Canadian e-commerce company Shopify Inc on Wednesday posted better-than-expected quarterly earnings, helped by higher holiday sales, and forecast full-year revenue above Wall Street estimates, sending its U.S.-listed shares up about 9 per cent.
Shopify lets small businesses sell goods and services to customers by setting up stores on its platform. Last year, it set aside over US$1 billion to build fulfillment centers in the United States as it takes on larger rivals Amazon.com Inc and EBay Inc.
For full year 2020, it forecast revenue in a range of US$2.13 billion to US$2.16 billion, above the average analysts’ average estimate of US$2.11 billion according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Shopify reported worldwide sales of over US$2.9 billion between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, up about 61 per cent from the same period in 2018.
The company posted net income of US$771,000, or 1 cent per share, for the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with net loss of US$1.5 million, or 1 cent per share, a year earlier.
Excluding items, it earned 43 cents per share, beating the average estimate of 23 cents per share.
The Ottawa-based company’s total revenue jumped 47 per cent to US$505.2 million from US$343.9 million a year earlier, also beating the estimate of US$482.5 million.
© Thomson Reuters 2020
