Crowdstrike Posts Revenue Surprise and Scales Back Its Outlook

CrowdStrike Holdings (CRWD) beat top-line expectations but lowered its full-year guidance Wednesday in its first earnings report since a failed software update caused a global outage last month.

The cybersecurity company expects revenue of $3.89 billion to $3.9 billion for its fiscal year ending Jan. 31, down from a prior projection of $3.97 billion to $4 billion. Wall Street was looking for $3.95 billion, according to Visible Alpha data.

“Working with customers to recover from the July 19 incident, we emerge as an even more resilient and even more customer-obsessed CrowdStrike, continuing to aggressively invest in innovation,” CEO George Kurtz said. 

In the second quarter, CrowdStrike saw revenue of $963.9 million, a 32% increase year-over-year and above analysts’ expectations, per Visible Alpha. Net income was $47 million, or 19 cents per share, up from $8.5 million a year earlier and in line with expectations. 

Annual recurring revenue (ARR) similarly increased 32% to $3.86 billion, including $217.6 million in ARR added in the quarter.

Shares of CrowdStrike climbed in early after-hours trading but were more recently down about 2%. The stock was down 13% as of Wednesday’s close since the July 19 outage.