UPDATED 20:30 EDT / NOVEMBER 26 2019

CLOUD

Box beats analysts’ predictions thanks to strong sales growth

Cloud storage company Box Inc. beat analysts’ expectations thanks to strong sales growth in its third quarter reported today.

In the quarter ended Oct. 31, Box reported record revenue of $177.2 million, up 14% over the same quarter in 2018. While revenue was strong, the company is still losing money.

The operating loss for the third quarter came in at $39.5 million while the company’s loss adjusted for items such as stock compensation was $7 million, the latter an improvement over a loss of $17 million a year ago. Total operating expenses in the quarter rose 6% year-over-year to $160.1 million.

Box noted that over the quarter it grew its customer base to more than 90,000 organizations, including new or expanded deployments from Epic Games, Impossible Foods, Los Angeles World Airports, D.C. Office of the Attorney General, NHL, and Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Still, Box shares rose only slightly up in after-hours trading. Having closed regular trading at $16.70 a share, Box shares rose only to about $17.

Where the figures get more interesting is in Box’s guidance. For the fourth quarter, the company said it’s expecting revenue of $163.5 million to $164.5 million. Net loss per share is expected to be 20 to 21 cents, while adjusted profit is forecast at two to three cents.

For the full fiscal year, Box predicted revenue $608.2 million to $609.2 million with a net loss of $1.01 to $1.02 a share and an adjusted loss of 15 to 16 cents per share. The fiscal year predictions beat analyst predictions of a figure of $690.9 million.

Box was busy in the quarter, investing in its cloud management platform in its ongoing battle against the likes of Microsoft Corp.’s OneDrive and Google LLC’s Google Drive. Highlights include the debut of new security tools Oct. 2 and added support for Splunk and Adobe links to improve security and document editing Oct. 3.

Image: Needpix

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