BigBear.ai (BBAI +0.81%) stock is losing ground in Wednesday's trading. The company's share price was down 8.5% as of 1 p.m. ET. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 (^GSPC +0.12%) index was up 2.2%
NYSE: BBAI
Key Data Points
After the market closed yesterday, BigBear.ai published its third-quarter results. While the company's earnings came in better than anticipated, sales fell short of expectations -- and management's forward guidance did not put investors at ease.
BigBear posts smaller-than-expected loss, but sales fall short
In the third quarter, Bigbear.ai posted a loss of $0.05 per share on revenue of $41.5 million. For comparison, the average analyst estimate had called for a loss of $0.07 per share on revenue of roughly $45 million. Revenue was up 22% year over year in the quarter, but the performance still fell short of expectations. Making matters worse, comments from management suggested that next year could be challenging for the business.
What comes next for BigBear.ai?
For the full year, BigBear is guiding for revenue to be between $165 million and $180 million. The guidance includes sales contributions from the company's acquisition of Pangiam earlier this year, and the midpoint of the target range actually came in ahead of the average analyst estimate's call for sales of roughly $171.8 million in the period. But comments from management suggests that performance further out could be underwhelming.
CEO Mandy Long said that the company was continuing to see headwinds and that governments were taking a cautious approach to artificial intelligence (AI) spending. As a result, she expects that the company's business performance will be "lumpy" going forward.
So while management's sales guidance for the remainder of the year actually came in a bit ahead of expectations, they appear to have a cautious outlook for next year.
