March 5 (Reuters) - CrowdStrike Holdings forecast annual results above Wall Street estimates on Tuesday, lifted by strong enterprise spending on cybersecurity to counter rising online threats, sending its shares soaring in extended trade.
Shares of CrowdStrike were up 26.7% while other cybersecurity stocks also rallied after hours. SentinelOne jumped 8.5%, while Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, and Zscale gained about 4%.
The fast adoption of generative AI has opened new challenges for enterprises and has led to investments in cybersecurity services, such as the ones offered by CrowdStrike, to secure their business operations against external threats.
Analysts expect CrowdStrike, which offers unified platforms such as Falcon, to benefit from improved spending trends.
The company sees adjusted profit between $3.77 and $3.97 per share for fiscal 2025, the mid-point of which is above analysts' expectations of $3.75, according to LSEG data.
The Austin, Texas-based company expects annual revenue between $3.92 billion and $3.99 billion, the midpoint of which was above estimates of $3.94 billion.
It expects first-quarter revenue between $902.2 million and $905.8 million, above analysts' estimates of $899.3 million.
Excluding items, it expects profit between 89 cents and 90 cents per share in the first quarter, which was also above expectations.
The company said it agreed to acquire cloud data runtime security solution, Flow Security, to expand its data protection offerings for the cloud.
Crowdstrike's revenue for the fourth-quarter ended Jan. 31 rose 32.6% to $845.3 million, beating Street expectations of $839.1 million.