Openwave Beats Estimates, Sees Losses Continuing

Openwave Systems

(OPWV)

was trading up in premarket action after the software company beat analyst estimates by a penny and said it was seeing signs of improvement.

The company said its third-quarter net loss, excluding charges, was $14.2 million, or 8 cents a share, compared with earnings of $16.3 million, or 9 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial/First Call were expecting the company to lose 9 cents a share.

Reported net loss including merger- and acquisition-related costs and restructuring charges totaled $115.7 million, or 67 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $151.2 million, or 91 cents a share, a year ago.

Third-quarter revenue dropped to $83.2 million from $130 million a year ago.

The company said it is seeing modest improvement in wireless data growth, its core business, as customers are investing in new data-transfer devices. Going forward, Openwave expects to see losses continue into the fourth quarter. The company estimates a fourth-quarter loss of 6 cents to 13 cents a share on revenue of $85 million, below analyst estimates of a loss of 5 cents a share on revenue of $90.4 million.

The company also announced that it had signed a new deal to provide mobile text and data services to China's biggest cellular carrier, China Unicom.

Shares of Openwave were recently trading up 2.7% to $4.91 on the Instinet platform.