By Kelly Hill
Keysight Technologies reported a record first quarter of 2020, with revenues up 9 per cent to US$1.095 billion. Profitability Test increased as well, with net income rising from US$114 million during the same period last year to US$163 million.
Keysight President and CEO Ron Nersesian said in a statement that the company “delivered another outstanding quarter and a strong start to the year with both revenue and earnings exceeding the high end of our guidance.” He added that revenue growth in the quarter was driven by “ongoing strength in 5G-related investments and increased spending in aerospace defense and semiconductor measurement.”
In Keysight’s Communications Solutions Group, the unit saw US$818 million in revenues, up 9 per cent and driven by the 5G ecosystem as well as “broad-based growth across all regions” in aerospace, defense and government, according to the company. Keysight’s Electronic Industrial Solutions Group saw its revenues rise 8 per cent year-over-year to US$277 million, which was bolstered by semiconductor measurement and next-generation automotive and energy tech, Keysight said.
Keysight also last week launched a new cybersecurity offering called Breach Defense, a security operations platform. The company said that an integral part of Breach Defense is its Threat Simulator, which lets network and security teams check the effectiveness of their operational security by simulating the latest exploits and attacks on live networks.
“Today’s network and security teams just don’t know how effective their security solutions are on a continuous basis,” said VP of security solutions in Keysight Network Applications &Security Group (which was formerly the Ixia Solutions Group), Scott Register. “Security breaches aren’t always caused by a lack of capable products — often they are due to misconfigurations or a lack of security skills. Probing for coverage gaps has never been an easy task on a live network. Threat Simulator helps security operations teams find those gaps and gain actionable insight into how to close those gaps and improve their security posture.”
In other test news:
- PCTel recently introduced new 5G New Radio testing capabilities to its HBflex scanning receiver that supports simultaneous decoding of Synchronization Signal Block (SSB) beams; up to 64 beams for millimeter wave frequencies and eight beams for sub-6 GHz frequencies.
“PCTEL’s 5G scanning receivers have been adopted by dozens of network operators and their service companies in more than 20 countries worldwide,” said PCTEL’s CEO, David Neumann. “As 5G deployments accelerate, PCTEL’s solutions will enable operators and end-users to take full advantage of all available spectrum, including mid-band frequencies worldwide and CBRS (Citizens Broadband Radio Service) in the United States.”
- If you were planning to visit the Anritsu booth at Mobile World Congress Barcelona, the company has put together an online “web exhibition” since the show was cancelled, with presentations, videos and interactive images of what you would have been able to see.
In other company news, Anritsu introduced new PCIe 5.0 testing and test automation software to its Signal Quality Analyze-RMP1900A series of bit error rate testers. The company says the new offering represents the first measurement solution that supports PCIe 3.0, 4.0 and now 5.0 standards.
- ICYMI: Verizon, Samsung, Qualcomm and Motorola put together a 5G carrier aggregation test that achieved 4.2 Gbps, while Rohde & Schwarz carried out live 5G broadcast/multi-cast testing in Barcelona.