Confluent's Q2 2025 Earnings Call: Unpacking Contradictions in Customer Trends, AI Growth, and Revenue Strategies

Customer optimization trends, AI workloads and industry growth, large customer growth and sales strategy focus, customer churn and growth in smaller cohorts, and cloud and on-premise growth dynamics are the key contradictions discussed in Confluent's latest 2025Q2 earnings call.



Revenue and Growth Trends:
- Confluent, Inc. reported a 21% growth in subscription revenue to $270.8 million in Q2, representing 96% of total revenue.
- The growth was driven by strong performance in financial services and sustained momentum with OEM partners.

Cloud Revenue and Growth:
- Confluent's cloud revenue grew 28% to $150.5 million, representing 56% of subscription revenue.
- This increase was supported by adoption of new use cases and optimization efforts by larger customers.

Customer Metrics and Expansion:
- The number of $20k-plus ARR customers grew 8% to 2,497, while $1 million-plus ARR customers increased 24% to 219.
- Strong growth in customer engagement was supported by new use case expansions and strategic partnerships.

Product and Market Positioning:
- Confluent's Flink ARR grew approximately 3x over two quarters, approaching $10 million in ARR.
- The growth is attributed to the shift left opportunity and strong adoption across cloud and on-prem platforms.