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

AudioCodes Ltd. (NASDAQ:AUDC) declared a semi-annual dividend on Tuesday, February 4th,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders 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 yield of 3%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 20th.

AudioCodes has raised its dividend payment by an average of 2.9% annually over the last three years. AudioCodes has a payout ratio of 36.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities 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 Price Performance

NASDAQ AUDC opened at $11.75 on Tuesday. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $10.34 and its two-hundred day moving average is $9.87. AudioCodes has a 12 month low of $7.70 and a 12 month high of $14.04. The stock has a market capitalization of $355.09 million, a P/E ratio of 23.50 and a beta of 0.80.

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have recently commented on AUDC. Needham & Company LLC raised their price objective on shares of AudioCodes from $11.00 to $12.50 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of AudioCodes from $9.00 to $10.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of AudioCodes from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note 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.