Slack Technologies Inc. shares plummeted 22% in after-hours trading Thursday after the digital-collaboration platform reported a widening loss during its fourth-quarter results.
Slack WORK, -15.59% reported a loss of $89.1 million in the quarter, or 16 cents a share, compared with a loss of $34.6 million, or 29 cents a share, in the year-ago fourth quarter.
Revenue grew 49% to $181.9 million from $122 million a year ago.
Analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected a loss of 20 cents a share on sales of $174.2 million.
While losses mounted, other data offered hints of a surge in telecommuting following edicts or recommendations from major employers such as Apple Inc. AAPL, +5.71% , Microsoft Corp. MSFT, +5.18% , Alphabet Inc.’s GOOGL, +3.97% GOOG, +3.87% Google, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +4.02% and Salesforce.com Inc. CRM, +1.66% for tens of thousands of their employees to work from home.
Slack said 70 customers spent more than $1 million annually on its product, compared with 39 in the year -ago quarter.
Last week, Zoom Video Communications Inc. ZM, -1.06% offered first-quarter revenue guidance of between $199 million and $201 million, exceeding FactSet’s projection of $185.6 million, and fiscal 2021 revenue between $905 million and $915 million, topping the $869.5 million forecast by FactSet.
Its growth in great part is being fueled as more people flock to its remote-work tools like videoconferencing as the virus continues to spread.
“In the last 30 days alone, average daily downloads are up 90% versus the prior 30-day period, with greater user engagement as evidenced by a 17% increase in user session per day and a 3% increase in average session length,” Bernstein analyst Zane Chrane wrote in a note to clients in early March.
Shares of Slack, which went public June 20, 2019, are down 5% since then. The broader S&P 500 index SPX, +4.11% is down 11.7% in the past year.