Juniper Smiles Through Q1

Juniper Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: JNPR) continued its rosy earnings run with another quarter of "solid" profits and an increase in its forecasts for the next quarter.

For its first quarter, which ended March 31, Juniper reported net income of $75.4 million, or 13 cents per share, on revenues of $449.1 million, compared with net income of $66 million, or 11 cents per share, on $430.1 revenues in the previous quarter (see Juniper Reports Q1).

For its first quarter a year ago, Juniper reported profits of $33.5 million, 8 cents per share, on revenues of $224.1 million -- but those numbers came before the acquisition of NetScreen Technologies closed.

Using pro forma numbers, Juniper's net income came to 16 cents per share, beating analysts' estimates by 1 cent, according to Reuters Research. Investors had an initially pleasant response -- in early after-hours trading today, Juniper stock was up $0.839 (3.95%) to $22.10.

Juniper expects things to get even better next quarter, with a forecast of $470 million to $475 million revenues and pro forma profits of 17 cents per share. That surpasses the $458 million expected by analysts.

CEO Scott Kriens called the quarter "solid" and had praise for both halves of Juniper's portfolio: the routing products and the NetScreen-developed security products. Reseller deals with Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERICY) and Siemens AG (NYSE: SI; Frankfurt: SIE) are both going well, with each customer representing more than 10 percent of Juniper's revenues for the quarter. Partner Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: LU) wasn't mentioned in Kriens's prepared remarks.

"Part of the reason for the confidence that we have in all this is that we see the growth across product lines across industry segments and across geographies," he said on a conference call with analysts today.

The quarter also saw the first revenues from Juniper's J-series routers, launched last summer (see Juniper Unveils J-Series Routers). Already the routers are fulfilling their purpose of expanding Juniper's markets, bringing the company into "places we couldn't get to before now," Kriens said. They're also boosting Juniper's other router lines, as buyers of the J-series already are beginning to purchase Juniper's other routers, Kriens said. That includes one sale of a T-series router, Juniper's core offering, into a "non-service-provider" customer.

Kriens noted the first iteration of the J-series is best for managed services but that "there are releases planned this year that will fill out the product for broader deployment"

— Craig Matsumoto, Senior Editor, Light Reading