Splunk shares rise after hours thanks to Q3 revenue surge, strong outlook

Splunk reported third quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday.

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The data software provider posted a loss of $16.8 million, or 16 cents per share (statement). Non-GAAP earnings were flat at zero cents per share on a revenue of $78.6 million, up 51 percent annually.

Wall Street was expecting Splunk to report a non-GAAP loss of a penny a share on revenue of $71.08 million.

Splunk shares were up by as much as 12 percent in after-hours trading.

Along with beating estimates, Splunk also boasted that it achieved another record in the third quarter. The San Francisco-based company signed on more than 450 new customers, the "highest in company history," ending the quarter with more than 6,400 customers worldwide.

CEO Godfrey Sullivan reflected on the quarter in prepared remarks:

We are pleased to welcome a record number of new customers to Splunk this quarter. There is tremendous value to be found in machine data. As a result, more customers are adopting Splunk software as their enterprise standard. We expanded our product portfolio this quarter with the release of Splunk Enterprise6, Splunk Cloud and Hunk: Splunk Analytics for Hadoop, providing more power, functionality and flexibility for our customers.

For the fourth quarter, analysts were expecting Splunk to deliver non-GAAP earnings of six cents a share on revenue of $86.12 million.

Splunk responded with revenue guidance of $88 million and $90 million.

Here's a snapshot of the highlights from Splunk's Q3:

• Portfolio upgrades: Released Splunk Enterprise 6 . Touted to be 1,000 times faster than previous versions, the machine data analytics software includes a revamped user interface and enhanced tools for developers to better model data.
  
• New C-level appointments: Stephen Sorkin as chief strategy officer, Todd Papaioannou as chief technology officer
• Expanded partnership with Amazon Web Services: Released Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) for Splunk Enterprise 6; Splunk Hunk Hadoop analytics on the AWS Marketplace; Updated Splunk App for AWS for Amazon CloudTrail, introduced at re:Invent last week to track all API calls
• Acquisitions: Bought BugSense Inc., an analytics solution for machine data generated by mobile devices