Cloudera Beats Expectations Showing Strong Year Over Year Growth

The News: Cloudera’s fiscal second quarter results were ahead of expectations as the company as demand for its Cloudera Data Platform offset weaker IT spending due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company reported second quarter revenue of $214.3 million, up 9% from a year ago, with non-GAAP earnings of 10 cents a share.

Key 2nd Quarter Metrics: (Per Cloudera Earnings Press Release)

• GAAP loss from operations for the second quarter of fiscal 2021 was $36.5 million, compared to $89.1 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2020
• Non-GAAP income from operations for the second quarter of fiscal 2021 was $29.8 million, compared to a non-GAAP loss from operations of $7.4 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2020
• Operating cash flow for the second quarter of fiscal 2021 was $32.4 million, compared to negative $33.0 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2020
• GAAP net loss per share for the second quarter of fiscal 2021 was $0.12 per share, compared to $0.31 per share for the second quarter of fiscal 2020
• Non-GAAP net income per share for the second quarter of fiscal 2021 was $0.10 per share, compared to a non-GAAP net loss per share of $0.02 per share for the second quarter of fiscal 2020

Key Second Quarter Performance Highlights: 

• Annualized Recurring Revenue at the conclusion of the second quarter of fiscal 2021 was $739 million, representing 12% year-over-year growth
• GAAP subscription gross margin for the quarter was 85%, up from 82% in the second quarter of fiscal 2020
• Non-GAAP subscription gross margin for the quarter was 89%, up from 86% in the second quarter of fiscal 2020
• Cloudera Data Platform (CDP) Private Cloud is now generally available
• CDP Public Cloud is now available on AWS Marketplace in strategic collaboration agreement with AWS
• Sarah Shin was promoted to new role of Chief Diversity Officer

Analyst Take: Cloudera delivered a solid quarter amidst challenging economics to show not only results above analyst expectations, but also to see growth YoY.

For Cloudera, the year has been focused on building its Cloudera Data Platform, with a specific focus on meeting enterprise customers where they are, which is largely hybrid, with data and workloads residing on-prem and in the cloud. The company’s private and public versions of the platform are designed to extend the offering into public cloud market places, as it did this quarter with AWS. The private offering is a key to connecting enterprise data centers with the public cloud, which is what is happening at scale for IT.

Where all of this needs to start translating is to the company’s business performance. Top line growth, recurring revenue growth, and high-paying customer acquisition growth. Cloudera already has the biggest enterprise customers on its platform, but is it expanding these relationships and of course, keeping them as competition rises?

This quarter’s results suggest that the answer is largely yes. The company was able to grow its number of users spending over 100k to 1007 and subsequently its customers over $1 Million to 172–This is a 25% YoY increase and an impressive performance given the macroeconomic circumstances. The 12% growth in ARR is also solid, but not necessarily overly exciting. I think hitting the billion dollar ARR mark will be a big moment for the company and should be in its sights over the next 2-3 quarters.

Overall Impressions of Cloudera Q2 Earnings

Cloudera showed strong resolve and a solid quarter given the economic circumstances. This is a tribute to the importance that businesses, especially large enterprises are placing on having visibility to the full data life cycle.

I wanted to see significant growth at the top end of its business, which was visible in the 25% growth of customers spending over a million dollars on an annualized basis with Cloudera. The continued building of ARR for Cloudera will provide stability for the company and its investors. The growth of top end customers is also validation that Bearen’s comments about being more a partner than a competitor to the hyperscale cloud providers, is in fact, the case.

Solid quarter, but still a lot of opportunity for growth and work ahead for Cloudera.

Futurum Research provides industry research and analysis. These columns are for educational purposes only and should not be considered in any way investment advice

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Image:  Cloudera

The original version of this article was first published on Futurum Research.