Spend management software maker Coupa Software (COUP) reported results ahead of analyst expectations in the Q1 FY2023 quarter, with revenue up 17.6% year on year to $196.3 million. Guidance for the next quarter came in at $203.5 million at the midpoint, being 0.85% below analyst estimates. Coupa made a GAAP loss of $81.2 million, improving on its loss of $100.3 million, in the same quarter last year.
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Coupa (COUP) Q1 FY2023 Highlights:
- Revenue: $196.3 million vs analyst estimates of $190.6 million (2.98% beat)
- EPS (non-GAAP): $0.08 vs analyst estimates of $0.05 ($0.03 beat)
- Revenue guidance for Q2 2023 is $203.5 million at the midpoint, below analyst estimates of $205.2 million
- The company reconfirmed revenue guidance for the full year, at $840.5 million at the midpoint
- Free cash flow of $45.6 million, down 24.6% from previous quarter
- Gross Margin (GAAP): 58.8%, up from 52.2% same quarter last year
"We began the fiscal year strong by delivering record quarterly total revenue and subscription revenue, and also yielding over 20% operating cash flow and adjusted free cash flow margins," said Rob Bernshteyn, chairman and chief executive officer at Coupa.
Founded in 2006 by former Oracle executives, Coupa Software (COUP) is a software as a service platform that helps enterprises manage their spending across procurement, billing and business expenses and get a better visibility into how the money is spent.
The adoption of financial technology software is propelled by an ongoing drive to reduce costs. The combination of rising transactions volumes and global supply chain complexity is driving demand for cloud based spend management platforms able to integrate the two.
Sales Growth
As you can see below, Coupa's revenue growth has been strong over the last year, growing from quarterly revenue of $166.9 million, to $196.3 million.
This quarter, Coupa's quarterly revenue was once again up 17.6% year on year. But the growth did slow down compared to last quarter, as the revenue increased by just $3.07 million in Q1, compared to $7.48 million in Q4 2022. We'd like to see revenue increase by a greater amount each quarter, but a one-off fluctuation is usually not concerning.
Guidance for the next quarter indicates Coupa is expecting revenue to grow 13.5% year on year to $203.5 million, slowing down from the 42.3% year-over-year increase in revenue the company had recorded in the same quarter last year. Ahead of the earnings results the analysts covering the company were estimating sales to grow 16.9% over the next twelve months.
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Profitability
What makes the software as a service business so attractive is that once the software is developed, it typically shouldn't cost much to provide it as an ongoing service to customers. Coupa's gross profit margin, an important metric measuring how much money there is left after paying for servers, licenses, technical support and other necessary running expenses was at 58.8% in Q1.
That means that for every $1 in revenue the company had $0.58 left to spend on developing new products, marketing & sales and the general administrative overhead. This would be considered a low gross margin for a SaaS company and it has dropped significantly from the previous quarter, which is probably the opposite of what shareholders would like it to do.
Key Takeaways from Coupa's Q1 Results
With a market capitalization of $5.34 billion Coupa is among smaller companies, but its more than $786.2 million in cash and positive free cash flow over the last twelve months put it in a very strong position to invest in growth.
It was good to see Coupa outperform Wall St’s revenue expectations this quarter. That feature of these results really stood out as a positive. On the other hand gross margin deteriorated a little. Overall, this quarter's results could have been better, but the company is staying on target. The company is flat on the results and currently trades at $71.85 per share.
Coupa may have had a tough quarter, but does that actually create an opportunity to invest right now? It is important that you take into account its valuation and business qualities, as well as what happened in the latest quarter. We look at that in our actionable report which you can read here, it's free.
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The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned.