Akamai forecasts revenue below estimates, shares fall

The company expects first-quarter adjusted earnings of 50 cents to 52 cents per share on revenue of $352 million to $362 million.

Analysts on average were expecting earnings of 47 cents per share on revenue of $370.1 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company's 127,638 servers across the world carry content for clients ranging from Facebook Inc to Netflix Inc .

"We will be winding down some contracts with a few media accounts in the first quarter that are not of long-term economic value," Chief Financial Officer Jim Benson said on a conference call with analysts.

Akamai media clients include Apple Inc, Sony BMG, News Corp, Nintendo Co and NBC.

Media and entertainment business accounted for 34 percent of revenue in 2011, down from 46 percent a year earlier.

"Revenue growth is slower (for the first quarter) because of the decceleration in the media business and the expense growth is higher due to the investment in sales force and R&D," D. A. Davidson & Co analyst Donna Jaegers told Reuters.

Akamai said it expects AT&T Inc to become a "very significant channel partner" going into 2014, but first half of the year would be "more of an investment phase".

AT&T agreed to partner with Akamai on content delivery network (CDN) services in December, and transfer its existing CDN operations, customers and services to Akamai's platform.

Akamai also said it has

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