Earnings In Brief: Netgear Triumphs, Alcatel-Lucent Frowns

Netgear

Shares of Netgear shot up Wednesday after the company reported better-than-expected results for its fourth quarter Tuesday and offered bullish guidance for the first quarter of its new fiscal year.

Netgear posted net revenue of $218.8 million in the quarter and upped its non-GAAP operating margin to 11.2 percent, something Netgear Chairman and CEO Patrick Lo attributed to market-share gains in the U.S. and hoped-for revenue from new products.

According to Netgear, it introduced 23 new products in the fourth quarter. The company saw a 41 percent increase in shipments on a per-unit basis quarter-over-quarter. It also stands to benefit, Netgear executives noted, from a onetime, $18 million order through a service provider. (For a transcript of Netgear's earnings call, click here.)

"Netgear is continuing its larger count of new products, which should lead to revenue growth in 2011," wrote Hamed Khorsand, an analyst with BWS Financial, in a Wednesday research note.

Earlier this week, Netgear said it would collaborate with Ercisson to launch a new router, the Netgear MBRN3300E 3G Mobile Broadband Router, which comes equipped with a 3G radio. Netgear plans to show off the router at next week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent's fourth quarter of 2009 was a good news, bad news story. The French networking giant posted a profit of $63.5 million during the quarter, representing the first significant quarterly profit it's turned since the 2006 merger of Alcatel and Lucent. Revenue, however, declined 20 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago, which Alcatel-Lucent attributed to lower sales of 2G wireless and other older technologies. (Check out Alcatel-Lucent's full earnings statement here.)

"We delivered on our commitments for 2009 and I am pleased with the operational progress we have made," said Alcatel-Lucent CEO Ben Verwaayen in a statement. "Revenue came in at the lower end of the indicated range for the year due to the fact that our fourth quarter was not as strong as expected. However, I am encouraged by the strong sequential growth in our orders and by the accelerated traction we are seeing in next-generation technologies, as evidenced by our selection by AT&T as a key supplier for LTE."

Both Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson were earlier this week selected by AT&T to be the primary equipment suppliers for AT&T's new 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network.