Symantec: Fiscal 4Q15 Financial Results

(in $ million) GAAP	4Q14	4Q15	FY14	FY15
Revenue	1,625	1,518	6,676	6,508
*Growth*		-7%		*-3%*
Net income (loss)	217	176	1,370	1,311

Symantec Corp. reported the results of its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2015, ended April 3, 2015.

Michael A. Brown, president and CEO, said: “Fiscal 2015 was a transformative year for Symantec, as we announced our unified security and information management strategies, delivered more than fifty products, and made the decision to separate Symantec and Veritas into two standalone companies.

“With the progress we made in FY15, our businesses have the necessary focus to thrive and we are already seeing the benefits. Setting aside currency headwinds, continued growth in both implied billings and deferred revenue underscores the momentum in our businesses. Our endpoint protection, data loss prevention, NetBackup appliances and NetBackup software all outperformed the market this quarter.”

Thomas Seifert, EVP and CFO, said: “Symantec returned to growth and expanded operating margin year-over-year in constant currency during the fourth quarter. We continued to improve our cost structure, and over the year delivered more than $150 million of incremental profit from our revenue and efficiency initiatives. Additionally, the Veritas separation is progressing on schedule.”

Comments

Mike. Brown, president and CEO:
"At Veritas, we continue to make progress on our plan to accelerate growth and expand operating margin. Veritas returned to growth in fiscal 2015 with revenue up 4% year-over-year and expanding operating margin from Q1 to Q4. We continue to build momentum in this business with four consecutive quarters of accelerating year-over-year revenue growth to 6% in the fourth quarter, up from 5% in the third quarter.
"Enterprise backup continues to be the largest growth driver for Veritas. NetBackup Appliance grew 46% in fiscal 2015, accelerating to 88% in the fourth quarter. This success was driven by the recent launch of our NetBackup 5330 appliance, which more than doubled the capacity of the prior model, giving us the ability to expand into larger enterprise environments.
"As an example, in the March quarter, we signed a $6 million appliances deal with a major telco provider based on our backup appliances' ease of use and lower total cost of ownership. While our appliance is the fastest growing in the market, we've only penetrated 10% of our installed base. Our NetBackup software also grew above market, achieving growth of 11% in fiscal 2015.
"Additionally, we saw strength in our Archiving and eDiscovery products with Enterprise Vault growing 5% and eDiscovery accelerating its growth to 11% in the fourth quarter."

Thomas Seifert, CFO:
"We are on track to separate Veritas as a standalone company on January 2, 2016.
"Information Management revenue increased 6% to $619 million.
"NetBackup Appliances and software generated an impressive double-digit year-over-year growth. Strength in enterprise backup was offset by continued weakness in Backup Exec and Storage Management.
"We expect revenue to be between $1.5 billion to $1.54 billion [for the June 2015 quarter], representing growth of 1% year-over-year at the midpoint.
"For fiscal 2016, revenue is expected to be between $6.21 billion to $6.35 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 0% to 2% after adjusting for the extra week and foreign currency."