Etsy's (ETSY 7.18%) trend of posting accelerating year-over-year quarterly revenue growth rates came to end in the company's first quarter of 2019. Though the online marketplace platform still saw sharp revenue growth, it was lower than the growth reported in Q4. Bottom-line momentum, however, was impressive.
Here's a closer look at Etsy's first-quarter results, as well some context from management.
Image source: Etsy.
Etsy's first-quarter results: The raw numbers
|
Metric |
Q1 2019 |
Q1 2018 |
Change |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Revenue |
$169 million |
$121 million |
40% |
|
Net income |
$31.6 million |
$13.0 million |
144% |
|
Earnings per share |
$0.24 |
$0.10 |
140% |
Data source: Etsy first-quarter earnings release.
What happened with Etsy this quarter?
- Revenue increased 40% year over year, a deceleration from 47% revenue growth in Q4.
- Earnings per share jumped 140%.
- Marketplace revenue rose 43% to $126 million.
- Services revenue grew 29% to $42 million.
- Active sellers were up 13%.
- Active buyers were up 28%.
- Total gross merchandise sales (GMS) volume increased 18.9% year over year.
- Mobile accounted for 58% of GMS, up from 54% of GMS in the year-ago period.
- International GMS increased 33% year over year on a currency-neutral basis, outpacing overall GMS growth.
What management had to say
Etsy CEO Josh Silverman was pleased with the quarter. "We began the year with a fresh slate of product initiatives and our teams' development velocity surged to an all-time high," he said in the company's first-quarter earnings release, "delivering healthy GMS growth during the quarter."
Explaining the company's enormous jump in earnings per share, CFO Rachel Glaser said, "During the first quarter of 2019 we temporarily paused some of our marketing investments in order to closely test incrementality of our less mature channels and refine our attribution models. Profitability in the quarter was especially high because of this marketing recalibration."
Looking forward
Management guided for full-year GMS between about $4.6 billion and $4.8 billion. This is up from previous guidance for GMS between $4.6 billion and $4.7 billion. It also said it now expects full-year revenue between $785 million to $797 million -- an improved outlook from a previous forecast for revenue between $779 million and $797 million. Finally, management said it is expecting adjusted EBITDA between $182 million and $198 million, up from previous guidance for the metric to be between $181 million and $197 million.
Glaser said Etsy plans to leverage what it learned from testing its marketing investments "while continuing to test new channels, including television, to maximize growth and profitability."
