A trader works on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York.
Yana Paskova | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Square shares rose as much as 4.5% in expanded trading Thursday after reporting first-quarter gains that exceeded Wall Street expectations.
This is how the company did it:
- Earnings per share: Adjusted 41 cents versus 16 cents per share expected in a refinitive poll of analysts, although the result may not be comparable
- Revenue: $ 5.06 billion versus $ 3.36 billion expected from Refinitiv
First quarter revenue rose 266% year over year to $ 5.06 billion, largely driven by increased Bitcoin revenue. Net income for the quarter was $ 39 million.
Square reported Bitcoin sales of $ 3.5 billion, 11 times more than last year. Bitcoin’s gross profit, however, was only $ 75 million, or roughly 2% of sales.
Gross income rose 79% year over year to $ 964 million for the quarter ended March 31, according to a statement.
Cash App gross profit was $ 495 million, an increase of 171% year over year. In March, Square’s peer-to-peer competitor Venmo began offering customers the option to send Bitcoin instantly for free.
Square itself bought $ 50 million worth of bitcoin in October and another $ 170 million worth of bitcoin in February. The company said it had lost $ 20 million in Bitcoin investments for the quarter as of March 31, even though the fair value of its investment was $ 472 million based on observable market prices.
Speaking of the projections, the company expects its seller ecosystem gross profit to grow more than 135% year over year in April and its April cash app to grow approximately 130% year over year.
On the company’s earnings forecast, CFO Amrita Ahuja said the company expected year-over-year gross profit growth rates from April through the remainder of the second quarter as growth comparisons harden in May and June.
“We believe our customers have had greater purchasing power from government funds, which led to an increase in inflows in March,” said Ahuja. “We have since seen a normalization, with inflows down 16% in April compared to March.”
Excluding the after-business movement, Square stock is up about 2.3% year-to-date, while the Nasdaq is up about 5.8% over the same period.
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