Citrix Reports Lower Q1 Profit

Citrix Systems

For the quarter ended March 31, Citrix earned $26.7 million, or 14 cents per share, down from $28.9 million, or 15 cents per share, for the same quarter a year ago.

"The primary weakness was in our packaged products," said Mark Templeton, president and CEO of Citrix, based here, during a conference call. "The softness was primarily attributable to the overall state of IT spending."

The company reported pro forma earnings of $29.3 million, or 16 cents per share, down from $33.9 million, or 17 cents per share, for the year-ago quarter.

Revenue for the quarter reached $142.3 million, up from $132.8 million for the same quarter last year.

Wall Street analysts expected the company to report a pro forma profit of 15 cents per share on revenue of $146 million, according to Thomson Financial/First Call.

Earlier this month, Citrix cut its pro forma earnings guidance to 15 cents or 16 cents per share, down from 17 cents per share. At that time, the company said it expected to report revenue for the quarter in the range of $141 million to $143 million.

The company is on schedule to begin shipping NFuse Elite, the portal server product formerly code-named "South Beach," next month, Templeton said.

"We're not standing still, and we're not waiting either," Templeton said.

Citrix expects to report second-quarter earnings of 11 cents to 13 cents per share on revenue of $130 million to $140 million, executives said.

Shares of Citrix closed at $12.60, down $1.57 for the day.