[06-11-12] Comtech<\/b> easily topped consensus revenue forecasts of $98 million in its 2012 third quarter, reporting a little less than $100 million in revenue from increasing strength in the company\u2019s RF amplifier business, according to its latest financial results issued June 8.<\/p>\n
Comtech\u2019s RF segment broke a 10-quarter streak of year-over-year revenue declines in the third quarter, growing 22 percent to $28.1 million. Its EBIT margins improved an impressive 9.2 percent, compared to analysts\u2019 forecasts of 6.2 percent, representing the segment\u2019s best performance in two years.
\nAnalysts, however, were not completely satisfied by Comtech\u2019s overall results.
\n Raymond James<\/b> Analyst Chris Quilty said he was concerned with the company\u2019s persistent weakness in its telecom business, with sales declining 23 percent year-over-year to $48 million. \u201cOur forecast was $51.2 million,\u201d Quilty told Satellite TODAY Insider<\/i>. \u201cThat reflects a significant year-over-year decline in Comtech\u2019s over-the-horizon (OTH) microwave systems and a modest decline in the earth station product line. Gross margins in the telecom segment also were flat sequentially, but EBIT margins declined by more than seven percentage points due to the sharp falloff in sales.\u201d
\n While disappointed with the 2012 third quarter performance of Comtech\u2019s core growth segment, Quilty said he was encouraged by the improved order trends for both Earth station products and the RF business. \u201cThe bottom line, however, is that we expect the stock to trade sideways due to essentially unchanged guidance,\u201d he added.
\n Comtech Mobile Data revenues were approximately 4 percent above analysts\u2019 projections at $23.6 million, reflecting follow-on orders from the U.S. Department of Defense and a sharp decline in the microsatellite business. The unit\u2019s EBIT margins declined to a two-year low of 11.2 percent due to lower volumes.
\n Comtech reported a positive book-to-bill order ratio in both its Earth station product line and RF Amplifiers, with an 8.8 percent improvement in its backlog to $137 million.
\n Comtech President and CEO Fred Kornberg highlighted the improving order trend in the Earth station product line and hinted at the possibility of a large OTH order in the fourth quarter. \u201cAlthough market conditions remain challenging, we posted solid results in the third quarter,\u201d Kornberg said in a statement. \u201cDuring the quarter, we achieved our highest level of quarterly bookings in fiscal 2012 and continue to focus on our long-term growth plans.\u201d
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[06-11-12] Comtech easily topped consensus revenue forecasts of $98 million in its 2012 third quarter, reporting a little less than $100 million in revenue from increasing strength in the company\u2019s RF amplifier business, according to its latest financial results issued June 8. Comtech\u2019s RF segment broke a 10-quarter streak of year-over-year revenue declines in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82974"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}