UPDATED 19:03 EDT / FEBRUARY 04 2020

APPS

New Relic stock tanks on lower-than-expected earnings

Application and DevOps monitoring company New Relic Inc.’s stock lost more than 12% of its value today after reporting third-quarter financial results that left investors feeling decidedly underwhelmed.

The company reported earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation of 9 cents per share on revenue of $153 million, up from the $124 million revenue it reported one year before.

But Wall Street was hoping for more, having forecast higher earnings of 12 cents per share on lower revenue of $149.18 million.

Also worrying is that New Relic’s operating loss for the quarter came to $24.2 million, compared to just $8.5 million in the previous quarter.

And there was more bad news to come when New Relic followed up with its guidance for the next quarter, saying it expects earnings of 2 to 6 cents per share on revenue of $154 million to $156 million. Analysts had forecast a higher fourth-quarter profit of 7 to 8 cents per share on revenue of $155 million.

Investors clearly aren’t happy with New Relic’s progress at this time, but Chief Executive Officer Lew Cirne (pictured) put a brave face on things, saying he was pleased with the feedback it had received from early adopters of its new New Relic One Platform.

New Relic One is a revamped version of the company’s main web application performance monitoring service that works in real time and enables information technology teams to see deep inside their apps and gain a full understanding of any performance issues. It comes with new “programmability” features that enable developers to build native apps atop of the platform.

The idea is to help developers build new applications atop New Relic One, using the popular React.js and GraphQL programming languages. Those apps can integrate New Relic’s observability data with their company’s own business data. Such applications might include customized data visualizations or workflow integrations that enable companies to take action on their application data.

“With the recent introduction of our platform innovations and new executives, we have the pieces of our strategy in place to capitalize on our immense opportunity to help customers create more perfect software,” Cirne said in a statement today.

If there was any good news to take away from New Relic’s quarter, it was on the customer acquisition front. New Relic said it ended the quarter with 926 customer accounts worth more tha $100,000 per year, up from 816 a year earlier.

Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller said the wider loss was somewhat alarming for New Relic’s investors, but noted that executives have expressed optimism the company will be back in the black next quarter, and could even end up with a profit for the full year.

“With a proven product platform in place that should be possible,” Mueller said. “But New Relic has recently brought a number of new executives on board on both the product and go to market side, and they still need to find their feet. It’s going to be an interesting quarter ahead, and one that will make or break the financial year.”

SiliconANGLE’s mobile livestreaming studio theCUBE interviewed Cirne in October:

Image: SiliconANGLE

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