RALEIGH – Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) on Wednesday reported fiscal second-quarter profit of $86.9 million, but the Linux and open source software and services firm fell short on revenue and earnings forecasts as expected by analysts.

The news sent Red Hat shares down 4 percent in after-hours trading,

CEO Jim Whitehurst noted in a conference call with analysts that Red Hat lost a major customer as the quarter came to a close.

“The one deal that did not renew is a rare competitive loss to a legacy on-premise provider based on pricing,” Whitehurst said.

“We are actively pursuing future business with this customer as they evaluate additional technologies, such as adopting OpenShift as a multi-cloud platform for the digital transformation of their business.”

A bright spot for the Hatters was strong growth by its Ansible product line, built around the Durham startup by the same name that Red Hat acquired in late 2015 for some $150 million.

However, not all the news was good.

FX headwinds

Chief Financial Officer Eric Shander blamed lower revenue expectations in part of currency “headwinds” – foreign exchange rates for dollars.

“Our outlook assumes current business conditions and foreign exchange rates, which have generally continued to weaken against the dollar year-over-year,” Shander explained in a conference call.

“I will begin with our full-year guidance, which assumes an incremental FX [foreign exchange] headwind to revenue of $15 million, as compared to our prior guidance. As a result, we are adjusting our total revenue guidance in USD to $3.360 billion to $3.395 billion or a year-over-year growth range of 15% to 16% in U.S. dollars.”

The company said it expects revenue in the range of $848 million to $856 million for the fiscal third quarter. Analysts surveyed by Zacks had expected revenue of $862.7 million.

Red Hat expects full-year earnings in the range of $3.45 to $3.49 per share, with revenue ranging from $3.36 billion to $3.4 billion.

Earnings beat; revenue short

The Raleigh-based company said it had net income of 46 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for stock option expense and amortization costs, were 85 cents per share.

The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 13 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 81 cents per share.

The open-source software company posted revenue of $822.7 million in the period, falling short of Street forecasts. Eleven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $827.6 million.

For the current quarter ending in December, Red Hat expects its per-share earnings to be 87 cents.

Red Hat shares have climbed 19 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has climbed nearly 9 percent. In the final minutes of trading on Wednesday, shares hit $143.18, an increase of 34 percent in the last 12 months.

This story was generated in part by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on RHT at https://www.zacks.com/ap/RHT