Shopify Inc. reported sales and profit for the second quarter that beat analyst expectations as the Canadian e-commerce giant attempts to turn around its business.
Revenue for the period came in at $1.69 billion, beating the $1.62 billion average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Profit, excluding special items, was 14 cents a share, above the 5 cents expectation.
Shopify initially rose, then fell 2% in after-hours US trading before flattening to trade nearly unchanged at 4:35 pm.
“We’re not just shipping products faster, but we are also expanding our global merchant base, all while improving our ability to generate greater free cash flow,” President Harley Finkelstein said in a statement.
Gross merchandise volume, the total value of merchant sales across Shopify’s systems, was $55 billion, above Wall Street projections of $53.43 billion.
The Ottawa-based company also gave an outlook for the third quarter, saying it expects percentage revenue growth in the “mid-twenties” on a year-over-year basis, when adjusting for asset sales. Shopify also said its free cash flow profitability in the quarter will be greater than the entire first half of 2023.
Shopify has been attempting a turnaround. Last quarter it cut more than 2,000 jobs — its second round in less than a year — and sold the majority of its logistics unit to Flexport Inc., abandoning a fulfillment strategy it had put together to better compete with Amazon.com Inc. to refocus on its core e-commerce platform business.
