Juniper shares fall on 4Q sales miss

SUNNYVALE, Calif. - Juniper Networks Inc. said Thursday its fourth-quarter profit rose nearly 8 percent, matching Wall Street's forecast, but sales fell short of expectations.

Juniper shares fell $1.37 to $15.60 in extended trading after the results were reported. During the regular trading session, the stock closed down $1.37, or 7.5 percent, at $16.97.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Juniper reported preliminary net income of $132.5 million, or 25 cents per share. In the same quarter a year ago, profit was $122.9 million, or 22 cents a share.

Excluding one-time charges, Juniper earned 32 cents per share. That was in line with the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. Analyst estimates typically exclude one-time charges.

Revenue rose to $923.5 million from $809.2 million, but missed the average analyst forecast of $936.2 million.

The fourth quarter was a rough period for networking companies as technology spending dries up. One competitor — telecommunications equipment maker Nortel Networks Corp. — has filed for bankruptcy protection amid a sharp drop in orders and after years of layoffs and other turnaround efforts.

Additionally, Juniper said in December it discovered that some Japanese distributors were filing inaccurate sales reports. As a result, Juniper has deferred $3 million in sales that came through Japanese distributors. Juniper said it can't tell investors yet how much its sales were through Japanese distributors because it is not finished reviewing those financial records.

For all of 2008, profit jumped 42 percent to $511.7 million, or 93 cents per share. Sales rose 26 percent to $3.57 billion.

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