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Two weeks ago, Datadog (DDOG) issued downside Q1 and FY25 guidance, creating concern that enterprises were scaling back on their data analytics spending while also souring investor sentiment for competitor Snowflake (SNOW). In fact, since DDOG's soft guidance, shares had plunged lower by about 14%, but SNOW is thawing out today following the company's strong Q4 results and bullish outlook for FY26. With product revenue growing by a healthy 28% yr/yr to $943.3 mln in Q4, easily beating SNOW's guidance of $906-$911 mln, and with SNOW's FY26 product revenue forecast of $4.28 beating expectations, it's evident that those DDOG-fueled concerns about slowing consumption were mostly unfounded.

SNOW also announced that CFO Michael Scarpelli plans to retire once a successor is in place. That news comes as a surprise, especially since SNOW has plenty of momentum behind it right now, but investors are taking the development in stride. It seems that the building excitement surrounding SNOW's new products, including Snowpark, which contributed 3% of total FY25 revenue, and its AI advancements are taking the sting out of the CFO retirement news.

• On that note, SNOW noted that it now has over 4,000 customers using its AI and machine learning technology on a weekly basis, up from 3,200 last quarter. Cortex AI, which enables customers to implement GenAI into SNOW's platform, is gaining significant traction. After announcing a partnership with Anthropic last quarter, allowing its large language models (LLMs) to be available within Cortex AI, SNOW announced another major partnership last night. Specifically, the company has expanded its partnership with Microsoft (MSFT), opening the door for SNOW's customers to access OpenAI's LLMs through its platform.
• Meanwhile, SNOW's core data warehouse business is holding up quite well despite the macroeconomic uncertainty. CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy commented that the core business is very strong and that the company is "hitting on more and more multi-product adoption." This is evident in the impressive net revenue retention rate of 126%. 
• On the cost side of the equation, SNOW continues to focus on improving efficiency by removing redundant management layers and by centralizing teams. The company's efforts are paying off as Q4 non-GAAP operating margin expanded by three percentage points qtr/qtr to 9%, comfortably beating its guidance of 4%.
• The main blemish is SNOW's 1Q26 product revenue guidance of $955-$960 mln, which fell just short of expectations. However, the company does have a tendency of offering conservative guidance, so investors don't seem overly concerned about the downside outlook.

Overall, it was another strong performance from SNOW, easing fears that slowing consumption trends and rising competition -- particularly from privately held Databricks -- are taking a toll on its business. To the contrary, new product innovations, especially around AI, are reigniting the company's growth engine.