Aphria (APHA) didn't exactly provide a high for its investors on Thursday. The Canada-based marijuana company released fiscal 2021 first-quarter results that were full of red ink and substantially worse than analyst expectations.
For the quarter, Aphria's net revenue was 145.69 million Canadian dollars ($110.86 million), which was 16% higher on a year-over-year basis but 4% lower than the fiscal fourth-quarter 2020 tally. On the bottom line, the company flipped to a comprehensive loss of nearly CA$5.1 million ($3.9 million) from the year-ago profit of CA$14.8 million ($11.3 million), although the Q4 result -- a loss of over CA$97 million ($74 million) -- was far deeper.
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On a per-share basis, the CA$0.02 ($0.02) deficit was slightly narrower than the average analyst expectation of CA$0.03 ($0.02). However, those prognosticators were collectively modeling almost CA$160 million ($122 million) on the top line, so Aphria missed that by a wide margin.
While the company did well in its core activity of marijuana sales, boosting its take for the category by 134% to over CA$82 million ($62 million), other key metrics trended negative. One was distribution revenue, which slipped by 14% to roughly the same amount; another key metric was excise taxes, which tripled and then some to hit nearly CA$20 million ($15 million).
It seems that investors were pleased with none of this, particularly given the marijuana sector's long and painful history of booking losses. Aphria's shares fell by over 18% on Thursday, dragging down numerous other marijuana stocks along with them.
