Shares of Tableau Software fell 9 percent in after-hours trading even though the company beat estimates for its first quarter earnings report.
Wall Street expected Tableau to post a loss of $0.09 per share, but the Seattle-based maker of visualization and analytics software reported non-GAAP net income per share of $0.00, down from $0.08 last year. Tableau also posted $172 million in revenue, beating expectations of $164 million and up 32 percent from the year-ago quarter. License revenue grew to $96.4 million, up 14 percent year-over-year.
But investors weren’t thrilled with the Q1 report. This follows Tableau’s disappointing Q4 2015 earnings report, which sent shares down 50 percent. The company’s stock did recover a bit in the past quarter, but is still down nearly 50 percent in the past year.
Tableau also posted a GAAP net loss of $45.6 million, compared to a GAAP net loss of $10.0 million one year ago.
“Tableau’s ability to deliver great value to customers resulted in a really strong quarter for new customer growth,” Tableau CEO Christian Chabot said in a statement. “In Q1, we added more than 3,500 new customer accounts, the second highest quarterly addition in our history. Customers are turning to Tableau for fast, agile, visual analytics that provide people with the ability to ask and answer their own questions, while providing IT with the governance, performance, security and reliability they require.”
Chabot told GeekWire this past December that Tableau plans to bring on another 1,000 employees this year as it looks to move into a new headquarters building in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood later in 2016. However, on the company’s earnings call today, he noted that Tableau is scaling back its hiring plans this year by about 50 percent. The company employs 1,200 in the Seattle region, and just over 3,000 worldwide.
Tableau CFO Tom Walker said that the company saw a 45 percent increase in sales and marketing employees from last year and it wants to focus on productivity with its existing employees.
“We have a lot of talented people here and we want to make sure they are focused and can execute at levels we want,” Walker said. “We aren’t compromising on what we’re trying to accomplish.”
Chabot also said he is working to hire a president by the end of 2016, a new role for the company that will focus on go-to-market activities. The CEO explained how software companies come in three acts: going from $0 to $100 million in annual revenue, going from $100 million to $1 billion, and then beyond. He said Tableau is nearing the end of Act 2, closing in on $1 billion in annual sales.
“It’s pretty common at this phase to add a president or COO,” he said.
Chabot said that Tableau Online, the company’s cloud analytics product, doubled its revenue from last year and reached 4,000 customers this past quarter. “More of our business is leading to cloud analytics,” Chabot said. Walker added that the “momentum there is tremendous.”
In March, Tableau, which has 42,000 customers, announced the acquisition of HyPer, a high performance database system born out of research done at the Technical University of Munich. It marked just the second acquisition ever for the 14-year-old company. With the deal, Tableau opened a research and development office in Munich to expand its research into high performance computing — Tableau’s second office in Germany, and 17th worldwide.
Tableau expects to bring in $190 to $195 million in revenue next quarter, which would be up 30 percent from the year-ago quarter, and $835 to $855 million in revenue for 2016.
Full release below:
Tableau Reports First Quarter 2016 Financial Results
Tableau reports another strong quarter of customer growth
SEATTLE, Wash. – May 5, 2016 – Tableau Software, Inc. (NYSE: DATA) today reported results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2016.
Total revenue grew to $171.7 million, up 32% year over year.
License revenue grew to $96.4 million, up 14% year over year.
International revenue grew to $48.1 million, up 52% year over year.
Added more than 3,500 new customer accounts.
Closed 268 transactions greater than $100,000, up 8% year over year.
Diluted GAAP net loss per share was $0.62; diluted non-GAAP net income per share was $0.00.
“Tableau’s ability to deliver great value to customers resulted in a really strong quarter for new customer growth. In Q1, we added more than 3,500 new customer accounts, the second highest quarterly addition in our history,” said Christian Chabot, Chief Executive Officer of Tableau. “Customers are turning to Tableau for fast, agile, visual analytics that provide people with the ability to ask and answer their own questions, while providing IT with the governance, performance, security and reliability they require.”
Financial Results
Total revenue increased 32% to $171.7 million, up from $130.1 million in the first quarter of 2015. License revenue increased 14% to $96.4 million, up from $84.4 million in the first quarter of 2015. International revenue grew to $48.1 million, up 52% from $31.7 million in the first quarter of 2015.
GAAP operating loss for the first quarter of 2016 was $46.4 million, compared to a GAAP operating loss of $13.8 million for the first quarter of 2015. GAAP net loss for the first quarter of 2016 was $45.6 million, or $0.62 per diluted common share, compared to a GAAP net loss of $10.0 million, or $0.14 per diluted common share, for the first quarter of 2015.
Non-GAAP operating loss, which excludes stock-based compensation expense and expense related to amortization of acquired intangible assets, was $1.2 million for the first quarter of 2016, compared to a non-GAAP operating income of $8.4 million for the first quarter of 2015. Non-GAAP net income, which excludes stock-based compensation expense, expense related to amortization of acquired intangible assets and related income tax adjustments, was $0.4 million for the first quarter of 2016, or $0.00 per diluted common share, compared to a non- GAAP net income of $5.8 million, or $0.08 per diluted common share, for the first quarter of 2015.
Highlights
During the quarter, Tableau 9.3 was launched, bringing faster data analysis, sharing and collaboration to its suite of products. New features include the new “always connected” Tableau Desktop, improved global map coverage, faster ways to prepare data for analysis, more governance features and easier administration. In addition, Tableau announced a direct, live connection to the Snowflake Elastic Data Warehouse, a cloud data warehouse.
Also during the quarter, Tableau announced the acquisition of HyPer, a high-performance main-memory database system initially developed as a research project at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). HyPer’s main- memory database system is being integrated into Tableau’s product lines to provider faster data analysis, enhanced data integration, transformation and data blending, richer analytics and expanded support for big data. Tableau also announced the opening of a development office in Munich to leverage the talent from TUM to drive further innovation for Tableau.
