Palantir Technologies Inc PLTR shares soared in Monday's after-hours session as the data software company's surprise leap into profitability outshined its poor guidance. Here's a look at the results and what CEO Alex Karp said following the print.
- Q4 Revenue: $508.62 million beat $502.25 million
- Q4 EPS: $0.04 beat estimates of $0.03
Despite turning in its first-ever profitable quarter and guiding for continued profitability in 2023, Palantir issued a soft top-line forecast for the year. The company said it saw first-quarter revenue in a range of $503 million to $507 million versus estimates of $520 million. Palantir also guided for full-year 2023 revenue between $2.18 billion and $2.23 billion versus estimates of $2.29 billion.
The data intelligence company had a huge jump in customer count, particularly in its U.S. commercial business, which increased nearly 80% year-over-year.
Check This Out: Trading Strategies for Palantir Stock Before And After Q4 Earnings
Comments From Karp: In a letter to shareholders, the Palantir CEO highlighted the company's AI advantage as a strong driver of increased momentum. He noted demand accelerated in recent months and he attributed much of the increase to the accelerated embrace of artificial intelligence by companies across countless industries.
"We anticipate that this new source of demand will contribute to our growth moving forward, above and beyond what we would have anticipated even late last year," Karp said.
Although the use of AI in civilian applications is just on the cusp of being recognized, Palantir had been utilizing AI on battlefields across the world for some time. This technology essentially rendered traditional military calculus useless, he said.
On the conference call with analysts and shareholders, Karp further touted the company's AI capabilities. When asked specifically about Microsoft Corp MSFT-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT, Karp told listeners Palantir is well ahead of much of the competition. He noted Palantir was researching use cases for AI when most thought it was just a "PowerPoint bordering on fraud."
"We had a lot of thought going into this and spent the last five years building the core infrastructure that you would need to power and train AI algorithms," Karp said.
The Palantir CEO indicated it will take other companies "four or five years to build" the precursor technologies required to introduce AI into enterprise applications.
What Else: Palantir shareholders have long been diluted by stock-based compensation, but company executives told Reuters Palantir had cut back on stock-based compensation and cloud expenditures over the past few months in response to a slowdown in spending.
Finally, Karp told CNBC Palantir had received "some acquisition interest," in recent months, but he didn't comment further. The combination of the company turning profitable two years before prior guidance, the AI advantage management highlighted on the call and the recent acquisition interest appears to be driving buyers into the stock after hours.
PLTR Price Action: Palantir has a 52-week high of $14.86 and a 52-week low of $5.84.
The stock was up 16.29% after hours at $7.61 at the time of publication Monday, according to Benzinga Pro.
Photo: Screenshot from Palantir's Q4 conference call webcast.
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