NetApp Slumps on Surprise Weakness

Storage maker NetApp(NTAP) missed Wall Street's revenue forecast in its second-quarter results, released after market close on Wednesday, noting softness in some of its largest customer accounts.

Despite beating the consensus profit estimate, NetApp offered weak guidance for the third quarter. Investors responded negatively to the numbers, pushing its shares down almost 6% in extended trading.The storage specialist brought in revenue of $1.507 billion, up from $1.251 billion in the same period last year, but below the consensus forecast of $1.536 billion. Excluding items, NetApp earned 63 cents a share on net income of $235.5 million, compared to 54 cents a share and $212.2 million in the prior year's quarter. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters were looking for earnings of 59 cents a share.For the coming quarter, NetApp expects revenue between $1.52 billion and $1.61 billion and earnings between 56 cents a share and 60 cents a share. Wall Street was looking for sales of $1.63 billion and earnings of 63 cents a share."In aggregate, we saw strong revenue growth across most areas of our business, offset by some unexpected weakness in a handful of our largest accounts," explained NetApp CEO Tom Georgens, in a statement. NetApp, however, achieved the highest number of net new customer wins in more than two and a half years, he added. >To submit a news tip, send an email to: tips@thestreet.com >To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints