Veritas beats revised targets

Holding steady on forecasts

By John Oates • Get more from this author

Posted in Financial News, 28th July 2004 11:38 GMT

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Storage specialist Veritas Software turned in a profit of $86m for the second quarter ended 30 June 2004, up from $46m for the same period last year. Turnover was $485m, up from $408m last year.

Earnings per share were 21 cents, beating analysts expectations of 19 cents. In early July, Veritas warned profits would disappoint earlier estimates, blaming a sudden "drop-off in US enterprise spending".

Gary Bloom, chairman, president and CEO of Veritas, said: "While total revenue was up 19 per cent year-over-year, the June quarter was challenging in our US enterprise business, particularly for license transactions at the end of the quarter."

License revenue was up seven per cent and service revenue was up 38 per cent year-on-year. EMEA and Asia Pacific regions grew 44 per cent and 34 per cent, respectively.

Veritas finished the quarter with $2.75bn in cash and short-term investments. It expects revenue for the September quarter to be in the range of $485m to $505m and diluted earnings per share to be in the range of $0.19 to $0.21 on a GAAP basis. It is holding firm on full year forecast of $2bn revenues.

The Veritas board has approved a $500m stock-buy-back programme over the next 18 months.

The press release is here. ®