Hiding inside Palantir’s skyrocketing quarter is a foreboding signal

The data analysis company Palantir delivered such a huge third-quarter earnings report on Monday that its press release even bragged that the numbers were “crushing consensus expectations.” Yet retail investors were lukewarm on the company on Tuesday, with the stock trading slightly down. That’s because Palantir’s enterprise sales, its big growth area, showed signs of slowing.

数据分析公司 Palantir 周一发布了极其亮眼的第三季度财报，其新闻稿甚至夸耀这些数字“远超市场预期”。然而，散户投资者周二对该公司的反应却不温不火，股价小幅下跌。原因在于，作为 Palantir 主要增长领域的企业销售业务出现了放缓迹象。

First, the good news for the company’s investors. Revenue grew 96% from a year earlier, and 20% from the previous quarter, to $2.31 billion, beating analysts’ expectations of $2.18 billion. It was the first time Palantir has topped $2 billion in a quarter. Palantir also reported adjusted earnings per share (profit per share, excluding certain one-time items) of 44 cents, compared with analysts’ expectations of 41 cents. The company even raised its revenue guidance, or forecast, for the full year. Normally, that alone would send a stock soaring.

首先，对于公司投资者来说，好消息是：营收同比增长 96%，环比增长 20%，达到 23.1 亿美元，超过了分析师预期的 21.8 亿美元。这是 Palantir 单季度营收首次突破 20 亿美元大关。Palantir 还报告调整后每股收益（剔除某些一次性项目后的每股利润）为 44 美分，而分析师预期为 41 美分。该公司甚至上调了全年营收指引（即预测）。通常情况下，仅凭这一点就足以推动股价飙升。

The clincher was that Palantir’s U.S. commercial revenue surpassed U.S. government revenue for the first time ever. The company reported $984 million in commercial contracts (up 148% from the year-ago quarter), versus $953 million in U.S. government revenue. The reason for all this love from enterprises? They are signing up for the company’s AI software that can run frontier models and custom-train open-weight models securely, without sharing any of their data and business processes with outside AI labs. Plus, Palantir has long offered what is today known as “forward-deployed” software engineering, in which its own engineers work directly with customers to customize the software.

关键点在于，Palantir 的美国商业营收有史以来首次超过了美国政府业务营收。该公司报告商业合同收入为 9.84 亿美元（较去年同期增长 148%），而美国政府业务收入为 9.53 亿美元。企业为何如此青睐它？因为它们正在签约使用该公司的 AI 软件，该软件能够安全地运行前沿模型并定制训练开放权重模型，而无需与外部 AI 实验室共享任何数据和业务流程。此外，Palantir 长期以来一直提供所谓的“前沿部署”软件工程服务，即由其工程师直接与客户合作定制软件。

However, Palantir also revealed a less-than-rosy signal: Even as enterprises are moving faster than ever, they are often signing short-term trials. “What Ryan and I are seeing on the front line and commercial is this much quicker interaction, much quicker to deployment, shorter duration of the contract but then an ability to expand that contract dramatically,” CEO Alex Karp (pictured above) told Wall Street analysts on the quarterly earnings call. Palantir is experiencing one of the unique phenomena of AI in the enterprise right now. Corporations are willing to quickly try AI software, skipping the usual bureaucracy, but they are also more willing to cancel contracts.

然而，Palantir 也透露了一个不太乐观的信号：尽管企业行动比以往任何时候都快，但它们往往只签署短期试用合同。首席执行官 Alex Karp（见上图）在季度财报电话会议上告诉华尔街分析师：“Ryan 和我在一线商业领域看到的是更快的互动、更快的部署、更短的合同期限，但随后具备了大幅扩展合同的能力。” Palantir 目前正在经历 AI 在企业应用中的一种独特现象：企业愿意跳过常规官僚程序快速尝试 AI 软件，但也更愿意取消合同。

Karp used one off-color metaphor after another to describe how unconcerned he was about holding onto his enterprise business. “We’ve gone from being the most attractive person in the physics department to being the captain of the football team, kind of thing,” he said, describing the influx of prospective corporate customers flowing in. “Conversely, you know, once you go Palantir, you don’t go back, and that’s just how it is, and you see it in our numbers.”

Karp 用了一连串不雅的比喻来描述他对自己留住企业客户业务的毫不担心。他形容涌入的潜在企业客户时说：“我们已经从物理系最吸引人的人变成了橄榄球队队长，差不多就是这样。” 他补充道：“反过来说，你知道，一旦你选择了 Palantir，你就回不去了，事实就是如此，这一点在我们的数据中也能看出来。”

The numbers don’t yet confirm Palantir’s long-term success. While the company closed a hefty $1.46 billion of total contract value from U.S. enterprises in the quarter, that’s actually a decline from the record $2.13 billion in the previous quarter. That suggests slowing sales, at least in the most recent quarter. The next earnings will show whether Palantir has solidified its role as a rising U.S. enterprise AI provider. Historically, many enterprises sign their biggest tech purchases in the final quarter of the year. Karp and his team certainly sound confident. They increased guidance for U.S. commercial revenue to be “in excess of $3.559 billion, representing a growth rate of at least 143%.”

这些数字尚不能证实 Palantir 的长期成功。虽然该公司本季度从美国企业获得了 14.6 亿美元的巨额合同总价值，但这实际上低于上一季度创纪录的 21.3 亿美元。这表明销售额有所放缓，至少在最近一个季度是这样。下一次财报将显示 Palantir 是否巩固了其作为美国新兴企业 AI 提供商的地位。从历史上看，许多企业会在第四季度签署最大的技术采购合同。Karp 和他的团队听起来确实信心十足。他们将美国商业营收指引上调至“超过 35.59 亿美元，代表至少 143% 的增长率”。