Making its first quarterly earnings report since its IPO in December, cable network virtualization vendor Casa Systems reported an 18.9% in fourth-quarter revenue to $118 million, driven by software-based network capacity expansion among cable operator clients.
According to Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold, Wall Street consensus forecast for Casa was in the range of $101.4 million in fourth-quarter revenue.
“We expected seasonal strength in the software portion of Casa's business, which largely stems from capacity additions, but the results were well ahead of expectations at $50 million vs. our $38 million estimate,” Leopold said in a note to investors.
For the year, Casa revenue was $351.6 million, an increase of 11.2% compared to 2016.
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“Our fourth quarter performance was driven by deployment of our DOCSIS 3.1 solutions and DOCSIS 3.0 and DOCSIS 3.1 capacity expansions, as customers continued to add bandwidth to their networks using our solutions,” said Jerry Guo, Casa’s president and CEO, in the company’s earnings release. “Moreover, our unique software platform has enabled us to enter new markets, and I’m pleased to report wireless wins at Telefonica, which is deploying Casa’s 4G Apex small cells and small cell management solution, and at China Mobile and Sprint, which are both deploying Casa’s Axyom small cell core.”
Tweeted SNL Kagan analyst Jeff Heynen: “Casa has historically had strong Q4s. The big question is whether the revenue troughs in subsequent quarters can be minimized.”
As Fierce reported in January, Casa Systems saw its share price spike over 30% after a rocky Dec. 15 IPO.
Shares for the cable network tech company closed at $19.04 in early January Nasdaq trading. Casa initially had planned to conduct its IPO on Dec. 14, selling 8.4 million shares at $15 to $17 each. On weak demand, it scaled back those ambitions, doing the IPO a day later with 6 million shares priced at $13.