Submitted by Mark Hanna
Courtesy of MarketMontage. View original post here.
Data center company Equinix (EQIX) does not receive the attention that many of the ‘glamour’ names in the tech space do, but it has had a strong start to the year both in stock performance and company performance. This is one of those backdoor ways to play the growth of data and the ‘cloud’. [Feb 11, 2010: What the Heck is this Cloud Computing Thing?] Last night the company reported an excellent quarter – 25% year over year revenue growth – and the stock is being rewarded with a sharp move in the pre market, up some 9% to the $163s – which should take the name back to its April highs. I am not sure why analysts had such an easy EPS estimate to beat (49 cents) when the company did 53 cents a year ago. Full report here.
Via AP:
- Equinix reported first-quarter net income climbed 37 percent to $34.5 million, or 71 cents a share. That compares with net income of $25.1 million, or 53 cents a share, for the same period last year.
- Revenue grew 25 percent to $452.2 million from $363 million a year ago.
- Analysts had forecast, on average, earnings of 49 cents a share on revenue of $445.1 million, according to FactSet.
- The sharp rise in revenue helped blunt a 30 percent increase in selling, general and administrative expenses.
- Management attributed its first-quarter results on strong growth trends in mobility, cloud computing and data management.
- Equinix forecast second-quarter revenue of $466 million to $468 million. Analysts estimate revenue at $463.9 million.
- For 2012, the company expects revenue will top $1.89 billion, in line with analysts’ consensus forecast.
Via Reuters:
- “The telecom vertical was very strong (in Q1) because of LTE and other network upgrades, and we catch a lot of (the demand) when networks are upgrading their servers and storage needs,” Chief Executive Officer Steve Smith told Reuters on a call. Digital media companies also drove bookings for data centers in the quarter, he said.
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Any securities mentioned on this page are not held by the author in his personal portfolio. Securities mentioned may or may not be held by the author in the mutual fund he manages, the Paladin Long Short Fund (PALFX). For a list of the aforementioned fund’s holdings at the end of the prior quarter, visit the Paladin Funds website at http://www.paladinfunds.com/holdings/blog
