Confluent Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2024 Financial Results

Confluent, Inc. (NASDAQ: CFLT), the data streaming pioneer, today announced financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2024, ended December 31, 2024.

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Q4 2024 Confluent Infographic (Graphic: Confluent)

“Confluent closed the year with a strong Q4, highlighted by beating all guided metrics and achieving 38% year-over-year Confluent Cloud revenue growth,” said Jay Kreps, co-founder and CEO, Confluent. “Our momentum reflects the increasing importance of a complete data streaming platform to power mission-critical and real-time AI applications. The significant partnerships and product innovations we unleashed over the past year have put us in a great position to advance our category lead in 2025.”

“Confluent has become a major data platform for the enterprise, with thousands of customers relying on our data streaming platform to win in the era of cloud, data, and AI,” said Rohan Sivaram, CFO, Confluent. “This has enabled an important combination of growth, scale, and double-digit expansion for both operating and free cash flow margins in 2024. Building on this momentum, we are well-positioned to achieve our growth and profitability targets for 2025.”

Financial Outlook

For the first quarter and fiscal year 2025, Confluent expects:

A reconciliation of forward-looking non-GAAP operating margin, adjusted free cash flow margin and non-GAAP net income per diluted share to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is not available without unreasonable effort, as certain items cannot be reasonably predicted because of their high variability, complexity and low visibility. In particular, the measures and effects of our stock-based compensation-related charges, which include stock-based compensation expenses, employer payroll taxes on employee stock transactions, and amortization of stock-based compensation capitalized in internal-use software, are directly impacted by the timing of employee stock transactions and unpredictable fluctuations in our stock price, which we expect to have a significant impact on our future GAAP financial results.

Conference Call Information

Confluent will host a video webcast to discuss the company’s fourth quarter and fiscal year 2024 results as well as its financial outlook today at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time/1:30 p.m. Pacific Time. Open to the public, investors may access the webcast, earnings press release, supplemental financial information, and investor presentation on Confluent’s investor relations website at investors.confluent.io before the commencement of the webcast. A replay of the webcast will also be accessible from Confluent’s investor relations website a few hours after the conclusion of the live event.

Confluent uses its investor relations website and may use its X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and Facebook accounts as a means of disclosing material non-public information and for complying with its disclosure obligations under Regulation FD.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release and the earnings call referencing this press release contain forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding (i) our financial outlook, including expected subscription revenue, Confluent Cloud revenue, non-GAAP operating margin, free cash flow margin, adjusted free cash flow margin, non-GAAP net income per share, revenue mix, including Confluent Cloud subscription revenue mix, revenue run rates, Confluent Cloud and data streaming platform growth, adoption and traction, operating margins and margin improvements, targeted or anticipated gross and operating margin levels, earnings per share levels and improvements, in-product optimizations of Confluent Cloud, continued business momentum, and expected revenue and consumption growth rate and efficient growth, (ii) our market and category leadership position, (iii) our expected investments in research and development and go-to-market functions and anticipated effectiveness and timing of product and pricing innovations, features and functionalities, (iv) our ability to drive efficient growth and rate and pace of investments, including expected resource and capital allocation, (v) our expectations and trends relating to growth of our Data Streaming Platform products, including Confluent Cloud, (vi) rates of Confluent Cloud consumption and demand for and retention of data streaming platforms like Confluent, (vii) our expectations regarding subscription revenue seasonality, (viii) customer growth, retention and engagement, (ix) ability for Confluent Cloud to provide cost savings for users and customers, including lower total cost of ownership, and drive greater monetization of the open source Kafka user base as a result, and our ability to drive return-on-investment-based expansions for our customers, (x) increased adoption of our offerings and fully managed solutions for data streaming in general, including from customers building generative AI applications, (xi) dependence of businesses on data in motion, (xii) growth in and growth rate of revenue, customers, dollar-based net retention rate, and gross retention rate, (xiii) our ability to increase engagement of customers for Confluent and expand customer cohorts, (xiv) our market opportunity and our ability to capture our market opportunity, (xv) the anticipated benefits and overall effectiveness of our transition to a consumption-oriented sales model, (xvi) our go-to-market strategy, (xvii) our product differentiation and market acceptance of our products, (xviii) our strategy and expected results and market acceptance for our Flink offering, Tableflow, and our other Data Streaming Platform offerings, (xix) our expectations for market acceptance, direction and growth of stream processing, its potential to accelerate adoption of our platform and growth of our business, and our ability and positioning to capture this market, (xx) our expectations of meeting near-term and mid-term financial targets, (xxi) our expectations regarding the generative AI landscape and our offerings, (xxii) our expectations of relevance of certain key financial and operating metrics, (xxiii) our ability to drive long-term growth, (xxiv) our expectations regarding the impact of the WarpStream acquisition, (xxv) our expectations regarding our strategic partnerships and alliances, and (xxvi) our overall future prospects. The words “believe,” “may,” “will,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “expect,” “seek,” “plan,” “project,” “target,” “looking ahead,” “look to,” “move into,” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements represent our current beliefs, estimates and assumptions only as of the date of this press release and information contained in this press release should not be relied upon as representing our estimates as of any subsequent date. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If the risks materialize or assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. Risks include, but are not limited to: (i) our limited operating history, including in uncertain macroeconomic environments, (ii) our ability to sustain and manage our rapid growth, (iii) our ability to increase consumption of our offerings, including by existing customers and through the acquisition of new customers, including by addressing customer consumption preferences, successfully adding new features and functionality to our offerings, and partnering with our customers to help them realize increased value in Confluent in an efficient and sustainable manner, (iv) our ability to successfully execute our go-to-market strategy and initiatives, (v) our ability to attract new customers and successfully ramp their consumption of our offerings, as well as retain and sell additional features and services to our existing customers, (vi) uncertain macroeconomic conditions, including high inflation, high interest rates, bank failures, supply chain challenges, geopolitical events, recessionary risks, and exchange rate fluctuations, which have resulted and may continue to result in reduced consumption of Confluent Cloud, volatility in consumption, including due to customer focus on cloud cost controls and increased efficiency, customer pullback in information technology spending, lengthening of sales cycles, reduced contract sizes, generally increased scrutiny on IT spending from existing and potential customers, or customer preference for open source alternatives, as well as the potential need for cost efficiency measures, (vii) our ability to achieve profitability and improve margins annually, by our expected timelines or at all, (viii) the estimated addressable market opportunity for our Data Streaming Platform, including our Flink offering and stream processing, and our ability to capture our share of that market opportunity, (ix) our ability to compete effectively in an increasingly competitive market, (x) our ability to attract, ramp, and retain highly qualified personnel, and the impacts of attrition and related challenges, (xi) breaches in our security measures, intentional or accidental cybersecurity incidents or unauthorized access to our platform, our data, or our customers’ or other users’ personal data, (xii) our reliance on third-party cloud-based infrastructure to host Confluent Cloud, (xiii) public sector budgetary cycles and funding reductions or delays, (xiv) our ability to accurately forecast our future performance, business and growth, and (xv) general market, political, economic, and business conditions. These risks are not exhaustive. Further information on these and other risks that could affect Confluent’s results is included in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, and our future reports that we may file from time to time with the SEC. Additional information will be made available in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024 that will be filed with the SEC, which should be read in conjunction with this press release and the financial results included herein. Confluent assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

This press release includes the following non-GAAP financial measures: non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP gross margin, non-GAAP operating expenses (research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative), non-GAAP operating income (loss), non-GAAP operating margin, non-GAAP net income, non-GAAP net income per share, free cash flow, and free cash flow margin. We use these non-GAAP financial measures and other key metrics internally to facilitate analysis of our financial and business trends and for internal planning and forecasting purposes. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures, when taken collectively, may be helpful to investors because they provide consistency and comparability with past financial performance by excluding certain items that may not be indicative of our business, results of operations, or outlook. However, non-GAAP financial measures have limitations as an analytical tool and are presented for supplemental informational purposes only. They should not be considered in isolation from, or as a substitute for, financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP. In particular, other companies, including companies in our industry, may report non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP gross margin, non-GAAP operating expenses (research and development, sales and marketing, general and administrative), non-GAAP operating income (loss), non-GAAP operating margin, non-GAAP net income, non-GAAP net income per share, free cash flow, free cash flow margin, or similarly titled measures but calculate them differently, which reduces their usefulness as comparative measures. Further, free cash flow is not a substitute for cash used in operating activities. The utility of free cash flow is limited as such measure does not reflect our future contractual commitments and does not represent the total increase or decrease in our cash balance for any given period. Investors are encouraged to review the reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, as presented below. We define non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP gross margin, non-GAAP operating expenses (research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative), non-GAAP operating income (loss), non-GAAP operating margin, non-GAAP net income, and non-GAAP net income per share as the respective GAAP measures, adjusted for, as applicable, stock-based compensation-related charges which include stock-based compensation expense, employer taxes on employee stock transactions and amortization of stock-based compensation capitalized in internal-use software; amortization of acquired intangibles; acquisition-related expenses; restructuring and other related charges; amortization of debt issuance costs; and income tax effects associated with these adjustments as well as the non-recurring income tax expense or benefit associated with acquisitions. Non-GAAP gross margin and non-GAAP operating margin are defined as non-GAAP gross profit and non-GAAP operating income (loss) as a percentage of revenue, respectively. We define free cash flow as net cash used in operating activities less capitalized internal-use software costs and capital expenditures and free cash flow margin as free cash flow as a percentage of revenue. We believe that free cash flow and free cash flow margin are useful indicators of liquidity that provide information to management and investors about the performance of core operations and future ability to generate cash that can be used for strategic opportunities or investing in our business.

Definition

Customers with $100,000 or greater in annual recurring revenue (“ARR”) represent the number of customers that contributed $100,000 or more in ARR as of period end. We define ARR as (1) with respect to Confluent Platform customers, the amount of revenue to which our customers are contractually committed over the following 12 months assuming no increases or reductions in their subscriptions, and (2) with respect to Confluent Cloud and WarpStream customers, the amount of revenue that we expect to recognize from such customers over the following 12 months, calculated by annualizing actual consumption of Confluent Cloud and WarpStream in the last three months of the applicable period, assuming no increases or reductions in usage rate. Services arrangements are excluded from the calculation of ARR. For purposes of determining our customer count, we treat all affiliated entities with the same parent organization as a single customer and include pay-as-you-go customers. Our customer count is subject to adjustments for acquisitions, consolidations, spin-offs, and other market activity.

About Confluent

Confluent is the data streaming platform that is pioneering a fundamentally new category of data infrastructure that sets data in motion. Confluent’s cloud-native offering is the foundational platform for data in motion – designed to be the intelligent connective tissue enabling real-time data, from multiple sources, to constantly stream across the organization. With Confluent, organizations can meet the new business imperative of delivering rich, digital front-end customer experiences and transitioning to sophisticated, real-time, software-driven backend operations.

The following table presents a reconciliation of free cash flow to net cash provided by (used in) operating activities, the most directly comparable GAAP measure, for each of the periods indicated (unaudited, in thousands, except percentages):

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