Courtesy Asana
Shares of work-management software company
are trading higher Friday after the company posted better-than-expected results for its fiscal first quarter ended April 30, while substantially boosting its guidance for the January 2022 fiscal year.
For the quarter, Asana (ticker: ASAN) reported revenue of $76.7 million, up 61% from a year ago, and ahead of both its guidance range of $69.5 million to $70.5 million and the Street consensus at $70.1 million.
The company posted a non-GAAP loss for the quarter of 21 cents a share, narrower than its projected loss of 26 to 27 cents a share. On a GAAP basis, the company lost 37 cents a share—and continues to report operating expenses well in excess of revenue. Total operating expenses in the quarter were $118.7 million.
Asana shares are rallying 8.6%, at $39.94, in recent trading, boosting their year-to-date gain to 35%. The
is up 0.7%. Asana direct-listed on the NYSE last September, with an opening trade of $27 a share.
“We are clearly seeing more momentum in the market and our investments in our product strategy are paying off,” Asana co-founder and CEO
Dustin Moskovitz
said in prepared remarks for the company’s earnings conference call. “While the pandemic may have heightened the awareness of how difficult it is to achieve clarity at work, the problems themselves are not new. Even before the pandemic, 1.25 billion global knowledge workers largely relied on outdated tools, email, spreadsheets, and status meetings to get clarity on who is doing what, by when…. Asana provides a more productive and sustainable way to work.”
Asana sees second-quarter revenue of $81 million to $83 million, up between 56% and 60% from a year ago, with a non-GAAP loss of 26 to 27 cents a share. Street consensus had called for $74.1 million in revenue and a loss of 27 cents a share.
For the January 2022 fiscal year, Asana now sees revenue of between $336 million and $340 million, up from a previous forecast range of $309 million to $314 million—boosting its projected growth rate to the 48% to 50% range from a previously expected 36% to 38%.
The company notes that it added more than 7,000 new paying customers in the quarter, boosting the total to over 100,000. The company said it had 11,272 customers paying $5,000 or more on an annualized basis, up 53% from a year ago, with 485 customers paying $50,000 or more, up 92%.
KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Steve Enders on Friday repeated his Overweight rating on Asana shares, lifting his price target to $48 from $40. “Asana continues to invest heavily in sales capacity and maintains a strong pace of innovation that should sustain 30%-plus growth,” he wrote in a research note.
Piper Sandler analyst
Brent Bracelin
is psyched about the stock, too—he reiterated his Overweight rating on the shares, while upping his target to $52 from $45. “Increasing demand fundamentals across all customer segments and geographies strengthens our confidence in the durability of growth over the next 2-3 years,” he wrote. The stock is his top small-cap cloud software pick.
Write to Eric J. Savitz at eric.savitz@barrons.com
