Update:

Database company MongoDB Inc. crushed expectations today with blowout fourth-quarter earnings that sent its stock price soaring in after-hours trading.

Several major technology firms have posted disappointing results in the current earnings season, but MongoDB went against the trend, easily beating forecasts on profit, revenue and guidance.

The company, which sells a document-oriented database of the same name that powers big-data applications and other processing jobs, posted a loss before certain costs of 17 cents per share on a 71 percent jump in revenue from a year ago, to $85.5 million. Analysts were expecting a much bigger loss of 38 cents per share on revenue of $74 million.

“MongoDB Atlas, our fully managed global, multi-cloud database service, achieved a major milestone in the fourth quarter, surpassing $100 million in annualized revenue run rate less than three years from launch,” Chief Executive Dev Ittycheria (pictured) said in a statement.

Even better-received was MongoDB’s guidance. In a quarter where most tech companies have erred on the side of caution, forecasting future earnings that have disappointed shareholders, MongoDB did just the opposite.

It’s expecting first-quarter losses of between 23 and 25 cents on revenue of $82 million to $84 million. Analysts had the company down for a 37-cent loss.

The better-than-expected forecast prompted a frenzy among investors to buy up MongoDB’s stock, driving its share price up almost 19 percent in extended trading. MongoDB’s stock has been on a roller coaster ride this year, already up 25 percent before today despite taking two major hits earlier this year. Update: Shares shot up almost 26 percent Thursday on a flat day for the overall markets.

The first came when Amazon Web Services Inc. announced in January it was going head-to-head with the company with its own version of its database software, called DocumentDB. MongoDB then took a second beating in late February, when one of its biggest customers, Lyft Inc., said it was migrating its systems to a different database service.

Charles King of Pund-IT Inc. noted that MongoDB had performed far better than expected after being specifically targeted by Amazon. “Many assume this to be a sort of IT infrastructure “kiss of death”, but it only survived but thrived. That doesn’t mean that MongoDB is indestructible but it does suggest that a significant number of enterprise customers currently prize the company’s expertise over AWS’ offerings.”

Analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy agreed, saying the earlier stock drops were likely just blips, and that an enormous opportunity remains even if shadows loom.

“It’s a huge market, which is exemplified by MongoDB’s earnings,” Moorhead said. “Over time, I can see Amazon dominating the space, though.”

That might be so, but other analysts believe there’s plenty of room for both companies to grow. Holger Mueller, principal analyst and vice president of Constellation Research Inc., told SiliconANGLE that MongoDB’s database software was in especially high demand at the moment.

“The digital economy needs more than relational databases,” Mueller said. “The tussle with Amazon aside, MongoDB has found a way to grow and now it needs to maintain and execute on that growth. The prize is the de facto standard of the next-generation enterprise database, with a document focus.”

Photo: SiliconANGLE