Tableau’s Focus On Subscription Services Pays Off

According to a recent MarketandMarkets report, the global advanced data visualization products market is estimated to grow 11% annually to become a $3.2 billion industry by 2021. This is among the conservative estimates for the industry. Another report expects the market to grow 22% annually to $7.7 billion by 2023 from $1.9 billion in 2016. Recently, Tableau (NYSE: DATA), a leading player in the industry, reported stellar results.

Tableau’s Financials

Tableau’s second-quarter revenues grew 32% over the year to $282.3 million, ahead of the Street’s forecast of $274 million. The company reported a break-even quarter compared with a loss of $0.10 per share forecast by the market. This is the second consecutive quarter that Tableau surpassed earnings expectations.

By segment, license-based revenues grew 33% over the year to $137.8 million and maintenance and services revenues grew 32% to $144.4 million.

During the quarter, Tableau added 4,100 new customers, ending with a total of 78,000 customers. Annual recurring revenue grew 44% to $697.7 million with Subscription annual recurring revenue growing 181% to $291.3 million.

For the third quarter, analysts expect EPS of $0.02 on revenue of $241.04 million. For the full year, analysts expect a loss of $0.17 on revenue of $971.99 million.

Tableau’s Product Expansion

Tableau has been focused on driving its subscription-based revenues, and it has seen strong traction. During the quarter, new deals that are subscription-based contributed 67% compared with 26% a year ago. Driving this adoption are recently launched subscription offerings – Tableau Creator, Explorer, and Viewer. Creator provides users with complete analytics capabilities. The Creator license includes Tableau Server or Tableau Online so that users can publish, govern, and share their work anywhere. Tableau Explorer is focused on businesses that need more autonomy to access and explore published data sources. Users of Explorer can analyze any data sources or workbooks on the server. Finally, Tableau Viewer allows organizations to extend the value of data and analytics across their entire workforce. Tableau is seeing strong adoption of these new services with customers shifting from perpetual licenses to subscriptions.