Box beats estimates but leaves profit outlook unchanged, shares drop

(Reuters) - Box Inc, a cloud content management platform provider, reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue on Wednesday, but shares fell 8% in extended trading as investors were disappointed after the company reiterated its full-year earnings outlook.

The company reaffirmed its full-year earnings per share outlook in the range of $0.00 to $0.02, while marginally raising the lower end of its sales forecast by $2 million to $690 million, but keeping the top end unchanged at $692 million.

"They are kind of essentially guiding everything in line with what the analysts were expecting, not beating in terms of forward numbers," D.A. Davidson analyst Rishi Jaluria said.

Box's customer retention rate fell to 106% in the second quarter ended July 31, from 107% in the first quarter.

Jaluria added that the company had a retention rate of 115% rate in 2017 and the decline suggests "Box isn't expanding as rapidly within its existing customer base as it has in the past."

Box, whose shares have fallen nearly 20% this year, had cut its full-year sales forecast in June, citing longer sales cycles from larger deals.

Second-quarter revenue for the cloud storage and content management company rose 16.4% to $172.55 million, above analysts' expectation of $169.53 million, as it added more customers to its cloud management platform.

Net loss narrowed to $36.2 million, or $0.25 per share, in the quarter, from $38.1 million, or $0.27 per share, a year earlier.

On an adjusted per share basis, the company broke even, while analysts had expected a loss of 2 cents per share.

(Reporting by Ayanti Bera in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

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