Tax and accounting software provider, Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU) reported results ahead of analyst expectations in the Q1 FY2023 quarter, with revenue up 29.3% year on year to $2.59 billion. On the other hand, guidance for the full year missed analyst expectations with revenues guided to $14.1 billion at the midpoint, or 2.76% below analyst estimates. Intuit made a GAAP profit of $40 million, down on its profit of $228 million, in the same quarter last year.
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Intuit (INTU) Q1 FY2023 Highlights:
- Revenue: $2.59 billion vs analyst estimates of $2.49 billion (3.88% beat)
- EPS (non-GAAP): $1.66 vs analyst estimates of $1.20 (38.6% beat)
- The company dropped revenue guidance for the full year, from $14.5 billion to $14.1 billion at the midpoint, a 3.08% decrease
- Free cash flow of $251 million, down 28.2% from previous quarter
- Gross Margin (GAAP): 75.5%, down from 79.9% same quarter last year
“We had a strong first quarter as we innovated and delivered on our strategy to be the global AI-driven expert platform powering prosperity for consumers and small businesses,” said Sasan Goodarzi, Intuit's chief executive officer.
Created in 1983 when founder Scott Cook watched his wife struggle to reconcile the family's checkbook, Intuit provides tax and accounting software for small and medium-sized businesses.
The demand for easy to use, integrated cloud based finance software that integrates tax and accounting operations continues to rise in tandem with the difficulty workers find trying to use existing accounting tools like spreadsheets given the growing volume of finance data littered across a multitude of enterprise applications. A related demand driver is the secular increase of e-commerce and rising adoption of modern point of sales and payments platforms which easily integrate with backend financial software.
Sales Growth
As you can see below, Intuit's revenue growth has been very strong over the last two years, growing from quarterly revenue of $1.32 billion in Q1 FY2021, to $2.59 billion.
This quarter, Intuit's quarterly revenue was once again up a very solid 29.3% year on year. On top of that, revenue increased $183 million quarter on quarter, a strong improvement on the $3.21 billion decrease in Q4 2022, and a sign of acceleration of growth, which is very nice to see indeed.
Ahead of the earnings results the analysts covering the company were estimating sales to grow 12.2% over the next twelve months.
In volatile times like these we look for robust businesses with strong pricing power. Unknown to most investors, this company is one of the highest-quality software companies in the world, and their software products have been the default standard in critical industries for decades. The result is an impressive business that is up an incredible 18,152% since the IPO. You can find it on our platform for free.
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. Intuit'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 75.5% in Q1.
That means that for every $1 in revenue the company had $0.75 left to spend on developing new products, marketing & sales and the general administrative overhead. Despite the recent drop, this is still a good gross margin that allows companies like Intuit to fund large investments in product and sales during periods of rapid growth and be profitable when they reach maturity.
Key Takeaways from Intuit's Q1 Results
With a market capitalization of $108 billion, more than $2.72 billion in cash and with free cash flow over the last twelve months being positive, the company is in a very strong position to invest in growth.
It was good to see Intuit outperform Wall St’s revenue expectations this quarter. And we were also glad to see good revenue growth. On the other hand, it was unfortunate to see that Intuit's revenue guidance for the full year missed analysts' expectations and gross margin deteriorated a little. Overall, this quarter's results were not the best we've seen from Intuit. The company is down 2.26% on the results and currently trades at $372.49 per share.
Intuit 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.