What happened
Shares of Shopify (SHOP -2.37%) gained 12.3% in value last month, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. For perspective, the S&P 500 index rose 3.2% in February.
Shopify stock got a boost last month following another round of quarterly earnings results showing the company continuing to make a lot of headway in the wide-open e-commerce market.
Check out the latest earnings call transcript for Shopify.
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So what
For the fourth quarter, revenue climbed 54% year over year to $343.9 million, while adjusted earnings improved to $0.26, up from $0.15 in the year-ago quarter.
The quarter closed the books on what was already an impressive year for the fast-growing multichannel commerce platform. For the full year, revenue grew 59% to $1.07 billion. That translated to adjusted net income growth of 131% year over year to $39.2 million, or $0.37 per share.
Management took the opportunity to address its skeptics over the years by emphasizing that Shopify became the first software-as-a-service company to hit the $1 billion revenue mark, growing as fast as it did.
Commenting on this achievement, CEO Tobi Lutke said, "This milestone is significant due to the backdrop: Shopify allows people to partake in the entrepreneurial world who would otherwise not be able to do so. We have been focused on growing this market for the past 12 years even though a lot of people told us that this isn't a valuable business model. We let the results speak for themselves."
Now what
In 2019, management is focused on expanding the international business, investing in brand awareness, as well as new products. But management cautioned that this will be "a learning year" and that most of the benefit from these investments may not be realized until 2020 and beyond. In other words, they are sacrificing near-term profit for long-term gain.
With that in mind, management is calling for revenue of $1.46 billion to $1.48 billion in 2019, representing year-over-year growth of 37% at the midpoint. Management doesn't provide specific earnings guidance, but analysts expect the company to grow adjusted earnings per share by 10.5% to $0.42.
