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DocuSign reported fiscal first-quarter earnings well below Wall Street’s estimate.
Tiffany Hagler-Geard/Bloomberg
DocuSign
(ticker: DOCU) shares are sharply lower in late trading Thursday after the e-signature company cut its guidance for the January 2023 fiscal year.
DocuSign
’s
business thrived during the pandemic, but has been slowing for the last couple of quarters. The company has been facing tough year-over-year comparisons, after business was boosted early in the pandemic by the use of its e-signature software for Covid-related government loans and programs.
CEO Dan Springer said in an interview that DocuSign (ticker: DOCU) also has been experiencing a spike in turnover in the company’s sales force, forcing the company to spend more time on recruiting new staff. “We’ve had to retool the field organization,” he says. “That’s been a challenge.”
Springer adds that there have been some impact on the size of new contracts from macro issues, particularly in part of Europe closer to Ukraine.
Springer noted that results in the April quarter were “solid in challenging times,” but the guidance for billings—a signal of future revenue growth—were reduced sharply for the full year.
For the fiscal first quarter ended April 30, DocuSign posted revenue of $588.7 million, up 25% from a year ago, and a little ahead of the company’s guidance range of $579 million to $583 million. Billings in the quarter were $613.6 million, up 16%, ahead of the company’s forecast of $573 million to $583 million. On an adjusted basis, the company earned 38 cents a…
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