Nimble Storage: Fiscal 4Q17 Financial Results

Nimble Storage, Inc. reported financial results for the fiscal fourth quarter and fiscal year 2017.

Recent Acquisition Announcement
In light of the recently announced pending acquisition by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Nimble Storage will not hold a conference call to discuss these financial results and will not provide Q1FY18 guidance.

Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2017 Key Financial Results:
    •    Total revenue increased 30% to $117.0 million, up from $90.1 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016. Excluding fluctuations in foreign currency, revenue would have been $118.7 million representing a 32% increase over the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016.
    •    GAAP gross margin was 63.5% compared to 64.4% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016. Non-GAAP gross margin was 65.8% compared to 66.4% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016.
    •    GAAP operating loss was $36.1 million, compared to a loss of $31.9 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016. Non-GAAP operating loss was $10.6 million, compared to a loss of $9.4 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016.
    •    GAAP operating margin was negative 31%, compared to negative 35% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016.  Non-GAAP operating margin was negative 9%, compared to negative 10% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016.
    •    GAAP net loss was $36.4 million, or $0.41 per basic and diluted share, compared with a net loss in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 of $32.4 million, or $0.40 per basic and diluted share. Non-GAAP net loss was $10.9 million, or $0.12 per basic and diluted share, compared with a net loss of $9.9 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016, or $0.12 per basic and diluted share.  

Fiscal Year 2017 Key Financial Results:
    •    Total revenue was $402.6 million, compared to $322.2 million in fiscal 2016, representing growth of 25% year-over-year. GAAP gross margin was 63.8% compared to 65.0% in fiscal 2016. Non-GAAP gross margin was 66.1% compared to 67.1% in fiscal 2016.
    •    GAAP operating loss was $156.6 million, compared to a loss of $118.6 million in fiscal 2016. Non-GAAP operating loss was $61.1 million compared to a loss of $35.3 million in fiscal 2016.
    •    GAAP operating margin was negative 39% compared to negative 37% in fiscal 2016. Non-GAAP operating margin was negative 15% compared to negative 11% in fiscal 2016.
    •    GAAP net loss was $158.3 million, or $1.85 per basic and diluted share, compared with a net loss in fiscal 2016 of $120.1 million, or $1.52 per basic and diluted share. Non-GAAP net loss was $62.8 million, or $0.73 per basic and diluted share, compared with a net loss of $36.8 million in fiscal 2016, or $0.47 per basic and diluted share.   

Business Highlights
    •    Introduced Nimble Cloud Volumes, a Multicloud Storage Service. It is the only enterprise-grade multicloud block storage service for running applications in Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. This service, announced in February, will enable the next wave of applications – traditional transactional workloads – to be moved to the cloud with enterprise-grade availability and data services.
    •    Achieved Six-Nines Availability Powered by InfoSight Predictive Analytics. This is a standard for uptime in the infrastructure industry. This level of availability translates to an impact of fewer than 25s annually, empowering IT staff to focus on business priorities instead of routine maintenance with an infrastructure that gets smarter every single day.
    •    Nimble All Flash Arrays Awarded the 2016 Product of the Year Award by Storage Magazine/SearchStorage.com. The AF-Series All Flash arrays won the Gold award and were named as the All-Flash Systems Product of the Year. The CS-Series Adaptive Flash arrays were also recognized with the Silver award in the Disk and Hybrid Systems category.
    •    InfoSight Wins 2016 Technology Leadership Award from Ventana Research in IT Analytics. End user Flexi-Van Leasing was recognized for its use of InfoSight. The Ventana Research award identifies businesses and IT leaders who are using technologies and applying best practices to create the best possible outcomes in productivity, performance and support of an organization’s goals and objectives.
    •    Bob Kelly Appointed to Nimble Storage Board of Directors. He serves as a member of the nominating and corporate governance committee. He is a general partner at Ignition Partners. He most recently served as the corporate VP of merger and acquisition strategy and business development for the cloud and enterprise division, Microsoft Corporation.
    •    VP of Worldwide Channels Named a 2017 CRN Channel Chief. Leonard Iventosch was recognized on this annual list that represents leaders in the IT channel who excel at driving growth and revenue in their organizations through channel partners.