October 22nd, 2009
EMC: Customers have 'more comfort' about IT budgets
EMC CEO Joe Tucci said that customers are “signaling more comfort spending their IT budgets.” The company reported better-than-expected third quarter results.
The storage giant reported third quarter earnings of $298.2 million, or 14 cents a share, on revenue of $3.52 billion, down 5 percent from a year ago. Under a non-GAAP basis, EMC reported earnings of $480.3 million, or 23 cents a share, two cents better than Wall Street estimates.
Generally speaking, EMC has been well positioned in the downturn due to a focus on storage, cloud computing, virtualization and data centers — hot areas in enterprise IT. Tucci added in a statement that the company has expanded its product line while cutting costs.
Also see: VMware posts solid third quarter, tops estimates
As for the outlook, Tucci added that the company was well positioned to hit its 2009 targets. EMC expects fourth quarter revenue of $4 billion and 2009 revenue of $13.9 billion. Net income is expected to be 21 cents a share in the fourth quarter and 55 cents a share for the year.
Non-GAAP earnings are expected to be 30 cents a share in the fourth quarter. Wall Street was expecting earnings of 28 cents a share. For the year, EMC projected non-GAAP earnings, which exclude acquisition charges, of 87 cents a share, four cents better than Wall Street estimates.
Here’s a look at the trends for EMC’s key product lines, including VMware:
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Smart Planet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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