Palo Alto Networks Share Price Responds Favorably Following Q1 Fiscal 2018 Results

For cybersecurity mammoth Palo Alto Networks (NYSE:PANW), its fiscal year for 2018 is already off on the right track.
On Monday (November 20), the tech giant released its Q1 fiscal 2018 results, noting an increase in revenue by 27 percent year-over-year to $505.5 million, compared to total revenue of $398.1 million in fiscal Q1 2017. The company also highlighted that its Q1 adjusted earnings were $0.74 per diluted share compared to $0.55 per diluted share for the fiscal first quarter of 2017.
Mark McLaughlin, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, said the company also added 2,500 new customers to its network in fiscal Q1 2018, bringing the company’s total number of customers to over 45,000.

“We continue to drive disruptive evolutions in a large and growing market by delivering highly automated and orchestrated security capabilities that increase prevention rates and simplify consumption models,” McLaughlin said in the release.
Contributing to the company’s substantial growth, according to the release, was the release of version 4.1 of Traps™, the company’s endpoint protection offering with updated features to help customers further prevent malware attacks.
In a conference call with investors on Monday, McLaughlin further added that the updated version of  Traps™ included “added behavior based ransomware protection, enhanced kernel exploit prevention, and local analysis for macOS.”
To that end, McLaughlin also highlighted that Palo Alto Networks introduced two additional offerings in September: the GlobalProtect Cloud Service that delivers its Next-Generation Security infrastructure for “remote offices and mobile users” as a cloud-based service, and the Logging Service, which stores context rich logs created by Palo’s security platform.
“The Logging Service is the foundation of our application framework, which is the next major evolution in security,” McLaughlin continued.
Looking ahead to the rest of fiscal 2018, the company expects its revenue to fall in line somewhere between $2.14-$2.18 billion, representing growth of 22 percent year-over-year.
According to Tip Ranks, based on the average between 24 analysts, Palo Alto Networks has an average price target of $169.48, with a high estimate of $200 and a low of $125.  Analyst conesnus has the company targeted at a “moderate buy”, with 18 analysts suggesting it as a buy, five as a “hold, and one as a “sell”.  John DiFucci, analyst at Jeffries, raised his price target for the company to $183 following its Q1 fiscal 2018 results.
“[DiFucci]” believes the company’s outlook is ‘attainable, if not prudent,” The Fly.com writes.
Nehal Chokshi, analyst from Maxim Group, also reiterated a “buy” the company and raised its price target to $196. According to Markets.co, Chokshi said:

Product refresh continues to drive beats, but power of platform is evident from ongoing increases in subscription revenue to installed base ratios.

At market close on Tuesday (November 21), Palo Alto Networks’ shares had increased 4.71 percent over a one-day period to close at $149.40.
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Securities Disclosure: I, Jocelyn Aspa, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.