What happened
Shares of Splunk Inc. (SPLK) were up 15.9% as of 11 a.m. EST Friday, after the operational-intelligence platform specialist announced stronger-than-expected quarterly results and raised its guidance for the year.
More specifically, for its fiscal third-quarter 2018, ended Oct. 31, 2017, Splunk's revenue climbed 34.3% year over year to $328.7 million, smashing its most recent guidance for sales to arrive between $307 million and $308 million. On the bottom line, that translated to adjusted net income of $25.1 million, or $0.17 per share, up from $0.12 per share in the same year-ago period and above investors' expectations for $0.14.
IMAGE SOURCE: SPLUNK.
So what
Splunk's top-line growth was comprised of a 28.7% increase in license revenue to $179.8 million, and 41.7% growth in maintenance revenue to $148.8 million. Billings also rose 38% to $381.6 million.
"I'm proud of our global performance for the quarter and our increased outlook through the rest of the year," stated Splunk CEO Doug Merritt, adding, "Splunk customers are seizing upon the growing opportunity machine data presents and only Splunk can help them get answers on-premises, in the cloud or across hybrid environments."
To be sure, Splunk added over 450 new enterprise customers during the quarter, striking new and expanded relationships with the likes of 21st Century Fox, Daimler, Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. Army, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to name only a few.
Now what
If that wasn't enough, Splunk told investors to expect fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of between $388 million and $390 million, above consensus estimates for $383.6 million. And for the full fiscal year 2018, Splunk raised its guidance for revenue to be between $1.239 billion and $1.241 billion (up from previous guidance of $1.210 billion to $1.215 billion), with billings of $1.485 billion (up from $1.450 billion previously).
Splunk also provided preliminary guidance for fiscal 2019, calling for revenue to climb to $1.55 billion, or 25% growth from the midpoint of its revised fiscal 2018 guidance and above analyst estimates for $1.52 billion.
All things considered, there was nothing not to like about this beat-and-raise from Splunk, and it's no surprise to see the stock up big today.
