Ruckus Wireless, Inc. (RKUS) had solid fourth-quarter growth that met or exceeded its guidance, and company executives noted particular success in diversifying its customer base, while expressing optimism about the market opportunities ahead — including the small cell arena.
Revenue for the fourth quarter of 2013 was $73 million, up 17.5% year-over-year, while full-year revenue jumped 22.6% to $263.1 million. Net income in the quarter dropped from $1.9 million during the same period last year to $0.7 million, and full-year net income was just $1.8 million, compared to $31.7 million in 2012.
Still, the company’s stock ended Wednesday up more than 5% from its opening share price as investors reacted to the company’s enthusiasm regarding its new products, progress in 2013, and the strength of the Wi-Fi market opportunity. Ruckus offered guidance for total first-quarter 2014 revenue in the range of $71 million-$74 million.
“I am excited to report that Q4 was another quarter of positive momentum for Ruckus. We performed well in all facets of our business and our financial results reflect our execution and strong position in the market,” said Selina Lo, president and CEO of Ruckus. “Looking back at 2013, we continued to lay a solid foundation for future growth for our company. We doubled our service provider customer base and increased our enterprise end customer count by over 50% in 2013. We have launched a number of new products, the market remains robust, and we see substantial business opportunity ahead of us.”
Revenues in the Americas grew more than 35% compared to the same period last year. Lo said that during the fourth quarter alone, Ruckus added 22 new service provider end customers to bring its service provider customer base to more than 140. Ruckus also added about 3,100 more new end customers overall, bringing it to a total customer base of more than 33,000 worldwide. The company also started shipping its first 802.11ac AP during the fourth quarter and launched its SmartCell Insight analytics engine for service providers.
Speaking to analysts, Lo said that the company is broadening its penetration in vertical markets including warehouse logistics (such as the recent win from Kawasaki Motors), retail and large public venues. She said that cable companies outside North America are increasing Wi-Fi deployments, as well as Ruckus selling to wireless ISPs that offer managed services for enterprises and large public venues.
Lo also mentioned that the company is working with an existing customer for a new small cell deployment project in which “thousands of Ruckus APs” are being installed side-by-side with LTE small cells on city streets.
“The [mobile network operators] have started doing trials or small deployments of small cells,” Lo said. “In every small cell deployment, Wi-Fi is going to be a component — so we are very optimistic about that.”
Earlier this week, Ruckus announced a new cloud-based location-based service solution for Wi-Fi called Smart Positioning Technology, or SPoT.
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