Israeli business software and systems company Amdocs Ltd. (Nasdaq: DOX) began 2020 with positive results for the first quarter of its fiscal year, which ended on December 31, 2019. The company published its report yesterday after the close of Wall Street trading. Quarterly revenue was up 3% to $1.04 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share was $1.03 per share, ahead of the analysts' forecasts.
Amdocs provides IT systems and solutions for telecommunications companies. The company's first quarter GAAP operating profit hit $144 million, up from $133 million in the corresponding quarter in the preceding year. GAAP net profit was $116 million, 14% higher than in the corresponding quarter in the preceding year.
Excluding various items, among them stock-based compensation for employees, non-GAAP net profit totaled $144 million, 4.6% more than in the corresponding quarter in the preceding year.
Amdocs generated $164 million in cash flow from current activity in the quarter, and spent $90 million buying back its own shares. The company had $486 million in cash at the end of the quarter, and reported that it would distribute a dividend of $0.328 per share at the end of March.
We are pleased to report a solid start to the fiscal year, with record revenue driven by sequential growth in North America, and healthy year-over-year trends in Europe and the rest of the world," said Amdocs president and CEO Shuky Sheffer. "Profitability was consistent with our operating plan, including investments to support the ramp-up of new activities at AT&T and other customers, and we returned more than 100% of normalized free cash flow to shareholders through our share repurchases and quarterly dividend payment programs."
Sheffer added that Amdocs had won a number of contracts during the quarter, including one with Korea Telecom in 5G mobile telephony. He said that the company was seeing growing market demand for monetization capabilities deployed on the cloud.
"We expect revenue growth to accelerate in the fiscal second half as new customer activity ramps-up. Our visibility is supported by record 12-month backlog of $3.5 billion, which is up 4.5% from a year ago," Sheffer said.
Amdocs is raising its free cash flow guidance for 2020 from $480 million to $500 million, and is predicting 2.5-5.5% revenue growth, slightly more than its 1.5-5.5% earlier guidance. The company's guidance for growth in net profit per share was left unchanged at 3-7%.
Amdocs expects $1.035-1.075 billion in revenue in the second quarter of its 2020 fiscal year, similar to the analysts' forecasts and 1.5-5.4% more than in the corresponding quarter in the preceding year. The company projects $1.03-1.09 in non-GAAP net profit per share, amounting to $140-148 million. The analysts expect net profit per share of $1.11.
Amdocs's market cap on Nasdaq is $9.95 billion.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on February 5, 2020
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2020