Box raises Full-Year Forecast as More Customers Subscribe for Cloud Storage

After more customers have subscribed to Cloud storage provider Box Inc's content-sharing platform, the company has been prompted to raise its forecasts. Shares of the company jumped 8.7% in extended trading on Wednesday. Customers of the company include AstraZeneca Plc, General Electric Co and Chevron Corp.

Box had earlier said that chances were low for the company to be profitable for the foreseeable future due to continuing investments in scaling business.

Box said it struck five deals that were greater than $500,000 compared to just two deals a year ago. The company earned valuable customers like Deloitte and Touche LLP, Hewlett-Packard Co and Halliburton Co in the first quarter. In the first quarter, more than 2,000 customers subscribed to Box, increasing the total number of customers to above 47,000.

Box also said that it has crossed the 37-million-registered-users mark. A surge of 70% has been recorded in its numbers of paying users from a year earlier. Positive outcomes for Box's performance have led the company to raise its full-year forecast to $286 million-$290 million from $281 million-$285 million earlier.

Box launched its premium security service in April to allow businesses have a control over their encryption keys, the encoding tools used to keep data safe.

Privately held Dropbox, Microsoft Corp's OneDrive, Citrix Systems Inc's ShareFile and Google Inc's Drive are the main rivals of Box.

"We are winning bigger deals and extending our reach into the most highly regulated industries and security-conscious segments of the market", said Box Chief Executive Aaron Levie during a conference call with analysts Wednesday.