Palo Alto outgrows market as Q4 revenue soars

Security vendor reports 59 per cent revenue growth hitting £184m

Palo Alto Networks has claimed it is outgrowing the wider market as Q4 2015 revenues came in at $284m (£184.5m), an increase of 50 per cent year on year.

The final quarter of 2015 tops of a year of lightning growth for the next-generation firewall vendor, with total revenues rising 55 per cent year on year to $928.1m – compared with $598.2m in 2014.

Mike Herman, the company's new vice president of channel EMEA, recently told CRN that he was brought on board to help its channel team cope with a rise in demand from resellers.

He added that his aim is to snatch market share away from competitors such as Cisco, Check Point and Juniper.

Palo Alto’s CEO Mark McLaughlin echoed this ambition, saying: “We are significantly outgrowing the market and rapidly taking share. Once again, our performance demonstrates that our natively integrated and automated security platform is highly differentiated."

The financial report went on to show that non-GAAP net income was $25m for the fourth quarter ending 31 July, compared with $9.1m in the same quarter the year before.

For the whole of 2015, the vendor’s non-GAAP net income came in at $75.2m, up from $31.8m in 2014.

Looking forward, Palo Alto has forecast Q1 2016 revenues of between $280m and $284m, showing an estimated growth of between 46 per cent and 48 per cent.

In a transcription of the Q4 2015 earnings call on Seeking Alpha, McLaughlin said: “2015 was another great year for the company, one in which we continue to distance ourselves from the competition.

“In the year, we grew our customer base more than 35 per cent to over 26,000 customers and are now privileged to serve almost half of the Global 2,000.”