Image source: Ruckus Wireless.
Ruckus Wireless (RKUS) reported second-quarter results after Wednesday's closing bell. The enterprise-class Wi-Fi networking expert beat Wall Street's revenue estimates by a wide margin. Ruckus shares soared on the news, rising as much as 16.6% in after-hours trading. The stock retreated to a more modest after-hours gain when that first spike subsided but still traded 5% higher at press time.
Second-quarter sales rose 14% year over year, landing at $92.2 million. Your average analyst would have settled for $88.2 million. Wall Street was looking for adjusted earnings of roughly $0.09 per diluted share. Here, Ruckus simply met expectations on the nose.
In prepared press statements, Ruckus CEO Selina Lo said that the strong quarter rested about equally on all of the company's geographic and vertical markets.
Ruckus CEO Selina Lo. Image source: Ruckus Wireless.
"We continued to raise the bar in wireless performance with shipments of the industry's first enterprise-class 802.11ac Wave 2 product in the second quarter," Lo said. "With new and expanded partnerships, we continue to enhance our competitive position and expand our market opportunities."
In particular, Ruckus highlighted a recently signed partnership with high-speed data networking specialist Juniper Networks (JNPR -1.19%). The two companies will co-develop and help each other market a series of combined hardwired and wireless networking solutions, aimed directly at mid-size and large corporations. Juniper, of course, recently surged on an analyst-beating quarterly report of its own. In that report, Juniper highlighted strong sales momentum in enterprise-grade data centers, which is exactly the type of target market Ruckus is looking for.
As for the product mix, the latest and greatest 802.11ac product lines accounted for 71% of Ruckus' access point sales in the second quarter. That's up from 49% in the first quarter. Not bad for a product portfolio that didn't even merit a mention in the fourth-quarter report, just six months ago.
Looking ahead, Ruckus set the midpoint of its third-quarter revenue guidance at $96.5 million. Non-GAAP earnings should land near $0.12 per share. The sales guidance sits just above the current analyst consensus at $95.6 million. On the bottom line, analysts are already toeing the official line.
Tonight's spike notwithstanding, Ruckus shares still trade more than 10% lower year to date. The company's sales growth has been consistently outstanding for years, but investors are still looking for more dependable earnings and cash flows.
