As the Q4 earnings season wraps, let's dig into this quarter's best and worst performers in the data infrastructure industry, including C3.ai (NYSE:AI) and its peers.

Generating insights from system level data is an increasing priority for most businesses, but to do so requires connecting and analyzing piles of data stored and siloed in separate databases. This is the demand driver for cloud based data infrastructure software providers, who can more readily integrate, distribute and process information vs. legacy on-premise software providers.

The 4 data infrastructure stocks we track reported a decent Q4; on average, revenues beat analyst consensus estimates by 2.3%. while next quarter's revenue guidance was in line with consensus. Stocks, especially growth stocks where cash flows further in the future are more important to the story, had a good end of 2023. The beginning of 2024 saw mixed inflation data, however, leading to more volatile stock performance, and data infrastructure stocks have had a rough stretch, with share prices down 12.1% on average since the previous earnings results.

Slowest Q4: C3.ai (NYSE:AI)

Founded in 2009 by enterprise software veteran Tom Seibel, C3.ai (NYSE:AI) provides software that makes it easy for organizations to add artificial intelligence technology to their applications.

C3.ai reported revenues of $78.4 million, up 17.6% year on year, topping analyst expectations by 3%. It was a mixed quarter for the company, with a meaningful improvement in its gross margin but a miss of analysts' billings estimates.

“We had a great quarter. Total revenue of $78.4 million grew 18% year-over-year, exceeding our guidance range. Customer engagement grew 80% year-over-year,” said C3 AI CEO and Chairman Thomas M. Siebel.

The stock is down 20.5% since the results and currently trades at $23.6.

Is now the time to buy C3.ai? Access our full analysis of the earnings results here, it's free.

Best Q4: Teradata (NYSE:TDC)

Part of point-of-sale and ATM company NCR from 1991 to 2007, Teradata (NYSE:TDC) offers a software-as-service platform that helps organizations manage their data across multiple storages and analyze it.

Teradata reported revenues of $457 million, up 1.1% year on year, in line with analyst expectations. It was a strong quarter for the company, with a solid beat of analysts' billings estimates and a meaningful improvement in its gross margin.

Teradata had the weakest performance against analyst estimates and slowest revenue growth among its peers. The stock is down 22.6% since the results and currently trades at $37.75.

Is now the time to buy Teradata? Access our full analysis of the earnings results here, it's free.

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC)

Started by Shay Banon as a search engine for his wife's growing list of recipes at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) helps companies integrate search into their products and monitor their cloud infrastructure.

Elastic reported revenues of $328 million, up 19.4% year on year, exceeding analyst expectations by 2.2%. It was a mixed quarter for the company, with an impressive beat of analysts' billings estimates but decelerating customer growth.

Elastic had the weakest full-year guidance update in the group. The company added 50 enterprise customers paying more than $100,000 annually to reach a total of 1,270. The stock is down 26.3% since the results and currently trades at $98.52.

Read our full analysis of Elastic's results here.

Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT)

Started in 2014 by the team of engineers at LinkedIn who originally built it as an internal tool, Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT) provides infrastructure software for organizations that makes it easy and fast to collect and move large amounts of data between different systems.

Confluent reported revenues of $213.2 million, up 26.4% year on year, surpassing analyst expectations by 3.7%. It was a good quarter for the company, with a decent beat of analysts' revenue estimates but management forecasting growth to slow.

Confluent pulled off the biggest analyst estimates beat, fastest revenue growth, and highest full-year guidance raise among its peers. The company added 44 enterprise customers paying more than $100,000 annually to reach a total of 1,229. The stock is up 20.9% since the results and currently trades at $29.4.

Read our full, actionable report on Confluent here, it's free.

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