UPDATED 22:21 EDT / FEBRUARY 27 2017

APPS

Workday outpaces earnings forecast, but investors yawn

Human resources software provider Workday Inc.’s momentum showed no sign of slowing down Monday as the company powered past Wall Street earnings expectations with its fourth-quarter results.

The company posted a profit before certain costs such as stock compensation of 7 cents a share on record revenues of $436.7 million, up 35 percent from a year ago. That blew past Wall Street’s forecast of a loss of a penny a share after adjustments on revenues of $430.2 million. The quarter was a big turnaround from the third quarter, when delayed contracts caused revenues to come in short, knocking the stock down 12 percent in after-hours trading.

This time, Workday expressed confidence in its updated guidance, saying it expects full year fiscal 2018 revenues to reach between $2.005 billion and $2.025 billion, which represents growth of 27 to 29 percent.

Even so, investors appeared to want more. Shares, which had risen a little more than a half-point in Monday trading, to $90.19, fell more than 2 percent in after-hours trading.

The company, which sells its software as a service, said it saw continued growth of subscription revenues, which topped $365.2 million, up 39 percent year-over-year.

“In Q4, we delivered the best quarter in company history to close out a very successful fiscal 2017,” Chief Executive Officer Aneel Bhusri said in a statement. “Our strong performance was driven by a combination of our industry-leading products and technology, continued high levels of customer satisfaction, and our dedicated Workday team. We believe these are the right areas of focus to achieve another great year for Workday in the year ahead.”

Bhusri told Jim Cramer on CNBC that customer “turmoil” over Oracle Corp.’s acquisition of NetSuite contributed to Workday’s strong quarter. In addition, Workday’s continuing financial success can be attributed to its successful penetration of the Fortune 500 list of companies, Technology Business Research,Inc. analyst Kelsey Mason said in a statement. He noted that the company had signed up 13 additional Fortune 500 customers in the fourth quarter, including Wal-Mart Stores and BP. “Workday’s continued penetration of the Fortune 500 often comes at the cost of incumbents Oracle and SAP, showing Workday’s viability in enterprise back-offices,” Mason added.

On the downside, Mason noted that Workday’s commitment to driving topline growth at the expense of profitability continues to hit its overall operating margins, which declined 1.6 percent from a year ago. Still, Mason was optimistic about the company’s prospects for further growth in the year ahead, citing its decision to split its profession service teams to focus on medium and large enterprises separately, and the appointment of Chano Fernandez as executive vice president of global field operations.

“This evolved go-to-market strategy combined with a key infrastructure partnership with Amazon Web Services and ongoing portfolio expansion will help Workday reach its goal of exceeding $2 billion in FY2018 annual revenue,” Mason said.

Image: Workday

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