Infrastructure solutions company CommScope (COMM) reported net income of $64 million on sales of $935 million in the first quarter of the year, driven by its wireless offerings and strength in the U.S. market.
CommScope’s net income boomed to $64 million, compared to $16 million in the same period last year. Sales were up 16% year-over-year to $935 million, and CommScope added that its first-quarter orders booked were especially robust, up 30% from the first quarter of 2013. Orders were “driven primarily by the wireless segment, with particular strength in North America,” according to the company.
President and CEO Eddie Edwards called the performance “outstanding.”
“We executed well and built upon the positive momentum we created heading into 2014,” Edwards said in a statement, acknowledging wireless’ strong performance and adding that “it was also good to see year-over-year growth in our enterprise segment, which benefited from improved corporate IT investment and our investment in new solutions.”
CommScope’s wireless segment sales were up 26% year-over-year to $627 million. Wireless adjusted operating income rose 63% year over year to $154 million, or 25% of sales.
“Consumers want a high quality mobile broadband network and U.S. wireless operators are investing in our industry-leading cell site and small cell DAS solutions for increased capacity and the densification of their networks,” Edwards said. “Wireless operators outside the U.S. are also in the process of modernizing existing networks and planning for the initial roll out of LTE networks. We believe that CommScope is very well positioned to benefit from these positive global trends.”
In enterprise, segment sales increased 5% from the same period in 2013, to $202 million; notably, this is the segment’s first quarter of year-over-year growth since 2011.
“While corporate IT investment has been cautious over a multi-quarter period, continued bandwidth demand and improving economic conditions have created a better commercial environment,” CommScope said in its statement of results.
Meanwhile, the company’s broadband segment saw sales decline 9% from the first quarter of 2013, although performance improved sequentially.
CommScope estimated that its second quarter 2014 revenues will be between $1.0-1.05 billion.
