Like the stock market, technology companies on the Eastside have grown considerably in the past 10 years, benefitting from a bull market and a rapidly growing need for cloud services, business applications and more. Here are a few companies from Bellevue that have seen excellent growth in recent months.
Smartsheet
Since its debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) last year, Smartsheet has grown considerably. The cloud-based business management platform raised over $150 million from its IPO on April 27, 2018, closing the day at $19.55. The stock rose and fell over the next few months, reaching a high of $32.21 in May, before industry wide selloffs in October 2018 put a damper on the current bull market.
However, after acquiring the work-collaboration application Slope on Jan 15, Smartsheet stock began to rise. Since Jan. 15, the stock price has jumped from $26.54 to $38.60 at market close on Feb. 26. The company is now valued at $4 billion ahead of its Q4 earnings report, releasing this month. Compared to other software as a service (SaaS) companies like Asana, Smartsheet leads the market in both valuation and reach, as Smartsheet is used by more than 70 percent of Fortune 500 companies to manage their workload.
Analysts at Zacks (a leading investment research firm) expect the company to report $49.6 million in revenue for the current quarter, nearly $3 million more than the company earned in Q3. Smartsheet will release their Q4 earnings report and Annual Fiscal Report on March 19, 2019.
Microsoft
For months, Microsoft has been the most highly valued tech company on the market, with a market cap at $861 billion and a stock price of $112.17 at market close on Feb. 27. The Satya Nadella era of Microsoft has seen strong growth, most recently reflected in Microsoft’s Q2 earnings report, released on Jan. 30. Revenue was $32.5 billion for the quarter, buoyed by a 20 percent increase in earnings from Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud service, Azure. Services like Office 365 and LinkedIn contributed to their business processes revenue, as did Microsoft’s Xbox and Surface product lines.
Good financials, products and contracts have helped stabilize and grow Microsoft’s stock after October’s dips in the stock market. Microsoft recently announced Hololens 2, an improved version of their mixed reality headset for use in the workplace. While a large consumer market for the technology does not exist, Hololens technology has caught the eye of companies in the private sector looking for a new way to manage workflow. Microsoft inked a $480 million deal with the United States Army in November to produce more than 100,000 headsets for use in training and combat missions.
Microsoft is also in the running to develop a cloud platform for the Department of Defense called Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI). The $10 billion contract is being fought over by both Microsoft and Amazon to build cloud infrastructure for the Department of Defense.
T-Mobile
T-Mobile is in a period of sweeping corporate changes and new services for its consumers — and its stock has been climbing for more than a month. The communication giant’s stock sits at $72.12, with a market cap at $61.32 billion — roughly a quarter of rivals Verizon and AT&T’s stock valuation. For the past two months, however, the company’s valuation has soared, up more than 18 percent from 60.8 on Dec. 24, 2018.
T-Mobile reported strong earnings on Feb. 7, with total revenue of $11.4 billion for the quarter, and gained 2.4 million net customers in Q4, making it the fastest growing telecom in the industry. The company’s recent acquisition of a 600 MHz network to launch their upcoming 5G network is a point of interest for many investors. The $8 billion acquisition has let T-Mobile develop 5G capability in more than 30 cities at the time of writing, with plans to cover the entire country for a nationwide launch in early 2020.
The planned merger between T-Mobile and Sprint is also a point of interest for many investors. Last April, the two telecom companies announced their plans to merge into a new company, known simply as T-Mobile. The merger has yet to gain regulatory approval, but is expected by T-Mobile CEO John Legere to be approved in the first half of 2019, creating a larger company able to capture a larger portion of the market.
