What happened
Shares of LivePerson (LPSN 7.41%) were up 24.2% as of 12:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence, after the enterprise conversation technology leader delivered better-than-expected second-quarter 2023 results.
Quarterly revenue fell 26.4% year over year to $97.5 million, slightly above the $96.9 million most analysts were modeling. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) also climbed to $12.8 million from $5.5 million in the same year-ago period, well above the high end of guidance.
On the bottom line, LivePerson swung to a net income of $10.8 million, or $0.12 per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $75.4 million, or $0.98 per share in the same year-ago period. Adjusted for one-time items, however, LivePerson's net income was $0.06 per share -- still far above Wall Street's estimates for a loss of $0.03 per share.
So what
Digging deeper into LivePerson's results, the company signed 69 deals in the second quarter, 33 new and 36 existing customer contracts. Three of those deals were for seven figures, and the average trailing-12-month revenue per enterprise and mid-market customer increased 14% year over year to $575,000.
"Consistent with the expectations we set last quarter, including the completion of the restructuring plan, the divestiture and wind down of non-core business lines, and the renewed focus on the B2B Core, we posted strong financial results in Q2," stated Interim CEO and CFO John Collins. "Now that we support voice interactions and leverage generative AI to address a virtually limitless range of intents, our customers can efficiently automate and estimated 75% of their aggregate conversational volume over time."
Now what
For the full-year 2023, LivePerson maintained the midpoint of previous guidance at $394 million but narrowed its range to $388 million to $400 million. The company also raised its adjusted EBITDA guidance to a range of $19 million to $32 million, up from $15 million to $32 million.
Ultimately, LivePerson still has plenty of work to do to return to sustained, profitable growth. But with shares still down more than 50% year to date, these results were definitely a step in the right direction.
