What happened
Shares of Check Point Software (CHKP 4.44%) got crushed today, down by 10% as of 11:20 a.m. EDT after the company reported fiscal third-quarter results. While the numbers topped expectations, guidance left investors disappointed.
So what
Revenue in the third quarter totaled $455 million, beating the consensus estimate of $449.4 million. The data security specialist posted non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.30, also ahead of Wall Street expectations of $1.24 per share in adjusted profit. Software Blades subscriptions revenue jumped 22% to $120 million.
Image source: Check Point.
Check Point repurchased $250 million worth of stock during the quarter, retiring 2.3 million shares. The company closed the quarter with $3.9 billion in cash on the balance sheet.
Now what
"We delivered good third quarter financial results with revenues coming in toward the upper end of our projections and earnings per share that exceeded our projections. Our advanced threat protections continued to see nice adoption as the Infinity platform and vendor consolidation continues to resonate with customers," CEO Gil Shwed said in a statement. "During the quarter we continued to extend the reach of the Infinity platform and elevated the level of security we provide with anti-ransomware technology, cloud security for Azure stack, and the integration of the Microsoft Intune mobile management with our SandBlast mobile security."
The real kicker was guidance for the fourth quarter. On the conference call, Schwed said revenue in the fourth quarter is expected in the range of $485 million to $525 million, with non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.45 to $1.55. On a GAAP basis, that bottom line should be about $0.15 per share lighter. That top-line forecast fell short of the $529.2 million in sales that analysts were modeling for.
