MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) — Symantec Corp., maker of the Norton antivirus software — reported net income of $184 million for its fiscal fourth quarter, compared with a loss a year earlier, when it wrote down the value of its assets.
Shares of Symantec, whose performance beat Wall Street estimates, rose 70 cents, or 4.3 percent, to $16.95 after hours Wednesday. They had finished regular trading up 3 cents at $16.25.
For the quarter that ended April 2, Symantec's net income totaled $184 million, or 23 cents per share, compared with a loss of $264 million, or 32 cents per share, a year earlier. Symantec reported a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of $413 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009.
Excluding one-time items, it earned 40 cents per share — 3 cents more than analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected on average.
Its revenue rose 4 percent to $1.53 billion. Analysts expected $1.52 billion.
Symantec said its content, subscription and maintenance revenue, which makes up the bulk of its revenue, rose nearly 8 percent to $1.28 billion.
For the full year, Symantec earned $714 million, or 87 cents per share, compared with a loss of $6.79 billion, or $8.17 per share, in fiscal 2009. The company reported $7.4 billion in goodwill impairment charges for all of fiscal 2009.
Revenue fell 3 percent to $5.99 billion from $6.15 billion the prior year.
For the current quarter ending July 2, Symantec predicted it will earn 16 or 17 cents per share, or 35 or 36 cents per share on an adjusted basis. The company expects revenue of $1.48 billion to $1.50 billion.
Analysts are looking for adjusted net income of 36 cents per share on $1.49 billion in revenue.
