By Steven Scheer
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Check Point Software Technologies beat fourth-quarter profit expectations on Thursday, with revenue exceeding $2.5 billion in 2024, and said the continued adoption of AI would fuel its growth further in 2025.
The Israeli-based network security company reported earnings of $2.70 per diluted share excluding one-off items for the October-December quarter, up 5% from $2.57 a year earlier. Revenue rose 6% to $704 million.
That beat the $2.65 per share on revenue of $699 million expected by analysts, LSEG data showed.
Product, licence and subscription revenues rose 9% in the quarter to $463 million.
Check Point said it bought back 1.7 million shares in the quarter, worth $325 million, as part of an ongoing $2 billion share buyback programme. In all of 2024, it bought back 7.7 million shares at a cost of $1.3 billion.
Industry veteran Nadav Zafrir took over as chief executive in December.
For all of 2024, revenue rose 6% to $2.57 billion, with adjusted EPS up 5% to $7.46.
Zafrir said a combination of geopolitical tensions and the rise in AI capabilities would continue to drive the company’s growth, especially its consolidated cyber security platform that prevents attacks across networks, mobile and the cloud.
“The way attackers take advantage of AI and the way they look at the attack surface is definitely going to change, and we need to be ready for what is very hard for us to imagine about the future,” he told reporters.
Zafrir said that while China won’t necessarily “change the game”, AI options will keep increasing.
“The fact that the price is going down is going to make it more available, which means that the security needs are just going to rise,” he said.
Check Point’s Nasdaq-listed shares have risen 9.2% so far in 2025 after a 22% gain last year.
(Reporting by Steven Scheer. Editing by Barbara Lewis and Mark Potter)
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