Shares of Ciena Corporation CIEN scaled a new 52-week high of $28.17 in yesterday’s trading session, before closing a tad lower at $27.38 for a healthy one-year return of 15.3%.
Growth Drivers
By expanding beyond its core optical networking expertise, Ciena has successfully extended its customer base and thereby, grown its addressable market. The company’s focus on helping carriers transition to next generation networks places it in one of the fastest growing segments of the telecommunications market. Moreover, the company has reported a significant rise in the number of customers who prefer its bundled solutions rather than individual products. This is expected to increase customer engagement as well as sales leading to a recurring revenue stream. The company’s stackable data center interconnect platform, WaveServer, is trending well and is expected to be a key growth driver going ahead.
Ciena’s revenues are expected to benefit from rising demand for packet-optical transport and switching products, integrated network and service management software. The company has been diversifying its footprint in data-center connectivity. This has enhanced its reach into a broader end-to-end optical and data-equipment market.
The company is increasingly investing in the data and optical fiber market in order to cash in on the tremendous growth opportunities presented by rising bandwidth demand from network service providers. Moreover, network upgrades by telecom carriers to meet increasing demand bodes well for the company’s long-term growth prospects. Currently, the company is one of the leading suppliers of 40G and 100G optical transport technology.
In addition, the company is making efforts to expand its Web Scale IT Architecture in the enterprise market by launching products like new chipsets, metro architecture and mobile backhaul solutions. Fiber Deep technology represents a big opportunity for the company driven by the strong adoption of its products among all major cable operators in the global market. We believe that Ciena’s strong product portfolio will boost its top-line growth over the long run.
With continued growth impetus and favorable growth dynamics, the Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock has the potential for further price appreciation and looks poised to touch new highs.
Stocks to Consider
Some better-ranked stocks in the broader industry are Ribbon Communications Inc. RBBN, sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), and Clearfield, Inc. CLFD and QUALCOMM Incorporated QCOM, both carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Ribbon Communications has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 12%. It delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 168.1% in the trailing four quarters.
Clearfield delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 52.8% in the trailing four quarters.
QUALCOMM has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 10.9%. It delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 19.8% in the trailing four quarters.
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