What happened
Shares of Splunk (SPLK +0.00%) gained 11.9% in November, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, after the operational intelligence platform leader announced impressive fiscal third-quarter 2019 results.
To be sure, despite pulling back hard along with the broader market through both October and the first few weeks of last month, shares rebounded nicely after Splunk managed to exceed guidance for the 27th consecutive quarter with its report on Nov. 29, 2018.
IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.
So what
More specifically, revenue in Splunk's latest three-month period climbed 40.4% year over year to $481 million, trouncing its previous outlook for between $430 million and $432 million. Within that, license revenue grew 44.3% to $279.6 million, and maintenance and services revenue jumped more than 35% to $201.4 million. That translated to adjusted earnings of $57.6 million, or $0.38 per share, exceeding consensus estimates by $0.06 per share.
Splunk CEO Doug Merritt credited the company's outperformance to its "pioneering innovation and the rising demand for data-driven insights across all industries."
To be sure, management elaborated that Splunk not only added over 500 enterprise customers during the quarter, but also enjoyed higher average sales from each of its existing customers as they expanded their adoption of Splunk's various products.
Now what
Looking ahead to its current fiscal fourth quarter, Splunk told investors to expect revenue to increase 33.4% year over year to $560 million, modestly above Wall Street's estimates at the time.
Of course, you can be sure the market will be anticipating Splunk will cap its seventh straight year of exceeding guidance when all is said and done in its current period. But however conservative that guidance might be, and however aggressive consensus estimates might grow, it won't matter if Splunk absolutely crushes those estimates again with its next report in February 2019.
