Zendesk Stock Rises On Q4 Top-Line Beat, Keeps Adding Customers
Zendesk ( ZEN ) stock rose Wednesday after the cloud software vendor late Tuesday posted Q4 results that beat on the top line and met on the bottom line. The company reported Q4 revenue of $62.6 million, up 63% year over year and topping the consensus estimate of $60 million. It reported a per-share loss of 7 cents, matching the consensus estimate, as polled by Thomson Reuters. It reported a per-share loss of 11 cents in the year earlier quarter. Zendesk provides a cloud-based customer service software platform used primarily by small- to medium-size businesses. Its competitors include cloud software pioneer Salesforce.com ( CRM ), the leading maker of customer relationship management software. Zendesk stock was up 6%, near 17, in afternoon trading in the stock market today . Its shares, along with those of Salesforce.com and other enterprise software makers, tumbled on Feb. 5 after weak guidance by Tableau Software ( DATA ) raised fears of slower tech spending. Salesforce.com stock was up 5.5% Wednesday afternoon, and Tableau stock was up 3.5%. Zendesk finished Q4 with more than 69,000 customer accounts, up 7.8% from 64,000 in Q3. The company has a goal to reach $1 billion in revenue in 2020. “We are aggressively developing products and markets that move us beyond our core in customer support and into emerging opportunities around customer relationships.” Zendesk CEO Mikkel Svane said in the company’s earnings release. In November, Zendesk announced a partnership with Microsoft ( MSFT ), integrating its software with Microsoft Office 365. It was the first customer-service add-in for Microsoft Outlook, which is part of the Office 365 suite. Zendesk also is working with Facebook ( FB ) to add Facebook Messenger to its suite of applications. It would enable call centers to use Facebook Messenger to communicate with customers and prospects. Facebook Messenger could add $100 million in revenue, estimates Brendan Barnicle, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities. Barnicle maintained an overweight rating on Zendesk and a price target of 35. Ross MacMillan, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, maintained an outperform rating on Zendesk and a price target of 27. Zendesk expects Q1 revenue of $65 million to $67 million. The midpoint would be up 66% from the year-ago quarter. It sees an operating loss of $8 million to $9 million. For 2016, Zendesk expects revenue of $290 million to $300 million, up 41% at the midpoint, and an operating loss of $28 million to $30 million.