F5 Networks Inc.‘s stock fell in after-hours trading today even though the company beat fiscal first-quarter expectations on both profit and revenue.

The company, which sells network security and traffic management tools for enterprises, reported a profit before certain costs such as stock compensation of $2.59 per share on revenue of $625 million. Wall Street had forecast a profit of $2.45 per share on revenue of $623 million.

F5 Networks Chief Executive François Locoh-Donou said the company had benefited from its customers’ need to secure digital services such as ordering groceries, streaming videos and online banking.

“Our investments over the last several years have fueled innovation, enhancing our strategic position with customers at a time when they are experiencing explosive application growth, and contributing to our 10% revenue growth in the first quarter,” Locoh-Donou said.

F5’s results are in line with a raised forecast of between $623 million and $625 million in revenue that it offered two weeks ago when it announced it will acquire “edge-as-a-service” startup Volterra Inc. for $500 million.

Volterra sells a service-based infrastructure platform that helps enterprises to distribute applications across public and private clouds and the network edge more easily. F5 said the deal will help to improve its position in enterprise application delivery.

The company needs to do something because it has come under quite a bit of pressure recently from Elliott Management Corp. The activist investor notably pushed EMC Corp. to sell itself to Dell Technologies Inc. for $67 billion back in 2016.

In November, it was reported that Elliott had taken a “sizable stake” in F5 Networks in an effort to force changes at the company with the aim of boosting its profitability. F5 responded by announcing plans to repurchase $1 billion worth of its stock over the next two years, but it remains to be seen if that will satisfy investors.

For the current quarter, F5 offered rather mixed guidance. The company said it sees second-quarter earnings in the range of $2.32 to $2.44 per share, the midpoint of which is below Wall Street’s consensus of $2.41 per share. However, it said revenue would be between $625 million to $645 million, ahead of the $621 million modeled by analysts.

F5’s stock fell almost 6% in after-hours trading.

Photo: F5 Networks