The cyber security giant CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) is due to release results for the third quarter of fiscal 2025 (ended October 31) at the end of November. The report will give investors a fresh look at how the company is navigating its disastrous July 19 outage, which took 8.5 million computers offline worldwide and cost some of its top customers $5 billion.

CrowdStrike shares fell 44% after the outage, but have already recouped half of that loss as the fallout wasn’t as bad as analysts anticipated. Here’s why the company’s quarterly results could accelerate the recovery, making the stock a potential big buy in November.

CrowdStrike continues to be a leader in the cybersecurity industry

During its 2025 second quarter (ended July 31) investor conference call, CrowdStrike Chief Executive George Kurtz said the outage caused many potential new customers to delay signing contracts. However, he said most of those deals remain pending, suggesting those companies simply wanted to see if the problem persisted and how the company would handle the crisis.

There aren’t many good alternatives to what CrowdStrike offers its business customers. The the cyber security industry has a history of fragmentation, meaning that vendors have typically specialized in specific products, leaving companies to cobble together software packages from multiple vendors. CrowdStrike offers a holistic cyber security platform, meaning it protects all aspects of the enterprise, from cloud networks to employee identities at endpoints.

CrowdStrike’s flagship Falcon platform offers 28 modules (products) in total. During the second quarter, the company said 65 percent of its customers were using at least five of them. In addition, the number of deals it signed for eight or more modules increased by 66% compared to the year-ago period.

CrowdStrike’s holistic approach to cyber protection is all about artificial intelligence (AI), which automates everything from threat detection to incident response. The company’s AI models are trained on more than 2 trillion incidents every day, becoming more advanced and accurate over time.

CrowdStrike also launched a virtual assistant for Falcon called Charlotte AI last year, and the company says it saves customers an average of two hours a day. Because it uses a chatbot interface and knows virtually everything about an organization’s digital environment, enables managers to get answers to customer questions 75% faster. In addition, Charlotte AI is able to autonomously generate incident reports, which reduces the amount of manual investigation required by employees.

Image source: Getty Images.

The outage did not affect CrowdStrike’s long-term revenue forecast

The outage did not have a significant impact on CrowdStrike’s Q2 results, as it occurred with less than two weeks remaining in the period. The company generated revenue of $963.9 million in Q2, which actually beat the high end of management’s forecast ($961.2 million).

The company has not made any major changes to its guidance for fiscal 2025 (ending January 31, 2025). Management now expects total revenue of $3.9 billion, which has been revised down from $4 billion previously — a change of just 2.5 percent.

This is a good indication that CEO Kurtz expects most of the delayed deals in CrowdStrike’s sales pipeline to close. But investors should keep a close eye on further changes to the company’s outlook when the Q3 report is released.

But there’s even more evidence that the outage could be nothing more than a blip. CrowdStrike reiterated its long-term goal of reaching $10 billion annual recurring income (ARR) by fiscal 2031. Given that the company had $3.86 billion in ARR at the end of the second quarter, that would represent 159% growth over the next six years.

CrowdStrike stock could be cheap for long-term investors

CrowdStrike is only recently profitable, reporting its first net income in fiscal 2024. So it’s hard to value the company using traditional price-earnings (P/E) ratio.. The the price-to-sales (P/S) ratio. a better measure of its value might be dividing its market cap by its trailing 12-month earnings.

Based on this metric, CrowdStrike has always been one of the most expensive cybersecurity stocks. It trades at a P/S ratio of 21.2, and while that’s down from its peak of nearly 30 before the disruption, it’s still much higher than the P/S ratio of its biggest competitor, Palo Alto Networks:

Report CRWD PS given by YCharts

That said, CrowdStrike deserves a premium valuation compared to Palo Alto because it’s growing significantly faster. Its revenue rose 32% in Q2, compared to 12% growth for Palo Alto. As long as there are no more unexpected fallout from the July 19 incident, the valuation difference between the two companies is likely justified.

But the potential long-term opportunity for investors is even more exciting. If CrowdStrike hits its $10 billion annual revenue goal by fiscal 2031, that would put its stock at a forward P/S ratio of 7.3. If it maintains its current P/S ratio of 21.2, that means the stock could deliver a 190% return between now and then.

This translates into a compounded annual return of 19.4% over the next six years, which is almost double the average annual return of S&P 500 back in 1957. In other words, buying CrowdStrike stock can help you beat the market.

With the stock still down 23% from its all-time high, a positive Q3 earnings report could encourage investors to see that the worst is over. Therefore, buying in November ahead of the company’s results could be an ideal long-term entry point.

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Anthony Di Pizio has no position in any of the shares mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.