(By Balachander) Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ: INTU), a provider of tax and payroll processing services, reduced its quarterly revenue forecast due to late start of tax season and expects a shift of tax revenue to third quarter from the second quarter.
The company currently projects revenue between $960 million and $965 million from $1.02 billion to $1.04 billion projected earlier.
Wall Street analysts, on average, expect revenue of $1.03 billion for the three months ended January.
Mountain View, California-based Intuit cited the updated guidance to "the late passage of tax legislation and the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) delay in opening e-file."
Usually, the IRS begins accepting returns by mid-January. That, the company noted, did not begin until Jan. 30 this year.
Intuit's flagship products consists of: QuickBooks, Quicken and TurboTax that simplify small business management and payroll processing, personal finance, tax preparation and filing and personal finance.
For the second quarter, Intuit now anticipates that GAAP operating income will be between $85 million and $90 million and non-GAAP operating income of $145 million to $150 million. Its earlier projection called in for GAAP operating income of $130 million to $150 million and non-GAAP operating income of $190 million to $210 million.
For fiscal 2013, the company continues to forecast revenue gain of 10 percent to 12 percent; GAAP and non-GAAP operating income growth between 12 percent and 14 percent.
For the preceding first quarter, Intuit lost 6 cents a share on revenue of $647 million on a GAAP basis. Non-GAAP loss per share narrowed to 3 cents from 8 cents.
The company will report its second-quarter results on Feb. 21.
On Friday, INTU shares fell 1.12 percent to trade at $61.55 at 1.15 pm ET. The stock has been trading in the 52-week range of $53.38 to $64.47.