Cloud storage company Box Inc. posted strong fiscal first-quarter results today, boosted by enterprise customers looking for secure remote work services to keep their operations up and running during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company reported a profit before certain costs such as stock compensation of 10 cents per share on revenue of $183.6 million, up 13% from a year ago. Wall Street had Box down for earnings of just 5 cents per share on revenue of $181.91 million.

“While these remain challenging and unprecedented times, we are at the beginning of one of the most transformative periods in business history,” Box co-founder and Chief Executive Aaron Levie (pictured) said in a statement. “The need for more organizations to develop remote work and digital transformation strategies on modern cloud platforms has never been greater, and Box is in a strong position to help our customers remain resilient, productive, and innovative during these times.”

The company reported first-quarter billings of $128.1 million, up 8% from a year ago. Deferred revenue came to $368.3 million, up 11%. The company also reported free cash flow in the first quarter of $39.8 million.

Executives highlighted several new deals with large organizations in the quarter, including the City of Berkeley, the Law Offices of Los Angeles County Public Defender, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, NASA, the National Bank of Canada and Toyota Finance Corp.

However the company warned of challenges for its smaller business users who have been hit by the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our heightened focus on driving expansion and renewals in our existing customer base, combined with a predominantly recurring revenue model, create strong financial resiliency in light of this dynamic situation,” Chief Financial Officer Dylan Smith said in a statement.

The quarter was a busy one on the product front too, with the company updating its Box Shield security tools, adding new features for remote workers and enabling zero-trust access to its content from any device.

Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller told SiliconANGLE that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated enterprises’ digital transformation efforts by orders of magnitude. “It’s no surprise then that Box is one of the winners in this transformation, as enterprises need digital document handling services to peer their workflows and recast the future of work,” he said.

“Increased bookings with enterprise clients is exactly what investors wanted to hear, but Box was wise to point out potential challenges among small business customers who have been hit particularly hard by the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Pund-IT Inc.’s Charles King. “How long it will take those companies to come back and how many actually make it are largely unknown at this point, so Box’s caution is entirely sensible.”

For the second quarter, Box posted strong guidance as well, saying it expects a profit of 12 to 14 cents per share on revenue of $189 million to $190 million. Wall Street is expecting a profit of 8 cents per share on revenue of $188.19 million.

Box’s shares rose a small fraction of a point in after-hours trading after a similarly small rise in the regular session.

Photo: The Demo Conference/Flickr