What happened
Shares of Box (BOX -0.43%) traded up more than 7% on Wednesday afternoon after the cloud-based storage provider reported third-quarter revenue that came in ahead of expectations and raised its full-year sales outlook. The company has been under pressure due to investor concerns about competition, but the latest results seemed to help put shareholders at ease.
So what
After markets closed Tuesday, Box reported a third-quarter loss of $0.01 per share, matching expectations, on revenue of $177.2 million that was $3 million ahead of consensus estimates. The company said it expects fourth-quarter adjusted earnings of $0.04 to $0.05 per share on revenue of $181 million to $182 million, which is slightly better than the $0.04 earnings per share on $180 million in revenue consensus estimate.
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Box also raised its full-year revenue outlook to $693.7 million-$694.7 million from $690 million to $692 million.
CEO and co-founder Aaron Levie said in a statement that during the third quarter, Box launched a new security product and had tighter integration with products from IBM, Microsoft, and Slack Technologies.
"With these solid results and our delivery of key product and go-to-market initiatives, we are in a strong position to continue to improve our balance between growth and profitability," Levie said. "These new products and capabilities will enable our customers to expand their use of Box for frictionless security and compliance, seamless internal and external collaboration and workflows, and a more productive workplace by leveraging a best-of-breed IT stack."
Now what
Box boasts an impressive customer list, including nearly 70% of the Fortune 500, but it is in a business dominated by tech giants including Microsoft and Alphabet as well as Dropbox. The latest quarterly results are a step in the right direction, but Box still needs a lot to go right to emerge as one of the long-term winners in cloud storage.
