Nimble Storage is getting destroyed
Google Finance
Nimble reported its Q3 after the market closed on Thursday and it was full of disappointing news.
It missed expectations on revenue and profit. Revenue came in at $80.73 million for the quarter. That was was up 37% percent over the year ago quarter, but analysts were looking for about $87.4 million, according to Seeking Alpha.
Nimble reported a loss of $0.14/share, deeper than the loss of $0.08 a share that analysts were expecting.
And Q4 estimates were below analysts expectations, too, for a quarter when analysts expected it to hit break-even: Nimble expects to hit Q4 revenue of $87 million - $90 million and a loss of $0.11 to $0.13 a share. The street wanted to hear $99.2 million in revenue with breakeven results on the bottom line.
But what's really killing Nimble is the reason it gave for the losses: Its competitors.
The storage market is packed with players and there's a price war going on, said CEO Suresh Vasudevan on the quarterly conference call. On top of that, it's taking Nimble longer to close contracts with new customers than it expected.
Downgrades poured down on Nimble by Friday, including from Barclays, RBC Capital, UBS, Wunderlich, Stifel, Oppenheimer, and Pacific Crest, reports 24/7 Wall Street. Others lowered their price targets like Sterne Agee CRT, Jeffries, and Piper Jaffray.
Investors have also become even more scared off of newly public company Pure Storage, fearing the price wars could hurt its business, too.
Pure went public last month in an IPO that flopped, finishing the day at about $16, below its initial price of $17. It had recovered to just above $17 and crashed again, down 15%, thanks to Nimble.
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