What happened
Shares of Okta (OKTA +0.59%) were climbing today after the identity-for-the-cloud specialist delivered another strong earnings report last night. Okta, which provides software tools to allow for seamless and secure sign-in and login management for employees and customers, beat estimates on both the top and bottom lines, and put up impressive growth in other key metrics.
As of 11:27 a.m. EST, the stock was up 8.9%, and the stock had touched an all-time high earlier in the day.
Image source: Okta.
So what
Revenue rose 42% to $217.4 million, clearing the analyst bar at $202.7 million. The company continues to see a steady uptick in customers, adding 450 to 9,400, and Okta now has more than 300 customers generating $500,000 in annual revenue, showing it's making steady progress with large enterprises. The company also added a number of new customers from the finance and government sectors, showing more conservative institutions are adopting its technologies. Dollar-based net retention rate, a key metric for software-as-a-service stocks that shows growth from existing customers, was 123%, its highest in over two years.
On the bottom line, the company continued to expand its margins as it posted adjusted earnings per share of $0.04, up from a loss of $0.03 a year ago and ahead of the consensus at a loss of a penny per share.
Okta also said that its products will now be available on the Amazon Web Services marketplace, helping it tap into a huge potential customer base on strengthening its integration with AWS.
CEO Todd McKinnon summed up the quarter and the company's momentum, saying, "Our strong third quarter results reflect Okta's leading position in identity and access management and our continued ability to execute and drive industry-leading performance."
Now what
Looking ahead, the company's guidance was characteristically conservative but still better than estimates. It sees revenue growth of 32%-33% to $221 million-$222 million, and adjusted loss per share between $0.01 and $0.02.
Okta has been unflappable during the pandemic, maintaining its precrisis growth rate as demand for its identity and access tools has been high during a period defined by remote work. Expect the company to keep up that momentum as it tackles a $55 billion addressable market.
