Elastic Quarter-on-Quarter Revenue Growth Rates

There has been some contention on the board that Elastic’s revenue growth is decelerating. I contend this is incorrect, and the perceived deceleration is a result of a blow out earnings quater in Q4 2018, where quarterly revenue grew over 90% yoy.

Here is the quarter-on-quarter growth revenue rates for Elastic:

Q3 2018: 13%
Q4 2018: 19% (blow out quarter)
Q1 2019: 14%
Q2 2019: 12%
Q3 2019: 11%
Q4 2019: 14%

I believe the impact of the 2018 Q4 result is now behind us, and Q1 2020 will be compared to a typical Quarterly performance.

Conversley, Mongo DB had a blow out quarter in Q4 2018, which means the Q4 2019 result may disappoint. I think it is important to be aware that Q2/Q3 2019 results will benefit from the Q4 2018 blow out quarter, and it will seem the strong growth is continuing - Please pay closer attention to the Quarter on quarter result . For Mongo DB, Q1 was less than 8% quarter on quarter, or 32% annualised. Elastic has never had a quarter on quarter result below 11%.

Contrary to others, I have loaded up on Elastic rather than Mongo DB this past week.

24 Likes

Apologies, 8% quarter on quarter growth equates to 36% annualised growth, not 32% as stated.

Elastic’s revenues are most definitely declining. This was not a 1 quarter event. They have been declining since before they went public.

7/31/17: $31,644
10/31/17: $37,038
1/31/18: $41,681
4/30/18: $49,572
7/31/18: $56,644 (79% YOY)
10/31/18: $63,575 (72%)
1/31/19: $70,835 (70%)
4/30/19: $80,599 (63%)

Year ended April 2018: +82% YOY
Year ended April 2019: +70%

It’s fine if you want to buy Elastic but I wouldn’t do it under the impression people who say revenue growth rates are declining are incorrect.

2 Likes

I actually bought ESTC the week of the IPO and sold it right after they reported Q3 revenues in February.

The lockup and declining revenue growth rates (before this quarter was ever reported) were what caused me to sell. We finally get one of those issues lifted on Monday for good, the other we’ll see.

I would like to see them gain some traction in enterprise search with their new products there.

We see what the market is for SIEM. They are trying to grow in that industry now with their most recent acquisition. With Splunk spending gobs of money to grow at 35% at $1.8 billion for big data analysis I assume that is an indication of the current TAM, unless, SPLK is going about it all wrong and just charging way too much which doesn’t allow them to grow faster. But there are already alternatives to SPLK besides ESTC and none of them are really gaining any headway. We will see. Currently watching this from the sidelines.

1 Like