Application performance monitoring software provider Dynatrace (NYSE:DT) reported results ahead of analyst expectations in the Q1 FY2023 quarter, with revenue up 27.4% year on year to $267.2 million. However, guidance for the next quarter was less impressive, coming in at $273.5 million at the midpoint, being 1.65% below analyst estimates. Dynatrace made a GAAP profit of $2.11 million, down on its profit of $13.2 million, in the same quarter last year.
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Dynatrace (DT) Q1 FY2023 Highlights:
- Revenue: $267.2 million vs analyst estimates of $261.8 million (2.07% beat)
- EPS (non-GAAP): $0.18 vs analyst estimates of $0.17 (3.1% beat)
- Revenue guidance for Q2 2023 is $273.5 million at the midpoint, below analyst estimates of $278 million
- The company dropped revenue guidance for the full year, from $1.15 billion to $1.13 billion at the midpoint, a 1.69% decrease
- Free cash flow of $136.1 million, up 65.3% from previous quarter
- Gross Margin (GAAP): 80.6%, down from 81.4% same quarter last year
“Q1 was yet another quarter of solid execution with balanced growth and profitability highlighting the durability of our business in the current environment,” said Rick McConnell, Chief Executive Officer.
Founded in Austria in 2005, Dynatrace (NYSE:DT) provides companies with software that allows them to monitor the performance of their full technology stack, from software applications to the infrastructure they run on.
Software is eating the world, increasing organizations’ reliance on digital-only solutions. As more workloads and applications move to the cloud, the reliability of the underlying cloud infrastructure becomes ever more critical, and ever more complex. To solve the challenge, companies and their engineering teams have turned to a range of cloud monitoring tools that provide them with visibility to troubleshoot the issues in real time.
Sales Growth
As you can see below, Dynatrace's revenue growth has been very strong over the last year, growing from quarterly revenue of $209.7 million, to $267.2 million.
This quarter, Dynatrace's quarterly revenue was once again up a very solid 27.4% year on year. On top of that, revenue increased $14.6 million quarter on quarter, a very strong improvement on the $11.8 million increase in Q4 2022, which shows acceleration of growth, and is great to see.
Guidance for the next quarter indicates Dynatrace is expecting revenue to grow 20.8% year on year to $273.5 million, slowing down from the 34.2% 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 23.4% 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. Dynatrace'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 80.6% in Q1.
That means that for every $1 in revenue the company had $0.80 left to spend on developing new products, marketing & sales and the general administrative overhead. This is a great gross margin, that allows companies like Dynatrace to fund large investments in product and sales during periods of rapid growth and be profitable when they reach maturity. It is good to see that the gross margin is staying stable which indicates that Dynatrace is doing a good job controlling costs and is not under pressure from competition to lower prices.
Key Takeaways from Dynatrace's Q1 Results
With a market capitalization of $11 billion, more than $571.3 million 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.
Dynatrace delivered solid revenue growth this quarter. And we were also excited to see that it outperformed analysts' revenue expectations. On the other hand, it was unfortunate to see that Dynatrace's revenue guidance for the full year missed analyst's expectations and the revenue guidance for the next quarter missed analysts' expectations. Overall, it seems to us that this was a complicated quarter for Dynatrace. The company currently trades at $39.25 per share.
Dynatrace 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.