What happened
Shares of home-audio company Sonos (SONO -0.99%) spiked on Thursday, briefly surpassing previous all-time highs set shortly after its initial public offering (IPO) in 2018. Today, investors were cheering the company's full-year financial results that showed strong growth, particularly in its direct-to-consumer (DTC) business. As of 12:15 p.m. EST, the stock was up 27% after trading 29% higher earlier in the session.
So what
The fiscal year for Sonos ended on Oct. 3, and today the company released results for the fiscal fourth quarter, closing out 2020. For the fiscal year, revenue was only up 5% year over year to $1.3 billion, but a lot of this came in the final quarter, when revenue was up a whopping 16% from a year ago.
Image source: Getty Images.
Furthermore, Sonos showed strong growth in its DTC business. In the fourth quarter, DTC revenue was up 67% year over year.
Earlier in 2020, many investors viewed Sonos as a good stay-at-home play but were disappointed when third-quarter results showed an overall revenue decline. However, expectations were perhaps just a quarter too early; Sonos is clearly firing on all cylinders now. It had only guided for fourth-quarter revenue of $290 million to $305 million. But it reported revenue of $339.8 million, exceeding the high end of guidance by 11%.
Now what
For fiscal 2021, management is guiding for revenue of $1.44 billion to $1.50 billion, representing a 11% to 15% year-over-year increase. Beyond this, the consumer-discretionary company plans an investor-day presentation on March 9 to provide shareholders with its vision and long-term financial targets.
