Earnings Results: CrowdStrike stock surges 15% after results, outlook exceed Wall Street expectations

The company reported a fiscal fourth-quarter loss of $42 million, or 18 cents a share, compared with a loss of $19 million, or 9 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted net income, which excludes stock-based compensation and other items, was 30 cents a share, compared with 13 cents a share in the year-ago period.

Revenue rose to $431 million from $264.9 million in the year-ago quarter. Annual recurring revenue, or ARR, a software-as-a-service metric that shows how much revenue the company can expect based on subscriptions, grew 65% to $1.73 billion from the year-ago quarter.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected CrowdStrike to report earnings of 20 cents a share on revenue of $411 million, based on the company’s outlook of 19 cents to 21 cents a share on revenue of $406.5 million to $412.3 million.

“CrowdStrike once again delivered an exceptional fourth quarter and capped off a record year, achieving new milestones across both the top and bottom line,” said George Kurtz, CrowdStrike co-founder and chief executive, in a statement. “Net new ARR of $217 million in the quarter was a new all-time high, driven by expansion of our leadership in the core endpoint market as well as a record quarter for cloud, identity protection and Humio.”

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CrowdStrike expects adjusted fiscal first-quarter earnings of 22 cents to 24 cents a share on revenue of $458.9 million to $465.4 million, while analysts forecast earnings of 17 cents a share on revenue of $440.3 million, according to FactSet.

For the year, the company forecast an earnings range of $1.03 to $1.13 a share on revenue of $2.13 billion to $2.16 billion. Wall Street expects 90 cents a share on revenue of $2 billion.

As of Wednesday’s close, the stock is down 14.7% over the past 12 months, versus a 10.4% rise on the S&P 500 index
SPX,
+2.57%,
a 1.4% gain on the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
+3.59%,
and a less than 1% loss on the ETFMG Prime Cyber Security ETF
HACK,
+2.52%.