Ciena rises on larger 3rd-quarter profit and 3th-quarter sales estimate; company names COO

Shares of Ciena Corp. rose Thursday after the developer of high-speed networking technology reported a larger third-quarter profit and gave a solid forecast for the fourth quarter.

Ciena said its net income grew 46 percent to percent to $23.6 million, or 19 cents per share. Excluding items like amortization costs and stock-option expenses, the company said it earned 37 cents per share. It posted revenue of $602.9 million in the period, essentially unchanged from a year ago. The company's fiscal third quarter ended on July 31.

Analysts expected adjusted net income of 34 cents per share and $627.8 million in revenue, according to Zacks Investment Research.

For the current quarter, Ciena said it expects revenue in the range of $665 million to $700 million. Analysts surveyed by Zacks had expected $654.5 million on average.

Ciena shares added 62 cents, or 2.8 percent, to $23.11 in afternoon trading. The stock is now up almost 19 percent in 2015.

The Hanover, Maryland-based company also said Francois Locoh-Donou will become its chief operating officer on Nov. 1. Locoh-Donou, 43, has been in charge of Ciena's global products group since August 2011. Ciena said the COO position is newly created, and Locoh-Donou will report directly to President and CEO Gary Smith.

Smith, 54, has been Ciena's CEO since May 2001.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on CIEN at http://www.zacks.com/ap/CIEN

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Keywords: Ciena, Earnings Report