Ribbon Communications Profits Amid Restructuring Initiative

Ribbon Communications reported $49 million in profit and an increase in revenue for second-quarter 2019 after rolling out a restructuring initiative, including layoffs, designed to further streamline its operations and improve delivery to customers.

Revenue totaled $145 million, compared to $137 million for the year-ago quarter. Ribbon also reported a $20 million net loss for the year-ago quarter.

Ribbon’s Fritz Hobbs

“Our second quarter financial results and improving profitability demonstrate the progress we are making,” said Fritz Hobbs, Ribbon‘s president and CEO. “We are seeing good progress and early validation of our business strategy, which is focused on closely aligning to the needs of our customers and partners with our comprehensive suite of software product and service offerings.”

During the quarter, Ribbon noted that a major U.S. service provider continued deployments of its session software, transformation solutions and services associated with its mobile, fixed and business network service offerings. Also, a major global financial institution began deploying Ribbon’s session software and Kandy CPaaS solutions to secure and enhance its UC.

In addition, a service provider and a public sector enterprise customer chose Ribbon analytics solutions and applications for enhanced network visibility and security, according to the company.

“Our 12 percent year-over-year growth in profitability was driven by improving software revenue mix coupled with our cost reduction efforts,” said Daryl Raiford, Ribbon’s chief financial officer.

In June, Ribbon said it expects to record about $6 million of restructuring expense associated with cutting part of its workforce.

The facilities initiative included consolidating Ribbon’s north Texas site into a single campus housing engineering, customer training and support, and administrative functions, and a reduction or elimination of certain facilities elsewhere. In addition, it planned to substantially consolidate its global software laboratories and server farms into two, lower-cost North American sites.