F5 Makes all Apps and APIs Fast and Reliable - Forecast Boost Ensures big-Picture Breakout Attempt!
F5 (FFIV) claims to offer the most effective and comprehensive app and API security platform in the industry. A comprehensive product portfolio is provided via a single platform to make applications fast and reliable, regardless of the infrastructure environment in which they are operated. It offers firewalls, DDoS protection, bot defense - all the way to DNS for network traffic optimization, load balancing and CDN. The emergence of complex hybrid and multi-cloud environments is a direct growth driver.
84% of companies already manage their apps using a mix of traditional and modern architectures. The market potential is expected to more than double from $16 billion to $34 billion by 2028 - with annual growth rates of 17%. While there were 1 billion app instances and around one to two APIs per instance last year, IDC estimates that this market will grow to 2.3 billion instances and three to five APIs per instance by 2027. AI applications are even expected to require dozens of APIs for data access, model training, natural language processing or image analysis. First AI use cases are now being acquired, with support for essential high-performance networks in AI factories.
According to CEO François Locoh-Donou, a long phase of budget reviews with improvements in the order pipeline is coming to an end. The company is still struggling with a 16% decline in system sales in Q3, with the software business growing sequentially by 13%. SaaS is expected to account for the majority of the market potential by 2028 anyway. For the 2024 financial year, revenue is expected to remain unchanged at $2.8 billion or the upper end of the previous range. However, net profit is expected to increase by 12% to $13.10 per share (consensus: $12.64) instead of 7-9%. The P/E ratio appears moderate at 15.4 and the share is starting the turnaround attempt.
Want to keep reading?
You can find the entire story in The Trader Times. Get a 4-week trial subscription now and access the entire archive!