Symantec's profits for its first fiscal quarter slumped 5.3 per cent, but the company managed to beat analyst expectations with increased sales of its Norton security software.

The company's income dropped to $95.2m, compared to $100.5m a year earlier. Symantec said the results were impacted by a $19m restructuring charge related to job cuts (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/25/symantec_results/) announced earlier this year.

Meanwhile, sales rose 11 per cent to 1.4bn in the first quarter, which ended June 30. During the same period last year, sales were at 1.26bn. Analysts had expected Q1 earnings to be around $1.32bn.

According to Symantec CFO James Beer, consumer revenue generated $434m during the quarter, increasing 11 per cent year-over-year. Norton Internet Security revenue grew 31 per cent, and remains the single largest product contributer in their consumer category — generating about 63 per cent of customer revenue.

Symantec's enterprise Security and Data Management wing earned the company $423.2m in sales, increasing 4 per cent over last year. The Data Center Management group produced $399.2m in revenue, increasing 5 per cent year-over-year.

CEO John Thompson also attributes the company's growth to the recent $830m acquisition of Altiris (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/29/symantec_altiris_enterprise_vault/).

The Altiris business unit generated $89m in revenue, which consisted of three Symantec products producing $32m and Altiris products contributing the remaining $53m.

“Performance for the quarter was driven by strong demand in many of our core and emerging technology solutions, as well as solid execution by our services, consumer and Altiris teams,” said Thompson. “We’re off to a good start to our fiscal year.”

The Cupetino-based company estimates fiscal Q2 revenue will be between $1.35bn and $1.38bn. ®

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