Splunk Inc. Announces Fiscal First Quarter 2022 Financial Results

Splunk Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLK), provider of the Data-to-Everything Platform, today announced results for its fiscal first quarter ended April 30, 2021.

First Quarter 2022 Financial Highlights

• Cloud ARR was $877 million, up 83% year-over-year.
• Total ARR was $2.47 billion, up 39% year-over-year.
• Cloud revenue was $194 million, up 73% year-over-year.
• Total revenues were $502 million, up 16% year-over-year.
• 203 customers with Cloud ARR greater than $1 million, up 99% year-over-year.
• 537 customers with Total ARR greater than $1 million, up 46% year-over-year.

“Our first quarter success was defined by customers accelerating their move to the cloud,” said Doug Merritt, President and CEO of Splunk. “Data became an essential service in the past year as the pandemic solidified the urgent importance of digital transformation. Splunk delivers the only cloud data platform that is able to simultaneously serve the multitude of teams tasked with driving this shift for application development, infrastructure management and cyber security.”

“We saw continued improvement in demand during the first quarter and customer engagement remains high across our portfolio of products and cloud services,” said Jason Child, Chief Financial Officer, Splunk. “Our Cloud ARR exceeded 70% for the sixth straight quarter and we now have more than 200 customers with Cloud ARR over a million dollars. As we look forward, we have great confidence in our ability to deliver continued high growth, particularly within our cloud business.”

Business Highlights:

New and Expansion Customers Include: Bank of New Zealand, Chipotle, CVS Health, CyberCX (Australia), Deloitte Canada, E-Hälsomyndigheten (Sweden), Fastweb (Italy), Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, Kommunal Landspensjonskasse (KLP) (Norway), PRISMA Health, SCI Shared Resources, LLC, Sharp Healthcare, UVM Medical, TDC Net, ISTAT (Italy)

• Splunk’s New Observability Cloud Helps Customers Conquer Complexity at Any Scale: The Splunk Observability Cloud, including its entire data-driven observability product portfolio, has been made generally available to Splunk customers.
• Splunk’s Expanded Partner Ecosystem Further Drives Business Growth and Customer Success: Splunk Cloud became available through Google Cloud Marketplace and AWS was recognized as the 2021 Global Alliance Partner of the Year for its commitment to the Splunk Partner+ Program.
• Splunk Solidifies its Position as One of the World’s Top Employers: Splunk was named one of Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work and one of the top 10 Best Workplaces in Technology, ranked among the top five on the San Francisco Business Times’ Best Places to Work in the Bay Area, and was recognized by the Human Rights Campaign as one of the Best Places to Work for LGBTQ Equality.
• Splunk Expands Executive Bench: Splunk announced the appointment of Teresa Carlson as President and Chief Growth Officer and the appointment of Shawn Bice as President of Products and Technology.
• Splunk Providing Mission-Critical Services to the Department of Defense (DoD): Working in close partnership with Carahsoft Technology Corp., Splunk is providing the DoD with asset management and cybersecurity software as part of the Core Enterprise Technology Agreement (CETA) by the DoD. The CETA designation, valued at $833M over 10 years, is part of the DoD’s Enterprise Software Initiative (ESI).

Financial Outlook

The company is providing the following guidance for its fiscal second quarter 2022 (ending July 31, 2021):

• Cloud ARR is expected to be between $950 million and $960 million.
• Total ARR is expected to be between $2.59 billion and $2.61 billion.
• Total revenues are expected to be between $550 million and $570 million.
• Non-GAAP operating margin is expected to be approximately negative 25%.

All forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures contained in this section “Financial Outlook” exclude estimates for stock-based compensation and related employer payroll tax, acquisition-related adjustments, amortization of intangible assets and capitalized software costs.

A reconciliation of non-GAAP guidance measures to corresponding GAAP measures is not available on a forward-looking basis without unreasonable effort due to the uncertainty regarding, and the potential variability of, many of these costs and expenses that may be incurred in the future. The company has provided a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures in the financial statement tables for its fiscal first quarter 2022 non-GAAP results included in this press release.

Conference Call and Webcast

Splunk’s executive management team will host a conference call today beginning at 1:30 p.m. PT (4:30 p.m. ET) to discuss the company’s financial results and business highlights. Interested parties may access the call by dialing (866) 501-1535. International parties may access the call by dialing (216) 672-5582. A live audio webcast of the conference call will be available through Splunk’s Investor Relations website at http://investors.splunk.com/events-presentations. A replay of the call will be available through June 9, 2021 by dialing (855) 859-2056 and referencing Conference ID 4918617.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding Splunk’s total ARR, cloud ARR, revenue and non-GAAP operating margin targets for the company’s fiscal second quarter in the paragraphs under “Financial Outlook” above and other statements regarding our market opportunity, including the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the business environment, such as trends in the pace of customer digital and cloud transformation and the importance of data and our ability to leverage these trends; the growth of our cloud business; the market for data-related products and trends in this market, future growth and related targets, including trends in our cloud software business mix, customer renewals, momentum, growth rate, strategy, technology and product innovation; expectations for our industry and business, such as our business model, customer demand, our partner relationships, customer success and feedback, expanding use of Splunk by customers, and expected benefits and scale of our products. There are a significant number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from statements made in this press release, including: risks associated with Splunk’s rapid growth, particularly outside of the United States; Splunk’s inability to realize value from its significant investments in its business, including product and service innovations and through acquisitions; Splunk’s shift from sales of licenses to sales of cloud services which impact the timing of revenue and margins; a shift from generally invoicing multi-year contracts upfront to invoicing on an annual basis which impacts cash collections; Splunk’s transition to a multi-product software and services business; Splunk’s inability to successfully integrate acquired businesses and technologies; Splunk’s inability to service its debt obligations or other adverse effects related to our convertible notes; the continuation or tapering of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related public health measures on our business, as well as the continuation or tapering of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the overall economic environment, including customer buying capacity, urgency and patterns; and general market, political, economic, business and competitive market conditions.

Additional information on potential factors that could affect Splunk’s financial results is included in the company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal quarter ended January 31, 2021, which is on file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and Splunk’s other filings with the SEC. Splunk does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements provided to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made.

About Splunk Inc.

Splunk Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLK) turns data into doing with the Data-to-Everything Platform. Splunk technology is designed to investigate, monitor, analyze and act on data at any scale.

Splunk, Splunk>, Data-to-Everything, D2E and Turn Data Into Doing are trademarks and registered trademarks of Splunk Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective owners. © 2021 Splunk Inc. All rights reserved.

Splunk Inc.

Operating Metrics

Total Annual Recurring Revenue (“Total ARR”) represents the annualized revenue run-rate of active cloud services, term license and maintenance contracts at the end of a reporting period. Cloud Annual Recurring Revenue (“Cloud ARR”) represents the annualized revenue run-rate of active cloud services contracts at the end of a reporting period. Each contract is annualized by dividing the contract value by the number of days in the contract term and then multiplying by 365.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures and Reconciliations

To supplement Splunk’s condensed consolidated financial statements, which are prepared and presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (“GAAP”), Splunk provides investors with the following non-GAAP financial measures: cloud services cost of revenues, cloud services gross margin, cost of revenues, gross margin, research and development expense, sales and marketing expense, general and administrative expense, operating income (loss), operating margin, income tax provision (benefit), net income (loss), net income (loss) per share and free cash flow (collectively the “non-GAAP financial measures”). These non-GAAP financial measures exclude all or a combination of the following (as reflected in the following reconciliation tables): expenses related to stock-based compensation and related employer payroll tax, amortization of intangible assets, adjustments related to facility exits, capitalized software development costs and non-cash interest expense related to convertible senior notes. The non-GAAP financial measures are also adjusted for Splunk’s estimated tax rate on non-GAAP income (loss). To determine the estimated non-GAAP tax rate, Splunk evaluates financial projections based on its non-GAAP results and the tax effect of those projections. The estimated non-GAAP tax rate takes into account many factors including our operating structure and tax positions. The non-GAAP tax rate applied to the three months ended April 30, 2021 was 20%. The applicable fiscal 2021 tax rates are noted in the reconciliations. In addition, non-GAAP financial measures include free cash flow, which represents operating cash flow less purchases of property and equipment. Splunk considers free cash flow to be a liquidity measure that provides useful information to management and investors about the amount of cash generated or used by the business.

Splunk excludes stock-based compensation expense because it is non-cash in nature and excluding this expense provides meaningful supplemental information regarding Splunk’s operational performance and allows investors the ability to make more meaningful comparisons between Splunk’s operating results and those of other companies. Splunk excludes employer payroll tax expense related to employee stock plans in order for investors to see the full effect that excluding that stock-based compensation expense had on Splunk’s operating results. These expenses are tied to the exercise or vesting of underlying equity awards and the price of Splunk’s common stock at the time of vesting or exercise, which may vary from period to period independent of the operating performance of Splunk’s business. Splunk also excludes amortization of intangible assets, adjustments related to facility exits, capitalized software development costs and non-cash interest expense related to convertible senior notes from the applicable non-GAAP financial measures because these adjustments are considered by management to be outside of Splunk’s core operating results.

There are limitations in using non-GAAP financial measures because the non-GAAP financial measures are not prepared in accordance with GAAP, may be different from non-GAAP financial measures used by Splunk’s competitors and exclude expenses that may have a material impact upon Splunk’s reported financial results. Further, stock-based compensation expense has been and will continue to be, for the foreseeable future, a significant recurring expense in Splunk’s business and an important part of the compensation provided to Splunk’s employees. The presentation of the non-GAAP financial measures is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for, or superior to, the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. Splunk uses these non-GAAP financial measures for financial and operational decision-making purposes and as a means to evaluate period-to-period comparisons. Splunk believes that these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information about Splunk’s operating results, enhance the overall understanding of past financial performance and future prospects and allow for greater transparency with respect to key metrics used by management in its financial and operational decision making. In addition, these non-GAAP financial measures facilitate comparisons to competitors’ operating results. The non-GAAP financial measures are meant to supplement and be viewed in conjunction with GAAP financial measures.

The following tables reconcile Splunk’s GAAP results to Splunk’s non-GAAP results included in this press release.

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