Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Shares of Chinese mobile-based social networking platform Momo (MOMO 0.16%) were up 22.9% as of 11:45 a.m. Tuesday after the company announced better-than-expected unaudited first-quarter results.
So what: Quarterly revenue increased 383% year over year to $26.3 million, or above the high end of Momo's own guidance for between $24 million and $26 million. That includes a 311% increase in membership subscription revenue to $13 million, a 212% jump in mobile games revenue to $6.1 million, and $6 million in mobile marketing revenue, the last of which was up from an immaterial amount in the year-ago period. Revenue from "other" services also jumped from $0.3 million to $1.1 million over the same period. Finally, Momo's monthly active users increased 83% year over year to 78.1 million.
That translated to adjusted net income of $9.4 million, compared to an adjusted net loss of $0.3 million in the year-ago period. Adjusted net income per American depositary share was $0.05, compared to a diluted net loss per ADS of $0.06 this time last year. Analysts, on average, were expecting an adjusted net loss of $0.01 per share.
Now what: Momo is now the third-largest mobile social networking site behind WeChat and Mobile QQ, but it's arguably most impressive that the platform turned profitable less than two years after it first began generating sales. Given Momo's big quarterly beat and continued torrid pace of growth, it's no surprise the market is so aggressively bidding up the stock today.
