Splunk rises 13% on strong results and outlook; analysts see more upside potential

Investing.com -- Splunk Inc. (NASDAQ:SPLK) shares jumped after the software maker beat expectations for revenue and profit.

The company reported adjusted earnings per share of 71 cents in the second quarter on revenue of $910.59 million. Analysts expected adjusted profit of 46 cents a share on revenue of $889.23M.

Shares were up 13% in pre-market Thursday trading and are up 15% so far this year.

Gary Steele, CEO of Splunk, said: "Through our ongoing focus on accelerating innovation and harnessing AI, we unveiled many important advancements during the quarter to help customers strengthen their overall digital resilience and security posture."

Splunk sees third quarter revenue of $1.020 billion to $1.035B versus the expectation of $982.39M. It sees full-year revenue of $3.925B to $3.950B, also higher than expected.

The company said total annual recurring revenue rose 16% in the second quarter to $3.858B, beating expectations.

BTIG analysts highlighted the inflecting ARR growth.

"We see signs for further improvement in growth as GTM initiatives on the observability side of the business are gradually building momentum. And we think that SPLK is still in the early stages of driving leverage in FCF margins," the analysts said.

Evercore ISI analysts highlighted that Splunk will be hosting an analyst day in New York in early 2024.

"While that is still 4+ months away, we believe that shares could continue to rally off this print and into the a-day as investor circle back to the name."

Additional reporting by Senad Karaahmetovic