Fortinet celebrated strong third-quarter earnings, posting revenues of $651 million, up nearly 20% year over year. CEO Ken Xie said the company's performance was driven in part by strong SD-WAN adoption, which more than doubled year over year, representing 13% of all billings during the quarter.

To this end, Xie lauded the company's recent rankings in Gartner's latest WAN Edge Infrastructure and Network Firewall Magic Quadrant reports, where Fortinet was ranked a leader. "Fortinet's FortiGate SD-WAN is the only organically built solution that provides networking and security integrated into a single appliance," he said, according to a transcript.

Fortinet's SD-WAN offering is built around a series of FortiGate appliances that combine advanced routing and next-generation firewall capabilities.

However, Fortinet's successes during the quarter weren't limited to its SD-WAN business. In fact, Fortinet saw revenue growth across the board in Q3, with product revenues up 14% and services revenues up 22% year over year.

While FortiGate product and service revenues were up 16% year over year during the quarter, non-FortiGate products and service revenues grew by a wider margin, up 27% year over year, explained CFO Keith Jensen. Non-FortiGate growth was driven in large part by strength in the company's cloud and fabric product categories, he added.

Jensen also credited the company's diverse geographic footprint as helping to overcome COVID-19 related challenges during Q3.

"Strong performance this quarter was the result of the diversification of our business and the strategic long-term investments we've made to expand our global sales force, to invest in our channel partners, and to expand our product offerings and provide a truly integrated security platform, enabling automation," Jensen said.

Fortinet saw strong gains in the Asian-Pacific region, while the Americas reflected the lasting economic fallout of the pandemic, particularly in Latin America, Jensen noted. Growth in the Americas slipped to 13% year-over-year growth, down from 24% during the same period of 2019.

Despite the company's robust growth, BMO Capital’s Keith Bachman questioned the sustainability of Fortinet's business model, which remains rooted in physical firewall appliances. According to Bachman, Fortinet's firewall business is responsible for approximately 75% of the vendor's quarterly revenues.

Fortinet is barreling full-steam ahead into the fourth quarter, where the company expects to maintain its momentum.

"For the fourth quarter, we expect billings in the range of $890 million to $920 million; revenue in the range of $710 million," said Jensen.

Fortinet posted $614 million in revenues and $803 million in billings in Q4 2019. If Fortinet's predictions hold true, Q4 2020 revenues will grow 24%, while billings will be up between 10% and 23%.