Workday Loss Widens On Costs, Yet Tops Street; Outlook Strong

(RTTNews) - Cloud-based software vendor Workday Inc. (WDAY), Wednesday reported a wider loss for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014, hurt by one-time expenses even as revenue surged 74 percent from last year.

The company provided a strong revenue outlook for the current quarter as well as for fiscal year 2015. Workday shares rose over 3 percent in after-hours trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

Pleasanton, California-based Workday operates as a cloud-based human resource and financial management software vendor. Founded in 2005 by PeopleSoft veterans Dave Duffield and Aneel Bhusri, Workday went public last October in a scintillating initial public offering.

In the past year, Wordkay has added 200 new clients, hastened adoption of its financials product and expanded presence in the education and government industries.

For the fourth quarter, Workday posted net loss to stockholders of $56 million or $0.32 per share against a loss of $31 million or $0.19 per share last year.

Results for the recent quarter included $24 million of stock-based compensation expense and $6 million of amortization costs.

Excluding items, adjusted loss for the quarter was $23 million or $0.13 per share, compared with loss of $25.5 million or $.16 per share last year. On average, 29 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a loss of $0.16 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Revenue for the fourth quarter surged to $141.9 million from $81.5 million a year ago. Twenty-seven analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $137.9 million for the quarter.

Total expenses for the quarter jumped to $190 million from $112 million a year ago.

For the first quarter of fiscal 2015, Workday projects revenue of $148 million to $153 million, while analysts currently estimate $148.2 million.

For fiscal 2014, the company expects revenue of $710 million to $740 million, while analysts see $706 million.

In February, Workday acquired Identified Inc., a San Francisco-based company, whose product development team is expected to enhance search capabilities and accelerate the delivery of predictive analytics and machine learning.

Workday stock closed Wednesday at $100.28, up $1.53 or 1.55%, on a volume of about 2 million shares. In after hours, the stock gained $3.36 or 3.35% at $103.64.