Juniper Networks this week posted strong second-quarter revenues marking the company’s second consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth. However, ongoing growth could be impacted by broader supply chain constraints.

CEO Rami Rahim cited improving trends with some of the company’s largest cloud and service provider partners as a key revenue driver but warned panic-buying behavior related to the ongoing semiconductor shortage could impact the company's revenues in future quarters.

“We, like others in our industry, are managing through significant supply chain challenges,” he said, adding that customers have increased their orders in response to these constraints.

According to CFO Ken Miller, Juniper would have experienced “mid-teens” growth in orders during the quarter, had it not been for the influx of orders from concerned customers.

“We experienced record levels of orders during the second quarter, with significant strength across all verticals and customer solutions,” he said. “We believe some of this strength is attributable to industry supply chain challenges that are causing certain customers to place orders early in an effort to secure supply when needed.”

Juniper’s Q2 revenues topped $1.17 billion during the quarter, up 8% year over year and 9% over the prior quarter. The company’s net incomes also improved during the quarter at $62 million, up 1% year-over-year, marking a not insignificant turnaround from the $31.1 million net loss in Q1.

The company’s automated WAN business unit was among the hardest hit by the semiconductor shortage, declining 3% year over year to $396.1 million during the quarter.

“Despite very strong orders, we now expect our results from this segment to return to within the range of our long-term model, calling for a minus 1% decline to a 3% growth during the year with supply to likely be the biggest determinant of where we will ultimately fall within this range,” Rahim said.

However, improving revenues within the company's other business units more than made up for these losses. Juniper's AI-driven enterprise business grew 21% to $195.1 million during the quarter, while its hardware maintenance and professional services group saw modest 2.7% year-over-year growth to $379.2 million.

The second quarter also marked a significant rebound in Juniper’s cloud business, which saw revenues surge 22% to $201.9 million.

Miller expects the semiconductor supply shortage to continue to impact orders into the third quarter.

“We are experiencing ongoing supply constraints, which have resulted in extended lead times and elevated costs,” he said, adding that despite taking actions to strengthen the company’s supply chain, “we believe extended lead times and elevated costs will likely persist for at least the next few quarters.”

Miller added that the backlog of orders resulting from these constraints has improved the company’s visibility going to the second half of 2021. Because of this, Miller expects Juniper will post a 6% increase in full-year revenues.