Storage and Ethernet networking vendor Brocade Communications Monday reported a 31 percent rise in revenue for its fourth fiscal quarter and 33 percent revenue growth for the entire year, but the news was tempered by a drop in earnings.
The revenue increase comes as sales through the indirect channel rose as a percentage of total revenue, the company said.
Brocade reported revenue of $521.8 million during its fourth fiscal 2009 quarter, which ended Oct. 31, vs. $398.5 million reported in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008.
Brocade also reported earnings of $33.6 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009, down more than 5 percent compared to the $35.6 million it reported during the same quarter last year.
For all of fiscal 2009, Brocade reported revenue of $1.95 billion, up about 33 percent compared with the $1.47 billion it reported for fiscal 2008.
During the fourth quarter, sales via indirect and direct channels accounted for 35 percent of total revenue, up significantly from last year, when those channels accounted for only 12 percent of revenue. OEM revenue accounted for 65 percent of total revenue, down from 88 percent of total revenue last year.
The U.S. market accounted for about 63 percent of revenue, down slightly from 64 percent last year.
Data storage accounted for 58 percent of total revenue, down from 84 percent last year, while Ethernet revenue grew from 0 percent of total revenue last year to reach 25 percent of revenue this year, Brocade said.
That growth in Ethernet revenue was a result of Brocade's $2.6 billion acquisition of Foundry last December.
Michael Klayko, Brocade CEO, said in a statement that fiscal 2009 was a transformational year for Brocade as it became one of only two end-to-end networking vendors, referring to his company and archrival Cisco.
"Brocade also delivered exceptionally strong year-over-year revenue growth and increased its account penetration in the Ethernet networking market while growing share in the storage networking market," Klayko said.
