Symantec doubles up on results

Antivirus firm Symantec has announced a more-than-doubling of profit for its first quarter - putting to rest some investor concerns about Microsoft's entry into the security space.

Symantec reported a profit of $131m on sales of $577m. This was up from profit of $59m on sales of $391m for the comparable quarter last year.

Shares of Symantec climbed 80 cents, or two per cent, to $43.85 a share in after-hours trading on Wednesday upon the news. In regular trading, the stock quickly fell back. By 15:45 (BST) they were back down to $41.67.

Symantec owed much of its success to its consumer offering, with the impact of Sasser proving to be a major factor in boosting its figures.

At the earnings call, John Thompson, CEO of Symantec said: "[Sasser] added more fuel to our revenue engine in the consumer space than we expected."

But a reliance upon consumer sales can prove a double-edged sword. Many analysts believed Symantec's strength in the consumer market and consequent position in Microsoft's cross-hairs, as the Redmond behemoth plans its security play, has been the reason for a fall in Symantec's share price in recent months.

However, speaking to silicon.com last month, Thompson remained bullish. He said of Microsoft: "The market will acknowledge that you want to buy security products from people who know what they are doing. We've been doing this for years. We don't do game boxes and we don't do operating systems. We do security."

For the current quarter, Symantec said it expects sales of $580m. However, Greg Myers, CFO of Symantec, said profits will be affected slightly this quarter by increased spending, including a ramping up of headcount across the company.

According to Myers, the results showed little sign of the Brightmail acquisition, which was finalised during the quarter.

"Brightmail had very little impact on the quarter at all," said Myers, adding that it won't really kick-in until mid-2005.