Tech

Box plummets on revenue miss and weak guidance

Key Points
  • Shares of Box fell as much as 23 percent in after hours trading Wednesday after the company reported its Q4 2019 earnings.
  • The company missed revenue expectations for its fourth quarter 2019.
  • Box also reported weak guidance.
Aaron Levie
Dan Edblom | CNBC

Shares of Box plummeted as much as 23 percent in after hours trading after the company reported fourth quarter 2019 revenue that missed analyst expectations. The company also reported weak guidance for the upcoming quarter and full fiscal year.

Here are the numbers Box reported compared to Wall Street expectations:

  • Earnings per share: $0.06 per share ex-items vs. estimate of $0.02 per share, per Refinitiv
  • Revenue: $163.7 million vs. estimate of $164.2 million, per Refinitiv

Box expects revenue between $161 million and $162 million for its Q1 2020. That compares to analyst estimates of $166.2 million to $175 million estimated for the quarter, per Refinitiv.

Box's guidance for the full-year fiscal 2020 also fell below analyst expectations of $713.9 million to $749.9 million, per Refinitiv. For its full year 2020, the company said it's expecting revenue to fall between $700 million and $704 million.

In a statement in the earnings release, Box CEO Aaron Levie blamed weak billing results in part on longer sales cycles for some of its bigger deals.

Last week, Box competitor Dropbox also fell on disappointing guidance for its upcoming quarter. Shares of both cloud services are similarly priced, although Box has seen a larger increase in its stock price so far this year, rising 47.4 percent year to date as of Wednesday's close compared to Dropbox's 18.7 percent. But in an interview with CNBC last week, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston claimed his company was taking business from other competitors, including Box.

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.

Watch: Box CEO: We're bringing machine learning to the Box platform

Box CEO: We're bringing machine learning to the Box platform
VIDEO1:4701:47
Box CEO: We're bringing machine learning to the Box platform