A company that beat earnings expectations by 36% and revenue expectations by 15% would usually see a postresults bump. But not for Bloom Energy, the fuel-cell maker that has flourished due to data-center demand.
Bloom Energy (BE) late Thursday reported third-quarter earnings per share of 94 cents, up from just 15 cents a year earlier and comfortably ahead of the 69 cents that analysts polled by FactSet expected. Revenue rose 138% to $1.24 billion, beating expectations of $1.07 billion.
Bloom Energy said it is targeting between $4.4 billion and $4.6 billion in revenue this year, versus the $4.26 billion consensus, while maintaining its adjusted gross margin outlook of 34%.
Its revenue guidance has been steadily increased by 41% since February, according to JPMorgan analysts.
The company, whose clients include Google (GOOGL), Oracle (ORCL) and Nebius (NBIS), burned $27 million in cash this quarter. "This quarter, we used cash from operations. But that is not the beginning of a trend," Bloom CFO Simon Edwards said, noting the company is cash-flow positive on the year. "We're balancing this margin expansion with also capturing the market opportunity in front of us," he added.
Chairman and CEO K.R. Sridhar referenced a comment from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who said that every quarter delay in a gigawatt data center translates to $10 billion of missed revenue. "So every 100-megawatt data center, a quarter delay would be a $1 billion lost revenue," said Sridhar. "That overwhelms every other value proposition that you will have on the power block."
Bloom Energy has also been highlighting fuel-cell use outside of artificial intelligence.
But the stock has been in a funk, down 38% from highs, through Thursday. It tumbled 11% on Friday, closing at a nearly three-month low.
"Good quarter, crowded trade, tough reaction" was the title of an analyst note from Citi's Vikram Bagri.
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