Cloud subscription management services company Zuora Inc. saw its stock jump more than 20% in after-hours trading today after reporting fiscal first-quarter results that topped estimates.

The company reported a first-quarter loss before certain costs such as stock compensation of 6 cents per share on revenue of $73.9 million, up 15% from the same period one year ago. Wall Street had forecast a wider loss of 10 cents per share on revenue of $70.9 million.

“There has never been a time when the importance of what we do for our customers is more apparent,” Zuora Chief Executive Officer Tien Tzuo (pictured) said in prepared remarks. “We had another healthy quarter of growth despite the challenges arising from the pandemic. Moments like these truly highlight the resilience of having a subscription revenue business, both for us and for our customers.”

The company also offer solid guidance for the next quarter that matched Wall Street’s expectations. It said it’s expecting a second-quarter adjusted loss of seven to eight cents per share on revenue of $72.5 million to $75 million. Wall Street had earlier forecast an eight-cent loss on revenue of $74.53 million.

Zuora’s stock was up 21% at the time of writing.

Zuora’s strong performance underscores the company’s strength in its market. The company sells a software-as-a-service offering that’s used to automate businesses’ subscription order-to-cash operations in real time. Companies can use the Zuora platform to launch new businesses, shift products to subscriptions, implement new pay-as-you-go pricing and packaging models, gain new insights into subscriber behavior and attempt to disrupt market segments based on new pricing methods.

Zuora boasts some important customers, such as Ford Motor Co. and General Electric Co., as well as technology firms such as Nutanix Inc. and Pivotal Software Inc.

Zuora said it now counts 643 customers with an annual contract value of more than $100,000, up 18% from a year ago. It said customer usage also rose by 27%, with $12.3 billion in transaction volume going through its billing platform.

The results come a few days after Zuora announced a major update to its Zuora Central Platform that included new prebuilt workflow and data query tools.

Photo: Zuora