NETGEAR: booming demand for home network upgrades started in March

Consumers in the U.S. rushed to upgrade their home office set-ups beginning in March.

NETGEAR reported Q2 rvenue of $280.1 million, an increase of 21.3% from the comparable prior year quarter. Second quarter 2020 GAAP operating income was $8.9 million, or 3.2% of net revenue, as compared to operating income of $0.3 million, or 0.1% of net revenue, in the comparable prior year quarter.

"Patrick Lo, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NETGEAR, commented, “The NETGEAR team navigated challenging conditions to accommodate the robust end demand we saw during the quarter, all while working remotely. Driven by the CHP side of the business, we achieved revenue growth of 21% and more than doubled our operating profit over the prior year. The surge in demand that began in March continued throughout the entire quarter and resulted in strong growth in both the retail and service provider channels for the CHP business. The work-from-home transition taking place worldwide is driving the adoption of high performance WiFi at home as an indispensable necessity and, as the leader in WiFi 6 technology, we stand well positioned to enable this new reality. In conjunction with the increased penetration of high-end WiFi 6 mesh systems and routers into the market, we accelerated the acquisition of new service subscribers, particularly in cybersecurity protection and parental control services, growing our paid subscriber base 28% sequentially and putting us on a trajectory to exceed our goal of doubling our subscriber count in 2020.”

Mr. Lo continued, “As many employees continue to work from home today, companies are growing increasingly confident that their workforce can be productive remotely and are beginning to measure the positive aspects of remote work. This is driving a consensus that remote work will be a larger part of the landscape even as the pandemic eventually eases. As a result, we see strong demand for high performance home WiFi continuing to fuel our revenue growth at least through the rest of this year. While providing an unexpected tailwind for CHP, the pandemic has at the same time created a headwind for SMB."