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Enterprise software company Atlassian Corp. Plc. was all smiles today as it delivered fiscal second-quarter financial results that cruised past expectations.

Guidance for the next quarter was also encouraging, helping drive a big jump in firm’s share price in after-hours trading. In addition, Atlassian hit a major new milestone for the quarter ending Dec. 31, surpassing $1 billion in calendar year revenue for the first time.

The company, which makes collaboration and productivity software for businesses, reported a profit before certain costs such as stock compensation of $61.7 million, or 25 cents per diluted share. Revenue for the quarter came in at $299 million, up 39 percent from a year ago. Analysts had pegged Atlassian’s earnings at just 21 cents per share on revenue of $288 million.

Charles King, president and principal analyst at Pund-IT Inc., told SiliconANGLE that cracking the $1 billion annual revenue rate was significant for Atlassian as the milestone is often seen as a sign that a company has arrived at financial sustainability. Add to that it’s the third consecutive quarter of accelerated earnings, and it means that Atlassian “seems to be on a tear with no ceiling in sight,” King said.

Atlassian Chief Executive Officer Scott Farquhar said the quarter “highlighted the growing demand for Atlassian products to drive digital transformation in businesses large and small.”

Atlassian’s stock jumped by almost 10 percent in the after-hours session, reflecting shareholder’s delight with the quarterly performance. Update: But on Friday, for reasons not immediately apparent, the stock closed down more than 2 percent on a big up day for the overall market.

Farquhar said the company’s flagship product Jira Software, used for agile software development and enterprise project management, saw its customer base grow beyond 65,000 customers. That came after a major revamp of the software in October that aimed to make the platform more accessible to ordinary workers. “We ended the quarter with more than 138,000 total customers, underscoring the growth opportunity for Jira just within our installed base,” the executive said.

“As enterprises transform into software companies, they need to build more software,” analyst Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. told SiliconANGLE. “For that they need more and better tools for their developers and that’s were Atlassian comes to play.”

The customer growth comes despite a decision by Atlassian in October to raise the prices of some of its products, including Jira.

Joel Fishbein, an analyst at BTIG Research, told CNBC that he’d heard of “minimal pushback” from some buyers over the recent price increases. However, Atlassian President Jay Simons said the firm’s products were still very affordable, and that the effect of the price hikes was in line with what executives had been expecting.

Still, analyst King had words of warning for the company, saying it’s not clear where it goes from here since its focus on agile planning, development and information technology service management isn’t exactly unique. “Although most of the others in this space are analogous to Atlassian in size and shape (think ServiceNow and ZenDesk), the top tier includes hefty competitors, including Microsoft, IBM and BMC,” he said. “Atlassian may well rule the roost in that lower tier but hanging with those larger players is a different game entirely.”

That might explain why Atlassian seems to be doubling down on its key product offerings. During the quarter, it sold its Jitsi video conferencing platform to 8×8 Inc.

For its fiscal third quarter, Atlassian said it’s targeting total revenue of $303 million to $305 million, with earnings per share of 18 cents. Analysts have forecast 18 cents a share on revenue of $300 million.

Photo: Atlassian