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

AudioCodes Ltd. (NASDAQ:AUDC - Get Free Report) announced a semi-annual dividend on Thursday, February 6th,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 20th will be paid 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 increased its dividend by an average of 2.9% annually over the last three years. AudioCodes has a payout ratio of 32.1% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research 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

Shares of AUDC stock traded up $0.30 during trading hours on Monday, reaching $12.52. 179,108 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 126,646. AudioCodes has a 12-month low of $7.70 and a 12-month high of $14.04. The company has a market cap of $378.35 million, a P/E ratio of 25.04 and a beta of 0.80. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $10.03 and a 200 day moving average price of $9.82.

AudioCodes (NASDAQ:AUDC - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results 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 10.47% and a net margin of 6.32%. Sell-side analysts predict that AudioCodes will post 0.7 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have issued reports on AUDC. StockNews.com raised AudioCodes from a "buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. Needham & Company LLC increased their price target on AudioCodes from $11.00 to $12.50 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. Finally, Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of AudioCodes from $9.00 to $10.00 and gave the stock an "underweight" rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th.

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.