logitech

Swiss-based Logitech has beaten analyst expectations by reporting a nine-fold jump in fourth quarter 2011 profit while also unveiling major company restructuring plans.

Net income rose to $28m in the fourth quarter 2011, up from $3m a year earlier and beat analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll, which stood at $12.2m. Full year profits came in at $72m, 50 percent lower than last year.

The company, which also makes keyboards and webcams, revealed that it expects to cut $80m in annual operating costs in a bid to boost profitability amid a soft euro and weak economic environment. Logitech says it will remove a layer of business and sales management and streamline most of the other functions by the end of the current quarter, in order to achieve these cost cutting goals.

While sales fell by 3 percent from a year earlier to $532m, Logitech reitterated that the launch of new products, mostly in the second quarter of this year, will drive growth in the second half of fiscal 2013. Full year 2012 revenue hit $2.32bn.

Logitech's share price rose by 13.14 percent in the early hours of Zurich trading, reaching 8.01 Swiss francs.