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Big-data company Splunk Inc.’s share price is spiking again after another successful quarter.

The company today posted a fiscal second-quarter net loss of 71 cents per share on revenue of $388.3 million, up 39 percent from the same period a year ago. Earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation came in at 8 cents per share.

Wall Street analysts had pegged Splunk’s earnings before certain costs at just 5 cents per share on revenue of $358.5 million. The better-than-expected performance had shareholders pumped, with Splunk’s share price rising 6.5 percent in after-hours trading. Update: In Friday morning trading, shares were shooting up nearly 17 percent. Before Friday, Splunk had seen its share price rise by 30 percent since the start of the year.

Splunk sells big-data analytics software that helps companies monitor and draw business insights from the vast amounts of data they accumulate. In recent times, the company has emerged as one of Wall Street’s darlings, consistently beating expectations in successive quarters.

The previous quarter saw it sign up 550 new enterprise customers, according to the company.

“Every organization needs to monitor, analyze and investigate data to make faster decisions and take action, and I am pleased that Splunk is the platform of choice,” said Doug Merritt, Splunk’s president and chief executive officer.

Splunk has had a busy year in 2018, splashing out on acquisitions including its $350 million buy of Phantom Cyber Inc., in February, and more recently its $120 million purchase of VictorOps Inc. in June. The company has also made some notable upgrades to its software, adding artificial intelligence capabilities to its platform in April in order to help customers prevent infrastructure outages.

“Next generation applications require more gear, technology and data centers, and when you add the “internet of things” load on top there’s a lot that companies need to administer and monitor,” said Holger Mueller, principal analyst and vice president of Constellation Research Inc. “This plays in Splunk’s favor, and it is growing nicely, but investors will still watch profitability and will want to see when the vendor is turning to black.”

Splunk’s ability is also a concern for analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group, who dug deeper into the numbers and noted the company’s operating expenses are increasing faster than its revenue growth.

“This may suggest the firm needs stronger expense controls so that costs can be brought better in line with revenues,” Enderle said. “Liquidity remains strong, so they aren’t at any real risk, but you want to see GAAP profits increase, not decrease, over time.”

Nonetheless, Enderle said that Splunk’s top line revenue growth shows a continued interest in its product.

“Product performance is strong, but there appear to be growing issues with operations which will adversely impact future performance if they aren’t addressed timely,” the analyst added.

These concerns are unlikely to impact Splunk in the short term, however. For the third quarter, Splunk said it’s expecting revenue of between $430 million and $432 million, while total revenue for the full year is expected to come in at $1.685 billion. Wall Street was expecting third-quarter sales of $428 million.

Photo: Splunk