Juniper Reports Steady Q1 Growth, But Warns Of Slow Enterprise Sales

For its fiscal first quarter of 2013, Juniper reported a revenue of $1.06 billion, up 3 percent year-over-year but down 7 percent compared to the previous quarter. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company also reported a GAAP net income of $91 million, up significantly from the $16.3 million it reported during the same period last year.

These results, like those from Juniper's previous fiscal quarter, suggest the networking vendor is finding its footing again after coming off of a challenging 2012. In October, Juniper shed roughly 500 jobs from its workforce as part of a broader restructuring initiative, adding to the several hundred jobs it already eliminated in 2011.

[Related: Juniper Unveils New Security, SDN Offerings For Service Providers ]

But according to Juniper CEO Kevin Johnson, Juniper's financial standing in the first quarter of 2013 is one that speaks to progress.

"We are off to a good start in 2013, with strength in key markets and some signs of improving demand trends," Johnson said during a conference call Tuesday announcing Juniper's results. "To be sure, there are headwinds in certain areas of our business, but overall we executed well on the priorities we outlined last quarter."

In the first quarter, Juniper's Platform Systems Division (PSD) unit pulled in a revenue of roughly $809 million, up from the $765 million in revenue it brought in during the first quarter of 2012. Both Juniper's routing and switching revenues were up year-over-year, pulling in $488 million and $131 million, respectively.

Earlier this month, Juniper unveiled its new EX9200 core switch for data centers and enterprise campuses. The new switch, which is being aimed largely at customers embracing the burgeoning software-defined networking (SDN) trend, is based on the Juniper One programmable application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a feature Juniper said lets the switch easily accommodate new networking protocols without requiring users to rip and replace their existing networking gear.

Despite the arrival of EX9200, Juniper told CRN earlier this month that it's still fully committed to its EX8200 switch and its QFabric data center system. On the conference call Tuesday, Johnson reiterated this, emphasizing that EX9200 is meant to preserve more traditional two-tiered networking architectures, while QFabric is separately optimized for single-tier or flattened data center architectures.

Meanwhile, Juniper's Software Solutions Division (SSD) in the first quarter saw a revenue of $250 million, which was down from the $266 million it reported during the same period last year. Juniper's SSD segment includes its security products, such as its SRX line and firewalls.

The majority of Juniper's first-quarter revenue stemmed from its service provider segment, where it pulled in $712 million, up from $685 million in the same period last year. Juniper's enterprise revenue remained flat year-over-year, hovering around $346 million.

Looking ahead, Juniper said it expects its second-quarter revenue to fall somewhere between $1.07 billion and $1.1 billion, anticipating "continued weakness in the enterprise customer spending environment."

PUBLISHED APRIL 23, 2013