Qualtrics Q1 report, forecast top Wall Street expectations: The C-suite is buying in, says CEO

Qualtrics, the "experience management" company that is majority owned by SAP, this afternoon reported Q1 revenue that topped Wall Street's expectations, and a suprise profit where a loss had been expected, and an outlook for this quarter higher as well, and raised its outlook for the full year. 

The report sent Qualtrics stock up by about 3% in late trading.

CEO Zig Serafin, in an interview with ZDNet, remarked that "our platform has been never more relevant or impactful for the way that businesses are looking to run their organizations and make decisions based on experience." 

Serafin emphasized growth in subscription revenue of 46%, year over year, in the quarter, at $186.9 million. He also emphasized a 35% rise in the number of customers who spend more than $100,000 with Qualtrics.

"What we're finding is this platform is becoming as critical as an HR system or a CRM system."

Asked who is the lead buyer in a customer shop, Serafin replied, "I'd say over the last year, the number of CEO-level conversations that I'm having personally, that our company is having with people in the C-Suite, is a step-function change."  

Revenue in the three months ended in March rose 36%, year over year, to $238.6 million, yielding a net profit of a penny a share, excluding some costs.

The revenue was above the outlook offered in March of $226 million to $228 million, while the profit was better than the outlook offered then for a 2-cent to 4-cent net loss per share.  

Analysts had been modeling $227.4 million and a 3-cent loss per share.

The company's remaining performance obligation, or RPO, a measure of backlog, rose 77%, year over year, to $1.196 billion.

For the current quarter, the company sees revenue of $240 million to $242 million, and net loss in a range of negative 1 cent to negative 3 cents. That compares to consensus for $229 million and a 4-cent loss per share.

For the full year, the company raised its outlook for revenue to a range of $980 million to $984 million, and net loss of negative 11 cents to negative 13 cents. 

That is up from the forecast offered last month of $950 milloin to $954 million, and negative 16 cents to negative 18 cents per share. It is also above Wall Street's consensus of $954 million and a 17-cent loss per share.