What economic slump? C-Cor continues to rack up success

Cable industry equipment vendor C-Cor.net, seemingly oblivious to the telecommunications industry slump, continued to food numbers for third quarter of its fiscal year this morning and a rosy forecast for the rest of the year.

“We’re almost double from last year on the revenue side,” said David Woodle, C-Cor.net’s chairman-CEO. “It is only the third time in our history that we have exceeded $75 million in revenue in a given quarter.”

Key customers like Adelphia Communications, Charter Communications and AOL Time Warner helped spur revenues. Additionally, Woodle said he expected to see a little comeback by AT&T Broadband above what the company projected.

“We thought AT&T would be maybe 5% [of business] going forward. We see them being 5-10% in the current estimates that we’re giving and we feel that’s very realistic,” Woodle said.

Financial hazards do loom. Adelphia, which has come under some scrutiny for its financial dealings, could have its business altered, although Woodle was confident that orders would continue to be made – and paid. “Adelphia will be, most likely, a 20% customer for us based on what we’re seeing today. They were probably in that range or slightly higher in the past quarter,” Woodle said.

Earnings for the third quarter were $109,000, based on sales of $77.2 million compared to $67.2 million in the previous quarter and $40.1 million for the same period last year, the company reported. The company anticipates fourth quarter FY net sales between $65 million and $75 million.

“We’re at the top end of historic performance in quarter sales and in margins,” said Woodle, pointing out that product margins have been running at 32%.

Business, he said, is coming from traditional cable system rebuilds and upgrades, although the model is shifting slightly.

“We’re seeing more orders where we’re segmenting the system, where we have done rebuilds and we’re asked to come in and provide more transmitters or some nodes,” he said.

The implication, he said, is “there’s not as much labor and construction needed and our products are going for that application slightly more.”

Slightly, but not a lot.

“I wouldn’t say it’s significant yet,” he concluded.