The company, which makes proxy appliances for content security, said it is expecting sales for the three months to July 31 to be $21m to $21.1m, the same as its fourth quarter. The firm had previously anticipated growth of between 7% and 8%.
Blue Coat expects its GAAP earnings per share to be between $0.12 and $0.14, not $0.16 to $0.17 as previously guided. Non-GAP EPS will be between $0.16 and $0.18, not $0.20 to $0.21. Its share price took a 24% dive after hours yesterday.
These preliminary results were primarily due to lower-than-expected growth in North American sales, particularly in our federal business which has been declining on an absolute basis over the past several quarters, said CEO Brian NeSmith.
NeSmith added that the company has been targeting bigger sales opportunities, and seeing longer sales cycles as a result. European sales experienced strong growth, he said in a statement.
The announcement comes a month after one of Blue Coat’s partners, Secure Computing Corp, which also sells content filtering software, said its revenue would be less than expected after a 40% shortfall in federal sales.
