Novatel Predicts Second-Quarter Sales Miss

Novatel Wireless (NVTL Quote) disappointed Wall Street once again, offering a weak second-quarter outlook after its quarterly earnings Thursday.

The San Diego-based wireless broadband company said it earned $4.44 million, or 14 cents a share, in the first quarter, less than half of what it earned in the same period a year ago. Excluding items, Novatel said it had a profit of 17 cents a share. Revenue slid 16.8% from the first quarter a year earlier to $91.3 million.

Analysts expected earnings of 13 cents a share on revenue of $91 million, according to Thomson Financial.

On April 14, Novatel slashed its first-quarter revenue outlook to $91 million from its previous forecast of $110 million. Novatel said that $10 million of that decline was due to a product delay by a "major European carrier customer." At the time, the company said it expected adjusted earnings to fall in a range of 16 cents to 18 cents a share.

Looking ahead to the second quarter, Novatel said it expects earnings in a range of 13 cents to 16 cents a share on revenue of $85 million to $90 million. The low end of the profit outlook and the entire sales range would miss Wall Street's view of earnings of 16 cents a share on revenue of $98.8 million.

"We believe that the overall market is experiencing considerable growth and we remain intensely focused on accelerating development of our next-generation products, which we believe will position us with the best-in-class, highest performing products with the most differentiated features in the market," said CEO Peter Leparulo in a release.