What led to the stock pressure: Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS) stock lost over 6.1% in the pre market session of January 24th, 2019 (Source: Google finance) as the company issued guidance that missed Wall Street expectations but beat earnings expectations for the fourth quarter. The company has reported fourth-quarter 2018 net income of $165.7 million compared with losses of $283.9 million in the year-ago period. The subscription mix accelerated to over 50% of product bookings in the quarter, up from 30% in the fourth quarter of last year. For full year, subscription bookings accounted for 42% of total product bookings. The company continue to prioritize SaaS, which has grown to more than $270 million in 2018, which is approximately 60% of the subscription revenue and growing faster than total subscription revenue. In the fourth quarter, SaaS revenue grew to $78 million, about 10% of total revenue.
Networking revenue pressure: CTXS in the fourth quarter of FY 18 has reported the adjusted earnings per share of $1.67, while adjusted revenue growth of 3 percent to $801.8 million in the fourth quarter of FY 18, beating the analysts’ estimates for revenue of $791.3 million. The revenue grew driven by subscription revenue growth of 45% from the year ago period, which accelerated from the third quarter. Workspace revenue of $557 million increased 6% from the year ago period and increased 6% for the full year. Workspace subscription revenue grew 35% in the fourth quarter. Within workspace, content collaboration revenue increased 4% year-over-year to $47 million in the quarter. Networking revenue of $206 million has declined 4% year-over-year due to the cyclical ordering patterns at the large hyper-scale providers. The decline in the SSP business has negatively impacted networking revenue by approximately $20 million in the fourth quarter as compared to the year ago period.
For the first quarter, analysts expects earnings of $1.37 a share on revenue of $727 million. The analysts expect full-year adjusted earnings of $6.06. Citrix expects adjusted first-quarter earnings of $1.15 to $1.20 a share and full-year adjusted earnings of $6.
Citrix has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.35 per share payable on March 22, 2019 to all shareholders of record as of the close of business on March 8, 2019. During the fourth quarter of 2018, Citrix has repurchased $380 million of shares, completing its commitment from the fourth quarter of 2017 to return $2 billion to shareholders, and further returned $47 million to shareholders through its quarterly dividend