Cloudflare (NET) stock surged 12.83% in pre-market trading on Friday, following the company's impressive fourth-quarter 2024 earnings release and positive outlook for 2025. The cloud services provider reported solid financial results, exceeding analysts' expectations on both revenue and earnings per share.

The strong performance was driven by record growth in large customers spending over $1 million annually, reflecting robust demand for Cloudflare's innovative solutions. Notably, the company added 55 new $1 million customers in 2024, with more than half of them coming in the fourth quarter alone.

Cloudflare's momentum was also fueled by the growing adoption of its Workers developer platform and the increasing traction of its AI initiatives, particularly around AI inference. The company highlighted its unique position and competitive advantages in delivering efficient and cost-effective AI inference solutions through its serverless platform.

During the earnings call, Cloudflare's CEO, Matthew Prince, expressed confidence in the company's ability to reaccelerate growth in 2025, driven by improved go-to-market execution and higher sales productivity. He emphasized Cloudflare's commitment to innovation and its strategic focus on emerging trends such as secure and verifiable online content, as well as the growing demand for Zero Trust security solutions.

Analysts praised Cloudflare's strong execution and its well-positioned strategy to capitalize on the large addressable market and long growth runway. With a focus on addressing key trends like AI and edge computing, the company is expected to maintain its momentum and deliver robust financial results in the coming quarters.