Ciena Stock Gains Aftermarket On Q1 Results Beat, But Retail’s Still Bearish

Shares of Ciena Corp. (CIEN) gained 4% in Tuesday’s after-hours trade as the company’s first-quarter results surpassed Wall Street expectations.

Ciena reported earnings per share (EPS) of $0.64 during Q1, beating an estimated $0.41 and more than doubling from $0.27 during the same period a year earlier.

The company’s revenue stood at $1.07 billion, edging past Wall Street’s expectations of $1.05 billion. On a year-over-year basis, Ciena’s topline grew by over 17%.

Strong demand in the cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) segments aided Ciena’s growth during the quarter.

“As the global leader in high-speed connectivity, we are incredibly well positioned to benefit from the global investment in networks to scale for cloud and AI,” said CEO Gary Smith.

He expressed optimism about Ciena’s growth prospects in the fiscal year 2025, adding that the company witnessed “strong momentum” across segments, with “positive demand dynamics.”

The company noted that it is aware of potential disruptions due to tariffs but added that bandwidth demand will continue to grow.

Ciena’s Q2 guidance pegs revenue in the range of $1.05 billion and $1.13 billion – its midpoint of $1.09 billion is higher than the consensus estimate of $1.07 billion.

The networking systems and software provider expects fiscal year 2025 revenue to grow between 8% and 11%, with a bias towards the high end.

Despite the earnings beat and optimistic guidance, retail sentiment on Stocktwits around Ciena remained in the ‘bearish’ territory, even though message volumes soared to ‘extremely high’ levels.

Ciena’s stock has declined nearly 25% year-to-date, but its one-year performance is relatively better, with gains of over 24%.

FinChat data shows that of 15 brokerage recommendations, there are five ‘Buy', four ‘Outperform,’ and six ‘Hold’ ratings. The average price target is $87.93, implying a 37% upside from current levels.

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