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

AudioCodes Ltd. (NASDAQ:AUDC) declared a semi-annual dividend on Thursday, February 6th,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 raised its dividend payment by an average of 2.9% per year over the last three years. AudioCodes has a dividend payout ratio of 32.1% meaning 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 Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ AUDC traded up $1.01 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $12.37. 167,770 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 124,961. The firm has a market capitalization of $373.82 million, a P/E ratio of 30.93 and a beta of 0.80. The company’s 50 day moving average is $9.91 and its 200 day moving average is $9.81. AudioCodes has a one year low of $7.70 and a one year high of $14.45.

AudioCodes (NASDAQ:AUDC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.31 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.22 by $0.09. AudioCodes had a return on equity of 8.85% and a net margin of 4.99%. Research analysts anticipate that AudioCodes will post 0.51 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

AUDC has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Needham & Company LLC boosted their price target on shares of AudioCodes from $11.00 to $12.50 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. StockNews.com upgraded AudioCodes from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Barclays increased their target price on AudioCodes from $9.00 to $10.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a report 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.