上周一，云存储和文件共享服务商Box公司提交首次公开招股文件（IPO）之后，许多记者和专家就纷纷抓住一点不放：这家公司存在巨额亏损（2013年，它的营收共计1.24亿美元，亏损1.69亿美元）。一时间，Box公司备受瞩目的种种承诺瞬间淹没在了一片口诛笔伐之中。如果你此时购买这家估值几亿美元公司的股票，那么你多半会被认为是个容易上当的人。

    不过没关系，企业级软件公司Castlight Health也是一家几乎没有营收、利润稀薄的公司，但是这家公司最近不但以最高发行区间价格成功上市，而且股价还飙涨了超过60%。净利润真的是王道吗？

    再来看个完全不同的例子。另外一家公司以2013年营收18亿美元、净利润5.68亿美元的骄人业绩公开上市，它就是热门手机游戏《糖果粉碎传奇》（Candy Crush Saga）的开发商King Digital公司。这家公司上市首日发行价为每股22.5美元（处于发行定价区间中部），首日募集资金达70亿美元。不过，截至发稿之时，King Digital公司的股价却已跌去10%。很显然，人们开始有一点担心，King Digital会不会成为Zynga Part Duex公司的翻版，这家公司曾在旗下热门游戏处于巅峰之时公开上市。如今，令人感到一丝忧虑的是，King Digital公司上市之初的市值与星佳公司（Zynga）在2011年底上市时的市值完全相同。

    那么，我们从中可以学到什么道理呢？也就是说，如果是科技公司上市，利润真的没那么重要。或者说，利润并不是公司股价走势的决定性因素。

    如今的投资者最关注以下两个关键要素：

    1. 成长

    2. 是否有支持公司成长的市场

    对于像Box这样的公司，怀疑论者们的看法很有可能是错的。过去的两个财年，这家公司的营收每年都增长了3倍，而去年的亏损额仅增加了50%。而且，这家公司才刚刚开始试水企业级客户，特别是它的销售模式依赖于员工在向公司推销企业级客户付费版之前，就已经将免费版本整合至工作流程中（2,500万用户中仅有约7%的用户使用付费版）。同样，Castlight公司颇有争议的定价也是因为海量订单以及宏观医保政策的变化而确定的，医保改革会为公司医疗解决方案产品提供巨大的市场机会。

    另一方面，人们也担心King Digital公司已经发展到顶，增长乏力了。这样的结论并不是因为公司财报显示，2013年公司营收和净利润都大幅超过2012年水平，而是因为有指标显示，《糖果粉碎传奇》游戏的增长开始放缓，而这款游戏占据了公司全年营收的近80%。换句话说，这不禁令人想起星佳和FarmVille的前车之鉴。

    虽然这样说可能有失偏颇，但我还是认为，利润并不能决定公司在股票市场上的成败。如果真是以利润定输赢的话，那么专注于成长的亚马逊公司（Amazon）的股价不会涨到350美元。

    亚马逊的例子具有启发性的另一个原因是：许多科技类上市公司，特别是企业级科技类公司，如果有必要，无论如何都可以以某种方式实现盈利。这些公司或许会慢慢衰落、直至消亡，但它在技术上却是可以盈利的（与投资未来成长的观念截然相反）。而这也是时下科技类股票市场与当年互联网泡沫时期最大的区别之所在，当时的那些泡沫膨胀的公司并没有扎实基本的商业模式，一旦市场出现风云变幻，它们就会无以为继。或许营收增长高于盈利性的说法会遭到质疑，但几乎可以肯定的是，市值总归会滑落，总归会令许多科技股投资者们损失惨重。但今天的投资者至少能关注到这些基础指标，而不是被“吸引眼球”的炒作所蒙蔽。(财富中文网)

    译者：唐昕昕

    When cloud storage and file-sharing company Box filed for its IPO on Monday, many journalists and pundits pounced on the company's massive losses ($169 million on $124 million in revenue for 2013). In an instant, the company's high-profile promise was washed away in a sea of red ink. If you buy into this thing at a multi-billion dollar valuation, conventional wisdom is that you're a sucker.

    Never mind that fellow enterprise software company Castlight Health (CSLT) -- a wildly unprofitable business with barely-discernable revenue -- recently priced its IPO above range and continues to trade another 60% higher. No net income, no love.

    Today, a different company came to market, armed with $568 million in 2013 profits on $1.8 billion in revenue. That would be King Digital (KING), maker of highly-addictive mobile games likeCandy Crush Saga. It managed to price its shares at $22.50 (middle of its proposed range), giving it an initial market cap just north of $7 billion. As of this writing, however, King shares are down more than 10%. Apparently folks are a bit worried that this is Zynga Part Duex, a gaming company that has tied its IPO to the moment of peak popularity for its flagship game. And it probably doesn't help that King's initial market cap was virtually identical to that of Zynga (ZNGA) at the time of its late 2011 IPO.

    So what have we learned here? Namely, that profits don't really matter when it comes to tech IPOs. Or, at the very least, they are not determinative.

    Today's IPO buyers care about two key metrics:

    1. 1. Growth.

    2. 2. Total available market, into which that growth can be realized.

    For a company like Box, chances are that the skeptics are wrong. Its revenue has effectively tripled over each of the past two fiscal years, while its losses only increased by 50% last year. Moreover, it's only begun to scratch the surface of possible enterprise customers -- particularly because its sales model relies on employees incorporating the free version into their workflow before approaching corporate about an enterprise-wide pay version (only 7% of its 25 million registered users currently pay). Likewise, a company like Castlight was arguably being valued by its order backlog and macro healthcare insurance changes that are creating a vast opportunity for its solution.

    On the other hand, there seem to be concerns that King Digital may already have peaked in terms of growth. Not so much because of its reported financials -- 2013 revenue and profits were both up exponentially over 2012 -- but rather because there are some indications that Candy Crush growth is slowing, and that game accounts for nearly 80% of the company's revenue. In other words, shades of Zynga and FarmVille.

    That may be unfair, but my overarching point remains: Profits do not decide a company's success or failure in the public markets. If they did, growth-focused Amazon (AMZN) wouldn't be trading at more than $350 per share.

    The Amazon example also is instructive for one other reason: Many of these tech issuers -- particularly the enterprise tech ones -- could be profitable if it was somehow required. They'd probably shrivel up and eventually die, but it technically could be done (

    as opposed to investing into future growth). This is a key difference between today's tech IPO market and the dotcom boom -- where many of the frothiest companies had no underlying business to fall back on if times got lean. You may disagree with the notion of revenue growth trumping profitability -- and it's a near certainly that valuations will eventually fall, leaving many tech IPO investors with losses -- but at least today's buyers are looking at those metrics, instead of something like "eyeballs."