What happened
Shares of information technology company MuleSoft (MULE) climbed as much as 16.7% on Friday. The stock's gain follows MuleSoft's fourth-quarter earnings release. Mulesoft shares are up 15.2% at the time of this writing.
Optimism toward the stock on Friday likely reflects the company's higher-than-expected fourth-quarter revenue, as well management's promising outlook for 2018.
"Robust market demand and strong sales execution enabled us to deliver fourth quarter and fiscal 2017 revenue well ahead of expectations," said MuleSoft CEO Greg Schott about the results.
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So what
Fourth-quarter revenue was $88.7 million, up 60% year over year. This was driven primarily by a 57% year-over-year jump in subscription and support revenue to $70.6 million. And revenue from its "professional services and other" segment was up 75% year over year to $18.1 million. The results compare to a consensus analyst estimate for revenue of about $83 million.
MuleSoft's net loss per share for the quarter was $0.19, narrower than a loss per share of $0.52 in the year-ago quarter. The company's non-GAAP loss per share was $0.12, worse than an adjusted loss per share of $0.10 in the year-ago quarter and in line with the consensus analyst estimate for the quarter.
Now what
Looking ahead, MuleSoft expects its strong growth to continue. Management guided for 2018 revenue to be between $405 and $415 million, up 38% year over year when using the midpoint of this guidance range. On average, analysts were expecting 2018 revenue of about $396 million.
In 2021, Schott said the company expects to reach $1 billion in annual revenue. "Our disruptive platform is addressing one of the largest areas of enterprise IT spend," Schott explained, "and we're confident in our long-term strategy to become the de facto application network platform for our customers to become more agile and to transform their businesses."
