Josh Silverman, CEO of Etsy.
Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Etsy shares soared more than 15% on Thursday, less than a day after the company reported third-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street estimates on the top and bottom line. The earnings and outlook show consumers are still buying from Etsy even after the pandemic-driven mask sales boom.
The company reported earnings of 62 cents per share on revenues of $532.4 million. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv had expected EPS of 54 cents on revenues of $518.9 million.
“What it shows is people had to turn to Etsy over the past year, they are choosing to come back even more as we move forward, and we think that’s frankly remarkable,” CEO Josh Silverman told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday.
Analysts at Stifel upgraded their price target on the company from $230 to $265 and raised estimates for the fourth quarter and upcoming fiscal year.
“As we emerge from the pandemic, Etsy continues to grow new buyers at a healthy rate, retain many of the buyers acquired during the pandemic and is seeing improvement in purchase frequency indicating many of the initiatives are proving sustainable,” Stifel analysts wrote.
Shares of Etsy dipped in after-hours trading on Wednesday after the company shared lower than expected revenue guidance for the fourth quarter. But Silverman called the company’s fourth-quarter outlook “extremely robust.”
The company guided revenue growth of about 10% year-over-year for the fourth quarter, or between $660 million and $690 million. That’s still ahead of the $617.4 million Etsy reported in its last fourth quarter as people flocked to the site to buy pandemic essentials, like face masks.
“The whole conversation since then has been, ‘once the world reopens, how much of that will you lose, how much of that will you give up?’, and that was a fair thing to ask,” Silverman said. “Here we are entering the fourth quarter of 2021, people have multitudes more choice, they’re moving all around and shopping anywhere they want.”
