Red Hat Raises Guidance

Red Hat Inc. raised its guidance for the fiscal year as the open-source software provider reported that earnings rose 9.8% in the latest quarter.

For the year ending in February, the Raleigh, N.C.-based company now expects per-share earnings of $1.85 to $1.87 on revenue of $2.034 billion to $2.044 billion, compared with its previous estimate for per-share profit of $1.81 to $1.84 and revenue of $1.99 billion to $2.02 billion.

For the current quarter, the company forecast revenue of $519 million to $523 million, while analysts polled by Thomson revenue of $514 million.

The company, which has reported robust revenue increases lately, is known for its enterprise Linux OpenStack platform. But it has also posted solid growth for its so-called middleware offerings and has expanded its storage technology business.

For the period ended Aug. 31, Red Hat reported a profit of $51.4 million, or 28 cents a share, up from $46.8 million, or 25 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding stock-based compensation and other items, per-share earnings rose to 47 cents from 41 cents. Analysts expected per-share profit of 44 cents.

Revenue increased 13% to $504.1 million. Excluding currency impacts, revenue improved 21%. The company expected revenue of roughly $492 million to $496 million.

Subscription revenue grew 13% to $441.5 million.

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 21, 2015 17:05 ET (21:05 GMT)

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