Acquisition right downs caused Symantec to report a loss for its second quarter but strong growth in antivirus sales point to the health of its underlying business.

Symantec posted revenue for the quarter of $242.4 million, as compared to $226.4 million for the same quarter last year. It recorded a net loss of $11.8 million.

However excluding the amortisation of acquisition-related charges related to the purchase of enterprise security firm Axent Technologies, Symantec recorded net income of $42.3 million.

Symantec's total anti-virus product sales increased 46 per cent during the quarter as compared to Q2 2000, nearly double the industry growth rate. No doubt recent virus outbreaks, such as Code Red, SirCam and Nimda, haven't done any harm to these figures.

Intrusion detection and vulnerability management were other bright spot for Symantec, which said enterprise sales represent 46 per cent of its total for Q2, up 29 per cent over the same quarter last year. ®

External Links

Symantec's Q2 report card

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