Sandvine provides fourth quarter revenue estimate

WATERLOO, ON, Dec. 10, 2015 /CNW/ - Sandvine, (TSX:SVC) a leading provider of intelligent network policy control solutions for fixed and mobile operators, today announced that it expects revenue for its fourth quarter to be approximately $35 million, representing record quarterly revenue. Order intake was at a record high in the fourth quarter, resulting in a positive book-to-bill ratio. All estimates are in U.S. dollars under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

Since November 20^th, Sandvine has announced orders totaling over $27 million. A number of these recent wins related to opportunities that the co­mpany had identified as having been delayed.

Sandvine's high-performance and high-efficiency 100GE Policy Traffic Switch (PTS) 32000 was a driver in a number of the announced orders, as the industry-wide 100 gigabit Ethernet upgrade cycle has begun. Some of the announced orders also saw customers adopting Sandvine's Service Delivery Engine, which is the industry's only universal, access-agnostic Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) – an aspect of Sandvine's product portfolio that it believes is going through an upgrade cycle.

"Sandvine is at the beginning of some very exciting opportunities. We are in the middle of product upgrade cycles, have more products to offer than ever and have a bigger sales team to address these opportunities," said Dave Caputo, Sandvine's President and CEO.

ABOUT SANDVINE
Sandvine's network policy control solutions add intelligence to fixed, mobile and converged communications service provider networks to enable services that can increase revenue and reduce network costs. Powered by Sandvine's Policy Engine and SandScript policy language, Sandvine's networking equipment provides end-to-end policy control functions including traffic classification, and policy decision and enforcement across the data, control and business planes. Sandvine's products provide actionable business insight, the ability to deploy new subscriber services and tools to optimize traffic while enhancing subscriber Internet quality of experience.

Sandvine's network policy control solutions are deployed in more than 250 networks in over 90 countries, serving hundreds of millions of data subscribers worldwide, www.sandvine.com.

CAUTION REGARDING FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION
Certain statements in this press release constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as of the date of this press release.  Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements with respect to projected revenues, earnings, growth rates, targets, revenue mix and product plans and the Company's future growth, results of operations, performance and business prospects and opportunities.  Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon management's perceptions of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as a number of specific factors and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by the Company as of the date of such statements, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies which could result in the forward-looking statements ultimately being incorrect. In addition to the various factors and assumptions set forth in this press release, the material factors and assumptions used to develop the forward-looking information include, but are not limited to the following: the overall Network Policy Control market including reliance on major customers; adoption of Virtual Series solutions; the requirement for increasingly innovative product solutions; its growth strategy and the need for increasing investment in sales and marketing efforts; the demand for the Company's products and fluctuations in future revenues; target blended gross margin; expectations of growth in the DSL and Wireless markets; expectations for DSO; sufficiency of current working capital to support future operating and working capital requirements; the stability of general economic and market conditions; currency exchange rates and interest rates; equity and debt markets continuing to provide the Company with access to capital; and the Company's continued compliance with third party intellectual property rights; foreign exchange hedging; and that the risk factors noted below, collectively, do not have a material impact on the Company.

By its nature, forward-looking information is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that may be general or specific and which give rise to the possibility that expectations, forecasts, predictions, projections or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that assumptions may not be correct and that objectives, strategic goals and priorities will not be achieved.  

Known and unknown risk factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company, could cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from the results, performance, achievements or developments expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.  Such risk factors include, but are not limited to each of the following, and those factors which are discussed in the Company's 2014 Annual Information Form ("AIF"), a copy of which is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

• The Company's revenues may fluctuate from quarter to quarter and year to year depending upon sales cycles, customer demand and the timing of customer purchase decisions as well as the timing of when an order meets the Company's revenue recognition criteria;
• The Company's gross margins may fluctuate from quarter to quarter and year to year depending upon a variety of factors including product mix in the quarter, competitive pricing pressures and the level of sales generated through indirect channels;
• The Company is dependent upon and expects to continue to derive a large percentage of its revenue from both a small number of key customers and key reseller partners, none of whom are bound to any fixed purchase commitment or exclusivity obligations and could change their buying patterns and/or source of supply at any time, which could have a material impact on the Company's revenues. In addition, the Company extends credit to its customers and resellers by virtue of agreed upon payment terms and could be exposed to collection risk on its receivables particularly if any key customer or key reseller were to face financial challenges. The Company's reseller partners may also offer their own products which are competitive with the Company's products;
• By selling its products in certain markets through resellers, the Company is able to avoid certain costs related to operating in those markets including but not limited to local support costs, costs of maintaining a local legal entity, administration costs, and logistics. Should the Company choose or be required to sell direct in these markets (due to customer preference, termination of a reseller relationship or other reasons) the cost advantages described will no longer be available to the Company which could result in an increase in operating costs;
• The Company faces intense competition in markets where there are typically several different competing technologies and rapid technological changes. The Company faces the risk of the emergence of new technologies and new approaches to network architecture that may be either competitive to those of the Company or that change the requirements of the Company's customers for solutions such as those offered by the Company. If the Company is unable to adapt its offerings in response to these trends it could have a material impact on the ability of the Company to market its solutions;
• The Company's growth is dependent on the development of the market for Network Policy Control solutions and the decisions of the Company's target customers to deploy and further invest in those technologies, which decisions may be impacted by changing requirements in the area of broadband network management policies and/or changes in the regulatory framework to which the Company's customers may be subject. In particular, numerous telecommunications legislators and regulators in various jurisdictions have considered or are considering what, if any, regulations might be appropriate with respect to how internet service providers manage the impact of different types of traffic on their networks. These ongoing processes may cause uncertainty in the network investment decisions of the Company's target customers, and any new rules or regulations that result from these considerations may impact the demand for the Company's products within various markets, including markets that may not be considering any new regulation but where the Company's customers may look to other markets for future guidance or trends;
• With the adoption of network functions virtualization ("NFV") and software defined networks ("SDN"), the market in which Sandvine operates may face a shift in how some of its customers purchase the Company's products. It is the Company's intention to continue to offer and develop Network Policy Control products for customer networks architected for NFV or SDN. These products will run on commercial off-the-shelf hardware. The introduction of these product offerings could see a shift in the Company's pricing practices from perpetual based software licenses to term based software licenses. While the timing and impact of this shift is not anticipated to materially impact the Company's results in 2015 it is difficult for the Company to accurately predict. As such, depending on the rate of adoption, the Company could experience a loss or delay in hardware and/or software revenue and reduced profits in 2015 or beyond;
• The Company is dependent on certain third party sub-assembly manufacturers in its supply chain and any disruption in the operations or quality of those suppliers or any increase in expected lead times from those suppliers could result in lost or delayed revenue and/or reduced profits;
• The majority of the Company's operating expenses are denominated in Canadian dollars, U.S. dollars, and Indian rupees. The Company's earnings are impacted by fluctuations in the exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and these currencies;
• The Company operates in various jurisdictions throughout the world and generates revenues through its international sales efforts. The Company's financial results may be impacted by political and economic developments of a particular country or geography. The Company has operations in India and Hong Kong, both considered by management to be emerging markets. The operations in India are predominantly a contract research and development facility and the Company conducts business in Hong Kong through a branch sales representative office;
• The Company is dependent on effectively managing the acquisition and integration of MoMac B.V. Acquisitions present a number of risks which are disclosed in the Company's 2014 Annual Information Form. These risks or the inability of the Company to successfully realize upon the intended benefits of an acquisition could have a material adverse effect on its business, financial condition and results of operations.

These risk factors are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors that could affect the Company and the reader is cautioned to consider these and other factors, uncertainties and potential events carefully and not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements.  There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.  Forward-looking statements are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's expectations and plans relating to the future. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and such forward-looking statements, except to the extent required by applicable law.

SOURCE Sandvine

INVESTOR CONTACT: Rick Wadsworth, Sandvine, [phone] ext. 3503, [email protected]; MEDIA CONTACT: Dan Deeth, Sandvine, [phone], [email protected]