By Paul Ziobro

ServiceNow forecast slightly slower growth ahead after posting 21% revenue growth in the fourth-quarter.

The cloud-based software company on Wednesday reported a profit of $384 million, or $1.83 a share, compared with a profit of $295 million, or $1.43 a share, in the year-ago quarter.

Adjusted earnings were $3.67 a share. Analysts polled by FactSet expected $3.65 a share.

Revenue rose 21% to $2.96 billion, slightly below analyst expectations.

Subscription revenue rose 21% to $2.87 billion, slightly below the company's earlier forecast for between around $2.88 billion.

Chief Executive Bill McDermott said the company is still in the early innings of capitalizing on the shakeup coming from artificial intelligence.

"AI is fueling a top to bottom re-ordering of the enterprise technology landscape," he said. He added that customers are using ServiceNow to unlock additional productivity and seamlessly perform a broad business transformation. "We are still in the early days of a massive opportunity."

For the first quarter, the company sees subscription revenue of roughly $3 billion, or growth of up to 19%. Analysts were looking for $3.03 billion.

For the current year, ServiceNow forecast subscription revenues between $12.64 billion and $12.68 billion, up between 18.5% and 19% from the prior year. Analysts were looking for the metric to come in at $12.86 billion for this year.

ServiceNow said its board authorized an additional repurchase of up to $3 billion in shares.

Write to Paul Ziobro at paul.ziobro@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 29, 2025 16:51 ET (21:51 GMT)

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