SentinelOne issues dour revenue forecasts, shares slump

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(Reuters) -SentinelOne forecast its first-quarter and annual revenue below Wall Street estimates on Wednesday, hurt by tough competition and softer enterprise spending due to economic uncertainty, sending its shares down 16% after the bell.

The rise of generative artificial intelligence has made it an attractive tool for bad actors, with its low entry barrier ensuring broad accessibility, leading to an increase in global cyberattacks.

Social media platform X experienced intermittent outages on Monday, with owner Elon Musk blaming an unusually powerful cyberattack.

The cyberattack on UnitedHealth Group’s technology unit last year affected the personal information of 190 million individuals, making it the largest healthcare data breach in the United States.

Analysts have said that despite SentinelOne’s robust competitive position, the endpoint security market will face increased pricing pressure this year due to higher discounts offered by larger platform players such as Palo Alto and CrowdStrike.

Enterprise spending on cybersecurity solutions has remained restrained as clients seek cost optimization amid economic uncertainty.

The company expects its annual revenue to be between $1.01 billion and $1.012 billion, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $1.03 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

It forecast first-quarter revenue of $228 million, compared with an estimate of $235.1 million.

Revenue for the fourth quarter ended January 31 came in at $225.5 million, beating an estimate of $222.3 million.

Adjusted profit per share for the fourth quarter was 4 cents, versus estimates of 1 cent per share.

(Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Mohammed Safi Shamsi)