RALEIGH – Bandwidth on Wednesday reported a loss of $1.3 million in its fourth quarter and projects a loss for 2019 but CEO David Morken in a conference call with analysts chose to accent the positive: Further international expansion and the hiring of new workers.
“During last year, 233 new Bandmates joined us from many local and national software and technology companies,” Morken said after Bandwidth (Nasdaq: BAND) posted earnings to wrap up its first year as a public company.
“We grew our team by 62% from 378 to 611. We more than doubled our sales and marketing team from 63 to 150, which now includes 45 enterprise hunters and 8 strategic sales reps. In addition, we expanded our sales in marketing team by adding more new development reps to directly support our inside sales representatives.”
The telecommunications software and service provider also continues to invest in additional research and development, Morken added.
“During 2018, we also grew both our technology and our R&D teams from 66 to 156 to develop and broaden our platform and meet growing market demand,” he explained.
“The majority of these hires were software developers and engineers who will accelerate the launch of planned services on our platform. In 2019, we will expand our toll-free voice platform and network to add many new call management capabilities. This will allow us to better serve our customers, especially those with contact center applications.”
Morken’s bullish remarks came despite the company projecting a loss for 2019.
Enhancements and improvements are coming that he says “will assist our customers who are increasingly using messaging within their customer engagement strategy. Furthermore, we plan to expand our platform’s emergency call APIs [application programming interface] to support to support mobile work force used cases by enabling real time notifications of location specific emergencies.”
The Raleigh-based company said it had a loss of 7 cents per share. Losses, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were 4 cents per share.
The results exceeded Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for a loss of 29 cents per share.
The enterprise software developer posted revenue of $52.3 million in the period.
For the year, the company reported profit of $17.9 million, or 85 cents per share. Revenue was reported as $204.1 million.
For the current quarter ending in April, Bandwidth expects its results to range from a loss of 30 cents per share to a loss of 27 cents per share.
The company said it expects revenue in the range of $51 million to $51.5 million for the fiscal first quarter.
Bandwidth expects full-year results to range from a loss of 74 cents per share to a loss of 64 cents per share, with revenue ranging from $231.5 million to $233.5 million.
Bandwidth shares have climbed 19 percent since the beginning of the year. In the final minutes of trading on Wednesday, shares hit $48.54, more than doubling in the last 12 months.
You can read the full earnings call transcript online.
Tax benefit lifts Bandwidth earnings above expectations; cofounder exits board
