Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. closed its fiscal third quarter with adjusted earnings of $1.65 per share on $534 million in revenue, surpassing analyst expectations.

The cybersecurity software maker posted financial results for the third quarter ended Sept. 30 today. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had projected earnings of $1.60 a share on revenue of $530 million, slightly less than the profit and revenue figures shared by Check Point Software.

The $1.65 adjusted earnings per share that the company achieved during the third quarter was the result of $261 million adjusted operating income. 

The company’s strong sales, in turn, are credited to a 5% year-over-year revenue increase driven in significant measure by its growing subscription business. Check Point Software, like many other players in the enterprise software market, has been actively working to make subscriptions a bigger part of its top line. The third quarter marked another milestone in the company’s efforts toward that goal.

Subscriptions accounted for $190 million of Check Point Software’s total quarterly revenue, a 13% increase compared with the same time a year ago. That means the company’s subscription business grew nearly three times as fast as its total revenue. Within the subscription business, three offerings are experiencing particularly strong growth: the Infinity, Harmony and CloudGuard solutions.

Infinity is a collection of technologies aimed at enabling companies to centrally implement cybersecurity rules across all their systems. Historically, ensuring that cybersecurity rules are applied consistently was a difficult task because a typical enterprise can have upwards of thousands of individual information technology assets. Check Point Software’s Infinity offering allows administrators to perform the task through a single, centralized interface, which saves a great deal of work.

Centralizing cybersecurity operations can also reduce the risk of a breach. If administrators have to separately configure cybersecurity rules for hundreds or thousands of systems, there’s a greater likelihood of human error. Performing the task through a single, relatively simple pane of glass reduces the risk of settings being configured incorrectly. 

CloudGuard and Harmony, the two other offerings playing a central role in the company’s revenue growth, focus on protecting public cloud environments and employee devices, respectively. Check Point Software acquired a startup called Avanan in the third quarter to expand Harmony’s feature set. Avanan provided a software platform for blocking malicious emails and other cyberattacks targeting employees.

“Revenues came in toward the high end of our projections and non-GAAP earnings per share exceeded projections,” said Check Point Software founder and Chief Executive Officer Gil Shwed. “Subscription revenues increased by 13% driven by triple-digit growth in Infinity platform sales and double-digit growth in Harmony and CloudGuard.”

Other major cybersecurity providers also make strategic acquisitions occasionally to support their product roadmaps. Sophos Group PLC, for example, bought network monitoring startup Braintrace Inc. in July.

For the full fiscal year, Check Point Software has raised its revenue guidance to between $2.13 billion and $2.72 billion. The company previously told investors to expect sales of $2.08 million to $2.18 billion. Check Point Software is also projecting increased adjusted earnings per share of $6.81 to $7.01, compared with $6.45 to $6.85 before. 

Image: Check Point Software