Ciena's Q3 earnings were down, but not completely out

Ciena's Q3 09 earnings were not stellar, but it appears the company's losses are leveling. The telecom vendor's third-quarter earnings, which it said were down due to service providers delaying network projects, came ahead of Wall Street predictions with a sequential increase in sales. Such project delays have continued to have their greatest effect on the vendor community, where slowing sales have prompted companies such as Ciena to reduce staff and conduct other cost cutting measures.  

During the third quarter, Ciena reported that revenue decreased 35 percent to $164.8 million, although the figure showed a 14 percent sequential improvement when compared to Q3 09 revenue of $144.2 million. Third-quarter net losses were $26.5 million, or $0.29 cents per common share.  

Although the losses weren't as bad as initially expected, Ciena's CEO Gary Smith does not expect to see a hockey stick uptick in carrier spending anytime soon.   

"While we continue to believe our network vision and portfolio align well with our customers' current and future business priorities, customers in general continue to spend cautiously," Smith said in the earnings release. "As a result, we expect our fiscal fourth-quarter revenue will be roughly flat with our fiscal third-quarter level."

For more:
- see Ciena's earnings release here
- Wall Street Journal has this report

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