By Senad Karaahmetovic
Shares of Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) are trading over 11% higher in pre-market Monday after the IT networking company delivered a strong set of results for its first fiscal quarter.
Ciena reported EPS of $0.64 on revenue of $1.06 billion, crushing the average analyst estimate for earnings of $0.36 on sales of $959.4M. Revenue increased 25% year-over-year as the two largest business units - Networking Platforms and Converged Packet Optical - saw their sales increase by 36%.
"We delivered record revenue in the first quarter, reflecting continued gradual improvement in the supply chain environment and strong customer demand for our market-leading technology," said Gary Smith, president and CEO of Ciena.
"With strong momentum across our business, supported by robust fundamental drivers and visibility provided by our backlog, we remain confident in our ability to continue to take market share."
Analysts were especially impressed by expanding margins. Ciena reported an adjusted gross margin of 43.7%, beating the consensus by 190 basis points.
Vital Knowledge analysts said the results were “very strong”, highlighted by “impressive upside” across all the key metrics.