Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ: STX) reported its fiscal second-quarter before the markets opened Friday. The company said it had $0.82 in earnings per share (EPS) on $3.0 billion in revenue. That compared to consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters of $0.71 in EPS on revenue of $2.94 billion. In the same period of the previous year, Seagate posted EPS of $1.35 and $3.70 billion in revenue.
During this quarter, the company paid cash dividends of $188 million and repurchased roughly 2.9 million ordinary shares for $107 million.
The company did not issue guidance in this release, so as far as we are concerned this report is still incomplete.
On the books, cash, equivalents and short-term investments totaled approximately $1.3 billion at the end of the quarter, compared to 2.28 billion a year ago.
Steve Luczo, Seagate’s chairman and CEO, commented on earnings:
Our results this quarter reflect the achievement of many of our operational goals, including improved profitability in our product portfolio and effective cost controls. Seagate sits in a favorable position as a leading storage solutions provider and we continue to believe that the long-term prospects for storage growth are strong. We are confident we have the right strategy and portfolio to continue delivering market-leading value to customers and generating strong returns for our investors through financial discipline.
So far in 2016, Seagate has underperformed the broad markets, with the stock down 27% to Thursday’s close. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock was down over 50%.
Shares of Seagate were last seen trading up more than 8% at $29.06, with a consensus analyst price target of $37.87 and a 52-week trading range of $26.25 to $63.39.
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