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Seattle-based supercomputer company, Cray Inc., posted fourth quarter profits of $20.3 million today and revenue of $267.5 million, beating analyst expectations of $263.4 million. Compared to the fourth quarter of last year, revenue was up $5.6 million.
However, despite bringing in more revenue in Q4, Cray’s net income of $20.3 million, or $0.50 per diluted share, fell short of Wall Street’s estimate of $0.69 per share. At this time last year, net income was substantially higher, at $74.6 million, or $1.84 per diluted share. Cray attributes this disparity in quarterly income to a $33.8 million income tax benefit last year.
For the year, Cray reported revenue of $724.7 million, exceeding last year’s revenue of $561.6 million and beating analyst estimates of $720.6 million. However, as with the quarter, net income was down from the prior year, coming in at $27.5 million, or $0.68 per diluted share, compared to $62.3 million, or $1.54 per diluted share in 2014. The tax benefit from the prior year also played a role in this decline.
“We had an outstanding year, highlighted by record revenue, strong profitability, and excellent growth on the commercial side of our business,” said Peter Ungaro, president and CEO of Cray, in a news release announcing the results. “Our momentum of new awards has also continued…[and] [w]e continue to make significant progress in our three focus areas of supercomputing, storage and analytics, with major refreshes in each planned for 2016.”
In January, the company was awarded a new $36 million contract to upgrade and expand its supercomputers at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). And back in November, it received contracts to provide supercomputers to the University of Warsaw in Poland and the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany.
The company is currently valued at $1.36 billion and its stock is up nearly 5 percent for the year.
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