Teradata's 1Q earnings lift stock to new high
ATLANTA (AP) — Teradata Corp.'s first-quarter earnings rose 40 percent, in a performance that propelled the data management company's stock to a new high Thursday.
The results and investors' enthusiastic reaction is the latest illustration of the moneymaking opportunities emerging around the collection and analysis of data accumulating in an Internet-driven age.
As more work, shopping and socializing occurs on the Internet, companies are buying more equipment, products and services to store and navigate through the torrents of information pouring into their computers. The trend is turning into a boon for so-called "Big Data" specialists such as Teradata, which is based in Atlanta. Investors, in turn, have been scooping up Big Data stocks in hopes of reaping big returns in the years ahead.
Teradata benefited Thursday as its shares surged $5.21, or more than 7 percent, to $77.40 in afternoon trading after its first-quarter estimates topped analyst estimates and management brightened its outlook for the rest of the year. Earlier in Thursday's session, Teradata's stock hit $79.89 — the highest price since the company spun off from NCR Corp. in 2007.
"We have the widest and deepest portfolio in the market to address the analytic data needs of any organization," Teradata CEO Mike Koehler boasted in a statement with the company's first-quarter results.
Teradata's stock reached a new peak just three weeks after the shares of data-management software maker Splunk Inc. doubled in their Wall Street debut.
Teradata earned $91 million, or 53 cents per share, during the first three months of the year. That compared with net income of $65 million, or 38 cents per share, at the same time last year.
If not for expenses covering employee stock compensation and accounting costs for certain other items, Teradata said it would have earned 60 cents per share. On that basis, Teradata exceeded the average earnings estimate of 56 cents per share among analysts surveyed by FactSet.
Revenue climbed 21 percent to $613 million — about $26 million above analyst projections — from $506 million.
The company predicted its revenue for all of this year will rise by as much as 14 percent from 2011, to $2.7 billion. It had earlier predicted revenue would grow 10 to 12 percent this year. Teradata forecast that its adjusted full-year earnings per share will range from $2.60 to $2.70, up from a previous outlook of $2.56 to $2.66.
Analysts' full-year forecast had called for adjusted earnings of $2.64 per share on revenue of $2.65 billion.
