Red Hat Inc (NYSE:RHT) posted its fourth quarter 2015 earnings results on March 25th after market close, beating Wall Street’s expectations.
The computer software company has seen sequential growth for the past 52 consecutive quarters and has beaten analysts’ estimates for the past 5 consecutive quarters.
Highlights from the report include $0.43 earnings per share on a Non-GAAP basis, beating analysts’ consensus of $0.41 and marking a 10.2% increase year-over-year. The company’s revenue of $464 million beat Wall Street’s expectations of $456.5 million and increased 16% year-over-year.
Red Hat CEO and President Jim Whitehurst attributed the company's impressive quarter to its shift toward open hybrid cloud technologies. “Customers value the consistency and flexibility as they run their applications using Red Hat solutions across a variety of deployment models, including public and private clouds, to modernize and transform their IT infrastructure," wrote Whitehurst. "We believe that our strategic position as a trusted provider of infrastructure and our execution this past year have positioned us for strong constant currency revenue growth in the next fiscal year."
BMO Capital Markets analyst Joel Fishbein weighed in on Red Hat on March 26th following the company’s financial results, reiterating a Buy rating on the stock and raising his price target from $77 to $83. He noted, “Red Hat is benefiting from improving execution and the maturing breadth of its emerging product portfolio.”
Fishbein has rated Red Hat 5 times since December 2013, earning a 100% success rate recommending the stock and a +22.7% average return per recommendation. Overall, he has a 77% success rate recommending stocks and a +18.6% average return per recommendation.
Similarly on March 25th, Northland Securities analyst Tim Klasell reiterated a Buy rating on Red Hat with a price target of $80. The analyst believes Red Hat is “being a little bit conservative” when it comes to its first quarter forecast, considering how well they performed in the fourth quarter despite facing foreign currency headwinds.
Klasell has rated Red Hat 5 times since January 2011, earning a 100% success rate recommending the stock and a +14.7% average return per recommendation. Overall, he has a 78% success rate recommending stocks and a +16.0% average return per recommendation.
On average, the top analyst consensus for Red Hat on TipRanks is Hold.