Workday beats Q1 targets with sales up 38 percent

Workday reported better-than-expected first-quarter financial results Tuesday, but that didn't stop the company's shares from taking a downward turn after hours.

The Software-as-a-Service provider reported a net loss of $80.6 million, or 41 cents per share.

Non-GAAP earnings were five cents per share on revenue of $345 million, up 38 percent annually.

Wall Street was expecting a loss of two cents per share on a revenue of $338.7 million.

In terms of guidance, Workday is now forecasting second quarter revenue in the range of $371 million to $373 million. Analysts are expecting revenue of roughly $371 million.

Despite the generally in-line results, Workday's shares fell by as much as five percent in after hours trading.

Workday co-founder and CEO Aneel Bhusri said the first quarter results were driven by "increased customer adoption of Workday Financial Management as well as strong demand in EMEA and APJ as more organizations take finance and HR to the cloud."

Bhusri also said the company is "on track" to rollout new platforms such as Workday Planning, Workday Learning and Workday Student later this year.

Looking elsewhere on the balance sheet, Workday's Q1 subscription revenues totaled approximately $280 million. In a separate release, Workday touted customer acquisitions and deployments by companies such as Best Western International, Hitachi, Care.com, 3M, TomTom, L.L. Bean and Warner Music Group.

In a statement, Bhusri said Workday has "more than 70 percent of customers live and a customer satisfaction rating over 95 percent."