Long-distance telephone giant MCI WorldCom said Thursday its fourth quarter profits nearly tripled, beating Wall Street expectations amid strong growth in its data, Internet, and international operations.
Clinton, Mississippi-based MCI's fourth quarter net income was $1.3 billion, or 44 cents a share, compared with net income of $443 million, or 15 cents a share a year ago.
Excluding a one-time gain, MCI's profits were $1.2 billion, or 42 cents a share. The results, excluding the gain, topped Wall Street expectations of 41 cents a share, according to research firm First Call/Thomson Financial, which tracks analysts' earnings forecasts.
Shares of MCI gained 2-7/8 to 51 in heavy trading on Nasdaq. The stock, once one of the darlings of Wall Street's bull market, has been stagnant over the past year and under pressure recently amid fears that MCI's revenue growth may be slim due to slow growth in the voice and wholesale markets.
More than 80 percent of revenue for MCI, which is set to buy smaller rival Sprint Corp., came from data, Internet, and international services.
MCI also quelled Wall Street concerns that it may be hurt by the planned merger of its key customer America Online with media giant Time Warner. MCI said it expects its revenues from AOL to increase and may announce a new contract with the leading online company within the next few weeks.
MCI WorldCom, the product of more than 60 acquisitions over the past decade, agreed to buy Sprint for $115 billion last October. The planned acquisition of Sprint, which is subject to regulatory approval, would allow MCI to enter the wireless telephone market and to expand its long-distance customer base.
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Network Solutions: Internet address registrar Network Solutions said Thursday that its fourth-quarter profit more than doubled to $9 million, beating expectations as unabated demand for dot-com addresses fattened its bottom line, not to mention its stock price.
Shares of Network Solutions were up more than 15 percent at midday Thursday, rising 40 to trade at 296 and making it the No. 2 net gain leader on the Nasdaq stock market.
Network Solutions said its fourth-quarter profit rose to 25 cents per share from 11 cents per share, or $3.7 million, a year earlier. Wall Street analysts had been expecting it to earn 23 cents per share, according to research firm First Call/Thomson Financial.
Revenues were $75.9 million for the quarter, up 143 percent from $31.3 million in the year-ago quarter.
The Herndon, Va.-based company, the largest registrar of .com, .org, and .net Web addresses, said it registered 1.6 million new domain names in the fourth quarter of 1999, up 161 percent from the fourth quarter 1998 total of 621,000, and up 23 percent from the third quarter.
Total registrations grew 140 percent in 1999 to more than 8.1 million, from about 3.4 million in 1998. International registrations totaled 1.5 million for the year, compared to 532,000 in 1998.
The company said cash from operations grew 213 percent to $199 million in 1999, $90 million of which was in the fourth quarter alone.
Earlier this week, the company said it planned to sell 7.73 million shares of common stock to the public for $247 a share.
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Dell: Dell, the world's No. 2 personal computer maker, said Thursday that its fourth quarter net profits grew 3 percent to $436 million, in line with previously lowered expectations.
Dell said its profit growth was slowed by parts shortages and a sales slowdown tied to Year 2000 fears.
Fourth-quarter net income was $436 million, or 16 cents per share, compared with $425 million, or 15 cents per share, in the year-earlier quarter.
In anticipation of the earning report, shares rose 3-15/64 to close at 38-51/64 on the Nasdaq stock market.
Shares fell back to 38 in after-hours trade when the company, in its statement, failed to produce any early indication of when it expected a rebound in sales by large corporate customers.
Analysts expected earnings per share of 15 cents, according to survey of brokerage estimates compiled by First Call/Thomson Financial.
Reuters contributed to this report.
