AudioCodes Ltd. (AUDC) to Issue Semi-annual Dividend of $0.18 on March 6th

AudioCodes Ltd. (NASDAQ:AUDC) announced a semi-annual dividend on Tuesday, February 4th,Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 20th will be given a dividend of 0.18 per share by the communications equipment provider on Thursday, March 6th. This represents a dividend yield of 3%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 20th.

AudioCodes has increased its dividend by an average of 2.9% per year over the last three years. AudioCodes has a payout ratio of 36.7% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect AudioCodes to earn $0.90 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.36 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 40.0%.

AudioCodes Stock Down 1.3 %

AudioCodes stock opened at $11.75 on Tuesday. AudioCodes has a 52-week low of $7.70 and a 52-week high of $14.04. The firm has a market capitalization of $355.09 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.50 and a beta of 0.80. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $10.34 and a 200-day simple moving average of $9.87.

AudioCodes (NASDAQ:AUDC) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.22 by $0.09. AudioCodes had a net margin of 6.32% and a return on equity of 10.47%. On average, research analysts anticipate that AudioCodes will post 0.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of AudioCodes from $9.00 to $10.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. Needham & Company LLC upped their price objective on shares of AudioCodes from $11.00 to $12.50 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of AudioCodes from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 5th.

About AudioCodes

AudioCodes Ltd. provides advanced communications software, products, and productivity solutions for the digital workplace worldwide. The company offers solutions, products, and services for unified communications, contact centers, hosted business services, Voice.AI, and service provider businesses. Its products include session border controllers, life cycle management solutions, VoIP network routing solutions, media gateways and servers, multi-service business routers, IP phones solutions, and value-added applications, as well as professional services.