Pure Storage Announces Third Quarter Fiscal 2018 Financial Results

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Nov. 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Pure Storage (NYSE: PSTG) today announced financial results for its third quarter ended October 31, 2017.

Key quarterly business and financial highlights include:

• Record quarterly revenue: $278 million, up 41% Y/Y, 2% ahead of midpoint of guidance
• Quarterly gross margin: 65.5% GAAP; 66.4% non-GAAP
• Quarterly operating margin: -15.1% GAAP; -0.7% non-GAAP, up 24.6 ppts and 9.1 ppts Y/Y, respectively
• Raising full-year fiscal 2018 revenue guidance to between $1.012 billion and $1.020 billion and non-GAAP operating margin guidance to between -4.9% and -3.5%

"Pure has built a platform that allows customers to build a better world with data," said Pure Storage CEO Charlie Giancarlo. "Pure offers a simpler, more effective, and agile solution for data-rich applications like artificial intelligence."

In the quarter, more than 300 new customers joined Pure Storage, increasing the total to more than 4,000 organizations, including more than 25% of the Fortune 500. A few new customer wins in the quarter include: NASA Goddard, Krispy Kreme, John Lewis PLC, Movado Group, Weave Communications, Comodo Group, and Pronto Software.

"We had an excellent quarter, highlighted by strong revenue growth, positive free cash flow, and a continued march toward profitability," said Pure Storage CFO Tim Riitters. "We are excited to be fast approaching the $1 billion annual revenue mark and our first profitable quarter on a non-GAAP basis."

Third Quarter Fiscal 2018 Financial Highlights

The following tables summarize our consolidated financial results for the fiscal quarters ended October 31, 2017 and 2016 (in millions except percentages and per share amounts, unaudited):

A reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP information is provided at the end of this release.

Financial Outlook

Pure Storage's fourth quarter fiscal 2018 guidance is as follows:

• Revenue in the range of $327 million to $335 million
• Non-GAAP gross margin in the range of 63.5% to 66.5%
• Non-GAAP operating margin in the range of 3.0% to 7.0%

Pure Storage's full year fiscal 2018 guidance is as follows:

• Revenue in the range of $1.012 billion to $1.020 billion
• Non-GAAP gross margin in the range of 65.6% to 66.6%
• Non-GAAP operating margin in the range of -4.9% to -3.5%

All forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures contained in this section titled "Financial Outlook" exclude stock-based compensation expense, payroll tax expense related to stock-based activities and, as applicable, other special items. We have not reconciled guidance for non-GAAP gross margin and non-GAAP operating margin to their most directly comparable GAAP measures because such items that impact these measures are not within our control and/or cannot be reasonably predicted. Accordingly, a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measure guidance to the corresponding GAAP measures is not available without unreasonable effort.

Conference Call Information

Pure Storage will host a teleconference to discuss the third quarter fiscal 2018 results at 2:00 p.m. (PT) on November 28, 2017. Pure Storage will post its supplemental earnings presentation to the investor relations website at investor.purestorage.com following the conference call.

Teleconference details are as follows:

• To Listen via Telephone: (833) 245-9656 or (647) 689-4543 (for international callers).
• To Listen via the Internet: A live and replay audio broadcast of the conference call with corresponding slides will be available at investor.purestorage.com.
• Replay: A telephone playback of this conference call is scheduled to be available two hours after the call ends on Tuesday, November 28, 2017, through December 12, 2017. The replay will be accessible by calling (800) 585-8367 or (416) 621-4642 (for international callers), with conference ID 2498308. The call runs 24 hours per day, including weekends.

Upcoming Investor Events

Pure Storage will be participating in upcoming financial Q&A discussions at industry events on December 5th at 1:15 p.m. MST in Deer Valley, UT and December 7th at 2:30 p.m. PST in San Francisco, CA. Pure Storage will post a link to the live webcast on the investor relations website at investor.purestorage.com for both live and archived events.

About Pure Storage

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) helps companies push the boundaries of what's possible. Pure's end-to-end data platform - including FlashArray, FlashBlade and our converged offering with Cisco, FlashStack – is powered by innovative software that's cloud-connected for management from anywhere on a mobile device and supported by the Evergreen business model. The company's all-flash based technology, combined with its customer-friendly business model, drives business and IT transformation with solutions that are effortless, efficient and evergreen. With Pure's industry leading Satmetrix-certified NPS score of 83.7, Pure customers are some of the happiest in the world, and include organizations of all sizes, across an ever-expanding range of industries.

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Pure Storage, Evergreen, FlashBlade, FlashStack and the "P" Logo mark are trademarks of Pure Storage, Inc. All other trademarks or names referenced in this document are the property of their respective owners.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding our products, business and operations, including our expectations regarding technology differentiation, and our outlook for the fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2018 and statements regarding our products, business, operations and results, including fourth quarter profitability. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on potentially inaccurate assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expected or implied by the forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from the results predicted, and reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. The potential risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the results predicted include, among others, those risks and uncertainties included under the captions "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in our filings and reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including, which are available on our investor relations website at investor.purestorage.com and on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Additional information will also be set forth in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended October 31, 2017. All information provided in this release and in the attachments is as of November 28, 2017, and we undertake no duty to update this information unless required by law.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

To supplement our condensed consolidated financial statements, which are prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP, we use the following non-GAAP financial measures: non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP gross margin, non-GAAP operating loss, non-GAAP operating margin, non-GAAP net loss, non-GAAP net loss per share, free cash flow, and free cash flow as a percentage of revenue. In computing these non-GAAP financial measures, we exclude the effects of stock-based compensation expense and payroll tax expense related to stock-based activities. For the three months ended October 31, 2016, non-GAAP loss from operations, non-GAAP operating margin, non-GAAP net loss, non-GAAP net loss per share, free cash flow and free cash flow as a percentage of revenue also exclude a one time cash charge related to a legal settlement. The presentation of this financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for, or superior to, the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP.

We use these non-GAAP financial measures for financial and operational decision-making and as a means to evaluate period-to-period comparisons. Our management believes that these non-GAAP financial measures provide meaningful supplemental information regarding our performance and liquidity by excluding certain expenses and expenditures such as stock-based compensation expense that may not be indicative of our ongoing core business operating results. We believe that both management and investors benefit from referring to these non-GAAP financial measures in assessing our performance and when analyzing historical performance and liquidity and planning, forecasting, and analyzing future periods. The presentation of these non-GAAP financial measures is not meant to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP, and our non-GAAP measures may be different from non-GAAP measures used by other companies.

For a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP measures, please see the tables captioned "Reconciliations of non-GAAP results of operations to the nearest comparable GAAP measures" and "Reconciliation from net cash provided by (used in) operating activities to free cash flow," included at the end of this release.

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SOURCE Pure Storage