Rambus Shares Fall On Disappointing Earnings

(RTTNews) - Technology company Rambus (RMBS) announced a quarterly profit that posted double-digit growth compared to last year. However, the improvement was not as strong as Wall Street had anticipated.

Both earnings and revenues fell short of analysts' expectations. In addition, Rambus provided a disappointing forecast for the current fiscal quarter.

The news of the disappointing results sent the stock tumbling in Monday's after hours trading.

Net income for the third quarter jumped to $182 million, or $1.52 per share. This compared to $5.5 million, or $0.05 per share, in the same period last year.

The net income figure included a large tax-related benefit, which boosted the bottom line by nearly $167 million.

Excluding these one-time items, the company's profit climbed to $17 million, up 14 percent compared to the previous year's third quarter. Earnings per share rose to $0.14 per share compared to $0.13 per share last year.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn $0.15 per share.

The company reported revenues for the quarter of $73.8 million. This was up from $69.7 million in the same period last year. Analysts had projected revenue of $76.2 million.

Rambus said that higher royalty revenue was offset by lower sales of security products.

Looking ahead, the company projected fourth-quarter revenue of between $71 million and $77 million. This estimate assumes that Rambus will be able to sign new patent agreements, the company said.

This range is below the projections most market analysts have put out for the company. The consensus estimate of Wall Street experts was for a top-line result of $83.5 million in the fourth quarter.