Symantec plans to switch from its annual product update to one of greater frequency as it faces increasing competitive pressures, the security giant announced on Thursday as part of its first-quarter results.
The company reported a mixed quarterly performance that beat Wall Street earnings expectations but fell short on revenue estimates. Investors pushed Symantec's stock slightly lower in after-hours trading to $22.39 (£12.87) a share from $23.79 a share during the regular close.
Symantec, which historically introduces new consumer products and upgrades in September, will now deliver the products throughout the year. This move comes as the security company seeks to remain competitive amid an increasingly crowded consumer field that will soon include Microsoft's OneCare antivirus, anti-spyware and firewall service offering, which is expected to debut later this year.
"We will refresh the products as we always have, but... we'll do it more than once a year," John Thompson, Symantec chief executive, said during a conference call with analysts. "Our anti-spyware is a good example of this. We could have shipped it earlier, but we had to wait for the packaging that we do with new releases. Instead, we could have done a live update for our anti-spyware."
Spyware has increasingly become a pervasive menace, and industry observers and Symantec's investors have previously questioned how the company will position itself against Microsoft. Symantec's competitors, meanwhile, had come out with their own anti-spyware offerings for consumers, a group that accounts for slightly more than half of Symantec's revenues.
During the quarter that ended 1 July, Symantec reported revenues of $700 million (£400 million), up 26 percent from the previous year. Analysts, however, had expected the company to generate $712 million for the quarter, according to Thomson Financial, which tracks analyst estimates.
Consumer sales accounted for 51 percent of first-quarter revenues and grew 28 percent over last year. Enterprise sales accounted for 49 percent of revenues and increased 23 percent year-on-year.
Symantec, which earlier this month closed its mega-merger with Veritas after the first quarter ended, did not combine the companies' revenues for the quarter just ended, but did share some of the storage company's stand-alone figures for the three-month period.
Veritas reported revenues of $529m in the June quarter, up 9 percent year-on-year. The storage company closed 253 deals that were worth $100,000 or more, of which 19 were for transactions in excess of $1m each.
Symantec, which acquired Veritas in part to land larger deals with corporate customers, secured 274 contracts for deals worth $100,000 or more — of which 15 were for transactions worth more than $1m each. The number of Symantec's large deals increased by 22 percent year-on-year.
In the post-merger environment, customers of the combined company have responded well, Thompson said. He added the company is also moving forward with its integration efforts.
"Our team is focused on innovation and execution," Thomson said.
