Box share price soars on strong revenue and user growth
Box's revenue increased substantially in the first quarter and investors are very happy
The figures
The online storage company's revenue was $65.6m (£42.24m) the first quarter – a 45 per cent increase on the equivalent period last year.
Net loss per share was also better at $0.28 on 119.4 million shares outstanding – a decrease from the $2.32 per share on 13.7m shares a year ago.
The company also attracted more than 2,000 new customers, and in doing so surpassed 37m registered users. The number of paying users on the cloud platform also grew by 70 per cent, now accounting for more than 10 per cent of total users.
Investors have reacted positively to the news in after-hours trading, with share price initially rising 8.15 per cent to $19.24.
Why it's interesting
The first quarter results mark a positive turnaround for the company, whose shares have been doing badly ever since it floated at the beginning of the year.
At the time, it sold 12.5m shares for a total of $175m, sending shares up 70 per cent the next day. But over the proceeding six months they fell 27 per cent as Box faced stiff competition from firms such as Microsoft, OneDrive And Google Drive, all of which offer similar services.
But chief executive Aaron Levie recently revealed his growth strategy to build access to vertical markets, letting customers and partners build applications on top of Box and embedding Box in applications to take advantage of Box services. He has also recruited a number of experienced executives for these specific tasks.
What Box said
Commenting on the results, Levie said:
Faced with rapid technological change, enterprises today are going digital by adopting cloud platforms like Box to reimagine how they engage with customers and transform how their employees work.As evident from our healthy customer adoption and strong billings growth of 58 percent year over year, Box has a significant opportunity to help organizations in every industry navigate this shift.
In short
Despite the challenges Box faces in the form of competition, it is continuing to grow and drive its revenue forwards.