Reuters
These are the most important numbers, versus Wall St. expectations:
- EPS: a loss of $0.28 per share vs. a loss of $0.31 per share
- Revenue: $66 million vs. $63.70 million
Box's revenue grew 45% from the same quarter of last year, while adding 2,000 new customers. Billings also saw a healthy growth of 58% year over year, reaching $69.8 million for the quarter.
But Box still remains hugely unprofitable. It had a net loss of $47.3 million, and a negative operating cash flow of $32.2 million.
In the first quarter, Box's stock price took a huge hit after hours following what looked to be a miss on its earnings. But it turned out analysts had used the wrong number of shares in their estimates, and Box had actually beat by $0.30 a share. Still, investors weren't impressed, sending its shares down by as much as 17% at one point.
Box is an interesting company to keep an eye on. It's one of the fastest growing
For the most recent quarter, Box spent roughly 86% of its revenue on sales and marketing, down from 104% of the same quarter last year.
In 2013, it spent 168% of its revenue on sales and marketing, but it dropped those numbers to around 99% of total revenue in late 2014. In the previous quarter, it brought it down to a more modest 80% of total revenue.
The big question mark is whether this spending will translate to any meaningful, large enterprise contracts. Over the past three months, Box announced a deal with the Department of Justice, a positive sign that the government is trusting Box as a file sharing repository, and also a school-wide deployment at Japan's Waseda University, reflecting its international growth.