Shares of cloud-based data-warehouse specialist Snowflake (SNOW 2.69%) jumped on Thursday, rising about 6%. The growth stock's big gains follow the tech company's earnings report, which featured stunning top-line growth and massive margin improvement as the company's highly scalable business model flexes.
"Snowflake saw continued momentum in Q2 with triple-digit growth in product revenue, reflecting strength in customer consumption," said Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman in the company's fiscal second-quarter earnings release.
Here's a closer look at some of the must-see metrics from the quarter.
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1. Triple-digit revenue growth
Snowflake's revenue for its second quarter of fiscal 2022 more than doubled, rising 103% year over year to about $255 million. The impressive quarter's top-line performance means the company now boasts an annual revenue run rate in excess of $1 billion.
As one bullish analyst noted following the earnings release, Snowflake is on pace to achieve $1 billion in annual revenue faster than any software company in history.
2. Best-in-class net revenue retention
Snowflake's net revenue retention rate, or a measure of spend from existing customers this year compared to last year, was 169% for the quarter. This was best in class for enterprise software companies. Further, this important customer spend retention rate was an acceleration from 168% in the prior quarter.
3. Million-dollar customers more than doubled
Snowflake's customers generating more than $1 million in trailing-12-month revenue for the company more than doubled year over year, growing to 116%.
But it wasn't just these huge customers that grew in quantity. Snowflake saw a 60% year-over-year jump in total customers, putting its total customer count at nearly 5,000. The number of Fortune 500 companies Snowflake services also rose nicely, growing 34% year over year to 212.
4. A widening gross profit margin
Capturing the scalability of Snowflake's business, the company's non-GAAP (adjusted) gross margin has been widening rapidly and has gone from 63% in fiscal 2020 to 73% for the first half of fiscal 2022. Management says margin-expansion drivers include cloud-agreement pricing, scale, discipline about when and how to offer discounts, and momentum with enterprise customers.
5. Operating leverage
With Snowflake's rapid top-line growth and a scalable business model, it's not surprising to learn that the company benefits from significant operating leverage. Snowflake's non-GAAP operating loss as a percentage of revenue has improved from negative 136% in fiscal 2019 to an expected negative 9% this year (based on management's guidance).
While Snowflake appears to be crushing it, investors should keep in mind that valuation matters. Investors are already paying a premium to buy into this growth story, pricing in plenty of big growth for years into the future. Snowflake currently has a market capitalization of $89 billion.
