Symantec on a roll, thanks to security boom

Symantec Corp yesterday posted a healthy-looking fiscal second quarter supported by revenue growth in all but one of its businesses, and reported a bottom line that beat analysts' and its own estimates.

For the three months to September 30, the company saw a net income of $52m, compared to a year-ago loss of $12m, on revenue that was up 34% at $325m. At the pro forma level, net income was $60m, compared to $42m a year ago.

The company said that its enterprise business grew by 30% in the face of a general IT spending slowdown, and its consumer business grew 68%. Enterprise sales accounted for 44% of revenue, and consumer sales accounted for 38% of revenue.

The only business to decline was Symantec's enterprise administration software business. Revenue there declined 2% and represented 16% of total revenue. The remainder of revenue came from security services sales, up 102%.

In the enterprise business, firewall sales were up 61% and anti-virus sales were up 36%. During the quarter, Symantec signed 116 contracts with values over $100,000, 28 of which were worth more than $300,000, and five of which were worth over $1m.

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