What happened
Shares of Verint (VRNT -2.25%) jumped on Thursday after the software company reported its fourth-quarter results. Verint fell short of analyst estimates for revenue, but it beat on earnings and provided better-than-expected guidance for the first quarter and for fiscal 2020. The stock was up about 13.2% at 3:30 p.m. EDT.
Check out the latest earnings call transcript for Verint.
So what
Verint reported fourth-quarter revenue of $330.2 million, up 3.6% year over year and about $2.5 million below the average analyst estimate. Full-year revenue was $1.23 billion, up 8.3% from the previous year.
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Non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) came in at $1.08, up from $1.05 in the prior-year period and $0.07 higher than analysts were expecting. GAAP EPS was $0.41, up from $0.26 one year ago.
Verint CEO Dan Bodner was optimistic about fiscal 2020 in his remarks: "We are experiencing strong business momentum including cloud growth acceleration. We entered the new year with improved visibility, are raising our annual guidance and also providing targets for cloud growth over the next three years."
Now what
Verint expects to produce 8% revenue growth and 14% non-GAAP EPS growth in the first quarter on a year-over-year basis. For fiscal 2020, the company expects revenue of $1.37 billion, plus or minus 2%, along with non-GAAP EPS of $3.60. Those numbers compare to analyst expectations of $1.33 billion for revenue and $3.52 for non-GAAP EPS.
Verint expects cloud-related revenue to drive its growth over the next few years. The company expects non-GAAP cloud revenue to reach $250 million in fiscal 2020, up 40%. Over the next three years, Verint sees a compound annual growth rate of 30% to 40% for the cloud business.
While Verint's overall growth was sluggish in the fourth quarter, a solid outlook was enough to propel the stock higher.
