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Palo Alto Networks Inc. shares rallied in the extended session Monday after the cybersecurity company’s quarterly results and outlook exceeded Wall Street expectations.
Palo Alto Networks
PANW,
shares surged more than 7% after hours, following a 1.4% rise in the regular session to close at $372.57.
Palo Alto Networks reported a fiscal fourth-quarter loss of $119.3 million, or $1.23 a share, compared with a loss of $58.9 million, or 61 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted earnings, which exclude share-based compensation charges and other items, were $1.60 a share, compared with $1.48 in the year-ago period.
Revenue rose to $1.22 billion from $950.4 million in the year-ago quarter. Billings, which reflects future business under contract, rose to $1.87 billion, compared with $1.39 billion a year ago.
Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast earnings of $1.43 a share on revenue of $1.17 billion and billings of $1.71 billion. Palo Alto Networks had forecast $1.42 to $1.44 a share on revenue of $1.17 billion to $1.18 billion, and billings of $1.7 billion to $1.72 billion.
“Our strong Q4 performance was the culmination of executing on our strategy throughout the year, including product innovation, platform integration, business model transformation and investments in our go-to-market organization,” said Nikesh Arora, Palo Alto Networks chairman and chief executive, in a statement. “In particular, we saw notable strength in large customer transactions with strategic commitments across our Strata, Prisma and Cortex platforms.”
Palo Alto Networks expects adjusted fiscal-first quarter earnings of $1.55 to $1.58 a share on revenue of $1.19 billion to $1.21 billion and billings of $1.29 billion to $1.31 billion, while analysts had forecast $1.59 a share on revenue of $1.15 billion and billings of $1.25 billion.
For the year, Palo Alto Networks expects adjusted earnings of $7.15 to $7.25 a share on revenue of $5.28 billion to $5.33 billion, while analysts expect $7.03 a share on revenue of $5 billion. The company also sees billings of $6.6 billion to $6.65 billion, while analysts forecast $6.18 billion.
Palo Alto Networks shares are up 38% for the past 12 months. In comparison, the ETFMG Prime Cyber Security ETF
HACK,
is up 29%, while both the S&P 500 index
SPX,
and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
are up 32%.
