Cloudflare (NET) — an off-the-radar company and potential takeover target — provides cloud-based services to secure websites, observes Carl Delfeld, growth stock expert and editor of Cabot Explorer.
The company offers various products for performance and reliability, video streaming and delivery, and advanced security. It provides content delivery and security services to over 19% of websites on the internet; the next best is at 2%
In its Q1 earnings report, Cloudflare revenue was up 54% year-over-year and recorded net client retention of 127%. The company also set a quarterly record for signing up new customers. The 14,000 paying customers it added in the quarter brought its total to 154,109.
On top of all this, Cloudflare’s worldwide presence allows 95% of internet users to be within 50 milliseconds of their data centers. That’s impressive coverage and saves clients a lot in bandwidth costs. Being near the location where data is processed also offers high performance and faster traffic.
Does that sound like a company that’s struggling in the post-pandemic world and a stock that should be down from $211 in November 2021 to its present price of $44?
Since more companies are adopting permanent hybrid work arrangements, remote workers continue to pose a security risk. And Cloudflare helps minimize that risk. Furthermore, demand for security solutions is expected to drive continued growth with global cybersecurity spending projected by Fortune to go from $140 billion in 2021 to $375 billion annually by 2029.
As the world becomes digitized, protecting valuable and sensitive data is not just a good idea — it is essential. As more valuable data is created, cybercriminals become increasingly motivated to steal the data and sell the data.
A single cybersecurity company can block over 100 million threats per day. That’s equivalent to more than one thousand threats blocked every second. But all it takes is one breach to cause severe damage for companies and users.
Hackers sponsored by foreign governments such as China or Russia account for about 23% of global breaches while organized crime accounts for another 39% of data thefts. This is an excellent stock with strong fundamentals trading way off its high and should deliver solid medium-term appreciation.
