Nimble Storage: Fiscal 1Q17 Financial Results

Highlights

• Customer momentum in recently launched all flash arrays
• Customer base up 48% year-over-year; 8,160 customers worldwide
• Strong growth in large deals; up 51% year-over-year

Nimble Storage, Inc. reported financial results for the fiscal first quarter 2017 ended April 30, 2016

“We saw strong customer and channel partner interest in our all flash arrays with deal sizes substantially above our overall average. All flash arrays accounted for 12% of our total array bookings during the first quarter after launch,” said Suresh Vasudevan, CEO. “Our Unified Flash Fabric combines industry-leading all-flash and adaptive flash arrays into a single architecture that accelerates every application at a TCO that is unmatched in the industry.”

“We delivered solid financial results in Q1 as we executed against our financial and operational plans as outlined last quarter. We saw steady progress in larger deals greater than $250,000, which were up 51% year-over-year, and continued growth in our customer base, which was up 48% year-over-year,” said Anup Singh, CFO.

First Quarter Fiscal 2017 Financial Highlights:

• Total revenue increased 21% to $86.4 million, up from $71.3 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2016. 
• GAAP gross margin was 63.4% compared to 65.2% in the first quarter of fiscal 2016.
• Non-GAAP gross margin was 65.7% compared to 67.6% in the first quarter of fiscal 2016.
• GAAP operating loss was $42.2 million, compared to a loss of $28.9 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2016.
• Non-GAAP operating loss was $19.7 million, compared to a loss of $7.9 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2016.
• GAAP net loss was $42.7 million, or $0.51 per basic and diluted share, compared with a net loss in the first quarter of fiscal 2016 of $29.0 million, or $0.38 per basic and diluted share.
• Non-GAAP net loss was $20.1 million, or $0.24 per basic and diluted share, compared with a net loss of $8.0 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2016, or $0.10 per basic and diluted share.  

Outlook:  
Nimble Storage provides guidance based on current market conditions and expectations. For the second quarter of fiscal 2017, Nimble Storage expects:

• Total revenue in the range of $93 to $96 million
• Non-GAAP operating loss in the range of $16 to $18 million
• Non-GAAP net loss per basic and diluted share in the range of $0.19 to $0.21 based on weighted average shares outstanding of approximately 85 million

Business Highlights

• Unveiled a New Series of Predictive All Flash Arrays. The AF-Series all flash arrays deliver  performance, scalability and non-stop availability at a TCO that is up to 33 to 66% lower than competitive arrays. Powered by Samsung 3D V-NAND-based SSDs, the AF-Series scales capacity to new industry heights with up to 553TB of raw capacity in a 12U configuration with a single array and two expansion shelves.
• Unified Flash Fabric Makes the Flash Data Center a Reality. The Unified Flash Fabric enables flash for all enterprise applications by unifying All Flash and Adaptive Flash arrays into a single consolidation architecture with common data services.
• Introduced Business Model: Timeless Storage. The Timeless Guarantee provides investment protection and upgrade certainty with an option to receive a free faster controller upgrade after three years. The business model offers all-inclusive pricing with no forklift upgrades and the flexibility to purchase storage as a capital investment or as Storage on Demand service.
• Inaugural Net Promoter Survey Yields Score of 85. In January 2016, Nimble executed its inaugural NPS customer survey and earned a score of 85, reflecting an outstanding customer experience with Nimble products and support.
• Awarded 5-Star Rating in CRN‘s 2016 Partner Program Guide. For two consecutive years Nimble has received the highest rating on CRN‘s definitive listing of technology vendors that serve solution providers or provide products through the IT channel.
• Global Survey Results Reveal the Impact of Application Performance Delays. The Mind the Gap report published by Nimble Storage in collaboration with Oxford Economics found that delays in propagating and refreshing application data (the app-data gap) can cause significant productivity drains and economic losses. U.S. companies may be losing as much as $7.5 billion of worker time annually due to delays and downtime.
• Nimble InfoSight Research Shows More than 50% of Performance Issues are Non-Storage Related. Can Machine Learning Prevent Application Downtime? analyzes data collected by Nimble Storage and points to the most pertinent hurdles impacting the speed at which companies access the data that powers applications, showing that 54% of all issues have nothing to do with storage.
• Obtained IBM Testing Certification for SVC. Nimble storage solutions are certified with IBM SAN Virtual Volume (SVC), offering joint customers additional options to deliver HA, data protection and mobility for their mission critical applications.