Red Hat releases quarterly report, shares down 2.6 percent in the afterhours

Red Hat, Inc. shares were down 2.6 percent in the afterhours trading Monday after the company released the report on second quarter ended August 31. Red Hat missed on the analyst estimates by a penny on earning per share.

The report was bittersweet for investors as the EPS lagged behind both last year’s earning and analysts’ speculation. However, the revenues were up $1.5 Million from pre-calculations.

The enterprise-solution providers made earning of 28 cents a pop, down one cent from the year-ago quarter and the same from experts’ estimate. The revenues were recorded were 15 percent up from last year at $323.6 Million. Analysts had a shy at the revenues of $322.1 million.

The mixed basket had the same response from investors. The shares were down 2.6 percent on Monday. One of the main reasons for such response was the lacklustre guidance report on the current quarter.

Analysts are of the opinion that Red Hat will make sales in tune of $340.1 Million with an EPS of 30 cents. However, the company suggested revenues to come in the range of $336 to $339 Million with earnings per share, minus items, of 28 to 29 cents.

One of the major sales cog in the Red Hat machine is the Linux subscription. Many companies are moving from older Unix to more cost-effective Linux software. The migration to Linux earns the company in millions every quarter. Some of tech gurus say that sales on Red Hat’s Linux-based software solutions are expected to bloom.

“The Unix-to-Linux migration has been a big growth driver for this company,” Bhavan Suri, an analyst for William Blair & Co. said. “We are probably in inning two or three, so the core business can grow in the mid-teens for the foreseeable future.”

However, some of the more sceptic critics say that market is already saturated and the sales are expected to decelerate in the coming months, coupled with the bad economy.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Sep 26 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.