HubSpot’s PaaS Ecosystem Revenues Expected To Grow Rapidly

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Inbound marketing specialist HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS) recently reported its first quarter results that continued to surpass market expectations. HubSpot has been expanding its product offerings to make bigger inroads within the organization while remaining focused on its PaaS strategy.

HubSpot’s Financials

HubSpot’s first quarter revenues grew 41% to $281.4 million, ahead of the Street’s forecast of $263.9 million. Non GAAP EPS of $0.31 beat the market’s estimate of $0.29.

By segment, subscription revenues grew 41% to $270.3 million, and Professional services and other revenues grew 43% to $11.1 million.

Among other operating metrics, its customer base grew 45% y-o-y to over 113,925. Total average subscription revenue per customer dropped 1% to $9,886.

HubSpot forecast revenues of $293-297 million for the second quarter and an EPS of $0.30-$0.32. The market was looking for revenues of $275.59 million and an EPS of $0.32. HubSpot expects to end the year with revenues of $1.237-$1.247 billion and an EPS of $1.61-$1.65. The market was looking for revenues of $1.17 billion for the year with an EPS of $1.58.

HubSpot’s Product Expansion

During the quarter, HubSpot announced the launch of Operations Hub, a service that helps operations professionals become strategic drivers of revenue and growth. The service separates silos of data between functional business units and gives the foundation for revenue operations teams so that they are able to work across a single source. The service allows customers to connect their tech stack, clean the data, and automate processes.

HubSpot believes that revenue operations professionals are key decision-makers for CRM. The launch of Operations Hub, expands its offerings to this group, making it easier for companies to build their customer experience on the HubSpot CRM platform. Within the first 10 days of the launch, more than 500 customers had signed up for Operations Hub. The company believes that this service will help expand HubSpot’s role in becoming the CRM platform of choice for companies.

HubSpot has been an avid follower of a PaaS strategy. It has a dedicated app partner program geared toward developers and companies that want to grow their business by building apps on HubSpot’s open platform. This helps companies grow their business by distributing their apps to HubSpot’s growing customer base. Developers can create apps and then list them on its App Marketplace to access HubSpot’s customer base. 94% of HubSpot’s more than 100,000 customers use the apps on its marketplace to grow business. HubSpot’s reports reveal that each customer averages over seven third party app installs.

According to a recent white paper published by IDC, the global HubSpot partner ecosystem revenue, classified as revenue generated by the several app and solutions partners that provide the products and services for HubSpot’s CRM platform software, is projected to grow from $4.8 billion in 2020 to $12.5 billion in 2024. HubSpot has built its platform with extensibility in mind, enabling customers to easily integrate their HubSpot instance with other services and solutions that are tailored to their specific needs. As its ecosystem grows, the options available to customers to help them derive higher value from its platform will grow as well.

Its stock is trading at $504.71 with a market capitalization of $23.6 billion. It touched a 52-week high of $574.83 in April. In May of last year, it had fallen to a 52-week low of $181.74.

Disclosure: All investors should make their own assessments based on their own research, informed interpretations, and risk appetite. This article expresses my own opinions based on my own research of product-market fit, channel execution, and other factors. My primary interest is in product strategy. While this may have bearing on stock movements, my writings tend to focus on long-term implications. The information presented is illustrative and educational, but should not be regarded as a complete analysis nor recommendation to buy or sell the securities mentioned herein. I am not a registered investment adviser and I am not receiving compensation for this article. I am an investor in this company.

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