Progress Software pleases investors as it beats expectations and raises its full-year guidance

Things are looking up for Progress Software Corp. after it posted a solid earnings and revenue beat and raised its full-year outlook, sending its stock higher in extended trading.

The company delivered first-quarter earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation of $1.31 per share, easily beating the analysts’ consensus estimate of $1.06. Revenue for the period jumped by 29%, to $238 million, also beating the Street’s forecast. Analysts had been targeting sales of $235.6 million.

Despite the impressive numbers, Progress Software was unable to improve its bottom line. It posted a net profit for the quarter of $10.9 million, down from a $22.6 million profit in the year-ago period.

Founded way back in 1981, Progress Software is one of the oldest publicly traded software companies in the business. It launched its initial public offering in 1991, and has grown its customer base to more than 100,000 enterprises globally, though it has traditionally maintained a low profile.

The company sells a diverse range of software tools and services, primarily aimed at building adaptive user experiences across devices. Among its offerings, it sells tools for secure file transfers, data management, network monitoring and business rules automation. It also offers web content management services and machine learning-based anomaly detection tools for securing corporate networks. It claims that more than two million developers are using its software.

With its strong results, Progress Software has felt confident enough to boost its full-year forecast for fiscal 2025. It said it now expects to generate earnings of between $5.25 and $5.37 per share, up from its previous projection of $5 to $5.12 per share. However, it maintained its earlier revenue guidance of between $958 million and $970 million.

Wall Street is still guiding for full-year earnings of just $5.06 per share on sales of $964.4 million.

For the current quarter, Progress Software said it’s looking for earnings of between $1.28 and $1.34 per share on sales of $235 million to $241 million. That’s also ahead of the Street’s view. Analysts had forecast second-quarter earnings of just $1.17 per share on revenue of $233.8 million.

According to Progress Software Chief Financial Officer Anthony Folger, the company boosted its earnings guidance following its strong start to the year, a period he said was marked by “steady demand” and “well-controlled expenses.”

Chief Executive Yogesh Gupta (pictured) chimed in to explain that the company’s “excellent results” were driven by the strong performance of its data platforms and infrastructure management products, which had a “particularly solid” quarter in terms of revenue growth.

“Our Net Retention Rate again surpassed 100%,” Gupta said, referring to a metric that measures the spending of its existing customer base. “It reflects the resiliency of our business and the strength of our customer metrics. Operationally, our first quarter was solid by every metric.”

Wall Street investors liked what they saw, and Progress Software’s stock gained just over 6% in the after-hours trading session. However, the stock is still down more than 20% in the year to date.

Photo: Progress Software/YouTube