MW Palo Alto Networks' outlook meets expectations - but the stock drop shows investors wanted more

By Britney Nguyen

The cybersecurity company also saw a growth slowdown in remaining performance obligations, a metric that measures future revenue expected from current contracts

Palo Alto Networks Inc.'s in-line outlook wasn't enough for investors on Tuesday, with shares headed lower in the extended session following the cybersecurity company's fiscal third-quarter results.

The company said it expects total revenue to come in between $2.49 billion and $2.51 billion for the July quarter - bracketing analysts' expectations of $2.5 billion. Analysts are looking for adjusted earnings of 87 cents a share for the fiscal fourth quarter, while Palo Alto Networks' (PANW) outlook called for 87 cents to 89 cents.

While Palo Alto Networks beat profit expectations for the latest quarter, revenue merely matched FactSet's consensus estimate. The company reported revenue of $2.3 billion for the April quarter - growth of 15% from the previous year. While analysts were expecting adjusted earnings of 77 cents a share, the company reported adjusted earnings of 80 cents a share for the quarter.

Palo Alto Networks reported $13.5 billion in remaining performance obligations - or the revenue it expects in the future from current contracts - which was a 19% increase from the previous year. That came in line with expectations of $13.5 billion, according to FactSet, though the company's outlook had been for $13.5 billion to $13.6 billion. Growth in RPO slowed to 19% from 21% in the January quarter.

Palo Alto Networks set next-quarter RPO guidance between $15.2 billion and $15.3 billion, whereas Wall Street's expectations were for $15.3 billion. The outlook implies growth expectations of 19% to 20%.

Shares were down 4% during after-hours trading on Tuesday. The stock had been up 7% on the year heading into Tuesday's report, outpacing the S&P 500's SPX 1% gain.

Palo Alto Networks has been in the midst of a "platformization" push, which has involved giving away discounted product in order to drive greater adoption of its broader suite of offerings.

"In Q3, we continued to make progress on our platformization strategy," Chief Executive Nikesh Arora said in a statement, noting that the company's annual recurring revenue from its next-generation security platform exceeded $5 billion. "Our scale and platform breadth makes us a leading consolidator of choice in cybersecurity."

Ahead of the company's earnings report, analysts at Guggenheim Securities said they expected "to see upside to most of" the company's three-focus metrics: RPO, total revenue and next-generation security annual recurring revenue.

Palo Alto Networks reported NGS ARR of $5.1 billion for the April quarter, representing 34% growth, and expects fiscal fourth-quarter NGS ARR of between $5.52 billion and $5.57 billion.

The analysts said they "see solid upside potential to product revenue" for the second half of the year, "which supports management's commentary of double-digit product-revenue growth, despite the Street modeling high-single digit growth."

Still, the Guggenheim analysts have a sell rating on Palo Alto Networks' stock.

Meanwhile, Jefferies analysts were expecting the company to "hit F3Q top-line metrics...with outperformance likely driven by strength in product revenue." Jefferies has a buy rating on Palo Alto Networks's stock.

-Britney Nguyen

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May 20, 2025 17:29 ET (21:29 GMT)

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