Arris Group Inc. (Nasdaq: ARRS) announced profits Wednesday that handily beat Wall Street's projections, although revenues dropped compared with a year ago.

The cable gear vendor posted net income of $16.7 million, or 13 cents per share, on revenues of $265.8 million. That's down from a year-ago profit of $19.7 million, or 15 cents per share, and revenues of $280.6 million. Arris's non-GAAP net income of 24 cents per share beat the analyst consensus of 18 cents reported by Thomson Reuters , while revenues were short of the expected $271.5 million.

Looking ahead to its third quarter, Arris is projecting revenues of $270 million to $290 million and non-GAAP net income of 19 to 23 cents per share. Analysts had been looking for $282.55 million and 21 cents per share.

The earnings news comes as Arris is trying to establish its line of denser cable modem termination system (CMTS) line cards and is looking for more takers for a hybrid QAM/IP gateway that came from its acquisition of Paul Allen's Digeo Inc. (See Arris CMTS Packs On Upstream Muscle and Shaw Deploys Arris Video Gateway.)

Arris shares closed down 40 cents (3.46%) at $10.99 prior to Wednesday's earnings announcement.

— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable