Snowflake Reports Triple-Digit Q1 Revenue Growth, Eyes Expanded Markets
Applications beyond data warehousing, EMEA and Asia-Pacific expansion, and targeted vertical industries are among the data cloud company’s ambitious plans.
Reporting triple-digit revenue growth for its just completed fiscal 2022 first quarter, data cloud service provider Snowflake continues to eye applications for its data cloud platform beyond its initial data warehouse target.
“Our original focus of targeting legacy data warehouse workloads is going strong. And that will continue indefinitely,” CEO Frank Slootman (pictured) said on an earnings call Wednesday to discuss the financial results. “That’s a tried-and-true strategy.”
“But our view of the future is much more ambitious than that,” Slootman said, pointing to growing sales of other data services running on the Snowflake platform, including secure data sharing and the company’s data marketplace.
For its fiscal 2022 first quarter (ended April 30, 2021) Snowflake reported revenue of $228.9 million, up 110 percent from $108.8 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2021. The company reported a net loss of $203.2 million for the quarter compared to a $93.6 million loss one year earlier.
Snowflake now has 4,532 customers – 104 with trailing 12-month product revenue greater than $1 million, the company said. That’s up from 77 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021.
“The modernization from on-premises to cloud computing is changing the landscape,” Slootman said. “Customers are moving workloads to public clouds to take advantage of unlimited capacity and scale and the utility model that lets them pay by the drink.”
“Customers are now seeking to transform from a world where data informs people to one in which data drives operations directly,” the CEO continued. “Data drives digital transformation. Data is the beating heart of the modern enterprise. Snowflake is becoming core infrastructure to the digital economy.”
Snowflake reported that product revenue in the first quarter was $213.8 million, also up 110 percent year over year. Snowflake said that metric is important because the company recognizes revenue based on platform consumption – including compute, storage and data transfer resources – rather than on the amount and duration of contract terms.
The company is forecasting that product revenue for all of fiscal 2022 will reach between $1.02 billion and $1.035 billion, a gain of 84 to 87 percent from fiscal 2021.
Industry watchers have been closely following Snowflake after the company went public last September in a blockbuster IPO that saw the data cloud service provider’s market cap initially soar above $70 billion, surpassing many IT industry giants including Dell Technologies and VMware.
On Wednesday Snowflake’s stock closed at $235.25 a share, up $5.29 or 2.30 percent for the day and putting the company’s market cap at $67.92 billion. But in after-hours trading the company’s shares were down $7.25 or around 30 percent to $228.00.
Slootman said Snowflake is stepping up its operations in EMEA and Asia Pacific where bookings in the quarter grew 200 percent and 300 percent year over year, respectively.
He also said the company is sharpening its vertical market strategy to expand sales to customers in financial services, healthcare, retail and consumer packaged goods, media and advertising, technology and the public sector.
The CEO also said that “partners are stepping up to Snowflake” and said that IT services giant Deloitte had crossed the $100 million threshold in business done with Snowflake.
Snowflake, which until now has listed its San Mateo, Calif., office as its headquarters, is now describing itself as a fully distributed company with no official headquarters with executive offices in Bozeman, Mont.