Nimble Storage: Fiscal 3Q15 Financial Results

(in $ million)	3Q14	3Q15	9 mo. 14	9 mo. 15
Revenues	33.4	59.1	84.0	159.4
*Growth*		77%		*90%*
Net income (loss)	(10.1)	(28.4)	(30.0)	(74.1)

Nimble Storage, Inc. reported financial results for the fiscal third quarter 2015 ended October 31.

“We believe that our adaptive flash platform is the broadest architectural approach and is superior to the approach of major incumbents as well as emerging companies in our industry,” said Suresh Vasudevan, CEO. “During the last year, we have had a very strong track record for delivering innovation culminating in the early delivery of our FC product that expands the market opportunity four-fold.“

“Q3 marked another quarter of strong growth and momentum as we more than doubled our customer base over the last year, adding 568 new customers during the quarter to over 4,300 customers in total,” said Anup Singh, CFO. “We also realized rapid growth in large deals, resulting in a double-digit sequential increase and an all-time high in new customer ASPs combined with strong contribution from international markets which accounted for 20% of total revenue this quarter.”

3FQ15 Financial Results:

Revenue was $59.1 million, up 77% year-over-year and above our guidance of $56 to $58 million
Non-GAAP gross margin was 67.1% up by 0.7%age points from 66.4% in the third quarter of fiscal 2014
Non-GAAP operating loss was $9.7 million, better than our guidance for an operating loss of $11 to $12 million
Non-GAAP operating margin improved to negative 16% compared to negative 24% in the third quarter of fiscal 2014
Adjusted EBITDA was negative $8.6 million or negative 15% of revenue compared to negative 21% in the third quarter of fiscal 2014
GAAP net loss was $0.39 per basic and diluted share, compared with a net loss of $0.48 per basic and diluted share in the fiscal third quarter of 2014
Non-GAAP net loss was $0.15 per basic and diluted share, ahead of our guidance of $0.16 to $0.17 loss per share, compared with a net loss of $0.13 per basic and diluted share in the fiscal third quarter of 2014
Foreign exchange loss was $1.1 million, which had a $0.01 per share impact on basic and diluted loss per share

For 4FQ15, the company expects:

Revenue of $65 to $67 million
Non-GAAP operating loss of $9.5 to $10.5 million
Adjusted EBITDA loss of $7.0 to $8.0 million
Non-GAAP net loss of $0.14 to $0.15 per share
Weighted average basic shares outstanding of approximately 74 million

Comments

Quarter after quarter, it's the same song: revenue increasing very fast and net loss generally faster.

For 1FQ15, sales were up 110% Y/Y with net loss increasing 109%, for the former three-month period, it was 89% and 150%, this time it's 77% and 181%, respectively.

It means that the company is burning cash to get market shares. Last quarter ended with $205 million in cash and cash equivalents a decrease of $800,000 in period. During the last nine months it was $3.5 million, slightly over $1 million per quarter.

Nimble hopes to achieve breakeven by the end of fiscal year FY 2016, a real challenge.

"Our fourth growth driver is the propensity for each of our customers to deploy additional workloads on to our platform after the initial deployment which results in a doubling of the spend within eight quarters after the initial purchase, a pattern that remained very much in place during Q3," commented CEO Suresh Vasudevan.

Installed base more than doubled from a year ago.

International revenue is roughly 20% with strong performance in Europe and AsiaPac and Japan.

During the quarter, the firm transitioned its entire platform family with new controllers, a product transition that was executed seamlessly as the new platforms accounted for more than half of bookings.

The firm ended 3Q15 with 800 employees, an increase of 65 for the quarter. During last year, the team grew by 272 people.