(RTTNews) -  Data storage equipment maker NetApp Inc. (NTAP: News ) Wednesday said its second quarter profit more than doubled from last year, driven by higher demand. Quarterly non-GAAP earnings breezed ahead of the analysts' expectations, as did its revenues. Looking ahead, the company provided its revenue outlook for the third quarter, expected to come in ahead of Street consensus.

The Sunnyvale, California-based company posted GAAP net income of $96 million or $0.27 per share for the second quarter, up from $43 million or $0.13 per share in the prior year quarter.

Excluding items, non-GAAP net income grew to $130 million or $0.37 per share from $92 million or $0.28 per share in the year-ago quarter. On average, 30 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $0.30 per share for the second quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Gross margin for the quarter rose 11% to $606.7 million from $546.2 million in the previous year quarter.

Second quarter revenues declined slightly to $910 million from $912 million in the same quarter last year. Thirty-one analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $881.03 million for the second quarter.

"NetApp delivered a strong quarter with record gross margins, record revenue from our SAN products, and overall revenue that exceeded our expectations," said Tom Georgens, president and chief executive officer of NetApp.

Software entitlements and maintenance revenue for the second quarter grew 11% to $169.82 million, and Service revenue rose 14% year-over-year to $215.06 million. However, product revenues fell 8% to $525.15 million over a year ago.
Total operating expenses for the quarter increased to $491.31 million from $480.55 million in the prior year quarter.

During the quarter, NetApp unveiled its cloud strategy and introduced several new products and solutions to help customers transform their data center architectures to achieve greater storage efficiency through data management techniques.

In an effort to help customers maximize the value of their existing storage investments, NetApp unveiled a program to help customers achieve greater storage efficiency in their data centers.

Under the terms of the Zero Investment Promise Program, customers with EMC and HP SANs that deploy NetApp V-Series can reduce storage capacity and the associated costs of their existing third-party storage investments. If after 90 days the customer files an approved claim that the storage savings are not achieved, the customer will keep the equipment at no charge.

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