PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) _ VMware Inc. (VMW) on Tuesday reported fiscal third-quarter profit of $621 million.

The Palo Alto, California-based company said it had profit of $1.50 per share. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were $1.49 per share.

The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of nine analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.42 per share.

The cloud computing company posted revenue of $2.46 billion in the period, which also topped Street forecasts. Eight analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $2.4 billion.

VMware shares have climbed 20% since the beginning of the year. In the final minutes of trading on Tuesday, shares hit $164.83, an increase of 7% in the last 12 months.

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

Automated Insights, source Associated Press News