RMBS Rambus Inc

Rambus Inc. shares rose after the technology licenser reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue for the fourth quarter.

Aided by a sales outlook for the current year that exceeded Wall Street estimates, shares rose 7.1% to $12 in recent after-hours trading.

The Sunnyvale, Calif., company said it acquired Smart Card Software Ltd. for £ 64.7 million ($92.2 million), adding a secure mobile-payment and ticketing platform that it expects will complement its CryptoManager platform. Rambus expects the deal to boost its earnings in the first year.

For 2016, Rambus projected revenue of $310 million to $325 million, above estimates of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters for revenue of $294 million.

For the first quarter, the company forecast revenue of $71 million to $75 million, while analysts expected 73 cents.

Overall, Rambus reported a profit of $13 million, or 11 cents a share, up from $7.8 million, or seven cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding stock-based compensation, restructuring-related charges and other items, per-share earnings rose to 18 cents from 14 cents.

Revenue rose 6.6% to $76.8 million, which the company attributed to higher royalty payments form SK Hynix Inc. and International Business Machines Corp., along with a patent license renewal with Toshiba Corp.

Analysts expected per-share earnings of eight cents and revenue of $74 million, according to FactSet.

Write to Tess Stynes at tess.stynes@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 25, 2016 18:05 ET (23:05 GMT)

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