Intuit Keeps Growing Sales, Offers Guidance out to 2017

This quarter was supposed to be a throw-away quarter after considering that the previous quarter revenues were almost $2.4 billion. The company’s shares have made a steady climb over the quarter from a low in May of $73.50 to an all-time high in August of $85.89.

Intuit gave guidance for the upcoming year of $4.275 billion to $4.375 billion in revenue, a decline of 3% to 5%. Earnings for the year were put at $2.45 to $2.50 per share. The Thomson Reuters consensus estimate for the coming year is $3.97 in earnings per share and $4.85 billion is revenue. The reason that the difference in revenues (and perhaps earnings) looks so different from estimates may be because of its adjusted revenues and was explained as follows:

Adjusted revenue of $4.75 billion to $4.85 billion, growth of 5 percent to 8 percent — This adjusted revenue guidance takes into account the expected increase in deferred revenue due to the change in future desktop product offerings, as well as acceleration in QuickBooks Online ecosystem growth, which impacts near-term revenue growth as customers pay monthly subscription fees.

This quarter, the company has increased its online subscribers outside the U.S. by 150% to 84,000. On the year, Intuit ended with 683,000 QuickBooks Online customers and over 1 million total QuickBooks subscribers.

Intuit also introduced longer-term guidance that we posted without comment on its financial targets for fiscal 2017: Revenue of approximately $5.8 billion, 9 percent growth on average over the next three years; and Non-GAAP earnings per share of approximately $5.00, a compounded annual growth of 13 percent; Adjusting for share-based compensation expenses and amortization of intangibles, GAAP earnings per share of approximately $4.25; and QuickBooks Online subscribers of approximately 2 million, an increase from 683,000 at the end of fiscal 2014, compounded annual growth rate of more than 40 percent.

Intuit shares closed up 0.6% at $85.81 and the after-hours reaction has been negative with a drop of less than 1% after having previously been down just over 2%. Its 52-week trading range is $61.50 to $85.72 and the consensus analyst price target going into earnings was $81.53.