NETSCOUT trims financial guidance citing constrained SP spending

Citing tightened service provider capital spending in North America, NETSCOUT announced disappointing preliminary financial results for its third quarter of fiscal year 2018 ended December 31, 2017 and trimmed its outlook for the full fiscal year.

NETSCOUT expects third-quarter fiscal year 2018 GAAP revenue in the range of approximately $267 million and $271 million with non-GAAP third-quarter revenue anticipated to be in the range of approximately $270 million to $274 million. NETSCOUT’s GAAP net income for the third quarter of fiscal year 2018 is anticipated to range to between $87 million and $90 million, or $0.99 per share (diluted) and $1.02 per share diluted. NETSCOUT’s non-GAAP net income for the third quarter of fiscal year 2018 is anticipated to range to between $58 million and $61 million, or $0.66 per share (diluted) and $0.69 per share (diluted).

Anil Singhal, NETSCOUT’s president and CEO, stated, “As we have previously disclosed, we were optimistic that we could offset the anticipated, substantial decline in spending by our largest tier-one service provider customer with a strong second half of the year aided in large part by modest expansion across our other service provider customers and solid growth in our enterprise customer segment. However, we are unable to achieve our targets as service provider capital spending in North America remains under significant pressure, we experience lengthening enterprise sales cycles as our customers grapple with major digital transformation initiatives and related changes to their technology architectures, and we face funding delays for multiple large federal government projects. These dynamics, among others, impacted third-quarter revenue and we expect that to extend into our fourth quarter. Although we have taken certain one-time actions that will reduce our overall third-quarter cost structure by approximately $25 million, primarily through adjustments in variable incentive compensation, the magnitude of the anticipated top-line shortfall will have a tangible impact on our full-year operating profitability and earnings per share performance.”

NETSCOUT also announced that it plans to enter into accelerated share repurchase agreements.