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Juniper's (JNPR) Macro Concerns Drive Cautious Guidance - PiperJaffray

January 28, 2016 9:08 AM

Piper Jaffray analyst, Troy Jensen, maintained his Neutral rating on Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR) as the company provided weak guidance and the CFO resigned. The analyst lowered his price target to $27 from $30.

Juniper reported outstanding December quarter results with revenues, margins and EPS all coming in above Street expectations, but due to Macro growth concerns and customer spending habits slowing, Juniper guided Q1 below consensus expectations. Despite the weakness, Juniper continues to make good progress with its spending controls, which was evident by continued operating margin expansion, and all product segments grew 20% year/year, including security. However, JNPR announced the CFO will be resigning. He will remain at the company for several months in order to facilitate a smooth transition to the SVP of Finance, Ken Miller.

Revenue of $1.32B (cons of $1.30B) increased 19.8% Y/Y and was up 5.7% Q/Q, also coming in above the company’s prior guidance ($1.27-1.31B). Revenue in the quarter was driven from all product segments, but the company highlighted demand from Service Providers was exceptionally strong. Gross margins of 64.5% were also at the high-end of guidance (63.5-64.5%), and up 20 bps Q/Q. The strong top line growth and Juniper’s ongoing spending controls helped expand operating margins by 50 bps Q/Q to 26.0%. This resulted in non-GAAP EPS of $0.63, which came in $0.03 ahead of the Street.

Product revenue of $973.9M increased 22.7% Y/Y, and the company highlighted that the upside was driven by higher than expected sales from Service providers all around the world and not just the Tier 1 players. Service Provider revenues grew 25.4% Y/Y to $933.2M and accounted for 70.7% of sales. Enterprise revenues were slightly weaker than expected, and were down 13.0% sequentially; however, Enterprise sales are seasonally down on a Q/Q basis in Q4. Furthermore, product backlog grew 16% year/year and 7% sequentially to ~$517.0M, and the company’s product book-to-bill was above 1 in the quarter.

Looking into 1Q16, Juniper is expecting revenues in the range of $1.15 – 1.19B (cons of $1.19B), which implies 9.6% Y/Y growth at the midpoint. Moving down the income statement, the company expects to generate EPS in the range of $0.42 – 0.46 (cons of $0.47).

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Juniper Networks click here. For more ratings news on Juniper Networks click here.

Shares of Juniper Networks closed at $26.54 yesterday.

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