What happened
The stock market was rather sluggish on Wednesday, but you'd never suspect that given the performance of KORE Group Holdings (KORE -0.51%) shares. The Internet of Things (IoT) specialist's stock enjoyed a more-than 11% lift on the day, thanks to a quarterly earnings report that predicted better-than-expected growth for this year.
So what
KORE revealed that it earned just over $64 million in its fourth quarter of 2021, which was nearly 12% higher than in the same period of the previous year. On the bottom line, the company managed to narrow its net loss -- although not by a dramatic amount -- to nearly $12 million ($0.17 per share) against 2020's Q4 shortfall of $15.7 million.
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That meant a mixed quarter for KORE. While revenue comfortably beat the average analyst estimate of $58.2 million, the consensus forecast for per-share net loss was only $0.11.
While KORE's core business was expanding organically, it faced challenges from the fading of old wireless technologies 2G and 3G.
In the earnings release, the IoT company's CEO Romil Bahl said that, across 2021, KORE
executed well and achieved several key milestones, including the maturing of our KORE One platform and related IP, the launch of our leading global eSIM product suite named KORE OmniSIM, and our public listing on the [New York Stock Exchange].
Now what
One solid truism of stock investing is that companies trade on future potential, not trailing performance. This is likely the main reason why KORE was a hot item on the exchange Wednesday. It proffered revenue guidance for this year of $260 million to $265 million, which is substantially higher than the average $239 million expected by analysts.