Fastly’s 1Q Guidance Disappoints; Shares Sink Over 15%

Shares of Fastly dropped 15.5% yesterday after the cloud computing services provider offered 1Q 2021 guidance that missed the Street’s estimates. However, the company delivered better-than-expected results for the fourth quarter.

Fastly (FSLY) reported an adjusted loss of $0.09 per share, compared to a loss of $0.10 per share in the year-ago period. Analysts were anticipating a loss of $0.11 per share. The company’s adjusted gross margin expanded 610 basis points to 63.7%, driven by continued scale and the acquisition of Signal Sciences.

Its 4Q revenues of about $82.6 million spiked 40% year-over-year and came in marginally ahead of the consensus estimates of $82 million. The company’s CEO, Joshua Bixby, said, “This growth was driven by continued demand for our edge platform by both new and existing customers.”

As for 1Q, the company expects to generate revenues in the range of $83-$86 million, with the midpoint of $84.5 million coming in slightly below analysts’ expectations of $84.6 million. In addition, Fastly anticipates a 1Q loss in the range of $0.09-$0.13 per share, where the midpoint of $0.11 per share is worse than analysts’ expectations of $0.09.

For 2021, the company expects to generate revenues of $375-$385 million, compared to the Street estimates of $379.5 million. Furthermore, Fastly projects a loss in the range of $0.35-$0.44 per share, worse than the loss of $0.21 per share analysts’ estimated. (See Fastly stock analysis on TipRanks)

Following the results, Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan lowered the stock’s price target to $110 (37% upside potential) from $125, due to “lower FCF [free cash flow] on increased spending.”

However, Horan maintained a Buy rating on the stock. In a note to investors, the analyst said, “The company has built a reputation as a critical platform for digital leaders like Shopify, Etsy and Stripe. FSLY is seeing early momentum with Compute@Edge, which makes FSLY a linchpin between cloud and edge.” He added, “We consider edge a large opportunity and think investing now is the right strategy.”

Unlike Horan, the rest of the Street has a cautious outlook on the stock, with a Hold consensus rating based on 2 Holds, 2 Buys and 2 Sells. The average analyst price target of $90 implies upside potential of about 12% from current levels. Shares have skyrocketed more than 249% over the past year.

TipRanks’ data shows that financial blogger opinions are 80% Bullish, compared to a sector average of 70%.