Box announces strong financial figures, raises forecast

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Enterprise cloud storage provider Box has announced first quarter revenue figures of $65.6 million, a 45% increase year over year.

The company noted billings of $69.8m for the first quarter of fiscal 2016 and a non-GAAP operating loss of $32.6m – 50% of revenue. This contrasts with first quarter of fiscal 2015, whereby non-GAAP operating loss was 69% of revenue. GAAP operating loss for this quarter was at 71% of revenue, compared to the previous year’s 83%.

Box also gave an update on its customer numbers; an addition of 2000 customers in the quarter to total more than 47000 customers globally, a growth of paying customers to include more than 51% of the Fortune 500, and surpassing 37 million registered users.

According to Reuters, the company raised its full-year forecast to $286m-$290m, up from $281m-$285m. Shares rose over 8% in extended trading on Wednesday.

Dylan Smith, Box co-founder and CFO, said in a statement: “We are proud to have achieved revenue growth of 45% year over year, driven by our continued success moving up market and closing more enterprise deals. While we continue to focus on investing in technology innovation and growth, we also remain committed to achieving positive free cash slow. Our Q1 results show the progress we have made toward this milestone as we demonstrated significant improvement in our operating cash flow.”

Box has made a serious of interesting announcements in recent months, ranging from the customer win with the US Department of Justice to the appointment of Sonny Hashmi, former CIO of the General Services Administration, to help lead the company’s efforts in the federal IT space. It’s certainly early days, but there are certainly encouraging signs for the California-based firm.