According to a recent Market Research report, the global cyber security market is expected to grow at a steady pace of 10% annually over the next few years to $172 billion by 2024. FireEye (Nasdaq: FEYE) is one of the emerging players in the industry that went public nearly five years ago. It is known for its platform that strengthens existing firewalls, IPS, anti-virus, and gateways by blocking attacks across multiple platforms. It recently announced its second quarter results that surpassed the market’s expectations.

FireEye’s Financials

Revenues for the second quarter grew 6% to $203 million with billings growing 13% to $196 million. During the quarter, the company continued to report losses. Operating losses reduced from $57 million a year ago to $48.5 million for the quarter. On an adjusted basis though, FireEye managed to report a break-even quarter. This was the first quarter that the company did not report a non-GAAP loss. It expects to continue with the performance and is on track to deliver non-GAAP profitability and positive free cash flow for 2018. The market was looking for revenues of $201.4 million for the quarter with a loss of $0.01 per share. The Street had forecast billings of $188.3 million for the quarter. Previous coverage is available here and here.

By segment, FireEye’s Product, subscription and support revenues grew 6% over the year to $167.4 million. Professional services revenues grew 5% to $35.3 million. Over the past few quarters, FireEye had been focusing on growing its virtual appliances and cloud-based solutions purchased on a subscription basis. During the reported quarter, more than 80% of its non-services billings were recurring subscriptions and support.

For the current quarter, FireEye currently expects revenue in the range of $206-$210 million and billings in the range of $210-$220 million. It projected a non-GAAP net income of $0.01-$0.03 per share. For the current fiscal, FireEye expects revenues of $820-$830 million with non-GAAP net income of $0.00-$0.04 per share. The Street was looking for revenues of $207.9 million for the quarter.

FireEye’s Growing Partnerships

FireEye has been expanding its partnerships with bigger players to gain a bigger market share. Earlier this year, it announced its tie-up with Oracle to offer additional security services for customers migrating to the cloud. FireEye is already a Gold level member of Oracle Partner Network and by getting the Powered by Oracle Cloud status, FireEye Email Security is now available via Oracle Cloud Marketplace. Customers can evaluate FireEye Email Security running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure via the Oracle Cloud Jump Start demo lab.

FireEye will also be introducing the FireEye SmartVision Edition that is focused on identifying suspicious traffic in a network. The new additions will be available on a subscription basis and will include FireEye Helix and 24/7 support. Helix connects FireEye’s services with third-party security technologies and uses contextual intelligence, automation, and case management capabilities to deliver improved security offerings.

This is not the first big vendor partnership that FireEye has. A few years ago, it had entered into a similar agreement with Microsoft.

I would like to know from the users how these partnerships are changing their view about FireEye? Do these agreements make them select FireEye over its rivals like McAfee and Palo Alto Networks?

Its stock is trading at $16.68 with a market capitalization of $3.2 billion. It touched a 52-week high of $19.36 in April this year. It has recovered from the low of $13.40 that it had fallen to in November last year. FireEye had listed on the NYSE in 2013 at a valuation of $2.3 billion.