Juniper Networks posted strong Q2 2021 results, with revenue rising 8% year-on-year despite challenges associated with a global semiconductor shortage.
The company reported revenue of $1.17 billion in Q2, up from $1.08 billion, with net income of $62 million inching up compared to $61.2 million in the year-ago period. The revenue figure was also higher than the $1.1 billion the company posted in Q2 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic.
During an earnings call, CFO Ken Miller said the company “experienced record levels of product orders” during the quarter, attributing this in part to “industry supply chain challenges that are causing certain customers to place orders early.” But he added that even after adjusting for the early orders “total product orders are estimated to have grown mid-teens year-over-year,” with growth across all products and verticals.
He added the company recently increased pricing “for a good percentage of our products” in an attempt to offset some of the pressure it’s experiencing due to the supply chain situation. However, he said it will take some time for the positive impact from this change to flow through to results as “we do have a fair amount of backlog that was on previous pricing levels that still need to kind of ship.”
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Revenue from its automated WAN products fell 3% to $396.1 million, but Miller attributed the slide to “the timing of shipments” impacted by supply chain issues and noted orders in this segment actually grew year-on-year. Sales of its Cloud-Ready Data Center and AI-driven Enterprise solutions each rose 28% to $201.9 million and $195.1 million, respectively. Hardware Maintenance and Professional Services revenue was $379.2 million, up from $369.2 million.
By vertical, Enterprise revenue was up 12% to $408 million, with Cloud also growing 12% to $320.6 million. Service Provider revenue rose nearly 2% to $443.7 million.
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Juniper CEO Rami Rahim highlighted growing adoption of its 400-gig offerings, noting it now has more than 200 wins spanning major Service Provider and Cloud accounts and expects deployments to begin later this year. He added it is “optimistic about our 5G metro opportunity,” stating “we're seeing healthy customer interest in our new metro portfolio, and we expect to continue to introduce new solutions over the next 18 months that should further enhance our ability to succeed in this market.”
Rahim said Juniper now expects to grow its business 6% for the full year 2021, raising its prospects from an earlier forecast of 4% to 5% growth given in Q1.