William Blair Enthusiastic About NetApp (NTAP)

William Blair & Company analysts Jason Ader and Dmitry Netis reiterated their Outperform rating for shares of NetApp Inc (Nasdaq: NTAP).

The analysts said that they are convinced that the NetApp Inc business model should support an operating margin better than the 16% target set by management.

The William Blair & Company analysts wrote, "we had expected a beat-and-raise quarter from NetApp and the company more than delivered, exceeding our expectations by 8% on the top line and $0.07 on the bottom line. The magnitude of the top-line outperformance even exceeded that of the prior quarter, which beat consensus by 7%. Strong product revenue, which was $74 million above our expectations and was up an impressive 50% year-over-year, contributed roughly $0.03 in earnings upside, with better-than-expected services gross margin and lower operating expense as a percentage of sales each contributing $0.02 of upside."