Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What's happening: Shares of Zendesk (ZEN) fell by as much as 12% Thursday, then partially recovered to trade down around 9% as of 1:00 p.m. despite solid fourth-quarter results from the cloud-based customer service software provider.
Why it's happening: Quarterly revenue increased 71% year over year to $38.5 million, helped by an expanded enterprise customer base, continued strength in start-ups and small- and medium-sized businesses, and the launch of its "Embeddables" native environment integration solution in the fourth quarter. That translated to an adjusted operating loss of $7.7 million, and a net loss of $8.0 million, or $0.11 per diluted share. Analysts, on average, were expecting a wider net loss of $0.12 per share on lower sales of $36.7 million.
What's more, Zendesk expects current-quarter revenue in the range of $39 million to $41 million, with an adjusted operating loss of $9.5 million to $10.5 million. Analysts were modeling an adjusted net loss of $0.13 per share on lower sales of $38.7 million. Finally, Zendesk sees revenue for the full year 2015 growing 45% to 50% to a range of $184 million to $190 million, which should result in an adjusted operating loss of $34 million to $36 million. Once again, analysts weren't as optimistic, calling for revenue of just $182.7 million to result in a loss of $0.43 per share.
So why the stock drop? For one, note Zendesk shares climbed nearly 9% in the week leading up to the report, so today's pullback appears to be simply giving back some of those short-term gains given the small beat. We should also keep in mind Zendesk is no stranger to volatility since holding its IPO last May. In the end, I think long-term investors shouldn't fret these swings as Zendesk continues its march toward sustained profitability.
