Source: Wall Street News
Author: Cho Chak-hee
Although C3.ai is one of the companies that attracted the most investors in this AI wave, it still lost money in the fourth fiscal quarter ending at the end of April, but the loss was less than expected by the market. The company expects an adjusted operating loss of 25 million to 30 million US dollars for the next quarter, and an estimated operating loss of 50 million to 70 million US dollars after the 2024 fiscal year.
After the US stock market on Wednesday May 31st,$C3.ai (AI.US)$Results for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year of fiscal year 2023 ended April 30 were announced.
Financial reports show that for the fourth fiscal quarter ending April 30 this year, the company's revenue was 72.4 million US dollars, higher than market expectations of 71.4 million US dollars. Among them, the revenue contributed by subscription services reached 56.9 million US dollars, accounting for 79% of the company's total revenue.
In the fourth fiscal quarter, gross profit under GAAP was $47.5 million, or gross margin was 66%; gross profit under non-GAAP was $53.9 million, or 74%.
The company lost $0.58 per share for the fourth fiscal quarter and $0.13 per share after adjustment. The loss was less than the market's forecast of $0.17.
At the end of the fourth fiscal quarter, the company held $812.4 million in cash and cash equivalents; at the end of the quarter, the company's free cash flow was $16.3 million.
The company expects revenue for the next fiscal quarter, the first fiscal quarter of fiscal year 2024, to be 70 million to 72.5 million US dollars, and market expectations are 72.1 million US dollars. The company expects adjusted operating losses of 25 million to 30 million US dollars in the first fiscal quarter.
Looking at the full fiscal year, C3.ai's revenue increased 5.6% year over year to 267 million US dollars, of which subscription service revenue increased 11.4% year over year to 230 million US dollars, accounting for 86% of total revenue.
For the full year of fiscal year 2023, gross profit under GAAP was 180 million US dollars, gross margin was 68%; gross profit under non-GAAP was 210 million US dollars, gross margin was 77%.
The loss was $2.45 per share under GAAP and $0.42 per share under non-GAAP for the full year.
The company expects revenue of 295-320 million US dollars for the 2024 fiscal year, which is lower than market expectations of 317 million US dollars; it expects adjusted operating losses of 50 million to 70 million US dollars for the 2024 fiscal year.
As of press release, the post-market decline of C3.ai's US stock widened to more than 20%. Before the performance report was released, the company once rose nearly 5.75% after the market.
The company stated:
We believe it is now widely believed that the market for enterprise AI applications is much larger than predicted by experts and is growing much faster. For more than a decade, C3.ai has been in a leading position in the enterprise AI market, as the market has evolved from the Internet of Things to deep learning, etc., and now generative AI.
The company also stated in its earnings report that it has delivered more than 40 enterprise AI applications today.
In fiscal year 2023, C3.ai's application scenarios are also more diverse. Looking at the industries in which its customers are located, the oil and gas industry accounts for 33.8%; the US federal government, defense, and aerospace industries account for 28.9%; the high-tech industry accounts for 13.2%; energy and public services account for 11.4%; the rest of the customers come from manufacturing, food processing, chemical industry, life science and other industries.
The company's CEO Thomas Siebel said during a call after the earnings report was released:
C3.ai is well-prepared to meet growing demand through our tried and tested AI platform, our applications, our global partners, and our vast global ecosystem. In many ways, a new world is on our way. The interest in applying AI to business processes is greater than ever before.
Other than Nvidia, C3.ai is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the current AI wave. Since this year, C3.ai's stock price has risen sharply by 260%.
C3.ai, which is currently highly sought after, has been providing artificial intelligence services to enterprise customers for over ten years. C3.ai provides enterprises with a scalable AI platform as a turnkey solution for predictive modeling. The company's platform can provide developers with non-coding to deep coding services, which is a key factor in the development of artificial intelligence, and has also led the company to be named Forrester's leader in artificial intelligence and machine learning in 2022.
Amid the artificial intelligence boom, C3.ai recently announced the launch of the C3 Generative AI product suite. According to C3.ai, the product suite integrates the latest AI features and the most advanced models from organizations such as OpenAI, Google, and academia into C3.ai's enterprise AI products.
Among them, C3.ai released its first product, C3 Generative AI for Enterprise Search. The product uses a natural language interface to quickly locate, retrieve, and present all relevant data from the entire corpus of enterprise information systems, providing a transformative user experience for enterprise users.
Editor/Somer