What happened
The share price of Viavi Solutions (VIAV 0.37%) was tumbling today after the company reported worse-than-expected results for its first quarter of fiscal 2023.
The company, which sells testing and monitoring equipment and services to communications service providers and other companies, missed Wall Street's consensus revenue estimate and issued guidance that was below expectations. As a result, the tech stock crashed 22.9% as of 3:12 p.m. ET on Friday.
So what
Viavi's adjusted earnings per share of $0.23, down 4% from the year-ago quarter, were on par with Wall Street's consensus estimate.
But the company's total revenue fell 5.1% from the year-ago quarter to $310.2 million, significantly missing analysts' consensus revenue estimate of $325.7 million.
"The September quarter was a challenging quarter for Viavi, coming in below our expectations," CEO Oleg Khaykin said, and it resulted in a "rapid slowdown in order placement by a number of service providers ..."
Now what
Khaykin highlighted the fact that the company still delivered adjusted earnings that were at the midpoint of its guidance and has $510 million in cash on its balance sheet, despite the difficult quarter.
But investors weren't tracking with Khaykin's optimism. Instead, they focused on management's second-quarter revenue guidance range of $261 million to $281 million, which was far below analysts' consensus estimate of $332.7 million.
With the company just coming out of a challenging quarter and issuing guidance that failed to meet Wall Street's expectations, it's no surprise to see Viavi's share price sliding today.
