Text size
Software company C3.ai reports results after the close on Wednesday, a day after the company’s share price surged 33% amid an investor frenzy for artificial intelligence stocks.
The time of dreams
At least for a few hours, the artificial intelligence stock market fever blows.
Nvidia
It is
(ticker: NVDA) market capitalization has slipped below the $1 trillion level, and shares of recent investor favorites
Palantize
technologies (PLTR),
SoundHound AI
(SOUND), and
C3.ai
(AI) are trading in the red after stunning recent moves in the past few sessions.
But there could be fresh fodder for AI bettors when C3.ai releases April quarter results on Wednesday.
The C3.ai report should hold some surprises. About two weeks ago, the business analytics software company pre-announced that the results would beat previous forecasts. C3.ai now has revenue of $72.1-72.4 million, non-GAAP operating loss of $23.7-23.9 million and free cash flow of 18-19, $4 million.
Street’s estimates (which may not have been updated after the pre-announcement) projected revenue of $71.3 million and a non-GAAP loss of 17 cents per share; the street sees a GAAP loss of 63 cents per share.
For the fiscal year ended April, C3.ai now reports revenue of $266.5-266.8 million, with a non-GAAP operating loss of $68.2-68.4 million and a negative free cash flow from $184.2 to $185.6 million.
“The overall enterprise AI business environment is more active than we’ve seen since the company’s inception and appears to be accelerating,” C3.ai said at the time of the announcement’s release. prior. “Interest in applying predictive analytics to business processes has never been greater.”
On Tuesday, C3.ai stock jumped 33%, thanks to a combination of continued AI stock mania and the company’s announcement that its AI tools are now available on AWS Marketplace, a platform form created by
Amazon
.
com’s (AMZN) Amazon Web Services for third parties offering software tools that run on the Amazon cloud.
The company said on Tuesday that availability on AWS “accelerates the provisioning and onboarding process, allowing customers to quickly access the combined generative AI expertise of C3.ai and AWS with just a few clicks of the mouse. only”.
The question now for C3.ai is whether it can reach its lofty value of around 14 times estimated sales for fiscal year 2024. Street consensus forecasts July quarter revenue of $71.6 million. , which would be up just under 10% from a year ago. For fiscal 2024, the street is forecasting revenue of $317.1 million, up about 19% from fiscal 2023.
C3.ai trades like a meme stock, with huge swings in price, while attracting substantial interest from short sellers. On the same day the company made the pre-announcement of the results, C3.ai also said it had completed an investigation into allegations made by a pair of short sellers – Spruce Point Capital Management and Kerrisdale Capital Management – and found that “none of the allegations or insinuations of wrongdoing made by Spruce Point or Kerrisdale were supported by the facts.
C3.ai shares at yesterday’s close were up 246% for the year to date. As of Wednesday morning, the stock is down 12%, making part of Tuesday’s huge run amid a broader tech decline.
Write to Eric J. Savitz at eric.savitz@barrons.com