Fortinet beats Wall Street estimates for Q4, reports $3.34 billion in revenue for 2021

Cybersecurity firm Fortinet beat Wall Street estimates on Thursday, reporting a strong fourth quarter growth and a 2021 revenue 28.8% higher than 2020.

Fortinet delivered fourth quarter revenue of $963.6 million, up more than 28% from a year ago. For the fourth quarter, Fortinet's non-GAAP earnings of $1.23 a share were above expectations. 

Wall Street was expecting Fortinet to report fourth quarter earnings of $1.15 a share on revenue of $960.2 million.

For 2021, Fortinet reported a total revenue of $3.34 billion and a service revenue of $2.09 billion. Fortinet CEO Ken Xie said the company's revenue gave them three straight years of revenue growth of 20% or more. 

"Cash flow from operations was $1.5 billion and free cash flow was a record $1.2 billion for the year. Our 2021 performance was driven by increased demand for our cybersecurity solutions and exceptional execution from our global operations and sales teams and excellent support from our channel partners and distributors," Xie said. 

"Fortinet's integrated and single platform approach to security is resonating with customers that want to effectively protect their corporate networks from a wide range of attack vectors. Given our robust pipeline and strong business momentum, we expect several more years of solid growth as Fortinet is well positioned to address our $174 billion market opportunity."

Product revenue was up more than 31% compared to Q4 2020 at $378.9 million. Service revenue was $584.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2021, an increase of more than 27% compared to the same quarter of 2020.

The company is predicting a Q1 revenue in the range of $865 million to $895 million and a non-GAAP EPS in the range of $0.75 to $0.80

Fortinet announced in March 2021 that it was investing $75 million in router maker Linksys as part of a "strategic alliance" aimed at securing work from home networks.