STEC Reports Unimpressive Financials

November 13, 2012 (FinancialWire) -- Solid-state drive technologies and solutions company STEC Inc. (STEC - NASDAQ) recently announced its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30th, reporting revenue of $42.1 million, a decrease of 41.9% from $72.5 million for same quarter of 2011.

GAAP diluted loss per share was reported at -$0.42 for the quarter, compared to diluted earnings per share of $0.09 for the third quarter of 2011.

STEC CEO and president Mark Moshayedi commented, "During the third quarter of 2012, we worked towards broadening our customer base to a mixed model of OEM, channel and enterprise end-user customers. Our initiatives to tap the sizable potential of the enterprise markets -- comprised of direct or end-user customers -- are advancing as we have experienced growth in sales emerging from these customers in the third quarter of 2012. This early progress helps to validate the continued investment that we are making in the expansion of our enterprise end-user sales & marketing and channel-support infrastructure. We expect the full benefits of this transition to take place over several quarters.”

"Diversifying our market presence,” Moshayedi continued, “has the potential of expanding our total addressable market, increasing our customer base, and reducing our overall sales cycle, given that enterprise customer qualification timelines tend to be shorter. This transformation will not happen overnight, but we are committed to delivering storage solutions to a broader customer base by leveraging our IP and solid state technology."

STEC officials said the company’s current expectation for the fourth quarter of 2012 are for revenue to range from $36 million to $40 million, and for non-GAAP diluted loss to range from -$0.31 to -$0.35 per share. The company also noted that its projected non-GAAP loss per share results exclude employee stock compensation expense and other items that the company does not consider indicative of its underlying business performance.

STEC Inc. (approx market cap. US$ 194.9 mil.) designs, manufactures and markets enterprise-class solid-state drives (SSDs), flash cards and flash modules for use in high-performance enterprise applications, as well as high-density DRAM modules for networking, communications and industrial applications. The company was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in Santa Ana, California. STEC employs approximately 954 people.