McAfee shares jump on first public report: Q4 revenue tops expectations, outlook higher as well
Security software makers McAfee, which went public in October, this afternoon reported Q4 revenue that topped Wall Street's expectations, while missing on the bottom line, and an outlook for revenue this quarter higher as well.
The report initially sent McAfee shares up 7% in late trading.
CEO Peter Leav called attention to what he referred to as McAfee's "significant increases in revenue, subscribers, profitability and cash flow to close out the year," in particular, "23% revenue growth in our consumer business, 14% growth in total net revenue, and strong growth in adjusted EBITDA in Q4."
Added Leav, "We secure our customers' ever increasing digital footprint as people are living more of their lives online.
"I am very pleased with our team's execution, which is a testament to the dedication of McAfee employees worldwide," said Leav.
McAfee's CFO, Venkat Bhamidipati, commented that "across the business, results exceeded expectations driven by strong execution and increased demand for our security offerings."
Bhamidipati noted the company "saw robust demand in the large, critical, and growing personal protection market" while in the enterprise segment, the McAfee was able to increase both revenue and profit "by focusing on core enterprise and government customers while prioritizing our investment spending and rationalizing costs."
Revenue in the three months ended in December rose 14%, year over year, to $777 million, yielding a net loss of 73 cents a share.
Analysts had been modeling $739 million and a 31-cent profit per share.
For the current quarter, the company sees revenue of $725 million to $735 million, compared to consensus for $724 million.
McAfee may sound familiar. It's been bouncing around for awhile. You may recall its red software boxes on store shelves at CompUSA back in the day, if you remember what CompUSA was. McAfee was founded in 1987 and was acquired by Intel in 2011, and became the computer security unit of the chip maker.
In 2016, Intel agreed to spin out McAfee as a joint venture between itself and private equity firm TPG Capital. Intel retained a 49% stake. That joint venture is what went public in October.