News

posted on 20 May 2008 10:18

3PAR announced sparkling, fizzing fourth quarter fiscal 2008 (Q4fy08) and fiscal 2008 results with no signs of any recessionary chill. It was cautious and not exuberant in its outlook though.

GAAP net revenue in Q4fy08 was $35.5 million which was an eye watering 204 percent up on the year-ago quarter's $17.4 million. 3PAR cautioned that it changed the way it recognized revenue between Q4fy07 and Q4fy08 so like is not being compared with like. There was 15 percent sequential revenue growth; the  Q3fy08 revenue amount being $30.18 million.

Net loss in the quarter was $1.2 million (-$0.02/share) which was significantly down from Q4fy07 and its net loss of $11.7 million. Wall Street expected a net loss of $1.9 million. Gross margin was 34.6 percent and the company reached break even on a non-GAAP EPS basis in the quarter; earlier than expected.

Full fy08 revenue was $118 million, 78 percent up on the fy07 amount of $25.96 million. The fy08 net loss was $10.1 million compared to fy07's $15.5 million. Full year 08 gross margin was 35.3 percent.

There has been an increase in sales to 3PAR's main customer segment of business-to-business external services - SaaS, managed hosting and cloud computing - which is now 40 percent of 3PAR's business. A significant proportion of it is due to just two customers, CSC and an un-named one. Repeat business from customers is satisfyingly high.

R&D spending will be maintained and an engineering prototype was mentioned in the earnings call transcipt on Seeking Alpha. This suggests we can expect a new product in the next few months.

3PAR CEO David Scott said the company would not introduce products to appeal to smaller customers, saying he was happy focussing on the high-end enterprise market where competitors such as Compellent and Pillar Data are rarely seen; 3PAR classifying them as SME suppliers.

The fy09 outlook is $161-168 million with the Q1fy09 outlook being $35 - 36 million. Scott expects to see a 40 - 45 percent long term revenue growth rate.

^{[All figures GAAP unless specified otherwise. Chris Mellor.]}