Snowflake Plunges as Sales Forecast Miss Signals Cloud Woes
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- SNOW
(Bloomberg) -- Snowflake Inc. gave a sales outlook for the current quarter that fell short of expectations, suggesting that many companies are trimming their spending for cloud software amid uncertain economic conditions. The shares declined more than 12% in extended trading.
Most Read from Bloomberg
Apple Plans to Turn Locked iPhones Into Smart Displays With iOS 17
McCarthy Signals Debt Deal Optimism as US Put on Credit Watch
World’s Biggest Nuclear Plant May Stay Closed Due to Papers Left on Car Roof
US AAA Credit Rating May Be Cut by Fitch on Debt-Limit Impasse
Lula Lashes Out and Sends Warning to Central Bankers Everywhere
Product revenue will increase about 34% to as much as $625 million in the period ending in July, the company said Wednesday in a statement. Analysts, on average, estimated $646.3 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Product sales make up the majority of Snowflake’s total revenue and are watched closely by investors.
Snowflake’s software helps business organize data in the cloud. The company is known for its consumption pricing model, which charges customers based on how much they use its products. Analysts had feared that a slowdown in demand for cloud services would dent Snowflake’s pay-as-you-go model.
Shares fell to a low of $152.37 in extended trading, after closing at $177.14 in New York. The stock has rallied 24% in the last month, benefiting from positive results by cloud infrastructure providers Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.
Snowflake also cut its outlook for the fiscal year, saying product revenue will be about $2.6 billion. In March, the company predicted annual product sales of $2.7 billion.
The forecast reduction is tied to the broader slowdown in spending for information technology seen across the economy, said Mandeep Singh, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
The latest outlook, which is the second time Snowflake has reduced full-year guidance, may hurt management’s credibility with investors and fuel questions about revenue predictability under the consumption pricing model, wrote Raimo Lenschow, an analyst at Barclays.
Fiscal first-quarter product revenue increased 50% to $590.1 million. Analysts, on average, projected $571.9 million. Profit, excluding some items, was 15 cents a share in the period ended April 30, compared with an average estimate of 5 cents.
The company said in a presentation that it had 8,167 customers at the end of the quarter. Of those, 373 were large clients who generated trailing 12-month product revenue of more than $1 million, an 80% increase compared with the period a year earlier.
(Updates with comments from analyst in the sixth paragraph.)
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
The Man Who Spends $2 Million a Year to Look 18 Is Swapping Blood With His Father and Son
Maasai Are Getting Pushed Off Their Land So Dubai Royalty Can Shoot Lions
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.