What happened
Shares of Intuit (INTU 0.73%) popped nearly 15% last month, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence, as investors cheered the tax, accounting, and personal finance software company's solid second-quarter results.
So what
Intuit's fiscal second-quarter revenue rose 12% to $1.5 billion. That was slightly above Wall Street's expectations of $1.48 billion. Adjusted earnings per share, meanwhile, jumped 19% to $1.00. That too exceeded analysts' projections, which had called for adjusted EPS of $0.86.
Intuit is enjoying broad-based growth. Revenue in its small-business and self-employed group -- which includes Intuit's popular QuickBooks accounting software -- leapt 17% to $833 million. And revenue in its consumer group -- which includes TurboTax, the leading do-it-yourself tax preparation software -- grew by 11%, to $461 million.
Notably, the number of QuickBooks Online subscribers climbed 38% to nearly 3.9 million subscribers. This rapidly growing area of Intuit's business is expected to be the company's most important growth driver in the coming years. "We believe the best measure of the health and success of our strategy going forward is online ecosystem revenue growth, which we continue to expect to grow better than 30%," CFO Michelle Clatterbuck said during Intuit's second-quarter conference call.
Check out the latest earnings call transcript for Intuit.
Intuit's online services revenue is expanding at an impressive rate. Image source: Getty Images.
Now what
Intuit's stock price is now up nearly 25% so far in 2019 -- and that's on top of a 25% increase last year. The gains appear to be warranted, judging by Intuit's solid operating performance. But with shares now trading for about 33 times forward earnings, investors may want to wait for a pullback before initiating -- or adding to -- their positions.
