Thanks, @wsm007. Good discussion point.
First, I am carrying slightly different numbers since SNOW constantly restates its past customer counts. I’m carrying these figures for raw adds:
For total customers, I’m using this slide from the most recent presentation:
Being honest, the fact SNOW restates its customer count literally every quarter has always bothered me. For example, when SNOW initially reported 4Q23 total customers were 7,828. Now it’s 7,744. With the old number, SNOW would have only 20.6% YoY growth versus the current 21.9%. I wouldn’t consider that a trivial difference. It made last year’s numbers look better at the time, and now it makes this year’s look better.
That dynamic is exacerbated by the fact management has had to restate its recent guides down not once but twice. For a company literally built around data, it is downright annoying to see changed customer data in every set of slides. I’ve adjusted by dumping in the new past numbers every quarter, but still…
I guess my overall take puts less weight on percentages given the circumstances. Even with the shifting numbers, I have SNOW adding roughly 100 fewer new customers during FY24 than FY23 (I’m open to seeing others’ math). Your numbers are even less inspiring at 275 fewer new customers added this year. This is the same issue I see recently with DDOG and to a lesser extent MDB. Yes, SNOW says it is hunting bigger fish, but where exactly is this showing up on the top or bottom lines?
Part of the current thesis with these usage-based names is increased workloads as the economy loosens. The flip side is I can’t help but wonder whether any usage expansion benefits for SNOW/DDOG/MDB will be at least partially offset by fewer customers coming on board to buffer growth at scale. I would think these companies are far from customer saturation, yet I’m still struggling to make sense of the undeniable trend of decreased adds. This is the exact opposite of what we are seeing recently with companies like IOT or even NET.
Thoughts?