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Etsy Inc. stock fell more than 7% late Wednesday after the online marketplace company reported first-quarter profit and sales well above Wall Street expectations, but warned of slower growth and harder comparisons with pandemic-fueled shopping sprees behind it.
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said it earned $143.8 million, or $1 a share, in the quarter, compared with earnings of $12.5 million in the year-ago quarter.
Sales rose 142% to $551 million, Etsy said. That was a drop from $617 million in the fourth quarter, however.
Analysts polled by FactSet expected the online marketplace to report GAAP earnings of 88 cents a share on sales of $530 million.
Etsy’s sellers have offered a slew of pandemic-related merchandise, from masks in the early days to the more recent “I’m vaccinated” products, and the company’s sales have increased accordingly, peaking at $617 million in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Gross merchandise sales rose 132% to hit $3.1 billion, coming in slightly above consensus. For the second quarter, however, Etsy called for gross merchandise sales growth between 15% and 25% year-on-year, coming in between $2.8 billion and $3.1 billion.
“We currently expect Q2 2021 GMS to decelerate along with the rest of e-commerce as we lap the tremendous 2020 growth rates, ” Chief Executive Josh Silverman said in a letter to investors.
“That said, we’ll keep the pedal to the metal in 2021 to continue to improve our customer experiences, make Etsy top-of-mind for the millions of buyers who have found Etsy for the first time or are relying on us now more than ever, and further invest in our very large market opportunity,” he said.
The company did not guide for full-year 2021, citing uncertainty tied to the pandemic.
For the second quarter, the company guided for total sales between $493 million and $536 million. Thee FactSet consensus for second-quarter sales is $494 million.
The number of active sellers in the first quarter rose 67% to 47.7 million people, and active buyers rose 90% to nearly 91 million people, Etsy said.
Shares of Etsy have gained 150% in the past 12 months, compared with gains of around 46% for the S&P 500 index
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