined with an already slow growth rate in North America," Miller said, adding that he believed the industry is "in the midst of the company and industry transition from point products to solution selling. This mindset shift affects both our customers and our sales force."

Customers, he said, considered more UC centric strategies versus point product or endpoint-only deployments.

"We believe this transition has many positive benefits for our company over the longer term that clearly created softness in Q1," he said.

As to the over-exuberant sales projections for the first quarter, Miller said Polycom was "too optimistic."

"Hindsight is 20-20 and we got ahead of ourselves, and our Q4 to Q1 had a larger sequential decline that we had planned for," he said. "We overestimated the positive effect of Q4 year-end deal closure rates and we underestimated the work required to effectively ramp the North America sales team."

Polycom cut its first quarter revenue outlook April 5, prompting shares to decline to $13.46 April 11. The stock closed at $12.89 Friday.

For more:
- see this release
- see this Seeking Alpha earnings call transcript

09/04/2012 - MagicJack stock up 6% on higher earnings projection for Q1

Free VoIP provider magicJack VocalTec (Nasdaq: CALL) is anticipating reporting record revenue and income in the first quarter, news that pushed the stock some six percent higher in a pre-trading run-up to $22.03. MagicJack closed Friday at $20.81 and has traded between $9.49 and $28.22 over the past 52 weeks.

The company said it expects revenue to come in at $37.4 million, with net income of $7.8 million and EPS of 37 cents; excluding adjustments, it expects earnings per share of 26 cents. Analysts expected revenue of $35.67 million and earnings per share of 13 cents, said RTT News.

The company today also announced the appointment of long-time director Gerald T. Vento had been appointed chairman, and it said it would accelerate its share buyback program. In announcing its intent to accelerate its stock buyback program, magicJack said it currently has "absolutely no intention" of raising money.

"Management will also seek approval to increase the size of the buyback program by an additional $20 million," the company said. "We are in the strongest financial position ever."

Vento, meanwhile, has been a director of magicJack, and prior to that YMax Corporation, since 2008. Vento founded TeleCorp PCS in 1996 and later sold it to AT&T Wireless at a valuation of $5.7 billion in 2002.

The company said its earlier projections of annual revenue growth of 20 percent to 30 percent were on track, with expected earnings per share of $1.25 to $1.50.

For more:
- see this RTT article
- see this release

05/04/2012 - Polycom's 1Q prelims send stock plummeting 18%

Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM) had a strong enough fourth quarter that analysts in January raised price targets for the videoconferencing company's stock to upwards of $24 a share. But, just-released preliminary results for the 1Q2012, have come in way below expectations, due, the company said, to softer demand than expected for its product in both the APAC and North American regions.

Investors already have started their withdrawal, pushing shares down nearly 19 percent to $14.79 in pre-market trading, flirting with the stock's 52-week low of $14.45 (it's high was a whopping $34.30 last summer).

Polycom said it expects to report net revenues for the quarter in the range of $364 million to $370 million, compared with net revenues of $344 million in the first quarter of 2011, a seven percent increase. In January, the company said it expected sales of some $399 million, and analysts expected sales to be in the range of $399.7 million for the quarter.

The company today said its EPS would be in the range of 21 to 23 cents, down drom 24 cents a year ago; analysts were calling for 30 cents per share.

Polycom said the quarter saw sales increases in every region but acknowledged the growth rate "was below our overall expectations."

"Polycom's current operating model assumes a higher level of revenue growth, and we will analyze our assumptions between now and our regularly scheduled call on April 18th," said Chief Executive Andy Miller.

Earnings per diluted share for the first quarter likely will come in at 7 to 9 cents on a GAAP basis, Polycom said, a big drop from the 19 cents per diluted share on a GAAP basis in the first quarter of 2011.

Polycom said its best-perfroming region was EMEA, where sales increase 15 to 17 percent, year over year; APAC was up five to eight percent and the Americas were up one to three percent.

Network infrastructure, meanwhile, saw the strongest growth in Polycom's product lines, improving 11 to 14 percent from the same period a year ago; UC personal devices were up 7 to 9 percent, and UC group systems improved 4 to 6 percent.

For more:
- see this release

22/03/2012 - HP CEO: Layoffs may be coming; unhappy investors drive shares down

Woe is HP (NYSE: HPQ). The struggling company saw investors express their lack of faith in CEO Meg Whitman's plans to reorganize the company, dropping its share price more than two percent yesterday (it was down another 0.6 percent pre-market) to $23.46.

Whitman this week combined the printer and PC group, tweaked the Enterprise business, and said that she couldn't promise there wouldn't be job cuts as executives continued to try and determine the right course of action for the tech company.

All she could promise, as she did during her first earnings call for the company, would be that there would be plenty of change and that HP's recovery would take a long, long time, and that some savings show up on the bottom line this year.

During a meeting with HP employees Wednesday, Whitman, who has only been on the job for six months, told employees that in order to advance the recovery efforts "everything is on the table."

"We're not at a point yet to even begin to think about the number of people," who will be laid off as a result of the reorganization, she said.

The move to combine its printer and PC group creates a unit that had $65 billion in sales last year, more than half of HP's total sales.

For more:
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)
- see this All Things Digital article

18/03/2012 - Telanetix issues strong guidance for 2012 after solid Q4

Cloud-based IP telephony provider Telanetix's (OTC:TNXI) fourth quarter voice revenue jumped 21 percent year-over-year to $6.6 million, up from $5.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2010, a result of growing and new channel partnerships, said CEO Doug Johnson. It was the first time the company achieved positive operating income--it said some $23,000--in company history.

The company also saw total revenue increase 12 percent in the quarter to $7.5 million, compared to $6.7 million in the fourth quarter of last year, reflecting the expected increase in core product revenues.

Still, Telanetix saw a net loss from continuing operations in the quarter, although it improved substantially from a year ago. The company said it lost $568,000, or 12 cent per share, compared to net loss of $1.6 million, or 36 cents per share, in the fourth quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA increased to a record $1.2 million, up from $536,000 in the fourth quarter last year, and the company said it had total cash and cash equivalents of $1.8 million at Dec 31, after debt service of $1.4 million during the year.

For the full year, Telanetix saw core voice revenue increase 13.4 percent from 2010, recording sales of $24.7 million, with total revenue increasing $187,000 year-over-year to $28.7 million.

Its net loss from continuing operations was $5.3 million, or $1.12 per share. In 2010, following recapitalization and $800,000 credit from change in fair market value of derivative liabilities, the company reported net income from continuing operations of $10.3 million, or $4.53 per share. Adjusted EBITDA, meanwhile, of $2.6 million was the second consecutive full year of positive EBITDA and a more than $800,000 increase from adjusted EBITDA of $1.7 million for 2010.

Johnson called 2011 "a pivotal year for Telanetix. He said the company "stabilized" and had created a foundation for growth.

"Our solid results reported today reflect progress with our shift in strategic focus toward growing our business and further expanding our presence and share in the marketplace," Johnson said. "Core revenue for the fourth quarter grew 21 percent year-over-year to a record $6.6 million and full year total revenue grew 12 percent over 2010. In addition, we achieved our ninth consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA, posting a record $1.2 million for the fourth quarter, as well as a second consecutive full year of positive EBITDA."

"During the year we made material progress building on our strategic partnerships and expanding our customer reach by adding significant new channel partners, including Mitel Networks, Vertical Communications and Staples, and growing existing relationships including Costco and Office Depot," Johnson concluded.

Looking ahead, Johnson said the company expects to achieve total revenue for 2012 of between $31.5 million to $32.0 million, representing growth of approximately 10 percent to 12 percent, and core voice revenue for 2012 of between $28.0 million and $28.5 million, representing growth of between 13 percent and 15 percent as the market acceptance for its DPS and SIP trunking services continues to accelerate.

He said Telanetix expects adjusted EBITDA for 2012 of between $4.50 million and $4.75 million, representing growth of approximately 73 percent to 83 percent. Telanetix expects to fund this growth organically without need to raise additional capital.

For more:
- see this release

Special Report: IP Communications in the fourth quarter 2011

05/03/2012 - Mitel has weak Q4 forecast, falls short on Q3 revenues

Canadian unified communications vendor Mitel Networks (Nasdaq: MITL), which in the second quarter booked a net loss that it blamed primarily on costs associated with its accelerated restructuring, said those costs lowered in the third quarter, allowing it to swing to a modest profit; still, it missed analysts revenue expectations, and forecast revenues for its fourth fiscal quarter well below this expected by analysts.

Mitel reported net income of $4.6 million, or 8 cents per share, compared to a net loss of $4 million, or $8 cents per share in the like quarter a year ago. Non-GAAP net income for the third quarter was $12.4 million, or 22 cents per share, up from $8.6 million, or 15 cents per share, a year ago. Analysts expected the company to report earnings of 21 cents per share.

Third quarter revenues were $150.5 million, up from $143.9 million in the previous year quarter; analysts forecast revenues of $167.43 million for the quarter.

Mitel's forecast for its fourth quarter fiscal 2012 revenue was substantially lower than analysts anticipated as well. The company said it expects revenue in the range of $152 million to $157 million, compared to analysts' expectations of $173.66 million for the quarter, and revenues a year ago of $152.2 million.

Mitel closed at $3.46 Friday, down 6.5 percent on the day. Over the past 52 weeks, it has traded in a range of $1.92 to $5.74.

Mitel in December, on the heels of an upbeat second-quarter earnings report, announced it was strengthening its North American channel program, instituting a series of strategic initiatives including adding new execs, a change in the way it supports some of its products, and a refocusing that will set its partners up as the primary sales channel for the company.

The moves, said the unified communications and collaboration specialist, reflect its ongoing strategic efforts "to evolve into a laser-focused channel sales organization."

That decision, said CFO Steve Spooner, has helped the company bump its average U.S. sale to $250,000, up from $40,000 a year ago.

"When you have a more sophisticated sales organization, and when you bring on more sophisticated sales partners, they tend to go after the larger sales," said Spooner. "Some of the more sophisticated customers who want to buy the software applications (also) appreciate ... the virtualization solution, in which we have significant leadership today."

Mitel does about 60 percent of its business in the U.S.

The company last week announced plans to sell DataNet/CommSource, a business unit that distributes third-party products and, the company said, no longer fit Mitel's business plans.

Mitel remains a work in progress. Its average sales still haven't caught up to where they were three years ago, and it's still trailing Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Avaya in it is segment.

For more:
- see this release
- see this Ottawa Business Journal article

Special Report: Enterprise Communications earnings in the fourth quarter 2011

23/02/2012 - Whitman: 'We've got a journey ahead of us' as HP Q1 earnings slip 44%

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) saw revenue slump nearly across the board in the first quarter, reporting lower revenue in three of its four major business groups. PC sales were off 15 percent, printer unit revenue down seven percent, and its enterprise server/storage/network (EESN) revenue drop 10 percent. The bright spot? Revenue from services grew 1.1 percent.

But the services revenue didn't provide enough of a boost to the struggling computer products company, nor to its new CEO, Meg Whitman. The company reported revenues of $30 billion, down 7 percent from $32.4 billion a year ago; that missed analyst estimates of $30.6 billion. Earnings, excluding certain items, were 92 cents a share, down from $1.36 a year ago; stgill, it was better than the lowered expectations analyst had put forward: 87 cents.

The weak results pushed shares down marginally after hours, off 1.24 percent to $28.58. The shares trade in a 52-week range of $21.50 to $43.86.

Looking forward to the second quarter, HP forecast non-GAAP earnings of 88 cents a share to 91 cents a share; analysts expect the company to earn 95 cents per share for the second quarter.

For the year, HP reiterated its full year fiscal 2012 outlook of GAAP earnings of about $3.20 per share and non-GAAP earnings of at least $4 per share. Analysts forecast earnings of $4.08 per share for the fiscal year 2012.

For Whitman, it was the first full quarter at the helm since she replaced Leo Apotheker in September. She became the eighth chief executive since 1999.

HP saw sales decline in all regions. In the Americas, first quarter revenue was $13.2 billion, down 9 percent year over year. Europe, the Middle East and Africa revenue of $11.7 billion was down 4 percent, Asia Pacific revenue was $5.2 billion, a decline of 10 percent.

International revenue made up 66 percent of total HP sales. BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) generated revenue of $3.1 billion, down 13 percent; it represented 10 percent of total HP revenue.

HP said its ESSN unit operating margin fell 11.2 percent, year over year. Networking revenue was flat, Industry Standard Servers revenue was down 11 percent in what Whitman said was a "highly competitive market" compounded by a hard disk shortage, Business Critical Systems revenue was down a whopping 27 percent and Storage revenue was down 6 percent.

Whitman, during the earnings call, challenged an assertion that HP showed a "lack of competitiveness."

Saying HP under-invested in its own systems and processes, she said HP had "an enormous number of SKUs, which leads to complexity in support and in selling." And, she acknowledged, "Some of our competitors do some of those things better than we do."

Whitman also said it was key that the company act to stop its revenue decline and to "gain share in every single market."

"I would hope that as we get through 2012, you'll see revenue decline flatten out and as we get into 2013 we'll start to grow," she said. "It depends on how fast we can get after some of these challenges in the business. A lot of this is in our own hands."

But, she cautioned, a turnaround of the magnitude of HP could take years.

"If you look at companies who go through these turnarounds, these things are not done in less than two years and often they take three to five years," she said. "You'll see forward progress. We've got a journey ahead of us."

For more:
- see this release
- see this Reuters article

16/02/2012 - Market clobbers Vonage for spending plans, missed Q4 earnings

Vonage (Nasdaq: VG) may be embracing the adage that you have to spend money to make money, but Wall Street isn't necessarily buying into its plan. The VoIP provider Wednesday saw its shares slump as much as 17 percent after it said its profits would be trimmed as it increased investments in new markets. Vonage shares fell 12 percent at closing in New York.

The company, the largest VoIP provider in the United States, reported fourth quarter net income for the quarter was $350.1 million, or $1.48 a share, compared with a loss of $41.7 million, or 19 cents a share, in the like quarter a year ago. After adjusting for a tax benefit, Vonage earned 10 cents per share, higher than the adjusted earnings of 6 cents a year ago, but 2 cents short of Wall Street's expectations.

Revenue ebbed slightly to $215.7 million, compared with $217.6 million a year ago, but beat analyst forecasts of $215 million.

So why all the fuss?

Vonage said it was planning to bump spending by $5 million to $10 million per quarter in growth areas like mobile, new territories and international calling in an effort to add users. That extra spending will reduce EBIDTA from the $40 million it reported this quarter to between $30 million and $35 million in future quarters.

"Now that we have stabilized our core business and are generating meaningful cash flow, we will accelerate our investment in strategic growth initiatives during 2012," said CEO Marc Lefar. "While reducing adjusted EBITDA in the short term, we believe this investment will fund growth in mobile and geographic expansion. Even with this increased level of funding, we expect to further strengthen our cash position during the year. "The time is right to increase our investment in organizational capacity and marketing. Early response to last week's launch of Vonage Mobile has exceeded all of our expectations. The potential to rapidly build a global calling community with many millions of users is not unrealistic. And, we plan to invest in international opportunities as our partnerships and service offerings are brought to market."

Churn in the fourth quarter was 2.7 percent, which was flat sequentially and up from 2.4 percent in the year ago quarter. The increase over the prior year is attributable to the impact of the company's change to a "no contract" policy, higher churn among its growing base of Hispanic subscribers relative to other international callers and competitive pressures in other ethnic segments. Vonage lost 14,000 net lines in the fourth quarter and 30,000 lines for the year, on par with the line losses in 2010, and finished the year with 2.4 million lines in service. The company said those numbers should improve in 2012 as more customers are on contracts.

On average, Vonage said, customers ARPU increased to $30.12, from $29.78 a year ago, reflecting an increase in the number of customers taking higher priced rate plans and higher Universal Service Fund ("USF") fees.

For more:
- see this release
- see this Seeking Alpha transcript
- see this Reuters article
- see this Business Week article

Special Report: Enterprise Communications earnings in the fourth quarter 2011

13/02/2012 - Rebtel tops 15M users in 2011, eyes 25M in 2012

VoIP provider Rebtel, which has increasingly turned its focus to mobile VoIP and has targeted Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT)'s Skype as its main competitor, has grown its user log to more than 15 million customers, up from 10 million less than a year ago.

The company, which last year said its revenues grew more than 120 percent to more than $40 million in 2010, ended 2011 with $60 million in revenue, topping its expected $55 million run rate for the year.

Rebtel said it's adding custmers at the rate of 500,000 per month and is seeing ARPU of $24.

"2011 was a great year for us," said Andreas Bernström, CEO at Rebtel. "Our new set of international calling apps with KeepTalking technology were well received; we generated 13 times more downloads in the fourth quarter than the third quarter as a result of the launch. We aim to add up to 10 million to our user base this year, as well as maintaining high revenue run rates and ensuring our apps are viral as they can be."

Rebtel, the second-largest mobile VoIP provider behind Skype, said it is on pace to hit $95 million in revenue run rate by the end of 2012.

For more:
- see this release

02/02/2012 - ShoreTel tops analysts estimates in 2Q, ups revenue 22%

ShoreTel generated record revenues in its second quarter for fiscal 2012, and surprised analysts by reporting earnings that beat analyst estimates by 400 percent.

The IP telephony company also announced it had acquired M5 Networks, a hosted VoIP and UC provider for $160 million (see ShoreTel acquires M5 Networks for $160M as it looks to develop cloud business).

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based ShoreTel said revenue grew 22 percent year-over-year to $58 million, and up 8 percent from the previous quarter. Non-GAAP net income was $1.4 million or 3 cents per share, compared with a non-GAAP net loss of $1 million, or 2 cents per share a year ago. Analysts had expected ShoreTel to report a 1 cent loss for the quarter; the second quarter is typically a seasonally strong one for the company.

During the company's earnings call, chief executive Peter Blackmore said the U.S. Enterprise IP telephony market as well as the U.S. pure IP telephony market grew in the September 2011 quarter after three quarters of modest declines. Synergy Research, he said, estimated the U.S. Enterprise IP telephony market was up 9 percent in the quarter and worldwide Enterprise IP telephony also grew approximately 8 percent.

"ShoreTel's market share within both worldwide and the United States have grown significantly year-over-year," Blackmore said. "We expect to build these market share gains and continue to close the gap between our current number three position and the number two player in the U.S."

ShoreTel said highlights for the quarter included an expansion of its channel. The company added some 60 new partners globally, 38 via its relationship with ScanSource. Blackmore pointed to the addition of Howard Industries, which has revenues in excess of $1 billion and is the largest employer in Mississippi; it selected ShoreTel as its exclusive UC provider.

"We also added a record of nearly 1300 new customers in the quarter, a sequential increase of 24 percent over quarter one," he said, singling out First Republic Bank, which will also use ShoreTel's UC solution including ShoreTel Mobility for 3,000 employees at 65 sites.

ShoreTel forecast revenue of $53 million to $57 million in the current quarter.

For more:
- see this release
- see this SeekingAlpha transcript

Special Report: Enterprise Communications earnings in the fourth quarter 2011

30/01/2012 - Soft telecom outlook cuts Juniper Q1 guidance as Q4 profit nosedives

Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR) blamed tight service provider budgets for causing fourth quarter earnings to drop by nearly 50 percent and said the first quarter would likely be worse.

The company continues to lose customers to a resurgent Cisco (Nasdaq:CSCO), which is scheduled to release results Feb. 8, and has seen the value of its stock erode some 45 percent in the past year, including a 3 percent drop Friday following its earnings report.

And, those conditions don't look like they're ripe for change. A new report from Ovum today said that telecoms are likely to aggressively control capex and opex expenditures for the next several years as global economic turbulence continues to make for uncertain times. The research firm said 2011 was a bounce-back year for much of the industry, but forecast growth to slow by half through 2017. Juniper gets about 6 percent of its revenue from AT&T (NYSE: T).

Juniper's guidance for the first quarter was less than enthralling, with the company, which now has about 18 percent of the router and switching market compared to Cisco's 50 percent, saying it expects first quarter profit of between 11 and 14 cents a share, and sales of $960 million to $990 million. Analysts expected profits of 27 cents on sales of $1.1 billion.

Juniper reported net income of $96.2 million, or 18 cents a share, for the fourth quarter, about half of its year-ago results when it earned $190.2 million, or 35 cents a share. Sales fell to $1.12 billion. Analysts expected profits of 27 cents per share and sales of $1.12 billion.

Juniper, meanwhile, contends that several new products scheduled for release this year will help it grow its share of the market. Last week, it announced it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire rights to the service management layer of BitGravity's CDN technology.

For more:
- see this release
- see this Bloomberg report

26/01/2012 - LiveSize sales up 6% in otherwise dismal Logitech 3Q; firm again lowers 2012 guidance

Citing weak demand and an eroding Euro, Logitech (Nasdaq: LOGI) today lowered its full-year outlook, saying it would likely earn $60 million on revenue of $2.3 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31.

Reporting financials for the quartet that ended Dec. 31, Logitech said profits were down 15 percent to $55 million in the quarter on sales that eroded 5 percent to $715 million. Analysts had expected the company to report earnings of $61.2 million on sales of $749 million.

One of the lone bright spots for the company was in its videoconferencing business. The company said revenue at LifeSize Communication was up 6 percent for the quarter. Logitech bought LifeSize in 2009 and has steadily been improving its position in the market, rolling out apps for Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL)'s iPhone and iPad as it looked to expand its mobile footprint.

But the surge in tablet sales in the fourth quarter hit Logitech hard, cutting into its traditionally strong market for mice and webcams.

"The euro has weakened considerably during the last three months," said chairman and interim chief executive Guerrino DeLuca. "In addition, webcams and remotes continue to be impacted more than expected by product portfolio and market weakness."

The downward revision for the year was the third for the company in recent months, and it prompted its biggest share price tumble in nine months, about 14 percent. Most recently, Logitech in September said it expected earnings of $90 million on sales of $2.4 billion for the year.

"The biggest disappointment is the guidance revision," Michael Foeth, an analyst at Vontobel Holding AG, said in a note today. "With that we fear confidence in management is eroding further."

Last quarter, DeLuca crowed about the company's solid performance, saying: "People are happy to see we're back on track. We're showing that we can do what we said we would do, and we've somewhat re-established confidence in the company."

Logitech stock has fallen 64 percent in the past 12 months.

For more:
- see this Bloomberg article

Special Report: Enterprise Communications earnings in the fourth quarter 2011

26/01/2012 - Polycom's Q4 leads analysts to up targets for earnings, share price

A strong fourth quarter by Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM) has resulted in Citygroup increasing its earnings forecast for the company, and several other companies bumping the stock's target price. Citygroup upped its target to $24. FBN Securities earlier this week moved to $25, and analysts at Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target from $25 to $29.

The company this week reported a 50 percent increase in its fourth quarter profit to $49.6 million, or 28 cents a share, up from $33.1 million, or 19 cents a share, a year earlier. Analysts had expected earnings of 29 cents a share. Revenue was $407 million, up 20 percent from $340 million a year ago.

The company saw sales in the Americas, its biggest market, grow by a modest 7 percent; in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, sales were up 28 percent year-over-year; and the company saw a big bump, 42 percent, in APAC.

CEO Andrew Miller cited the company's software-based RealPresence Platform and "broad geographic growth" as drivers for the quarter.

"We experienced unprecedented demand for our secure, interoperable, unified collaboration solutions by both enterprise and service provider customers," he said. "Polycom's cloud, mobility, and software-driven infrastructure strategy is beginning to yield and we look forward to another year of solid growth in 2012."

Polycom has been gearing up for battle with its top competitor, Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), expanding its push into the mobile video conferencing space, campaigning for better interoperability, and hiring Cisco executives. It also bought Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ)'s videoconferencing business last year, adding more depth to its pricier telepresence offerings.

For more:
- see this release
- see this article

Special Report: Enterprise Communications earnings in the fourth quarter 2011

25/01/2012 - Enterprise Communications earnings in the fourth quarter 2011

How did the IP Communications industry perform in the fourth quarter of 2011? Check here throughout the fourth-quarter earnings report season for full earnings reports from the key players in VoIP business, IP technology, Unified Communications, Voice 2.0 applications, Contact Center technology, IP service providers, enterprise and more.

Don't forget to check out sister publications for fourth quarter 2011 telecom earnings and fourth quarter 2011 IPTV earnings.

January 18

8x8 (Nasdaq:EGHT)
8x8 reported revenue of $23.3 million in the quarter , a 31 percent increase from a year ago. It also topped analyst earnings estimates with a 73 percent Y-o-Y increase to $2.6 million, or 4 cents per share.
- read this article
- read this release
- more 8x8 news

F5 (Nasdaq: FFIV)
F5 Networks announced revenue of $322.4 million, up 2.5 percent from $314.6 million in the prior quarter and 19.9 percent from the year-ago quarter. It benefited from sales of its virtual clustered Multiprocessing module, which enables customers to run multiple virtual BIG-IPs on a single Viprion.
- read this article
- read this release
- more F5 news

January 23

Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM)
Fourth quarter 2011 consolidated net revenues were a record $407 million, up from $340 million for the fourth quarter of 2010. GAAP net income for the fourth quarter of 2011 was $50 million, or 28 cents per diluted share, compared to $33 million, or 19 cents per diluted share, for the same period last year. Polycom's RealPresence Platform generated revenue growth of 45 percent year-over-year.The company expanded Microsoft Lync integration with its new Polycom CX7000 unified group video collaboration system.
- read this earnings transcript
- read this release
- more Polycom news

January 26
Logitech (Nasdaq: LOGI)
- more Logitech news

February 2
Acme Packet (Nasdaq: AKPT)
- more Acme Packet news

February 8
Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO)
- more Cisco news

Radvision (Nasdaq: RVSN)
- more Radvision news

February 13
Vonage (NYSE: VG)
- more Vonage news

March 1
Mitel (Nasdaq: MITL)
- more Mitel news

03/11/2011 - Vonage triples income in Q3, subscriber numbers decay slightly

VoIP operator Vonage (NYSE: VG) reported third quarter income tripled to $24 million, or 11 cents per share, on sales of $217 million, up $3 million from a year ago.

But an increase in churn, from 2.4 percent to 2.7 percent year-over-year, threw up some red flags. The company said it added 170,000 gross lines, up from 163,000 a year earlier, but saw gross line losses almost double from a year ago to 9,000.

The company ended the quarter with 2.39 million subscriber lines, down from 2.40 million in the third quarter last year.

In an earnings call, CEO Marc Lefar said Vonage "took another step forward in transforming our business beyond traditional home phone service."

Vonage added two mobile products during the quarter that Lefar said were "striking a chord with consumers." Some 400,000 customers have either registered their mobile phone as an extension to their Vonage World plan or downloaded its "time to call" app since they launched.

Lefar said net income was in large part driven by Vonage's two debt refinancings that dropped interest rates from a high of 20 percent a year ago to less than 4 percent, resulting in a savings of $22 million year-to-date, and an anticipated $30 million by year end.

Vonage also capitalized on a 9 percent reduction in subscriber line acquisition costs from a quarter ago to $300 and on expanded distribution. The company has doubled its distribution outlets with the recent addition of Best Buy, Kmart and Sears.

For more:
- see this release
- see this earnings call transcript from Seeking Apha

Earnings summary: Wireline in the third quarter 2011

31/10/2011 - Motorola Mobility to cut jobs, pare costs before Google deal wraps

As expected following its $12.5 billion acquisition by Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Motorola Mobility (NYSE: MMI) has begin paring its workforce, announcing today that it would be cutting 800 jobs.

Motorola said it would incur some $31 million in costs, including $27 million in severance and $4 million in facility closing expenses. The company detailed the moves in an SEC filing Friday. The restructuring costs will be absorbed in its fourth quarter.

Both companies' business segments "(the Mobile Devices business and the Home business), as well as various corporate functions, are impacted by the action and the action affects employees globally," stated Motorola in the filing.

Last week, Motorola earnings beat analyst estimates, reporting EPS of 12 cents, double the 6 cents analysts had expected. Sales were $3.26 billion, up 11 percent from a year ago, but off the $3.39 billion analysts forecast.

Motorola shareholders will vote on the acquisition, which was revealed in August, on Nov. 17.

In June, Motorola Mobility cut a deal with the State of Illinois that got it $110 million in financial incentives for keeping its headquarters and, presumably, HQ jobs in Libertyville. But a closer look at the deal showed it could trim its 3,290 person workforce by several hundred jobs and still get all the benefits from the deal.

For more:
- see this earnings release
- see this Bloomberg article
- see The Register article

27/10/2011 - Logitech shares surge on Q3 earnings

Logitech (Nasdaq: LOGI), which last month lowered its guidance for the third quarter, today announced results in line with its forecast and was rewarded by investors who drove share prices up 16 percent by midday.

The company has been positioning itself for a move into the enterprise and SMB videoconferencing market with its acquisition and integration of Italian company Mirial into its LifeSize product. Logitech earned $17 million, or 10 cents a share, on revenue of $589 million, down from earnings of $41 million, or 23 cents a share, on $582 million in sales a year ago.

It said it anticipates full fiscal year sales of $2.4 billion, which would be marginally higher than slightly above the $2.38 billion analyst forecasts.

The news drove share its midday price up more than 16 percent to $10.41 in New York.

"People are happy to see we're back on track," interim Chief Executive Officer Guerrino De Luca told Bloomberg. "We're showing that we can do what we said we would do and we've somewhat re-established confidence in the company."

Operating income fell to $23 million from $51 million a year earlier; Wall Street had expected it to come in at $20.4 million. Net income fell 59 percent to $17 million, while revenue rose 1 percent to $589 million. Net income had been estimated at $16.9 million on sales of $591.8 million, according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

"We expect our initiatives will begin to contribute to improved performance as we move through the second half of full-year 2012," De Luca said in the statement. Second-quarter results are "consistent with our expectations and the full-year outlook."

For more:
- see this Bloomberg report

24/10/2011 - Microsoft remains vague on Skype plans, discontinuing products

Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype is rolling on towards its final regulatory hoops through which it'll need to jump before being finalized, but there's still not much known about what the company plans to do with the company or how it plans to monetize the (mostly) free service.

During Microsoft's earnings call Thursday, CFO Peter Klein said Skype was in the process of being integrated across Microsoft's portfolio, "including Lync, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Phone and the Xbox platform."

"We closed the deal last week so we're real-time doing a lot of the great work on the product integration planning," he said. "Not only are there great opportunities to integrate across our product portfolio but as they were working on even before we announced the acquisition, new revenue opportunities related to advertising and premium services, so all of that's coming together as we speak. And mostly, we're incredibly excited to get to work together more fully now that the deal has closed."

Despite pressure form analysts, Klein declined to go into much more detail, aside from saying the service would become part of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices unit and that its numbers would be folded into results next quarter.

And, asked whether Skype's acquisition would mean Microsoft would discontinue any other products, Klein said: "Clearly, it's a little premature to talk about the changes and what we're going to do with the products."

For more:
- see this GigaOm article
- see the earnings release
- see the transcript from Seeking Alpha

20/10/2011 - Despite record revenue, shares sink as Polycom misses Q3 estimates

Videoconferencing specialist Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM) was the latest company to be punished by Wall Street for missing third quarter estimates. The company, which reported record revenues for the quarter, nonetheless saw share prices in late trading decline by double digits.

Polycom reported earnings per share of 26 cents, analysts had expected 27 cents; its revenues for the quarter rose 23 percent to $379 million, short of analysts' consensus of $388. 3 million.

The company has met or bettered for nine consecutive quarters prior to these results. In Q2, Polycom reported its bottom line doubled and in Q1, it reported a sixfold increase.

CEO Andrew Miller said slowing growth was a result of "lower year-over-year revenue growth in the enterprise customer segment."

He blamed that on a slowing economy and said the company needed to improve its go-to-market execution. Polycom, he said, will improve its enterprise execution by adding resources to the region. The company has named former Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) exec Dave Rosario as president for North America.

He added that Polycom did see "significant" revenue growth in emerging geographies and the U.S. federal government. While revenues in the Americas grew 16 percent, they were up 23 percent in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and 41 percent in Asia-Pacific.

During the quarter, Polycom completed its acquisition of HP Visual Collaboration and said during the conference call that it's seen "excellent initial results" from the deal.

It also unveiled a cloud-based software strategy, one that it believes will bring bringing secure HD video collaboration to an array of business, video, mobile, and social networking applications.

"We believe that we are best positioned to capture the network effect of video communications being driven by the demand for real-time collaboration in the workplace and social networks," said Miller.

Polycom also announced a partnership with Jive Software to integrate Polycom HD video into Jive's social business platform.

During the conference call, Polycom said it expects revenue growth to accelerate this quarter and said it expects 5 to 6 percent growth.

For more:
- see this release
- get a replay of the earnings call here
- see this WSJ article

06/10/2011 - Radvision lowers Q3 guidance, blames economy, competition

Telepresence vendor Radvision (Nasdaq: RVSN), which has struggled in recent quarters, lowered its third-quarter guidance, saying revenue would be in the $17 million to $17.5 million range, down 10 percent from its forecast $19 million.

The Israeli company said the revised numbers were due to government and enterprise buyers cutting their spending as worries about the global economy mounted and due to tougher competition in the videoconferencing market.

"When there's a macro-related pullback in enterprise spending, often times that will impact the smallest guys first and more severely," said Andrew Uerkwitz, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York, who covers Israeli technology companies. "It's going to be tough for them because they're competing with the bigger players."

It's the third consecutive quarter that Radvision has lowered its guidance. The company is trying to establish itself as a competitor with the likes of Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM), but it has struggled, especially in the North American market.

The company's revenue was hit hard when Cisco bought telepresence company Tandberg. Before the sale Radvison had been a major technology partner with the networking company, and sales to Cisco, at one time, made up about 40 percent of Radvision's revenues.

Earlier this week, in an attempt to expand it appeal to companies looking to extend their videoconferencing reach to mobile users, Radvision announced an app, SCOPIA Mobile V3, for Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iOS devices that allowed users access to its platform.

Radvision is hoping SCOPIA Mobile V3 will expand their presence in the North American market.

"We know it's going to be difficult because Cisco and Polycom have almost a duopoly in the U.S.," said Bob Romano, VP for enterprise marketing at Radvision.

But Radvision, which has admittedly started slowly in North America, has been pushing hard, building out its sales and marketing infrastructure and working to gain reseller and customer attention. "We are investing in this market and we feel we are on the upswing," Romano said.

For more:
- see this Bloomberg article

11/08/2011 - ShoreTel breaks $200M mark, but can't shake expenses as earnings lag

IP phone system provider ShoreTel (Nasdaq: SHOR) reported fourth quarter revenues of $56.5 million, up 34 percent from a year ago and ahead of guidance. The company still came up short in the earnings department, reporting a GAAP net loss of $1.7 million, 4 cents per share, albeit a smaller net loss than the fourth quarter of 2010--a net loss of $3.7 million, or 8 cent per share.

For the year, the company reported sales of $200.1 million, the first time it surpassed the $200 million mark, and an increase of 35 percent over the 2010 fiscal year revenue of $148.5 million. GAAP net revenue showed a loss for the year of $11.5 million, or 25 cents a share, a slight improvement from a year ago when the company lost $12.8 million, or 29 cents per share. The company is continuing to struggle to contain expenses, and it reported the loss included $11.2 million of stock-based compensation expense, $0.5 million of amortization expenses related to purchased intangible assets and $0.5 million of other expenses down from $10.7 million in stock-based compensation expenses in fiscal year 2010.

Nevertheless, ShoreTel CEO Peter Blackmore said the company was moving toward its goals.

"The investments we have made in our sales channel, product development and branding over the past several quarters have helped us to close fiscal 2011 strongly," Blackmore said in an earnings call. "The implementation of a two-tier distribution channel in the U.S. gives us the infrastructure to maintain rapid growth while preserving our ability to deliver world-class customer service. We also increased our sales force by over 40 percent, providing significantly more reach to further expand our market share."

The company is hoping to build momentum among companies with 50 to 5,000 users in the unified communications segment, and it has grown its market share both worldwide and in the U.S. during the 2011 fiscal year.

Synergy Research said ShoreTel increased its worldwide market share in the pure IP telephony market from 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent in the quarter ended March 2011, and it saw its share of the U.S. pure IP telephony market increase from 8.4 percent to 9.1 percent sequentially.

Blackmore said revenue from ShoreTel's major accounts group was up 20 percent, with revenues from transactions over $100,000 increasing 43 percent from the fourth quarter of last year. He said the company added 1,100 new customers and recorded its largest ever revenue from deals over $100,000.

ShoreTel will begin to look at expanding to more international markets in 2012, with a focus on accelerating growth in APAC.

A major push for growth in the mobility market will continue, Blackmore said, after somewhat sluggish growth in the fourth quarter.

"We remain convinced that Mobility will be a key element of our growth going forward and we are very pleased with our technology position in this market in large part due to the Agito acquisition last October," he said. "ShoreTel Mobility is particularly unique and that it is PBX agnostic. We will support this effort with a new dedicated sales team that will target large opportunities Mobility and work with our Mobility partners to successfully fulfill and install these systems."

For more:
- see this Seeking Alpha earnings call transcript
- see this release

04/08/2011 - Vonage Holdings beats analysts with Q2 earnings record

Buoyed by reducing its interest expenses by $7 million and $7 million in additional income from operations, Internet phone service provider Vonage reported second quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates, despite a dip in revenue.

The VoIP provider reported net income of $22 million, or 9 cents per share, up from a net loss of $1 million a year ago; adjusted earnings were 10 cents per share. Its revenue was $218 million, down from $225.3 million a year ago. Analysts had expected revenue of $220.6 million and earnings of 8 cents per share.

But dropping ARPU and more competition in the form of a Microsoft-backed Skype, as well as the drop in quarterly revenue could be a problem for the company, which is forecasting growth in subscriber additions for 2011 and EDITDA of $165 million for the year.

The company also faces stiff competition from Google, 8x8, magicJack and other, smaller outfits.

Vonage Chief Executive Marc Lefar said the company is laying a foundation for future growth that would stand up to the increased competition.

"The launches of Extensions and Time to Call enhance our domestic and global service offerings for landline and mobile customers," Lefar said. "Beyond this, we've expanded the availability of our service through agreements with TracFone, Best Buy, Kmart and Sears. And, as a result of our strong financial performance, we have refinanced our debt for the second time in eight months. These are meaningful steps."

Vonage announced completion of a $120 million debt refinancing, which reduced interest rates to LIBOR plus 3.5 percent, resulting in annual savings of $43 million from 2010, allowing the company to look at potential acquisitions in coming months.

The company generated record high adjusted EBITDA of $44 million, up from $41 million in the year-ago quarter and $43 million sequentially. Income from operations increased to $31 million from $24 million in the year-ago quarter and $30 million sequentially.

The $22 million income was a record for the company.

For more:
- see this release
- see this article

01/03/2010 - Sonus details future on Q4 earnings call

In an earings call on Friday, Sonus Networks shared some positive results for the year. Despite the down economy in 2009, Sonus announced that it was profitable on a non-GAAP basis and ended the year with over $414 million of cash and investments on their balance sheet.

Some highlights Sonus pointed out for 2009 were that they "won a multimillion dollar contract with a Fortune 50 customer that extends VoIP capabilities from within the enterprise to IP peering points at the carry edge", and they announced new customer relationships with service providers like Cox Communications, CITIC 1616, Hypercube and KDDI Global. They are also providing the IP voice network core for an American Tier 1 exchange carrier.

According to CEO Richard Nottenburg, the company will use 2010 to launch a new IP to IP platform and focus on four points:

Create products that lead the industry in scale, performance and reliability for IP to IP session management targeted at service providers, enterprises, and channel distribution.
Invest in creating solutions and ensure service continuity on broadband wireless networks and bring out solutions for Internet-based and carrier-hosted services to work in a fixed-mobile convergence environment.
Use the platform to deliver solutions for policy based control of IP services and flows; empower service providers to create new services and controls; maximize returns on existing and new traffic investments.
Continue to invest and extend the company's leadership in their other core products and service offerings.

For more:
- read the SeekingAlpha transcript of the call

25/02/2010 - Vonage announces net income for first time

Vonage released its Q4 earnings report and had some exciting news. Excluding adjustments, the company reported net income from operations for the very first time. Vonage reported a net income of $3 million excluding adjustments which was up $37 million from 2008.

Sequentially, net income was flat but revenue was up to $224 million. According to the release, the average revenue per user increased to $30.54 from $28.33 in the year ago quarter and $29.89 sequentially.

"2009 marks the first year generating net income excluding adjustments. Adjusted EBITDA more than doubled. And, revenues per subscriber have increased while we reduced selling, general and administrative expenses by double-digit percentages," said Marc Lefar, Vonage Chief Executive Officer in the earnings release. Lefar saw the net income success as a function of an upgraded value proposition, enhancing the customer experience, and reduced costs.

For more:
- read the release

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18/02/2010 - Global Crossing: 2009 saw VoIP investment

VoIP services provider Global Crossing announced its 4Q revenue this week showing a consolidated revenue of $651 million in the last quarter of 2009. That number was up 1 percent both sequentially and year over year. While the company discussed a number of facets of its business in its earnings call, we are here for the Voice and VoIP side of things. Global Crossing's wholesale voice business generated revenue of $93 million in Q4, a 4 percent increase sequentially, but a 7 percent decline year over year. While voice was down year over year, the service provider sees its network as a strong point.

"Unified communications and cloud computing promise to drive increased use of networks and applications giving us the opportunity to leverage our global IP network and data center infrastructure," said John Legere, CEO of Global Crossing in the earnings call.

2009 saw investment into their VoIP network and services and the plan is to continue this into 2010. "We continued to expand our suite of VoIP services. We expanded the reach of our VoIP local service and made it easier for enterprises to implement a unifying communications platforms. We significantly expanded capacity on our undersea fiber optic cable systems and IP core network both to meet growing demand for converged services," said Legere.

For more:
- see SeekingAlpha's transcript of the earnings call
- see the release

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23/04/2012 - Polycom comes back to Earth in Q1

09/04/2012 - MagicJack stock up 6% on higher earnings projection for Q1

05/04/2012 - Polycom's 1Q prelims send stock plummeting 18%

22/03/2012 - HP CEO: Layoffs may be coming; unhappy investors drive shares down

18/03/2012 - Telanetix issues strong guidance for 2012 after solid Q4

05/03/2012 - Mitel has weak Q4 forecast, falls short on Q3 revenues

23/02/2012 - Whitman: 'We've got a journey ahead of us' as HP Q1 earnings slip 44%

16/02/2012 - Market clobbers Vonage for spending plans, missed Q4 earnings

13/02/2012 - Rebtel tops 15M users in 2011, eyes 25M in 2012

02/02/2012 - ShoreTel tops analysts estimates in 2Q, ups revenue 22%

30/01/2012 - Soft telecom outlook cuts Juniper Q1 guidance as Q4 profit nosedives

26/01/2012 - LiveSize sales up 6% in otherwise dismal Logitech 3Q; firm again lowers 2012 guidance

26/01/2012 - Polycom's Q4 leads analysts to up targets for earnings, share price

25/01/2012 - Enterprise Communications earnings in the fourth quarter 2011

03/11/2011 - Vonage triples income in Q3, subscriber numbers decay slightly

31/10/2011 - Motorola Mobility to cut jobs, pare costs before Google deal wraps

27/10/2011 - Logitech shares surge on Q3 earnings

24/10/2011 - Microsoft remains vague on Skype plans, discontinuing products

20/10/2011 - Despite record revenue, shares sink as Polycom misses Q3 estimates

06/10/2011 - Radvision lowers Q3 guidance, blames economy, competition

11/08/2011 - ShoreTel breaks $200M mark, but can't shake expenses as earnings lag

04/08/2011 - Vonage Holdings beats analysts with Q2 earnings record

01/03/2010 - Sonus details future on Q4 earnings call

25/02/2010 - Vonage announces net income for first time

18/02/2010 - Global Crossing: 2009 saw VoIP investment

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