NetApp: Fiscal 1Q10 Financial Results

NetApp, Inc. reported results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2010, which ended July 31, 2009. Revenues for the first fiscal quarter of 2010 were $838 million, down 4% compared to revenues of $869 million for the same period a year ago.

For the first fiscal quarter of 2010, GAAP net income was $52 million, or $0.15 per share compared to GAAP net income of $35 million, or $0.10 per share for the same period in the prior year. Non-GAAP net income for the first fiscal quarter of 2010 was $76 million, or $0.22 per share, compared to non-GAAP net income of $76 million, or $0.22 per share for the same period a year ago.

"Given the economic backdrop, NetApp performed well in the first quarter. With year over year revenue growth roughly flat on a constant currency basis, our revenue performance clearly outpaced the storage industry at large," said Tom Georgens, president and chief executive officer. "Our operating income and operating margin both increased year over year, and we produced our highest gross margin percentage in over five years."

"Today we are also announcing that Tom Georgens, NetApp’s president and chief operating officer, is succeeding me as CEO in the culmination of a management succession process. Over the past four years, he has proven his leadership capabilities in both strategy development and day-to-day operations," said Dan Warmenhoven, executive chairman. "His appointment represents a continuity in leadership at NetApp. The company is well positioned and I look forward to supporting Tom as he leads NetApp to the next stages of growth."

Outlook

• Given the reduced visibility caused by the recent changes in the macroeconomic environment, NetApp will not be providing revenue guidance for the second quarter of fiscal year 2010.
• NetApp estimates non-GAAP gross margins for the second quarter of fiscal year 2010 to be between 62.5% and 63.0%.
• NetApp estimates non-GAAP operating expense levels for the second quarter of fiscal year 2010 to be in a range around $425 million.
• NetApp estimates non-GAAP other income for the second quarter of fiscal year 2010 to remain at similar levels to those reported in the first quarter of fiscal year 2010.

Quarterly Highlights
In the first quarter of fiscal year 2010, NetApp introduced several new products, solutions, and partner program enhancements to help customers transform their data center architectures to achieve greater storage efficiency, power, and space savings through innovative data management techniques. NetApp also received numerous industry accolades, including seven global awards for being one of the best places to work.

For the quarter, NetApp customers continue to adopt deduplication at a rapid pace. With NetApp’s technology, customers are able to eliminate redundant data across all tiers of storage, allowing them to combat data proliferation while creating a more efficient storage infrastructure. More than 7,200 NetApp customers have activated deduplication on over 37,000 systems, representing 514PB in usable storage capacity.

During the quarter, NetApp introduced System Manager to expand its manageability software offerings with a solution that enables storage experts and non-storage experts to easily leverage NetApp’s proven storage efficiency technologies, such as deduplication and thin provisioning, to achieve greater cost savings and performance improvements. In addition, NetApp’s existing manageability products, which include Operations Manager, Protection Manager, and Provisioning Manager, now support a wider range of NetApp storage efficiency features. This enables customers managing a large number of NetApp systems to automatically configure and deploy different storage efficiency technologies across their entire enterprise environment.

This quarter, NetApp announced the availability of the first consolidated reference guide for a 2,000-seat pool of desktops (POD)-based architecture to help customers deploy VMware View on NetApp and Cisco Nexus infrastructures. The guide provides customers with the framework to deploy their own integrated desktop virtualization solutions quickly and cost-effectively and to easily scale incrementally to meet ever-changing business needs.

NetApp also unveiled new program enhancements for its reseller partners. The NetApp Partner Program, formerly known as the VIP Program, continues to build on the channel program initiatives for which NetApp has become known over the years, with new investments in infrastructure and enablement tools to help make doing business with NetApp easier for partners. In addition, the NetApp Partner Program now officially encompasses all indirect selling partner types, including NetApp’s OEM partners, to align all indirect efforts under one global program. The new program enhancements include NetApp Field Portal, Campaign Express, and the NetApp GetSuccessful Partner Enablement Program.

Separately, NetApp also offered channel resellers specialized training and accreditation for Microsoft’s virtualization environments by expanding its Virtualization Specialization Program to include Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V technology. Now NetApp resellers can provide their customers with greater value and expertise with Hyper-V and NetApp solutions.