NICE Up 6% In Pre-market On Upbeat Results And Better Annual Outlook Than Consensus

(RTTNews) - Shares of NICE Ltd. (NICE), a provider of enterprise software solutions, are up more than 6 percent in pre-market on Thursday after reporting upbeat fourth-quarter results, that surpassed the Street view. The company also provided first-quarter as well as full-year outlook, better than the consensus estimate.

Profit for the fourth quarter increased to $81.652 million, or $1.24 per share from $71.186 million, or $1.07 per share, in last year's fourth quarter.

Excluding items, earnings were $154.889 million or $2.36 per share, that beat the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson-Reuters of $2.26 per share.

Revenue for the quarter rose 9.6 percent to $623.192 million from $568.560 million last year. The consensus estimate stood at $616.2 million.

Cloud revenue for the quarter increased 20 percent year-on-year at $429 million.

For the first-quarter, NICE anticipates adjusted income per share of $2.40 to $2.50, above analysts' estimate of $2.27 per share.

Excluding items, revenue for the first quarter is expected to be in the range of $650 million to $660 million, better than the consensus estimate of $640.11 million.

For the full year, NICE expects adjusted income per share of $10.40 to $10.60. This compares with the consensus estimate of $9.88 per share.

Excluding items, annual revenue is projected in the range $2.715 billion to $2.735 billion, above analysts' estimate of $2.66 billion.

NICE shares had closed at $225.89, down 1.10 percent on Wednesday. The stock has been trading in the range of $149.54 - $231.54 in the last 1 year.