UPDATE: Benchmark Company Downgrades inContact Following 2Q Results Miss

In a report published Friday, Benchmark Company analyst Mark W. Schappel downgraded inContact SAAS from Buy to Hold, but reiterated the $9.00 price target.

In the report, Benchmark Company noted, “Last night, inContact delivered 2Q results that missed the Street consensus on both total revenue and software revenue, and missed our respective Street high forecasts by a wider margin. The shortfall was attributed to lower customer utilization (i.e., same store sales) and to longer product implementation cycles, particularly in larger engagements. Management sees these trends continuing for the balance of the year, so it lowered its forward outlook. As a result, we are reducing our rating to Hold from Buy. While we've never been big fans of after-the-fact downgrades, it's our experience that execution issues are often more than discrete one quarter events. So while we're still big believers in the story and inContact's longer-term market opportunity, we expect the stock to bounce around the $8 to $9 range for the next quarter or two, which given yesterday's $9.62 closing price, suggests that our new Hold rating is appropriate. Our $9 price target represents multiples of 2.8x EV/total revenue and 5.1x EV/software revenue on our respective 2014 estimates, which is relatively in line with inContact's small cap SaaS peer group.”

inContact closed on Thursday at $9.62.