Palantir posts first quarterly profit following new contract wins

By Scott Kanowsky and Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com -- Palantir (NYSE:PLTR) reported its first-ever quarterly profit, as well as a top- and bottom-line beat in the final three months of 2022, as a ramp-up in customers bolstered performance.

On a GAAP basis, the U.S.-based data analytics company posted net income of $31 million in the quarter up to the end of December, translating to earnings per share of $0.01.

"We are now, in the last quarter, GAAP profitable, and we plan to be GAAP profitable in this year," chief executive officer Alex Karp, who co-founded the group with billionaire tech mogul Peter Thiel, told analysts in a call following the release of the earnings.

Meanwhile, adjusted EPS of $0.04 on revenue of $509.0M topped Wall Street estimates of $0.03 and $503.1M, respectively.

Palantir was up more than 16% in after-hours trading.

Undergirding these better-than-expected returns were new contract wins stemming from the firm's efforts to expand its commercial business. Quarterly commercial revenue grew 11% compared to the same period in the prior year to $215M, although Palantir said U.S. demand for this segment had slowed.

However, revenue from governments rose by 23% to $293M, reflecting the ongoing strength of its business dealings with western defense and security departments.

"[O]ur basic view of Palantir is we are in this to make institutions of the West stronger. We believe we're winning. Because we're winning, I think there's going to be a lot of interest in us in buying our software and potentially in buying us," Karp said.

Looking ahead to the first quarter, the company guided for revenue of between $503M and $507M, slightly below Wall Street forecasts of $520.28M

For full-year 2023, revenue is expected in a range of $2.18 billion to $2.23 billion, compared with consensus of $2.29B.