Network Appliance has reported results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2008. Revenues for the third fiscal quarter were US$884.0 million, an increase of 21% compared to revenues of US$729.3 million for the same period a year ago and an increase of 12% compared to US$792.2 million in the prior quarter.
For the third fiscal quarter, GAAP net income was US$101.8 million, or US$0.29 per share compared to GAAP net income of US$66.5 million, or US$0.17 per share for the same period in the prior year.
Non-GAAP2 net income for the third fiscal quarter was US$131.7 million, or US$0.37 per share, compared to non-GAAP net income of US$111.1 million, or US$0.29 per share for the same period a year ago.
Revenues for the first nine months of the current fiscal year totalled US$2.4 billion, compared to revenues of US$2.0 billion for the first nine months of the prior fiscal year, an increase of 18% year over year.
GAAP net income for the first nine months of the current fiscal year totaled US$219.9 million, or US$0.60 per share, compared to GAAP net income of $208.1 million, or US$0.53 per share for the first nine months of the prior fiscal year.
Non-GAAP net income for the first nine months of the current fiscal year totaled US$324.1 million, or US$0.89 per share, compared to non-GAAP net income of US$316.5 million, or US$0.81 per share for the first nine months of the prior fiscal year.
“By providing customers with the best value in the industry, NetApp again achieved record financial results this quarter,” said Dan Warmenhoven, chief executive officer.
“Through our efforts to increase our field coverage, expand our product portfolio and diversify our revenue streams, NetApp continues to grow significantly faster than the markets we serve.”
Outlook
NetApp expects revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2008 to be between US$915.0 million and US$945.0 million, with year-over-year growth of approximately 14% to 18% and sequential growth of approximately 3.5% to 7%
Including the effect of SFAS123(R) and with current information and assumptions, the company estimates that the fourth quarter fiscal year 2008 GAAP earnings per share will be approximately US$0.23 to US$0.25 per share
NetApp expects fourth quarter fiscal year 2008 non-GAAP earnings per share to be approximately US$0.35 to US$0.37 per share
Quarterly highlights
During the third quarter of fiscal year 2008, NetApp broadened its footprint in the high-end data centre market with the introduction of the new NetApp FAS6000 and V6000 series systems.
The new solutions help maximise application-level availability and high storage utilisation to reduce power, space, and cooling costs. These features, coupled with the NetApp unified storage architecture, offer good business value for enterprise customers.
NetApp also set a new standard for performance this quarter, proving its systems provide greater value for customer’s data centers, by releasing the independently audited Storage Performance Benchmark-1st (SPC-1) performance results.
During the quarter, NetApp won several awards for its product innovations. In the United States, the NetApp FAS2020 was named best unified storage solution of the year, marking the third time in the last four years that NetApp has been honoured by InfoWorld with a Technology of the Year award.
NetApp also won seven recent awards in China for its FAS, NAS, and disaster recovery solutions. The NetApp FAS2000 was named Product of the Year by Dostor.com and Editor’s Choice for 2007 by both China Information World and China Partner World.
The NetApp FAS6080 was named Product of the Year by China Computerworld and Editor’s Choice by Smart Partner. China Computerworld also awarded NetApp with Solution of the Year for its disaster recovery offerings.
From a market perspective, NetApp gained share in both the storage software and hardware markets, as reported in IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker Q3 20073 and Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker Q3 2007.
NetApp also grew faster than the networked storage market (which includes SAN, NAS, and iSCSI) both sequentially and year over year, in both capacity shipped and revenue.
NetApp grew FC SAN revenue at more than four times the rate of the overall FC SAN market and grew FC SAN capacity at twice the rate of the overall market. This marks the 15th consecutive quarter that NetApp FC SAN revenue and capacity grew faster than the market.
Demonstrating this market traction, NetApp in the third quarter reached a significant company milestone by achieving 15,000 production deployments of NetApp SAN solutions.
NetApp also was named by Fortune magazine as one of the 100 best companies to work for - for the sixth consecutive year. This year, NetApp ranked number 14 on the list as a result of its ability to deliver world-class solutions, while providing employees with a workplace environment that encourages creativity, innovation, team building, and leadership.
And finally, NetApp was honoured this quarter by the California Integrated Waste Management Board’s Waste Reduction Awards Program (WRAP) for its outstanding actions to reduce waste locally and minimise its global impact on the environment.