Shopify Inc.’s president appealed to investors to focus on the company’s growing customer base as the stock dropped again Friday to a fresh two-year low.
The Canadian firm’s shares have plunged 21 per cent since it disclosed first-quarter profit on Thursday morning that fell far short of analysts’ estimates. Shopify is navigating a “rebalancing” in retail that has seen shoppers head back to physical stores now that the COVID-19 crisis is easing, President Harley Finkelstein said.
But Finkelstein said investors should pay more attention to its expanding roster of merchants and its longer-term growth opportunities. He stressed the unfavorable comparison with last year’s stimulus-fueled lockdown spending, adding that Shopify still expects “rapid” revenue growth at the end of the year.
“We’re in an inflationary environment and consumer spending has changed dramatically,” Finkelstein said on BNN Bloomberg Television. “We’re looking at very difficult comps here. I think anyone that’s studied the stock and the market sees that. When you compare Q1 of 2022 to Q1 of 2021, we had lockdowns, we had government stimulus and it was a very different economy.”
The company doesn’t give a specific fiscal-year revenue outlook but analysts expect sales to grow 28 per cent in 2022 to nearly US$6 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/shopify-president-appeals-for-patience-as-stock-gets-crushed-1.1762287
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