Back in late March, Aruba Networks (NASDAQ:ARUN) launched its IPO, and the stock soared 29% on its first day of trading. As for its first quarterly report late last week, the company continued its winning ways and had blow-out results. The stock spiked 17% to $17.75 and reached a new high.
Aruba develops technologies to secure wireless networks. Its more than 2,400 customers include Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), Guangzhou Metro, the U.S. Air Force, and SAP (NYSE:SAP).
Judging from Q3 results, Aruba is in the midst of a growth spurt. Over the past year, revenues increased 65% to $34.7 million, while the sequential growth rate was an impressive 30%.
Despite intense competition from Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) and Motorola (NYSE:MOT), Aruba continues to snag new customers, as well as get more business from its growing customer footprint. About 50% of Q3's revenues came from existing customers. It's another sign that its offerings are a must-have in Corporate America.
The firm posted a Q3 loss of $9.3 million, or $0.26 per share. Keep in mind that there was about $10.4 million in non-cash expenses for stock option compensation and warrants.
Gross margins have enjoyed a healthy increase from 60.2% to 69.8% over the past year. Management has been adept at outsourcing manufacturing to offshore areas and to outfits like Flextronics International (NASDAQ:FLEX). It's also gotten a boost by striking distribution agreements with companies like Alcatel-Lucent (ALU)
As I mentioned in a recent article, Aruba's valuation is far from cheap, currently hovering around 11 times revenues. But as seen with other networking companies like Riverbed Technologies (NASDAQ:RVBD), investors are willing to pay a fat premium for the growth.
On the conference call, management indicated that existing customers are ramping up their deployments, and that its pipeline of new customers looks healthy. It's a nice formula to sustain the growth story, and it should be attractive for momentum investors. As for those investors on the conservative side, Aruba is likely to still be volatile and stomach churning.
Further Foolishness:
Fool contributor Tom Taulli, author of The Complete M&A Handbook, does not own shares mentioned in this article. He is currently ranked 2.817 out of 29,306 in Motley Fool CAPS.
