CrowdStrike Issues Weak Earnings Outlook Despite Fiscal Fourth-Quarter Beat
MT Newswires
03-05
crowdstrike.jpg -Shutterstock
CrowdStrike (CRWD) shares dropped early Wednesday as the cybersecurity firm issued earnings outlook below market estimates for its fiscal first quarter and full year despite reporting better-than-expected results for the preceding three-month period.
The company anticipates per-share adjusted earnings to be in a range of $0.64 to $0.66 for the current quarter, it said late Tuesday, while the consensus on FactSet is for $0.76. Revenue is pegged at $1.1 billion to $1.11 billion, which is the Street's forecast. The stock fell 7.6% in the most recent premarket activity.
CrowdStrike's guidance assumes a "typical" sequential seasonal decline in net new annual recurring revenue, or ARR, of about 21% to 23%, Chief Financial Officer Burt Podbere said during an earnings call, according to a FactSet transcript. The company also expects to incur cash impacts of $73 million in the ongoing quarter due to costs associated with last year's global tech outage, according to Podbere.
For fiscal 2026, the firm projects adjusted EPS to come in between $3.33 and $3.45 on a revenue range of $4.74 billion to $4.81 billion. The Street is currently looking for non-GAAP EPS of $3.88 and revenue of $4.79 billion. In the previous fiscal year, adjusted EPS jumped to $3.93 from $3.09 on an annual basis while revenue climbed 29% to $3.95 billion.
"The fundamental strengths of our business reflected in our strong customer retention, accelerating module adoption, and multiple large growth opportunities, give us confidence in our ability to achieve our target model by fiscal year 2029 and deliver long-term profitable growth," Podbere said in a statement.
CrowdStrike posted adjusted EPS of $1.03 for the quarter ended January, up from $0.95 the year before, ahead of the average analyst estimate of $0.86. Revenue advanced 25% year over year to $1.06 billion, topping the market's $1.03 billion estimate. Subscription revenue jumped 27% to $1.01 billion, while professional services increased to $50.2 million from $49.4 million last year.
ARR grew 23% to $4.24 billion as of the end of January, of which $224.3 million was net new ARR added in the fourth quarter, according to the company. "We expect net new ARR reacceleration as well as operating margin and free cash flow margin expansion in the second half of (fiscal 2026)," Podbere told analysts on the call.