Unpacking Q1 Earnings: C3.ai (NYSE:AI) In The Context Of Other Data Infrastructure Stocks

Earnings results often indicate what direction a company will take in the months ahead. With Q1 now behind us, let’s have a look at C3.ai (NYSE:AI) and its peers.

Generating insights from system level data is an increasing priority for most businesses, but to do so requires connecting and analyzing piles of data stored and siloed in separate databases. This is the demand driver for cloud based data infrastructure software providers, who can more readily integrate, distribute and process information vs. legacy on-premise software providers.

The 4 data infrastructure stocks we track reported a mixed Q1; on average, revenues beat analyst consensus estimates by 1.7%. while next quarter’s revenue guidance was in line with consensus. Stocks, especially growth stocks where cash flows further in the future are more important to the story, had a good end of 2023. But the beginning of 2024 has seen more volatile stock performance due to mixed inflation data, and data infrastructure stocks have held roughly steady amidst all this, with share prices up 1.2% on average since the previous earnings results.

C3.ai (NYSE:AI)

Founded in 2009 by enterprise software veteran Tom Seibel, C3.ai (NYSE:AI) provides software that makes it easy for organizations to add artificial intelligence technology to their applications.

C3.ai reported revenues of $86.59 million, up 19.6% year on year, topping analysts’ expectations by 2.6%. It was a “beat and raise” quarter for the company. Revenue, gross margin, and free cash flow all exceeded expectations. It was also great to see C3.ai expecting revenue growth to accelerate next year with full year revenue guidance that was raised and above expectations.

“We finished a strong quarter and closed out a huge year for C3 AI. This was our fifth consecutive quarter of accelerating revenue growth. Our fourth quarter revenue grew by 20% year-over-year to $86.6 million, exceeding the top end of our guidance. Our full year revenue grew by 16% to $310.6 million, also exceeding the top end of our guidance,” said C3 AI CEO and Chairman Thomas M. Siebel.

C3.ai achieved the biggest analyst estimates beat and highest full-year guidance raise of the whole group. The stock is up 17.3% since the results and currently trades at $28.08.

Is now the time to buy C3.ai? Access our full analysis of the earnings results here, it’s free.

Best Q1: Elastic (NYSE:ESTC)

Started by Shay Banon as a search engine for his wife’s growing list of recipes at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) helps companies integrate search into their products and monitor their cloud infrastructure.

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Elastic reported revenues of $335 million, up 19.7% year on year, outperforming analysts’ expectations by 1.6%. It was a solid quarter for the company, with an impressive beat of analysts’ billings estimates and accelerating customer growth.

Elastic had the weakest full-year guidance update among its peers. The company added 60 enterprise customers paying more than $100,000 annually to reach a total of 1,330. The stock is up 6.2% since the results and currently trades at $99.

Is now the time to buy Elastic? Access our full analysis of the earnings results here, it’s free.

Weakest Q1: Teradata (NYSE:TDC)

Part of point-of-sale and ATM company NCR from 1991 to 2007, Teradata (NYSE:TDC) offers a software-as-service platform that helps organizations manage their data across multiple storages and analyze it.

Teradata reported revenues of $465 million, down 2.3% year on year, in line with analysts’ expectations. It was a weak quarter for the company, with a miss of analysts’ billings estimates.

Teradata had the weakest performance against analyst estimates and slowest revenue growth in the group. The stock is down 16.1% since the results and currently trades at $31.85.

Read our full analysis of Teradata’s results here.

Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT)

Started in 2014 by the team of engineers at LinkedIn who originally built it as an internal tool, Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT) provides infrastructure software for organizations that makes it easy and fast to collect and move large amounts of data between different systems.

Confluent reported revenues of $217.2 million, up 24.6% year on year, surpassing analysts’ expectations by 2.5%. It was a mixed quarter for the company, with decelerating growth in large customers and a decline in its gross margin.

Confluent achieved the fastest revenue growth among its peers. The company added 31 enterprise customers paying more than $100,000 annually to reach a total of 1,260. The stock is down 2.1% since the results and currently trades at $27.25.

Read our full, actionable report on Confluent here, it’s free.

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