What happened
Shares of Snowflake (SNOW -0.26%) jumped 15.9% on Thursday after the cloud-data leader delivered outstanding growth metrics in its fiscal 2022 third-quarter report.
So what
Snowflake's revenue rocketed 110% year over year to $334.4 million. That was well above Wall Street's estimates, which had called for sales of $305.6 million.
The gains were driven in part by the company's rapid international expansion. Revenue in Snowflake's Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) segment surged 174%, while sales in its Asia Pacific/Japan (APJ) division soared 219%.
"Snowflake continues to see broad industry adoption," CEO Frank Slootman said in a press release.
Image source: Getty Image.
Snowflake is benefiting from a powerful combination of new account growth and higher sales to existing customers. The software company's total customer base grew 52% to 5,416, while its net revenue retention rate was an exceptional 173%.
Moreover, although Snowflake is not yet profitable based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), it did produce an adjusted operating profit of $8.5 million and free cash flow of $9.5 million.
Now what
These impressive results and ongoing positive sales trends prompted Snowflake to boost its full-year financial forecast. Management now projects that its product revenue will increase by approximately 104% to $1.13 billion in fiscal 2022. That's up from its prior guidance for revenue growth of roughly 92%.
Multiple analysts responded by hiking their price targets for Snowflake's shares. For one, Citigroup analyst Tyler Radke raised his rating on the stock from neutral to buy and boosted his share-price forecast from $299 to $470.
Radke expects Snowflake to sign even bigger deals as corporations invest more in their data-analytics capabilities in the coming years. If he's correct, investors could see gains of 30% from the stock's current price near $360.
