Cloudflare stock melts down as company slashes forecast due to elongated sales cycle
Cloudflare Inc. shares were tanking more than 20% in Thursday's after-hours action after the company cut its forecast for the full year, citing a "material lengthening" of its sales cycle that's expected to weigh on results. The cloud-services company now expects $1.280 billion to $1.284 billion in full-year revenue, whereas Cloudflare's prior outlook was for $1.330 billion to $1.342 billion in revenue. The FactSet consensus was for $1.335 billion. "Increasing macroeconomic uncertainty over the course of the first quarter resulted in a material lengthening of sales cycles and a significant backend-weighting of linearity," Chief Financial Officer Thomas Seifert said in a release. "Despite the continued reacceleration of our new pipeline generation and our sustained high win rates and renewal rates during the first quarter, our guidance assumes these external headwinds will persist through the end of the fiscal year." The company's second-quarter revenue forecast calls for $305 million to $306 million in revenue, while the FactSet consensus was for $320 million in revenue. The downbeat outlook overshadowed Cloudflare's first-quarter results, which were better than expected on the bottom line and roughly in line with what analysts were expecting for revenue. The company logged a net loss of $38.1 million, or 12 cents a share, compared with $41.4 million, or 13 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. On an adjusted basis, Cloudflare earned 8 cents a share, up from 1 cent a share a year before and above the FactSet consensus, which was for 3 cents a share. Revenue rose to $290.2 million from $212.7 million, while the FactSet consensus was for $290.8 million. Cloudflare upped its full-year profit forecast and now expects 34 cents to 35 cents a share in adjusted earnings, while it previously was calling for 15 cents a share to 16 cents a share. Analysts were modeling 16 cents a share.
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