Impressive 4th quarter beat but 2020 numbers left me very unimpressed. Forecasting 30-35% growth. That’s quite a slowdown…
Cobra
5 Likes
I would like to see the company’s explanation for why they expect to go from 75% growth to 30-35% so fast. That’s an absurd level of sand bagging or something is changing.
1 Like
Forecasting 30-35% growth. That’s quite a slowdown…
If they only do 30-35% in 2020, that would be a slowdown and disappointment…but…they are almost certainly sandbagging.
Last year, in February 2019, they gave guidance of 36-38% for 2019. How did they actually do?..+65%!
So yeah, I would bet they beat even the high end of their guidance pretty significantly next year. Will it be 65% again? Probably not, but another year of 50% growth would be just fine by me.
Here is the full press release:
https://investor.alteryx.com/news-and-events/press-releases/…
In the fourth quarter of 2019:
- Revenue increased 75%!
- Gross Margins stayed at 92%
- Net income nearly doubled
- And they have close to a billion dollars in the bank
Looks like the stock is up a couple percent in after hours trading, even despite the big runup over the past two months.
I can’t ask for much more than that!
-mekong
50 Likes
I believe they forecasted 38% for the qtr that just ended so it appears just being conservative or sandbagging.
Come on guys… Like anyone takes any guidance from these guys and others as anything other than polite fiction. lol. This has been going on for years, but perhaps you are new to AYX.
Best,
Matt
18 Likes
They are sandbagging as always (If I am not mistaken, they did not miss the estimates once since IPO). I will be happy if they do 45% growth, which should be achievable given the NRR of 130%.
1 Like
They forecasted 36-38% ($345-350m) last year and came in at 65% ($417m, nearly 20% upside from high end of guidance). So yeah they are conservative, to say the least. A similar upside beat from their high end of guidance would be about 60% growth ($672m).
Keeping customer growth around 25% (slight slowdown) and NER of 130% gets them to about 60% growth. It would take a drop to about 10% customer growth and 120% NER to get their guidance.
4 Likes
The quarter was fantastic. No sane person could ask for anything more of this business.
- 75% growth over Q4 last year
- They grew revenue 50% from Q3 (which itself was an amazing growth qtr)
- Margins remain consistent at very high levels
- Company has net income! (as in real GAAP net income)
- Share count is increasing at a reasonable level
Recent quarterly growth:
Q1 55%
Q2 59%
Q3 65%
Q4 75%
I can’t say enough about this company’s execution. To grow this much, with not having a “bad quarter” is just astounding. Even great companies occasionally have bad quarters. But AYX is a model of execution.
Valuation (at $146/share, recently traded AH):
P/S Trailing: 22.4
P/S last 2 Qtr: 18
P/S Q4 Annualized (danger as this business has some seasonality): 15
P/S Forward at midpoint of guidance: 16.7
P/S Forward at 50% growth rate: 14.9
Even with the recent run of the stock, and at slower growth (50%) than any reported quarter this past year, the company would close 2020 at a P/S of 15 if the stock doesn’t increase further from here. Valuation seems very reasonable from my vantage point.
Or another way to think about it, to have terminal P/S of 20, at a growth rate of 50%, the share price would need to increase 34% from current levels over the next year.
It is my largest holding and I sleep well at night knowing that these guys are killing it.
Rob
71 Likes
I suppose if it “craters” to merely 50% growth this year that’s still pretty good if they maintain 92% margins. That’s about the same as a 70% grower with 65% margins.
I suppose if it “craters” to merely 50% growth this year that’s still pretty good if they maintain 92% margins. That’s about the same as a 70% grower with 65% margins.
How is this true? Maybe for just one or two years. But growth compounds, and margins stay relatively constant. A 70% grower even at 50% margins over time will make more money than a 50% grower even at 100% margins.
2 Likes
I suppose if it “craters” to merely 50% growth this year that’s still pretty good if they maintain 92% margins. That’s about the same as a 70% grower with 65% margins.
Terrible maths! From UP 42% to DOWN 60% relative gross profit in ten years.
**70% 65% 50% 92%**
**Year Revenue GP Revenue GP Delta**
0 1,000 650 1,000 920 42%
1 1,700 1,105 1,500 1,380 25%
2 2,890 1,879 2,250 2,070 10%
3 4,913 3,193 3,375 3,105 -3%
4 8,352 5,429 5,063 4,658 -14%
5 14,199 9,229 7,594 6,986 -24%
6 24,138 15,689 11,391 10,479 -33%
7 41,034 26,672 17,086 15,719 -41%
8 69,758 45,342 25,629 23,579 -48%
9 118,588 77,082 38,443 35,368 -54%
10 201,599 131,040 57,665 53,052 -60%
Believe Einstein, never underrate the power of compound interest.
Denny Schlesinger
31 Likes
I was reading the earnings call transcript and I was curious about what everyone thought about Alteryx’s revenue recognition per ASC 606.
I’d like to once again remind investors of how our revenue is determined under ASC 606. Revenue is determined based on the total amount of bookings in the period, total contract value or TCV. As a reminder, we typically enter into either one-year or three-year agreements with our customers. TCV includes the full dollar value of multiyear agreement. Of our TCV booked in the quarter, we recognized between 35% and 40% of that amount upfront. The percentage recognized upfront is solely based on product mix.
Perhaps I’m not understanding and someone can explain to me, but it appears Alteryx greatly benefited from being able to recognize revenue up front for longer duration contracts and in this case, they were able to recognized 35-40% of the amount upfront.
Could this revenue recognition principle blow up in their faces in later years since they are recognizing the majority of the revenue up front due to the way they do their contracts? It seems like with the renewals coming in January 1, we may see another huge uptick in revenue for Q1 if they recognize most it upfront. Again, I could be misunderstanding and someone could help me understand.
10 Likes
Could this revenue recognition principle blow up in their faces in later years since they are recognizing the majority of the revenue up front due to the way they do their contracts?
It would only have an impact if customers dropped Alteryx after their contracts expired and if Alteryx stopped gaining new customers. Neither of those are the case today as evidenced by the DBNRR and new customer growth.
It is possible this will cause some seasonality in the business. For instance, let’s use an extreme example where 100% of their customers renew in the 4th quarter. Yes, this would make for weaker quarters for Q1 through Q3, but it would all balance out on a TTM basis.
No, I don’t see any reason for concern whatsoever.
A.J.
4 Likes
I suppose if it “craters” to merely 50% growth this year that’s still pretty good if they maintain 92% margins. That’s about the same as a 70% grower with 65% margins.
Terrible maths! From UP 42% to DOWN 60% relative gross profit in ten years.
70% 65% 50% 92%
Year Revenue GP Revenue GP Delta
0 1,000 650 1,000 920 42%
1 1,700 1,105 1,500 1,380 25%
2 2,890 1,879 2,250 2,070 10%
3 4,913 3,193 3,375 3,105 -3%
4 8,352 5,429 5,063 4,658 -14%
5 14,199 9,229 7,594 6,986 -24%
6 24,138 15,689 11,391 10,479 -33%
7 41,034 26,672 17,086 15,719 -41%
8 69,758 45,342 25,629 23,579 -48%
9 118,588 77,082 38,443 35,368 -54%
10 201,599 131,040 57,665 53,052 -60%
Not to belabor the point, but it all depends on the other assumptions
If I assume that the 70% grower is going to naturally decelerate faster than the 50% one, with them both reaching long-term 20-25% growth rates five years from now, then their gross profit dollars will be pretty similar throughout
Year 65%GP Growth 92%GP Growth
0 650 920
1 1,105 70% 1,380 50%
2 1,746 58% 1,960 42%
3 2,532 45% 2,685 37%
4 3,342 32% 3,517 31%
5 4,177 25% 4,396 25%
6 5,221 25% 5,495 25%
7 6,527 25% 6,869 25%
8 7,832 20% 8,243 20%
9 9,398 20% 9,891 20%
10 11,278 20% 11,870 20%
-mekong
13 Likes
Just remember when they went from ASC605 to ASC606, they had a huge jump in revenue. If you never adjusted for ASC606 both the current year and the previous year as AYX did, THAT huge jump of like doubling revenues (or whatever it was) would have been the misleading thing that couldn’t continue.
There is no tricky unsustainable results hiding in how AYX reports its numbers, so long as they continue to execute as they have.
2 Likes
The quarter was fantastic. No sane person could ask for anything more of this business.
Recent quarterly growth:
Q1 55%
Q2 59%
Q3 65%
Q4 75%
I can’t say enough about this company’s execution. To grow this much, with not having a “bad quarter” is just astounding.
I couldn’t agree more. When it was down in the aftermarket I couldn’t resist and added a half a percent to my position size at $143.35, even though it was my largest position.
Saul
37 Likes
Not to belabor the point, but it all depends on the other assumptions
Of course, but I’m not making any assumptions. I’m saying that high gross margin does not make up for low revenue grow rate. Besides, high gross margin can be offset by high GS&M, i.e. by low operating margin. Put another way, beware of anchoring, beware of confirmation bias, beware of treating a complex model as if it were simple. Comparing revenue growth rate to gross margin is an apples to aardvarks comparison. 
Denny Schlesinger
9 Likes
it appears Alteryx greatly benefited from being able to recognize revenue up front for longer duration contracts and in this case, they were able to recognized 35-40% of the amount upfront.
Could this revenue recognition principle blow up in their faces in later years since they are recognizing the majority of the revenue up front due to the way they do their contracts?
The quarter to worry about that was the quarter they reported yesterday. They first reported using ASC 606 in Q4 2018. I shared your concern, thinking that now that we’re lapping this year, they might not be able to grow at 60% or 65%. Well, they grew at 75%! This quarter astounded me…no exaggeration. I was literally talking to myself out loud as I marveled at their results yesterday.
As some have pointed out, they benefited from recognizing this revenue up front, so that was kind of artificial growth a year ago. But now they grew 75% on top of that! Alteryx sales are gaining momentum.
AYX is a force of nature. It’s hard to even remember that it was available below $90 a couple months ago. If I didn’t remember it, I’m not sure I would believe it.
Bear
40 Likes
When they adjusted the previous years revenues to asc606 to get the comparison, they also “front loaded” last year’s revenues as well.
This is completely apples/apples comparison.
They did not gain any benefit byvfront loading the sales. The only way you could say that is if you looked at ASC606 last year to ASC605 revenues the prior year.
4 Likes
AYX is a force of nature. It’s hard to even remember that it was available below $90 a couple months ago. If I didn’t remember it, I’m not sure I would believe it.
Bear
It is amazing. I increased my position about 10% last year with buys just below 90 and then in the mid 90’s. It was already my #1 position so I was cautious in adding. Now, I just wish I had bought more! As an aside, it’s been jockeying with SHOP for my #1 position and I had trimmed SHOP 10% to add to AYX, mainly due to valuation concerns - now I wish I hadn’t trimmed that either.
I think the lesson is to stick with your winners and to not fret over valuation if the company is hitting on all cylinders. And to have confidence in your convictions.
Dave
18 Likes