Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Shares of Zebra Technologies Corp. (ZBRA 2.14%) jumped 14% Wednesday after the company reported better-than-expected first-quarter results.
So what: Quarterly revenue rose 209.8% year over year to $893.2 million. For that, investors can primarily thank the $561.6 million top-line contribution from Zebra's Enterprise business, which it acquired from Motorola Solutions this past October. Even so, revenue from Zebra's legacy business rose a respectable 15% year over year to $331.6 million. That also translated to adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $152.2 million, and 44.7% growth in adjusted net income per diluted share to $1.39. Analysts, on average, were only expecting Zebra to report first-quarter revenue and earnings of $881.8 million and $1.12 per share, respectively.
In addition, for the current quarter Zebra anticipates revenue of $865 million to $895 million, adjusted EBITDA of $130 million to $145 million, and adjusted earnings of $1.00 to $1.25 per share. Based on the midpoint of those ranges, Wall Street was modeling slightly lower second-quarter revenue of $877 million, but with higher earnings of $1.17 per share.
Now what: Regardless of the outsized influence of Zebra's recently acquired Enterprise segment, there's no denying this was a strong report. With shares currently trading at a reasonable 15.7 times next year's expected earnings, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Zebra Technologies stock continues to reward patient investors going forward.
