NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP) is scheduled to release its fiscal third-quarter earnings after the closing bell on Wednesday, February 16, 2011. Analysts, on average, expect the company to report earnings of 50 cents per share on revenue of $1.28 billion. In the year ago period, the company reported earnings of 40 cents per share on revenue of $1.01 billion.
NetApp, Inc. provides enterprise storage and data management software and hardware products and services in the United States and internationally. The Company offers solutions for storing, managing, protecting and archiving business data.
In the preceding fiscal second-quarter, the Sunnyvale, California-based company's net income was $164.6 million, or 42 cents per share, compared with a profit of $95.7 million, or 27 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. On an adjusted basis, the company earned 52 cents per share in the latest quarter. Revenue increased to $1.2 billion from $910 million. Analysts, on average, expected the company to report earnings of 49 cents per share on revenue of $1.19 billion.
At its last earnings call in November, NetApp said that it expects revenue for the third quarter of fiscal year 2011 to be in the range of $1.240 billion to $1.290 billion, which equates to approximately 3% to 7% sequential revenue growth and approximately 23% to 28% year over year revenue growth. NetApp estimates that third quarter fiscal year 2011 GAAP earnings per share will be approximately 39 cents to 41 cents per share. NetApp estimates that the third quarter fiscal year 2011 non-GAAP earnings per share will be approximately 48 cents to 50 cents per share.
NetApp is the third-biggest seller of external computer- storage systems -- technology that helps companies store information more efficiently while letting them access the data from anywhere. NetApp is doing well, despite the stiff competition from technical behemoths such as International Business Machines Inc. (NYSE: IBM) and EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) in the data storage and management software space.
NetApp is likely to continue gaining storage market share as increased adoption of cloud leads to higher demand for virtualized storage infrastructure. NetApp is making significant efforts to expand its share in the cloud storage. The firm recently acquired Akorri Networks, a virtualization software company that extends NetApp’s ability to provide customers with comprehensive tools to automate and analyze their shared IT infrastructures, efficiently deliver on service levels, and respond to rapidly changing business needs. Also, the company refreshed both the mid- and high-end product lines in November, the most-comprehensive refresh in its history
Recently, NetApp also teamed up with Citrix (already the leader in desktop virtualization) and Cisco in offering a new desktop virtualization package, where its virtual storage offering will be utilized.
Full Disclosure: None.
