AudioCodes Ltd. to Issue Semi-annual Dividend of $0.18 (NASDAQ:AUDC)

AudioCodes Ltd. (NASDAQ:AUDC) announced a semi-annual dividend on Thursday, February 6th,Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 20th will be paid 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 raised its dividend by an average of 2.9% annually over the last three years. AudioCodes has a payout ratio of 32.1% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect AudioCodes to earn $0.70 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 51.4%.

AudioCodes Stock Up 8.9 %

Shares of AUDC stock opened at $12.37 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $9.91 and its 200 day moving average price is $9.81. The stock has a market capitalization of $373.82 million, a PE ratio of 30.93 and a beta of 0.80. AudioCodes has a 52-week low of $7.70 and a 52-week high of $14.45.

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, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.22 by $0.09. AudioCodes had a return on equity of 8.85% and a net margin of 4.99%. Analysts expect that AudioCodes will post 0.51 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have recently weighed in on AUDC shares. Needham & Company LLC lifted their target price on shares of AudioCodes from $11.00 to $12.50 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. Barclays lifted their price objective on AudioCodes from $9.00 to $10.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, StockNews.com raised AudioCodes from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday.

AudioCodes Company Profile

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.