Keysight Technologies beats Wall Street expectations despite soft market

Santa Rosa-based Keysight Technologies on Thursday reported a quarterly increase in orders, a decrease in revenue and earnings above Wall Street expectations.

Sonoma County’s largest high-tech employer said orders rose 3 percent to $780 million for the quarter ending Oct. 31. But revenue declined 2 percent to $750 million, in part due to currency fluctuations.

Keysight officials said they delivered strong profits for the quarter.

The company reported earnings of 71 cents a share, when separating out one-time adjustments, compared to 86 cents a year earlier.

“This is a solid performance in a soft market,” said Senior Vice President Guy Séné.

The earnings results were higher than the average estimate of 63 cents per share given by three analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research, according to the Associated Press.

Without the one-time adjustments, quarterly earnings per share amounted to $1.61, compared to 61 cents a year ago.

Keysight is the world’s largest electronics measurement company and the biggest business ever based in Santa Rosa. It employs 9,600 workers around the world, including about 1,300 in Sonoma County, and makes products used for testing wireless communications, computers and aerospace and defense technology.

In the past year, Keysight split off from Agilent Technologies and acquired two English companies, software test designer Anite and Electroservices Enterprises, a company that provides calibration, repair and other services to test and measurement customers.

After purchasing Electroservices, Keysight officials told stock analysts in September they want to grow their customer service business by 8 percent a year to reach $600 million in revenue in 2020.

Meanwhile, the Anite acquisition will help Keysight in its quest to become the top maker of measurement equipment for those developing 5G wireless service over the next five to ?10 years, officials said.

Keysight stock price ended Thursday at $31.13, a decline of 10 cents.