CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz speaks at the Wall Street Journal Tech Live conference in Laguna Beach, California, on Oct. 21, 2019.
Martina Albertazzi | Bloomberg | Getty Images
CrowdStrike shares rose 4% in extended trading on Wednesday after the cybersecurity software maker reported strong fiscal second-quarter results but reduced full-year guidance in the wake of a global outage.
Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:
- Earnings per share: $1.04 per share adjusted vs. 97 cents per share expected
- Revenue: $963.9 million vs. $959 million expected
CrowdStrike’s revenue grew 32% year over year in the quarter, which ended on July 31, according to a statement. The company recorded net income of $47 million, or 19 cents per share, compared with $8.47 million, or 3 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.
Annual recurring revenue was $3.86 billion, just above the StreetAccount consensus of $3.85 billion.
On July 19, CrowdStrike distributed a flawed content configuration update for its Falcon sensor to computers running Microsoft Windows operating systems, with the intent to gather data on new attacks. The error caused millions of computers to crash, leading to flight cancelations, delayed packaged deliveries and postponed medical appointments. Administrators had to manually reboot affected computers.
CEO George Kurtz apologized to clients and partners and said the company had rolled out a fix. Meanwhile, investors were pushing down CrowdStrike’s share price. Shareholders have filed suit against the company, and Delta Air Lines, which cited $380 million in lost revenue and $170 million in costs because of the incident, said it will seek damages. Travelers have filed class-action suits against the CrowdStrike as well.
“All customers are looking for some kind of discount,” Gray Powell and Trevor Rambo of BTIG, with the equivalent of a hold rating on CrowdStrike shares, wrote in an Aug. 23 note.
With respect to guidance, CrowdStrike called for adjusted net earnings of 80 cents to 81 cents per share on $979.2 million to $984.7 million in revenue. Analysts surveyed by LSEG were looking for 96 cents in adjusted net earnings per share on $1.01 billion in revenue.
For the 2025 fiscal year, CrowdStrike now sees $3.61 to $3.65 in adjusted earnings per share and $3.89 billion to $3.90 billion in revenue. That’s down from management’s June forecast for adjusted earnings per share of $3.93 to $4.03 and revenue between $3.98 billion to $4.01 billion. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected adjusted profit of $3.88 per share, with $3.95 billion in revenue.
The full-year revenue guidance includes a negative subscription revenue impact of $30 million in each quarter and professional services revenue in the high-single-digit millions of dollars for the second half of the fiscal year, because of incentives for a customer commitment package, according to the statement.
Before CrowdStrike issued the earnings report, its stock was up about 4% this year, while the S&P 500 index has gained 17% over that period.
Executives will discuss the results with analysts on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
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