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Tech earnings mixed
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March 12, 1998: 5:44 p.m. ET
Oracle beats quarterly target while National Semi comes up short
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Thursday brought a mixed bag of technology earnings with Oracle Corp. beating Wall Street's expectations and National Semiconductor Corp. falling short.
Computer database maker Oracle reported a fiscal third-quarter profit of $215 million, or 22 cents a share on revenues of $1.74 billion compared to a profit of $193 million, or 17 cents a share, on revenues of $1.37 billion a year ago. Last year's results do not include $37 million in acquisition-related charges.
The latest results beat analysts' expectations of 19 cents a share. Oracle (ORCL) shares closed down 1/4 to 27-11/16 before climbing to 29-1/8 in after-hours trading.
For the first nine months of its fiscal year, Oracle earned $410.8 million, or 41 cents a diluted share, on revenues of $4.73 billion, compared to $461.5 million, or 46 cents a diluted share, on revenues of $3.73 billion a year ago.
"We are pleased with the significant progress we've made this quarter proving the company's ability to focus and execute," said Oracle President and Chief Operating Officer Ray Lane.
Oracle said worldwide license and other revenues rose 14 percent in the third quarter over the same period last year, reflecting a sharp rebound from the previous quarter. Oracle's server performance in the Americas region rose 34 percent.
The company said worldwide services continued to reflect strong performance, reporting 41 percent growth in the quarter versus the same period last year.
Last quarter, Oracle stunned the technology industry by reporting weaker-than-expected second quarter profits, reflecting problems in Asia and Europe and weakness in its core database software.
In other earnings news, computer chip maker National Semiconductor Corp. reported a profit of $26.2 million, or 16 cents a diluted share, on revenues of $650.1 million for its fiscal third quarter, compared to a profit of $28.7 million, or 18 cents a diluted share, on revenues of $564.5 million, a year ago.
National's earnings came in below analysts' expectations of 18 cents a share.
Those results exclude a one-time, pre-tax charge of $5.2 million, or 3 cents a share, for acquisition-related research and development.
National (NSM) shares closed down 3/4 to 20-1/4 in New York. In after-hours trade, the stock slipped another point to 20-1/4.
Brian Halla, president and chief executive officer of National Semiconductor, blamed the disappointing earnings on economic trouble in Asia and the inability to meet demand for Cyrix's Media GX processors, its competitor to Intel's Pentium II.
"We are now shipping increasing volumes of higher-speed MMX-compatible MediaGx integrated processors and we are confident that we will continue to meet customer demand for these products through the fourth quarter," Halla said.
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