Led by its converged optical sales, Ciena chalks up solid second quarter results

While many vendors have bemoaned the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in their earnings reports, Ciena rose above the storm in its fiscal Q2 earnings.

Ciena topped analyst estimates on revenue by reporting a 3.4% year-over-year increase to $894.1 million for the quarter. Analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research had forecast revenue of $888 million.

For the quarter that ended on May 2, Ciena reported earnings of $91.7 million, or 59 cents per share, which beat the 50-cent estimate of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research, and it was ahead of the $52.7 million, or 33 cents a share, from the same quarter a year ago.

"In this uncertain environment, we delivered industry leading financial performance during our second quarter, including strong revenue and outstanding profitability," said Ciena President and CEO Gary Smith, in a statement. "Our strategy, centered around innovation, diversification and global scale, has resulted in a resilient business capable of navigating challenging times and delivering strong shareholder value over the long-term."

RELATED: Ciena snaps up Centina to improve service providers' OSS

Ciena credited its broad product portfolio for being able to largely withstand the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Ciena said 42.2% of its revenues came from non-telco customers, including 24.1% from webscale companies and 9.5% from MSOs. Ciena's America's sector, which accounted for 77% of its revenue, saw a 6% year-over-year increase in revenue.

Total platform networking revenue increased by  $21.5 million to $718.5 million, with converged packet optical, which was the largest revenue generator for Ciena, rising to $654.3 million for the quarter from $623.9 million a year earlier. 

Ciena reported a decline in global services revenue, which fell to $115.6 million from $120.3 million last year. Ciena's consulting and network design revenue was up to $9.9 million from $1.1 million a year ago. Ciena also reported revenue from its maintenance support and training increased to $71.5 million in Q2, which was up from $68.8 million a year ago.

RELATED: Ciena snaps up Centina to improve service providers' OSS

Ciena's Blue Planet division, which was spun out as its own division early last year, posted a 20% increase in revenues to $15 million. In October, Ciena bought service assurance analytics vendor Centina in order to add its OSS capabilities into Blue Planet's orchestration and automation software for service providers.

Ciena, which has more than 6,300 employees, said that 96% of its employees are working from home due to the coronavirus pandemic. Ciena also said it was well-positioned to work its way through the COVID-19 crises due to its supply chain design and business continuation planning, which minimized disruption to its customers, and its significant IT investment in digital platforms and virtual collaboration tools.