Network security company Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: CHKP) today reported revenue and profit growth for the third quarter of 2012, in line with the analysts' consensus.
Revenue rose 8% to $332.4 million for the third quarter from $308.3 million for the corresponding quarter of 2011. GAAP-based net profit rose 14% to $152.4 million ($0.73 per share) for the third quarter from $134.1 million, and non-GAAP net profit rose 7% to $164.1 million ($0.79 per share) from $152.9 million. The analysts' consensus was earnings per share of $0.78 on $332.4 million revenue.
Deferred revenue rose 11% to $505.9 million at the end of September from $454.5 million a year earlier, and cash flow from operations rose 17% to $180.4 million for the third quarter from $154.5 million for the corresponding quarter. Cash and cash equivalents rose to $3.25 billion at the end of September from $2.78 billion a year earlier.
During the third quarter, Check Point bought back 3.2 million shares for $156.1 million.
Check Point chairman and CEO Gil Shwed said, "Third quarter results continued to be good with healthy growth in enterprise appliance units and software blade sales. Our revenues and earnings per share came in at the upper half of our projections. Geographically, North America continued to deliver great results with double digit growth in product and service revenues."
During the third quarter, Check Point launched its Virtual Systems for private cloud environments and data centers, which can consolidate up to 250 security gateways on a single hardware platform.
Check Point's share price rose 1.9% yesterday to $47.42, giving a market cap of $9.74 billion.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 17, 2012
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