Planet Labs (PL) Shines Through A Cloudy Trading Session Today On Upbeat JulQ Results
3:08 pm Tuesday, September 13th, 2022
Planet Labs (PL) is a ray of sunshine during a cloudy trading session today after topping Q2 (Jul) revenue estimates and slightly increasing its FY23 sales outlook. PL, which went public via a SPAC merger late last year, is now seeing its shares up roughly 4% on the year.
PL images the Earth’s landmass using its 200 satellites to gather data to reveal insights into a wide array of trends, such as agriculture, biodiversity, and supply chains. The company’s customer base comprises many agriculture, mapping, forestry, and finance companies as well as government agencies. Some examples include Google (GOOGL) and NASA. For instance, PL and Google currently have a content license agreement; Google also owns a 10% stake in the company. A few of PL’s competitors include Blacksky Technology (BKSY), Spire Global (SPIR), and Satellogic (SATL).
Despite today’s move, PL still trades around 50% below its IPO price of $10.00. However, the company’s Q2 results contained multiple highlights, putting it on the right track to potentially recover its shares’ sizeable lost ground.
Revenue growth of 59% yr/yr to $48.45 mln, which topped PL’s prior forecast of $41-43 mln, was a massive acceleration from just 26% posted last quarter. Gross margins also saw a sizeable expansion of 13 pts yr/yr to 48%.
Although PL’s customer count decelerated from previous quarters, the company still grew the figure 17% yr/yr to 855. Perhaps more notable, net dollar retention expanded to 125%, a considerable jump from 105% in Q1 (Apr).
Bottom line, PL’s Q2 earnings report may be the spark needed to ignite a further push toward its IPO price. Although uncertainty in the macro environment could pressure PL to deliver similar numbers from Q2 in subsequent quarters, its end market use cases are proving their resiliency to a less-than-ideal economic backdrop.
