Headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, VMware Inc. (VMW) is a tech company that provides virtualization solutions from desktops to data centers.Their solutions enable organizations to aggregate multiple servers, storage infrastructure and networks together into shared pools of capacity that can be allocated dynamically, securely and reliably to applications as needed, which increases hardware utilization and reducing spending.
Notably, VMware sees a huge portion of their revenues from its indirect sales channel that includes distributors, resellers, x86 system vendors, and systems integrators.
Strong Q4 Results
The Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) stock reported impressive fourth quarter fiscal 2018 results last month.
Both the top and bottom line topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate. Revenues of $2.31 billion and non-GAAP earnings of $1.68 grew 13.6% and 17.5% year-over-year, respectively. In particular, top line growth was driven by robust performance from the company’s NSX and vSAN product lines.
Breaking sales down by region, U.S. revenues increased 10.9%, while International revenues jumped over 16%; EMEA delivered strong growth in Q4 as well.
Taking a look at VMware’s different segments, Services revenues grew 8.4% to $1.24 billion and License revenues surged more than 20% to $1.06 billion. Services represent 53.7% of total revenues, and License make up 46.3% of total revenues.
Bookings were looking solid too, with NSX license bookings increasing 24% ad vSAN bookings soaring 100% year-over-year.
Guidance is Promising
Looking ahead, fiscal 2019 revenues are projected to jump nearly 11%, with License revenues increasing about 11.3% year-over-year.
Non-GAAP earnings for the year are expected to be $6.02 per share, and non-GAAP operating margin is anticipated to be 33.3%.
Additionally, VMware projects cash flow from operations to grow about 11% to $3.55 billion. Capital expenditures are also expected to be $280 million, with free cash flow of approximately $3.27 billion.
Earnings Outlook
For VMW, its bottom line is trending upward for the foreseeable future.
Earnings are expected to grow over 15% for the current quarter. Eight analysts have revised their estimates upwards in the last 60 days, and none have cut their outlook in the same time period.
Fiscal 2018 figures are also looking pretty great, with 13 estimates moving higher in the past two months. The Zacks consensus estimate trend has jumped from $5.56 per share to $5.95 per share.
Earnings estimates for fiscal 2020 are on the rise as well, jumping from $6.15 per share to $6.64 per share in the last 60 days.
Can VMW Push Higher?
Recently, it’s been a wild ride for the tech industry, with major sell-offs happening on the Nasdaq and the “FAANG” stocks—Facebook (FB), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Netflix (NFLX), and Alphabet (GOOGL)—experiencing major losses.
While it’s hard to say exactly what the cause of the tech sell-off is, overall data privacy concerns is likely the culprit, especially in the wake of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Looking at VMware, shares of the cloud infrastructure company have slipped a little over 3% since the start of the year, but have gained roughly 30% in the past one-year period. The Nasdaq has risen 18.2% in comparison.
VMW is currently trading at a forward P/E of 20.7X and a PEG ratio of 1.7X.
Not only does the company have strong growth and value metrics, but it is also a part of a well-performing industry. Computer-Software sits in the top 21% of all industries ranked by Zacks. For these reasons, VMW looks to be an exciting opportunity for investors.
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