Box raises full-year forecast as more customers sign up for cloud storage

As the company enjoys a rapidly growing subscribers for its content-sharing platform, Box Inc, the cloud storage provider, raised its full-year forecast. Share value of the company increased by 8.7 per cent in the extended trading on Wednesday.

Box, whichs enjoys big clientele groups- General Electric Co (GE.N), Astra Zeneca Plc (AZN.L) and Chevron Corp (CVX.N), now, has raised its full-year forecast to $286 million-290 million from $281 million-$285 million earlier.

Box's Chief Executive Aaron Levie told Reuters that the company is expecting to reach breakeven by end of the next financial year with profitability to come thereafter.

Earlier, the company stated that its focus is to continue scaling up the business and doesn't expect to be profitable in the near future.

Co-founder and CFO of Box, Dylan Smith stated that the company has achieved the revenue growth of 45 percent over a year following closing a number of enterprise deals. Box said their focus would remain on investing in technology, innovation and growth, and also stay committed in achieving positive free cash flow. In recent months, the California-based-company made a series of interesting announcements ranging from the customer win with the US Department of Justice to the appointment of Sonny Hashmi, a former CIO of the General Service Administration, to help lead the company in the federal IT space.

Box bagged big shot customers including Delloitte and Touche LLP, Halliburton Co (HAL.N) and Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) and sealed five deals by end of the first quarter compared to only two deals last year.

In this period, cloud space provider has added 2,000 customers taking the total number to 47,000. Even the number of registered users rose to 37 million against 34 million last year. Further, the paying user in the same period grew by 70 percent that account to 10 per cent of the existing user's base, as per news reports.

Presently, Box runs a business model that provides up to 10 GB free-service of online file-sharing and personal cloud content, beyond which is chargeable. In April, it also launched a premium security service that lets businesses control their encryption keys, encoding tools used to keep data safe. Drop, Citrix System Inc's (CTXS.O) ShareFile, OneDrive, Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) and Google Inc's (GOOGL.O) Drive are the main competitors for Box.

According to Reuters, the company forecast current-quarter revenue of $69 million to $70 million, above the average analyst estimate of $66.98 million. Its net lost in reference to shareholders widened to $47.3 million, or 40 cents each share, in first quarter ended April 30 against $38.6 million or $2.81 per share last year.