RingCentral (NYSE:RNG) Reports Q4 In Line With Expectations But Guides Below Expectations
Office and call centre communications software provider RingCentral (NYSE:RNG) reported results in line with analysts' expectations in Q4 FY2023, with revenue up 8.9% year on year to $571.3 million. On the other hand, the company expects next quarter's revenue to be around $577.5 million, slightly below analysts' estimates. It made a non-GAAP profit of $0.86 per share, improving from its profit of $0.60 per share in the same quarter last year.
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RingCentral (RNG) Q4 FY2023 Highlights:
Revenue: $571.3 million vs analyst estimates of $570.4 million (small beat)
EPS (non-GAAP): $0.86 vs analyst estimates of $0.82 (4.6% beat)
Revenue Guidance for Q1 2024 is $577.5 million at the midpoint, below analyst estimates of $581.8 million
Management's revenue guidance for the upcoming financial year 2024 is $2.38 billion at the midpoint, missing analyst estimates by 0.8% and implying 8.2% growth (vs 10.9% in FY2023)
Gross Margin (GAAP): 70.2%, up from 69.4% in the same quarter last year
Market Capitalization: $2.87 billion
"We ended the year on a strong note," said Vlad Shmunis, RingCentral's founder and CEO.
Founded in 1999 during the dot-com era, RingCentral (NYSE:RNG) provides software as a service that unifies phone, text, fax, video calls and chat in one platform.
Video Conferencing
Work is becoming more distributed, both across geographies and devices. In order for businesses to keep functioning efficiently, they need to be able to communicate as well as they did when the teams were co-located, which drives the demand for integrated communication platforms.
Sales Growth
As you can see below, RingCentral's revenue growth has been mediocre over the last two years, growing from $448.5 million in Q4 FY2021 to $571.3 million this quarter.
RingCentral's quarterly revenue was only up 8.9% year on year, which might disappoint some shareholders. Additionally, its growth did slow down compared to last quarter as the company's revenue increased by just $13.11 million in Q4 compared to $18.86 million in Q3 2023. While we'd like to see revenue increase by a greater amount each quarter, a one-off fluctuation is usually not concerning.
Next quarter's guidance suggests that RingCentral is expecting revenue to grow 8.2% year on year to $577.5 million, slowing down from the 14.1% year-on-year increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. For the upcoming financial year, management expects revenue to be $2.38 billion at the midpoint, growing 8.2% year on year compared to the 10.8% increase in FY2023.
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Profitability
What makes the software as a service business so attractive is that once the software is developed, it typically shouldn't cost much to provide it as an ongoing service to customers. RingCentral's gross profit margin, an important metric measuring how much money there's left after paying for servers, licenses, technical support, and other necessary running expenses, was 70.2% in Q4.
That means that for every $1 in revenue the company had $0.70 left to spend on developing new products, sales and marketing, and general administrative overhead. RingCentral's gross margin is lower than that of a typical SaaS businesses. Gross margin has a major impact on a company’s ability to develop new products and invest in marketing, which may ultimately determine the winner in a competitive market. This makes it a critical metric to track for the long-term investor.
Key Takeaways from RingCentral's Q4 Results
Growth is slow these days and RingCentral's full-year revenue guidance was below expectations. Overall, the results could have been better. The company is down 1.9% on the results and currently trades at $30.25 per share.
RingCentral may have had a tough quarter, but does that actually create an opportunity to invest right now? When making that decision, it's important to consider its valuation, business qualities, as well as what has happened in the latest quarter. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here, it's free.
