Palantir: The Untold Truth

seekingalpha2021-06-18

Summary Palantir is often criticized for its lofty valuation multiples, stagnating customer base and its bleak margin profile. But the company is actually doing well in terms of customer growth, ...

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Comments

Sweegull
2021-06-28
Sweegull
PLTR for the long term?
Hitrun
2021-06-28
Hitrun
They are moving up anyway
Bustylibra
2021-06-20
Bustylibra
The sky in 2021. To the moon in 2022
PC66
2021-06-18
PC66
Wow!!
Aaron1
2021-06-18
Aaron1
Fully support palanthir
StarGate
2021-06-18
StarGate
I have no idea what they do even after reading up.1

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But the company isn't as bad. On the contrary, the data analytics firm is performing well on several parameters – such as customer growth, government order wins and margin expansion – which should come as an encouraging sign for its long-side investors and dispel such speculative bearish narratives. Let's take a closer look.\nRapid Customer Growth\nBears have been criticizing Palantir for its bespoke functionality ever since it went public. Its platforms involve customization for various workflows and customer needs, so bears feel the company faces difficulty in onboarding several customers at once and as a result, it’s bottlenecked and its growth momentum can fizzle out. While I respect contrasting opinions, fact of the matter here is that Palantir doesn’t seem to be struggling with customer adds.\nThe company’s customer count increased by over 7% on a sequential basis in Q1 2021. Our database at Business Quant reveals that this pace of growth is actually higher than that reported by some of the other renowned names in the software application and infrastructure industries. This immediately dispels the narrative that Palantir faces difficulty in scaling customer relationships due to its bespoke features, whenit's performing better than peers in this regard.\n\nThe company’s elevated pace of customer additions shouldn’t come as a surprise to my readers. I’ve explained in my prior articles how the company is undertaking a slew of measures – such as adopting a customer-friendly payment model, ramping up its sales function and introducing free trials for major enterprises – to expand its customer base. These initiatives were announced only a few months ago, and will continue for the rest of FY21, so I expect Palantir to continue adding customers at a rapid rate in near future as well.\nHaving said that, there’s no denying that Palantir’s customer base isn’t as sizable as some of its peers, but that’s also where its growth opportunity lies. It suggests that Palantir is yet to penetrate its target market in a big way and that its lower base effect makes it easier for the company to continue expanding its customer base at elevated rates.\nThere are broadly four takeaways here, which, by the way, the bears seem to discount time and again. These are:\n\nPalantir's target market isn't saturated yet and it can still find new customers with ease,\nThese new customers are bound to lift the company’s revenue higher in 2021 by a varied magnitude, depending on their contract value,\nIf these are recurring contracts, then that’s going to boost Palantir’s future revenue projections and guidance,\nIf these new customers eventually ramp up their spend, then that's also going to boost Palantir’s future cash flows.\n\nRegarding the last bullet, it's worth noting that Palantir’s top 20 customers, in general, have significantly ramped up their spending on the company’s data analytics platforms in each of the last 10 years. This new batch of customers, and any future customer additions, could also go through this spending expansion phase in the subsequent years and gradually boost Palantir’s revenue along the way. So, we must give due importance to its rapid pace of customer adds and not take it lightly.\n(Source: BusinessQuant.com)\nMargin Expansion\nAnother issue with assessing Palantir’s growth prospects is that the company isn’t profitable yet. While some feel the stock will remain subdued due to its weak margin profile, others feel it can collapse down to single digits. The frustration is understandable given the company posted a net loss of $0.07 per share in its most recent quarter.\n(Source:Seeking Alpha)\nBut I wanted to see for myself if Palantir’s margin profile was actually as hopeless as many believe it to be. So, I compiled the margin profiles for about 90 software infrastructure stocks listed on US bourses. There's no denying that the company's net profit margin is in the red. But what's surprising here is that Palantir had actually posted one of the highest sequential net margin expansions in Q1, in its peer group. To the best of my knowledge, this aspect of Palantir’s business hasn’t been discussed on any investing forum.\n(Source: BusinessQuant.com)\nThe company may not have been profitable so far, but that doesn’t mean it will remain unprofitable in the future as well. If its recent pace of margin expansion continues in the next several quarters, the company could become profitable in the next 2 to 3 years without sacrificing on its growth momentum. So, let’s give credit where it’s due. The community of professional analysts also shares this line of thought and projects Palantir's margin profile to materially improve going forward.\n(Source:MarketScreener)\nBesides, with public shareholding involved now, its management is likely to be under constant pressure to deliver breakneck revenue growth rates, and/or achieve profitability in the near future, or risk being voted out of their positions. This pressure may not have been as intense prior to its direct listing, when fewer shareholders were involved. So, overall, I don’t think Palantir’s margin profile is hopeless as many believe it to be, and I expect the company to become profitable by 2024.\nGovernment Contract Wins\nMoving on, Palantir has been doing extremely well when it comes to securing government contracts. B2G contracts are generally tough to win – given the extensive qualification criteria, long turnaround times and heightened competition – but Palantir seems to have the figured out recipe for success on the government side of its business. For the uninitiated, its revenue from government contracts rose 76% year over year, accounted for about 61% of the company's overall revenue, in Q1.\nUnless the company botches up somewhere, these government agencies are likely going to internally recommend it for varied applications. They won’t have to qualify Palantir time and again for several criteria which could drive these internal cross-agency referrals in a speedy manner and these agencies might even ramp up their spending in pre-existing contracts. So, Palantir just needs to rinse-and-repeat its B2G (Business-to-Government) strategy, and its government revenue could continue growing rapidly.\nPalantir has also made steady progress with regards to its government business so far in Q2. Its Q2 is still ongoing, but at the time of this writing, the company has over $36 million worth of new current action obligations from government deals, agreements and contracts, most of which haven’t made the headlines. For the uninitiated, a new deal could be an addition to pre-existing deal, expand the scope of previously agreed upon deliverables, it could be entirely new in nature, have varied execution periods that span from months to years and/or also have a recurring revenue stream attached to it.\n(Source: BusinessQuant.com)\nSo, while there are several variables that prevent us from reliably estimating the near-term revenue impact from these deals, Palantir’s shareholders with a long-term time horizon should feel reassured that their company continues to make steady progress towards growing its government business.\nFinal Thoughts\nPalantir’s shares are currently trading at about 43-times its trailing twelve-month sales which is, undeniably, high by conventional standards.\n(Source: BusinessQuant.com)\nHowever, its rich valuations alone shouldn't be the basis of a bear thesis. Palantir's valuation multiples may be high, but note from the chart above thatits revenue growth rate in Q1 was also higher than most of its peers.\nSo, I believe the price premium is justified by the company’s rapid pace of revenue growth (illustrated in the chart above), its qualitative growth catalysts discussed in this article and its relatively secure government revenue stream.\nKeeping these factors in mind, investors with a multi-year time horizon may want to increase exposure to Palantir on potential price corrections. The stock is likely to reach new highs as its growth catalysts eventually materialize, and as the company approaches profitability, in the next 2 to 3 years. Good Luck!","kind":null,"is_publish_news":false,"is_publish_highlight":true,"is_publish_live":null,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":1},"commentList":[{"id":150136788,"gmtCreate":1624889242044,"gmtModify":1703847173321,"author":{"id":"3578374858769915","authorId":"3578374858769915","name":"Sweegull","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"PLTR for the long term?","listText":"PLTR for the long term?","text":"PLTR for the long term?","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/150136788","repostId":1180977741,"repostType":2,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":127181576,"gmtCreate":1624839749795,"gmtModify":1703845766995,"author":{"id":"3575868905564115","authorId":"3575868905564115","name":"Hitrun","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/841cbf2a111833ec6efd1ed5a7f42dad","vip":1,"crmLevel":3,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"They are moving up anyway","listText":"They are moving up anyway","text":"They are moving up anyway","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/127181576","repostId":1180977741,"repostType":2,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":164858219,"gmtCreate":1624194774031,"gmtModify":1703830441803,"author":{"id":"3580382876614706","authorId":"3580382876614706","name":"Bustylibra","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/ee53d184a3c50326ddcb4185c2a74ccb","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"The sky in 2021. To the moon in 2022","listText":"The sky in 2021. To the moon in 2022","text":"The sky in 2021. To the moon in 2022","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/164858219","repostId":1180977741,"repostType":2,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":166523311,"gmtCreate":1624018945233,"gmtModify":1703826677649,"author":{"id":"3578903460570785","authorId":"3578903460570785","name":"PC66","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/cad81593d565a3fdc3f9cf71137f3ca1","vip":1,"crmLevel":1,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"Wow!!","listText":"Wow!!","text":"Wow!!","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/166523311","repostId":1180977741,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":166669629,"gmtCreate":1624006555461,"gmtModify":1703826380994,"author":{"id":"3578451239223705","authorId":"3578451239223705","name":"Aaron1","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b073a07f77dbe6b3bec6b12311fde6bd","crmLevel":5,"crmLevelSwitch":1},"htmlText":"Fully support palanthir","listText":"Fully support palanthir","text":"Fully support palanthir","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/166669629","repostId":1180977741,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":166879046,"gmtCreate":1624004049685,"gmtModify":1703826298797,"author":{"id":"3586990023332519","authorId":"3586990023332519","name":"StarGate","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9db084b2eae373a6cc56043329defb07","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"I have no idea what they do even after reading up.1","listText":"I have no idea what they do even after reading up.1","text":"I have no idea what they do even after reading up.1","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/166879046","repostId":1180977741,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"}],"isCommentEnd":false,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":140,"commentSize":66,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":2,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.24.2","shortVersion":"4.24.2","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/1180977741"}