Investors would be hard-pressed to find a tech stock hotter than Fastly (FSLY -3.67%) right now. The company's stock has skyrocketed 320% over the past three months, thanks to strong results in the company's most recent quarter and on hopes that Fastly's edge computing and content delivery network (CDN) services will continue growing.
As the company's name suggests, Fastly's services help companies speed up their websites, apps, location-based services, and videos, and investors have taken a particular interest in the company as more and more businesses are looking to boost their online services during the current pandemic.
Image source: Fastly.
A company that can help others build a faster internet sounds great, but are investors justified in their optimism about this company? If we look at how quickly Fastly is growing right now and consider the company's prospects over the next 12 months, current investor sentiment surrounding this company looks justified. Let's take a closer look.
Rapid growth
The company released its first-quarter results in May, which easily beat Wall Street's expectations. Fastly improved its earnings from a loss per share of $0.30 in the year-ago quarter to a loss of $0.06. That outpaced analysts' consensus estimate of a loss per share of $0.12.
Meanwhile, revenue increased 38% in the quarter to $63 million, and the company's all-important enterprise division -- which accounts for 88% of Fastly's sales -- continued to expand. Fastly now has 297 enterprise customers, defined as customers who spend $100,000 or more with Fastly annually, up from 288 in the fourth quarter.
Just as important, the average amount enterprise customers now spend with Fastly increased to $642,000, up from $607,000 in the fourth quarter.
And while other companies have been cutting their full-year guidance due to the negative economic effects of COVID-19, Fastly actually raised its full-year revenue guidance from the previous range of $255 million to $265 million to the current range of between $280 million to $290 million.
Where will Fastly be in a year?
It's worth pointing out that despite Fastly's growth, the company isn't profitable yet. But Fastly's current growth, in addition to new business opportunities, is setting up the company for potential long-term growth.
For example, Shopify and Walmart made a deal earlier in June that would allow some Shopify businesses to sell their products on Walmart's website. Shopify uses Fastly's technology for some of its website services, and that relationship helped drive Fastly's shares higher on news of the Walmart/Shopify partnership.
But that's nowhere near the only opportunity Fastly has for future growth. The company works with a laundry list of major brands and websites, including The New York Times, Pinterest, Yelp, Condé Nast, Airbnb, and a host of others that will continue fueling its business for the coming years.
Over the next year, I suspect Fastly will be able to gain an even larger share of the vast content delivery network market, which will be worth an estimated $22 billion by 2024. With Fastly continuing to add more enterprise customers, and make more money off those customers, there's lots of room for the company to continue expanding in this market over the coming months.
Some investors may be hesitant to snatch up Fastly's shares following their meteoric rise over the past few months, but there's no denying that the company is tapping into a growing need for speedier websites, apps, and online services. All of this sets up the company for even more growth in the coming year.
