Ciena (CIEN) Stock Falls 6% After Earnings Beat — Here’s Why

TLDR

• Ciena reported Q2 adjusted EPS of $1.64, beating the $1.46 forecast, with revenue up 40% to $1.57 billion
• Despite beating on both earnings and revenue, CIEN stock fell 5.7% in premarket trading
• Ciena raised its full-year revenue guidance to $6.3 billion, above the prior range top of $6.3 billion
• The drop came on a rough day for optical networking stocks, with Coherent, Marvell, and Corning all falling
• The sector had rallied hard on Tuesday after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called Marvell the next “trillion-dollar company”

Ciena (CIEN) stock dropped 5.7% in premarket trading Thursday after the company posted fiscal second-quarter earnings that topped Wall Street’s expectations on both the top and bottom lines.

Ciena Corporation, CIEN

Adjusted EPS came in at $1.64, up from $0.42 a year ago and well above the $1.46 analysts expected. Revenue hit $1.57 billion, a 40% jump year over year and ahead of the $1.51 billion consensus estimate.

So why is the stock down? It comes down to guidance — and expectations that were sky-high after a 749% gain over the past 12 months.

Ciena raised its full-year revenue guidance to $6.3 billion, plus or minus $100 million. That’s up from the prior range of $5.9 billion to $6.3 billion. Analysts had penciled in $6.18 billion, so the raise technically clears the bar — but only just.

For Q3, Ciena guided for revenue of $1.625 billion, plus or minus $50 million.

Optical Networking Stocks Already Under Pressure

The report landed on a bad day for the sector. Optical networking names were broadly selling off Thursday: Lumentum fell 4.2%, Coherent dropped 5.6%, Marvell was down 6.5%, and Corning fell 4.5%.

Ciena’s revenue breakdown for the quarter showed optical networking accounted for $1.1 billion, or 70% of total revenue. Routing and switching contributed $174 million, while platform software and services brought in $93.9 million.

Margins Hold Up as AI Demand Drives Growth

GAAP gross margin came in at 44.0%, with an adjusted gross margin of 44.9%. Adjusted operating income was $307.1 million, representing a 19.5% adjusted operating margin. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter reached $341.8 million.

Management pointed to AI-related networking demand as the key driver behind the revenue growth, along with continued operating leverage supporting margin expansion.

Two customers each represented more than 10% of quarterly revenue, together accounting for 34% of total revenue for the period.

Ciena also repurchased around 200,000 shares for $83.1 million during the quarter under its existing $1 billion buyback program.

GAAP diluted net income per share was $1.49, with net income of $218.2 million for the quarter.

Days sales outstanding came in at 71, and inventory turns were 3.6 for the period.

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