Cloudflare tanks 20% despite solid Q1: how come?

Cloudflare Inc (NYSE: NET) reported better-than-expected Q1 results on Thursday. Shares still fell nearly 20% in extended trading after the company said it might remain in loss in the current fiscal quarter.

What Cloudflare Q1 earnings report tells us

• Lost $41.4 million in the first quarter versus the year-ago figure of $40 million.
• Per-share loss of 13 cents remained unchanged on a year-over-year basis.
• Adjusted per-share loss came in at 1 cent, as per the earnings press release.
• Revenue jumped 54% YoY to $212.2 million in the recent fiscal quarter.
• Consensus was for break-even on a per-share basis on $205.7 million in revenue.
• Over 14,000 new paying customers joined Cloudflare in Q1 – a quarterly record.

Customers that spent more than $1.0 million a year were up 72% YoY. The stock is now down 50% for the year.

Future guidance and CEO’s remarks

In Q2, Cloudflare expects revenue to fall between $226.5 million and $227.5 million. It hopes to break-even in the current quarter or again report an adjusted per-share loss of 1 cent. This compares to analysts at break-even a share on $217.9 million in revenue.

The DDoS mitigation company raised its guidance for full-year revenue to $955 million - $959 million on 3 – 4 cents of adjusted EPS. In comparison, analysts expect 3 cents per share on $931.1 million in revenue. In the earnings press release, CEO Matthew Prince said:

“The key to our success and customer expansion is innovating at an unrelenting pace, and continued interest in consolidating behind a single vendor that can power multiple network services at scale.”