What happened
Shares of Shopify (SHOP 1.61%) surged 12% to a record closing high of $1,669.52 on Thursday as investors' enthusiasm for the e-commerce leader reached a fevered pitch.
So what
Shopify's third-quarter revenue rocketed 46% year over year to $1.1 billion. More than 1.7 million merchants conducted a whopping $41.8 billion worth of retail sales on its platform during the quarter. That represented a 35% jump from the prior-year quarter.
"Our results show that Shopify is executing well, giving our merchants the tools they need to compete in differentiated ways in a growing number of markets," Chief Financial Officer Amy Shapero said in the company's earnings release.
Image source: Getty Images.
Several notable partnerships are helping to fuel Shopify's growth. Deals with Meta Platforms (formerly known as Facebook) and Walmart are making it easier for Shopify's merchant customers to sell their wares on Facebook's rebranded platform and Walmart.com. An agreement with TikTok gave Shopify's merchants the opportunity to create mini-storefronts on the fast-growing social media app. And a partnership with "buy now, pay later" leader Affirm gave merchants the ability to offer increasingly popular installment-payment options to their customers.
In fact, Affirm specifically called out Shopify's positive impact on its growth during its fiscal 2022 first-quarter earnings release on Wednesday. "Active merchants increased from 6,500 to 102,000, with the substantial majority coming from the adoption of Shop Pay Installments by merchants on Shopify's platform," Affirm said.
Now what
These deals bode well for Shopify's continued expansion, but there's likely another factor helping to drive its stock price higher. Investors on sites like Twitter and Reddit have taken notice of Shopify's torrid growth and attractive prospects. The volume of mentions of Shopify on social media sites soared more than 4,000% on Friday, according to HypeEquity. This explosion in social chatter no doubt contributed to the stock's gains today -- and it could help Shopify reach more new highs in the days ahead.
