MongoDB crushes expectations and its stock makes huge gains after-hours

Shares of the database company MongoDB Inc. were flying high in extended trading today after it posted better-than-expected financial results, upped its full-year guidance and expanded its share buyback program.

The company reported first-quarter earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation of $1 per share, blowing past analysts’ consensus estimate of 67 cents by a wide margin. Revenue was impressive too, growing 22% from the same period one year ago, to $549 million, easily surpassing Wall Street’s target of $527.5 million.

Those numbers meant the company ended the quarter with a net loss of $37.6 million, improving quite a bit on the $80.5 million loss it posted one year ago.

MongoDB is the creator of the document-oriented MongoDB database, which is used to power data-intensive applications. Its flagship product is the cloud-hosted MongoDB Atlas, which accounts for the bulk of its revenue, though it also sells on-premises and mobile versions. All three are popular with developers thanks to their support for multiple data formats and ease of use.

Recently, the company has been looking to enhance its vector search capabilities to make its database more appealing to developers of artificial intelligence applications, and it has high hopes that doing so will boost the appeal of its platform. Earlier this year, it bought a startup called Voyage AI Inc. that develops AI models for generating embeddings, which are the mathematical structures used to store key details about unstructured data in vector databases.

MongoDB Chief Executive Dev Ittycheria (pictured) said the results show the company is off to a strong start in fiscal 2026, with Atlas-based revenue growing even faster than the rest of its businesses at 26%. He also pointed to “meaningful margin outperformance” and the “highest total net customer additions in six years” as more evidence of its progress.

“Enterprises and startups are choosing MongoDB as their platform of choice for both modernizing existing and building new applications,” Ittycheria added.

The company also cited an improved cash flow position at the end of the quarter, with operating cash flow of $109.9 million, up from $63.6 million in the year-ago period. It finished the quarter with more than 57,100 customers, up from 49,200 one year earlier. Of those, 55,800 are now using MongoDB Atlas.

Investors were happy to see that the company’s strong performance is unlikely to be a flash in the pan, for it also offered very optimistic guidance for the current quarter. Officials said they’re looking at second-quarter earnings of between 62 and 66 cents per share on revenue of between $548 million and $553 million. Both numbers exceeded the Street’s expectations, with analysts forecasting second-quarter earnings of just 58 cents per share on lower sales of $549.3 million.

The performance was encouraging enough that MongoDB hiked its full-year guidance. It’s now looking for annual earnings of between $2.94 and $3.12 per share, up from an earlier target of just $2.44 to $2.62 per share. In terms of revenue, it’s targeting a range of $2.25 billion and $2.29 billion, compared to a prior view of just $2.24 billion to $2.28 billion.

The new range compares very well with the Street’s guidance, which calls for earnings of $2.65 per share on revenue of $2.27 billion.

Investors were clearly delighted with the company’s growth during the previous quarter and equally enthusiastic about its bullish forecast. But the challenge now is to finally return a profit after years of losing money, said analyst Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc.

“MongoDB increased its revenue by around $100 million, but it only managed to reduce its net loss by $43 million, so it still has a way to go,” the analyst said. “But it is making progress, and Dev Ittycheria and his team managed to keep sales and marketing costs constant, while reducing G&A and increasing R&D spend.”

According to Mueller, investors want to see MongoDB spending more on research, because we live in a time where everyone is racing to innovate, and they don’t want the company to fall behind. But they’ll also be hoping for the company to stop losing money in the near future.

“The question is whether or not MongoDB can repeat the same trick in the current quarter, increasing revenue while managing its cost base to improve profitability and perhaps even break a small profit,” Mueller said. “The growth engines remain the same, so expectations of more income from operations seem feasible.”

Ittycheria seems confident, anyway. On the conference call, he told analysts the company is upping its guidance because it sees an “incredible opportunity” for customers to leverage its platform for artificial intelligence applications. “We are confident in our position to drive profitable growth as we benefit from this next wave of application development,” the CEO said.

The company further pleased investors when it announced it’s stepping up its share repurchase program, pledging to buy back an additional $800 million of common stock, in addition to the $200 million buyback authorization it announced three months earlier. It brings the total authorization to $1 billion.

MongoDB’s share price jumped more than 13% in the after-hours trading session. That added to a gain of more than 3% earlier in the day, but the stock still has more ground to recover, and remains 14% down in the year to date.

Photo: SiliconANGLE