What happened 

Shares of Snowflake (SNOW 2.53%) surged 7.7% on Thursday, following the release of the cloud data specialist's fiscal 2022 second-quarter financial report. 

So what

Snowflake's revenue soared 104% year over year to $272.2 million. This impressive growth was fueled by a 60% increase in total customers, to 4,990. Higher sales to existing clients, as can be seen by Snowflake's sterling net revenue retention rate of 169%, also contributed to the gains.

"Snowflake saw continued momentum in Q2 with triple-digit growth in product revenue, reflecting strength in customer consumption," CEO Frank Slootman said in a press release.

A rising bar chart.

Snowflake's sales are surging. Image source: Getty Images.

Moreover, Snowflake's adjusted gross margin rose to 70% from 63% in the second quarter of fiscal 2021. The company's adjusted operating margin, meanwhile, improved to negative 8% from negative 44% in the year-ago period.

Still, Snowflake remains unprofitable on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis. It generated a net loss of $189.7 million, or $0.64 per share. However, Snowflake's adjusted loss per share of $0.04 was notably better than the $0.15 loss analysts had expected.  

Now what 

Snowflake is a leader in the rapidly expanding market for data warehousing. It excels at helping businesses collect and analyze data from multiple sources -- tools that are becoming only more vital as the shift to the cloud accelerates.

Snowflake, in turn, expects its product revenue to grow as much as 93%, to roughly 1.07 billion, in fiscal 2022.