By Angela Palumbo
Cloudflare stock jumped Friday after the internet security company said it landed its largest contract ever, but not all analysts are convinced now is the time to buy.
Cloudflare reported first-quarter adjusted earnings of 16 cents a share after the stock market closed Thursday, which was in-line with analyst estimates, according to FactSet. Revenue for the quarter of $479.1 million beat Wall Street estimates of $469.3 million.
In the same period last year, Cloudflare posted earnings of 16 cents a share on revenue of $378.6 million.
"This quarter we achieved a number of milestones," CEO Matthew Prince said on the earnings call. "We landed the largest contract in Cloudflare's history, a milestone deal of more than $100 million driven by our Workers developer platform."
Cloudflare also said it expects second-quarter earnings of 18 cents a share on revenue of $500 to $501 million, compared with Wall Street estimates of 19 cents a share on revenue of $500.4 million. The company reiterated its full-year revenue guidance of $2.09 billion to $2.094 billion.
The company's "sales capacity should continue to improve, and they have a breadth of products to sell into their existing customer base even in a volatile macro," Truist Securities analyst Joel Fishbein wrote Thursday. He rates the stock as a Buy with a $175 price target.
Shares jumped 8.1% to $134.69 on Friday.
Despite the stock's gain, Jefferies analyst Brent Thill lowered his price target on the stock to $150 from $170, while maintaining a Hold rating.
"We believe Cloudflare has an opportunity to transform multiple IT security and infrastructure markets over time beyond its core internet performance and security use cases," Thill wrote in a note on Friday. However, he added that the "valuation is currently full, given it is the most expensive multiple in our universe."
Shares of Cloudflare are currently trading at 152.27 times earnings expected over the next 12 months. The stocks has gained 24% this year and 88% over the past 12 months.
Write to Angela Palumbo at angela.palumbo@dowjones.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
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May 09, 2025 14:19 ET (18:19 GMT)
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