3Com Posts a Loss

3Com (COMS - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) posted a first-quarter loss Thursday and offered second-quarter guidance that's in line with Wall Street's expectations.

The Marlborough, Mass., maker of networking gear posted a first-quarter loss of $36 million, or 9 cents a share. That's narrower than the year-ago $105 million, or 29 cents a share, and a penny shy of the analyst estimate quoted by Thomson First Call.

Latest-quarter revenue was $162 million, flat with a year ago and down 11% from fourth-quarter levels. The latest-quarter top line included $147 million for sales of enterprise networking products and $15 million for sales of connectivity products.

Shares of the company rose 4% in after-hours trading, tacking on 18 cents, to $4.50.

The news comes just two weeks after 3Com warned Wall Street that it would fall short of first-quarter revenue estimates. At the time, Wall Street was expecting the company to post $183 million on its top line for the period. 3Com's results were in line with the lowered guidance.

For the second quarter, the company guided to revenue of $175 million or so, which is in line with analysts' estimates. The company said it expects revenues from desktop, mobile and server connectivity products to decline sequentially by 20%-25%. The decline should be "more than offset," 3Com added, by enterprise networking products revenue growth of 10%-15%.

"Two product lines that are targeted for high growth within our company are routers and core switches sourced from our joint venture, Huawei-3Com," said CEO Bruce Claflin. "We are very pleased with the progress Huawei-3Com is making in the Chinese market as evidenced by their substantial growth in their most recent quarter. With that growth, the venture is staffing aggressively to meet the needs of both its domestic and international customers."