CrowdStrike grows after strong second quarter results

(Bloomberg) — CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. shares rose after the cybersecurity company reported second-quarter revenue that beat analysts’ estimates, easing concerns that a global IT outage it caused last month could have an immediate impact on results.

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Revenue for the quarter ended July was $963.9 million, beating analysts’ estimates of $958.18 million.

However, the company’s forecast for the current fiscal year fell short of Wall Street’s expectations. The company had expected sales of between $3.89 billion and $3.9 billion for the full year. Analysts had expected an average of $3.96 billion.

Shares rose about 3 percent in late trading in New York.

“Our market opportunity remains unchanged and we believe our continued commitment to customers and innovation will further increase adoption of the Falcon platform, protecting our customers from rapidly evolving cyber threats and enabling us to achieve our long-term goals,” said Burt Podbere, CrowdStrike’s chief financial officer, in a statement.

The report is the company’s first since a faulty CrowdStrike update crashed the computers of customers using Microsoft Corp. Windows. The outage, which occurred on July 19, affected a variety of industries, including aviation, banking and healthcare.

After the power outage, the company’s share price fell by as much as 36 percent.

“CrowdStrike’s global outage may have negatively impacted wins and billing growth in the final two weeks of the quarter ended July,” Bloomberg Intelligence wrote on August 9. “We believe the company could lower its full-year revenue and billing guidance by at least 500-700 basis points from the consensus of over 30%. Gross margin could come under pressure for the remainder of the year as CrowdStrike may need to provide discounts or credits to customers who experienced an outage.”

The outage followed a steady rise in CrowdStrike, which has become a leading provider of a cybersecurity tool designed to identify and contain threats to computers and other devices. CEO George Kurtz said the company’s consolidated platform gave it a “broad competitive advantage.”

In June, CrowdStrike beat Wall Street expectations when it reported first-quarter earnings, even as some competitors struggled.

(Corrects seventh paragraph to reflect the amount shares fell after the default.)

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