Apollo Group Inc., owner of the biggest for-profit university in the U. S. by enrollment, announced that its second-quarter net earnings came out to be $92.61 million or $0.60 per share, compared to $125.35 million or $0.77 per share in the same quarter last year, exceeding the estimates made by analysts.

The company's shares witnessed a rise of as much as 6.1 percent in early Nasdaq trading. The company's net income for the three months ended Feb. 28 reported a plunge of 26 percent to $92.6 million, or 60 cents a share, Phoenix-based Apollo revealed today in a statement.

While, excluding special items, income incurred from operations attributable to Apollo Group was reported as $130.1 million or $0.84 per share, compared to income from continuing operations attributable to Apollo Group of $128.8 million or $0.79 per share, last year.

Moreover, Apollo witnessed its revenue soar by 23 percent to $1.07 billion on enrollment that climbed about 15 percent from a year earlier to 458,600.

Ariel Sokol, a Wedbush Morgan Securities Inc. analyst in New York, said, "The acceleration in bachelor's degree new starts and the persistence of bachelor's students was higher than expected. Overall the results look better than expected".