The weakening economy doesn’t appear to be hurting demand for cybersecurity services, as three cyber leaders today beat quarterly expectations: Okta Inc., CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. and Secureworks Corp.

For the quarter ended April 30, Okta reported a loss before costs such as stock compensation of $43 million, or 27 cents per share, up from a loss of $13 million, or 10 cents per share, in the same quarter last year. Revenue rose 65% year-over-year, to $415 million. Analysts had expected an adjusted loss of 34 cents per share on revenue of $388.9 million.

Okta’s subscription revenue jumped 66% to $398 million. Excluding $66 million attributable to Auth0 Inc., which Okta acquired last year, total revenue grew 39%. The company had $2.49 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments as of the end of April.

“We delivered solid first-quarter results highlighted by strength in new customer additions, dollar-based net retention rate and the success we’re having with large customers as they continue their journey to the cloud,” Todd McKinnon, co-founder and chief executive of Okta, said in a statement. “Organizations around the world have made it clear that identity is the foundation for their digital transformation projects and zero-trust security environments.”

For the second quarter, Okta predicted an adjusted loss of 31 to 32 cents on revenue of $428 million to $430 million. Analysts had been predicting 34 cents and $422.7 million. For the full fiscal 2023, the company expects an adjusted loss of $1.11 to $1.14 a share on revenue of $1.805 billion to $1.815 billion. Market analysts had expected $1.24 a share on revenue of $1.78 billion.

With a strong earnings beat and better-than-expected outlook, shares in Okta jumped almost 18% in late trading.

CrowdStrike reported an adjusted profit of $74.8 million, or 31 cents per share, way up from $23.3 million, or 10 cents per share, a year ago. Revenue jumped 61%, to $487.8 million. Analysts had predicted a 23-cent adjusted profit on revenue of $464 million.

The company saw its subscription revenue rise 64% year-over-year, to $459.8 million, and annual recurring revenue rose 61%, to $1.92 billion. CrowdStrike added $190.5 million in new ARR in the quarter.

“Robust growth at an increased scale along with our relentless focus on execution and unit economics drove significant year-over-year operating leverage and record cash generation even as we increased investments to capture the substantial market opportunity ahead of us,” CrowdStrike Chief Financial Officer Burt Podbere said in a statement.

Looking forward, CrowdStrike predicts fiscal second-quarter earnings per share of 27 to 28 cents on revenue of $512.7 million to $516.8 million. Analysts had expected revenue of $509.8 million. For the full fiscal year, CrowdStrike’s guidance is earnings per share of $1.18 to $1.22 on revenue of $2.19 billion to $2.21 billion.

Despite a strong earnings beat and better-than-expected outlook, CrowdStrike shares dropped more than 2% after the bell.

Rounding out the trio, Secureworks reported an adjusted loss of $21.6 million, or 26 cents per share, compared with a profit of $6.4 million, or eight cents a share, in the year prior. Revenue fell to $121 million from $139.5 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2022. Analysts had expected a loss of 15 cents per share on revenue of $120.9 million.

Secureworks’ ongoing decline in revenue is the result of a shift by the company away from legacy systems to its Taegis cloud platform. Secureworks Taegis annual recurring revenue shot up 149%, to $180 million, with 900 additional customers signing up to the platform, up 180%.

“Our customers recognize that Secureworks Taegis future-proofs their security program,” Wendy Thomas, president and CEO of Secureworks, said in a statement. “Our customers are investing in Secureworks Taegis as a long-term security solution that can easily evolve with their technology environments and ever-changing adversarial attack tactics and techniques.”

For the second quarter, Secureworks predicts an adjusted loss of 15 to 17 cents on revenue of $115 million to $117 million. For fiscal 2023, the company provided guidance of an adjusted loss of 61 to 70 cents a share on revenue of $465 million to $490 million.

Secureworks released its earnings at the opening of trading and investors liked the numbers. The company’s shares closed regular trading up more than 6%, to $12.37.

Photo: Okta