EMC's Quarterly Sales Jump on Cloud Storage Demand

EMC (NYSE:EMC), the world’s biggest maker of corporate storage equipment, said it reached an all-time sales record in the third quarter that edged just higher than Wall Street’s view, and it maintained its fiscal view despite a bleak take on the broader economy.

The company expects to report a profit for the fiscal year of more than $1.48 a share on sales in excess of $19.8 billion. That is unchanged from its earlier view and just about in line with analyst earnings estimates of $1.48 a share on revenue of $19.85 billion.

The developer and supporter of information and virtual infrastructure technologies and storage systems has been benefiting from the recent explosion in cloud computing and Big Data, which are both based off its technology.

Revenue for the three months ended Sept. 30 was $4.98 billion, up 18% from $4.2 billion a year ago, just above the Street’s view of $4.9 billion. Sales were led by a 16%, year-over-year gain in its storage business, including its high-end Symmetric product portfolio that grew 7%.

“Global customer demand for our industry-leading products and services, which led to record quarterly financial results, is clear evidence that EMC is at the center of the most transformative, disruptive and opportunity-rich trends in IT history,” EMC chief executive Joe Tucci said in a statement.

The Hopkinton, Mass.-based company posted net income of $642.1 million, or 29 cents a share, compared with $489.1 million, or 23 cents a share, in the same quarter last year. Excluding special items, the company earned 37 cents a share, just ahead of average analyst estimates polled by Thomson Reuters of 36 cents a share.

Sales in the U.S. reached a record of $2.7 billion, while its business operations outside of domestic markets climbed 20% from the year-earlier period to $2.3 billion.