Network equipment vendor Juniper Networks saw its profits drop slightly in the fourth quarter, but the company is optimistic that things will start to turn around this year.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company earned $131 million, or 24 cents per share, in the fourth quarter, compared with $132.5 million, or 25 cents per share, a year ago . Industry analysts had predicted 26 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters.

Minus one-time items, Juniper said it would have earned $173.7 million, or 32 cents per share.

For the fourth quarter that ended Dec. 30, Juniper’s revenues of $941.5 million were up 2 percent from the same quarter a year ago and topped analysts’ projections of $884.8 million.

"Juniper enters 2010 with good operational execution, improved financial results, and a clear strategic direction centered on innovation and expanded routes to market," said Kevin Johnson, Juniper's CEO. "Our results for the year, capped by a strong fourth quarter, validate our commitment to managing the business carefully while maintaining investments in innovation that we believe will help us grow our share of the high-performance networking market. We see improving conditions in 2010 and are positioning Juniper to accelerate out of the downturn."

For all of last year, Juniper said it earned $225.1 million, or 42 cents per share, compared with $511.7 million, or 93 cents per share, in 2008, while revenue dropped to $3.32 billion from $3.57 billion.