Just as it gets ready to put the lid on its Nortel Metro Ethernet Network (MEN) deal, Ciena's shares were down 9.2 percent yesterday when it reported that it failed to meet its sales targets and a wider-than-expected Q1 loss.
During the quarter, Ciena reported $175.9 million in revenue, but suffered non-GAAP losses of $11.4 million, or 12 cents per share. These losses were wider than analyst expectations of 7 cents a share.
Ciena's CEO Gary Smith attributed the lower results to "delays associated with initial deployments of new platforms with certain customers." While Ciena did not reveal what these new platforms were, a story in LightReading theorizes the delays could be related to either its CoreDirector FS upgrade or its next-gen packet optical transport system (POTS), the Ciena 5400, which is slated to be generally available in the first half of this year.
Despite these deployment delays, Smith was upbeat about the company's growth prospects. "While global market conditions still indicate some uncertainty, we see some signs of improvement, particularly in North America," he said.
Excluding the acquisition of Nortel's MEN division, Ciena has forecast revenues between $185 million to $195 million. Analysts forecast $194 million for Ciena's Q2 earnings.
For more:
- Reuters has this article
- LightReading also has this analysis
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Sorry NSN, but Ciena will get Nortel's optical division