
Revenue Leaps at Sierra Wireless
Shares of
Sierra Wireless
(SWIR) - Get Report
jumped in Tuesday's after-market session following a stronger-than-expected first-quarter earnings report.
The Vancouver-based wireless-products maker posted a profit of $9.7 million, or 31 cents a share, up from the year-ago earnings of $5.3 million, or 20 cents a share. Excluding items related to stock-based compensation expenses and amortization costs, Sierra said it earned 37 cents a share in the quarter.
Revenue jumped 66% from a year earlier to $141.9 million and was up 4.7% sequentially.
Analysts expected Sierra Wireless to post earnings of 31 cents a share on revenue of $136 million, according to a Thomson Financial poll. Shares of Sierra were up 4% to $21.05 in late trading, after having added 0.6% during Tuesday's session.
"In the first quarter of 2008, we experienced continued strong momentum in our business and achieved record quarterly revenue, in spite of a challenging component supply environment" said CEO Jason Cohenour. "As we look forward, we are encouraged by the continued strong growth in our market segments, our proven ability to execute in a competitive environment and the strategic opportunities that lay ahead. Our expectations for 2008 are for continued investment and revenue growth, improving profitability and further business diversification."
For the second quarter, Sierra said it expects its gross margin percentage to be stable compared to the first quarter. Due to new product launches in the second and third quarters, the company expects second-quarter operating expenses to increase relative to the first quarter.
Still, Sierra is projecting a profit of 40 cents a share, excluding items, in the second quarter on revenue of $154 million. That compares with Wall Street's targets of 32 cents a share on revenue of $139.8 million.
Sierra's earnings beat comes two weeks after rival
Novatel Wireless
(NVTL)
slashed its first-quarter outlook
because of a product delay by a major European customer. Shares of Novatel were down 0.3% to $9 in late trading.
Among other wireless-product makers,
Nokia
(NOK) - Get Report
was down 0.3%,
Ericsson
(ERIC) - Get Report
was unchanged, and
Motorola
( MOT) was up 1.5%.









