What happened
Shares of recent space SPAC IPO Planet Labs (PL) rocketed as much as 14% in Friday morning trading before turning around and heading (partway) back to Earth.
As of 1:30 p.m. ET, shares of the Earth imaging satellite company are still up a solid 8.4% after it reported fiscal Q4 2022 earnings last night.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
Planet Labs reported $37.1 million in revenue for its final quarter of fiscal 2022 (not a typo -- their fiscal calendar runs a year ahead of everybody else's), which was up 23% year over year. The company collected $131.2 million in revenue for the full year -- up 16%.
For what it's worth, that's a bit more than the company had predicted it would generate in revenue for this year, when I spoke with management just prior to its IPO last year. Gross profit margins earned on those revenues climbed to 37% for both the quarter and the year -- up 14 full percentage points from last year's 23% gross margin.
The company also noted that it grew its customer count by about 25%, to 770 customers currently.
The company did not, however, earn a profit. Planet Labs lost $0.26 per share for the quarter, and $1.72 per share for the year.
Now what
Looking ahead to fiscal 2023 (everybody else's calendar year 2022), Planet is forecasting that it will grow sequential revenues slightly to somewhere between $38 million and $41 million. Gross margins will also keep climbing into the "38% to 45%" range. For the full year, Planet forecasts sales ranging from $170 million to $190 million, with gross profit margins ranging from 43% to 50%.
Investors are reacting positively to the news, but I have to point out -- when last I spoke with Planet, management was forecasting $191 million in revenue for fiscal 2023. Despite the positive stock price action today, I view this latest update as pretty disappointing, and indicative of a likely "sales miss" this year.
But fingers crossed that Planet Labs is just being conservative.
