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Akamai Hangs Five

By Mark Mahorney – Updated Nov 16, 2016 at 4:12PM

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The distributed computing company has grown revenue for five straight quarters.

Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ:AKAM) put up some nice numbers in the first quarter. Revenue was a record $48.4 million, up 7% sequentially and 32% year over year. Profit, however, was a scant $2.9 million, or $0.02 a share, versus a loss of $8.6 million a year earlier.

The company is on the right track, but the question is whether or not the track it is on is going to be fast enough. Akamai is carrying a hefty debt load and payments are looming. Fellow Fool Tim Beyers has written extensively about this, and I suggest you weave your way back through the related articles starting with the most recent.

Whether or not the company can get its debt under control is largely dependent on growth in Internet usage and e-commerce. The ability to download information from the Internet quickly is dependent on the user's connection speed, the pipeline to the site a user is trying to download, and equipment at the other end. Akamai focuses on the latter of these factors. It provides services to large corporate and organizations to ensure the dependability and speed of their sites. It uses distributed computing to shift power as sites experience heavier loads.

You might recall a few years ago that sites were often rendered useless by onslaughts of heavy traffic caused by certain events such as a Victoria Secret's runway show. The Motley Fool sends some of its traffic to Akamai and has good things to say about the company's service.

The need for Akamai's services will no doubt grow, but whether it will grow quick enough remains to be seen.

Share your thoughts with other Fools on the Akamai discussion board.

Fool contributor Mark Mahorney doesn't own shares of any companies mentioned.

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