11:05 AM EDT, 06/06/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Ciena's (CIEN) fiscal second-quarter results fell less than the market expected while the networking systems and software company said bandwidth demand remains durable in a challenging near-term environment.

Revenue fell to $910.8 million for the three months ended April 27 from $1.13 billion a year ago but topped the $895.7 million average analyst estimate on Capital IQ. Adjusted earnings per share fell to $0.27 from $0.74 year over year but beat the $0.15 Wall Street view.

Shares of Ciena jumped 3.6% in Thursday trade.

"Our fiscal second quarter performance underscores the strength in our business amid a challenging near-term environment as service providers continue to work through existing inventory," Chief Executive Gary Smith said in a statement.

Sales fell across every geographic region. By segment, total networking platforms revenue dropped to $676.3 million in the second quarter from $914.9 million the year earlier and slipped to just over 74% of total sales from nearly 81%.

Global services revenue advanced to $134.7 million and to roughly 15% of total sales in the fiscal 2024 period from $127.8 million and more than 11% of sales in the fiscal 2023 period. Platform software and services revenue grew to $85.4 million from $69.4 million.

Bandwidth demand remains durable while increasing cloud adoption and artificial intelligence use cases are helping drive network traffic, Smith told analysts on a conference call, according to a Capital IQ transcript. Demand for bandwidth is expected to continue growing at a 30% compound annual growth rate, "if not more," he said.

"But despite this positive secular demand, as we all know, it is taking longer than we and others in our industry initially expected for service providers to absorb and deploy the large amount of inventory they have accumulated over the last year or so," Smith said. "And we are still seeing some caution related to macroeconomic concerns, particularly internationally."

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