Blogs -Q1 Earnings Analysis for Etsy, Square, and Palantir

Q1 Earnings Analysis for Etsy, Square, and Palantir


May 27, 2021

author

I/O Fund

Team

As earnings season winds down, we review earnings reports for popular growth tech stocks Etsy, Square, and Palantir. 

Regarding Etsy, e-commerce valuations have come down as a result of the correction in growth tech, and when compared with other e-commerce stocks that are facing tougher comps, Etsy is showing slowing projected growth of 32% this year.

We also discuss Square, a fintech stock whose topline beat was driven by a surge in Bitcoin revenue. Excluding Bitcoin revenue, the company still reports decent growth of 44%. We look at Square from both perspectives below.

Palantir is guiding for Q2 revenue growth of 43%, but to prove product-market fit, the company needs to show higher growth in commercial revenue. Beth Kindig previously wrote about this in Forbes when she analyzed the product at its IPO.

Etsy: 

Like many beneficiaries of Covid-19, e-commerce benefitted from the economic shutdown through an acceleration in revenue. In 2020, consumers spent approximately $861B online with U.S. retailers, up 44% YoY, nearly three times the growth in 2019 at 15.1%, according to estimates from Digital Commerce 360

E-commerce valuations peaked for the industry in early 2021 as investors worried about more difficult comps. As you can see from the chart below, Etsy’s valuation peaked at 15x forward revenues, based on data from YCharts. As of May 25, Etsy was trading at 9x forward revenues.

e-commerce companies ev to revenues (forward) chart

Etsy is projected to show slower revenue growth of 32% this year than popular e-commerce stocks like Sea Limited, 89%, Mercado Libre, 89%, and Shopify, 51%. Etsy is facing noticeable deceleration from its 111% YoY revenue growth in 2020.

Revenue growth for Etsy is on par with BigCommerce, which is valued at 16x revenue versus 9x revenue for Etsy. Meanwhile, Etsy is already profitable with 74% gross margins and projected EPS growth in 2021 of 12%. The company also beat on its top and bottom lines with 141% YoY revenue and EPS of $1.

e-commerce stocks metrics

GMS represents total sales and is an important metric for e-commerce stocks. In Q1, consolidated gross merchandise sales (GMS) for Etsy was up 132.3% YoY to $3.1B, while Etsy marketplace GMS was up 144.1% YoY to $2.9B. Etsy estimates that stimulus payments drove approximately 8% of GMS growth in Q1. In its guidance for Q2, Etsy is estimating consolidated GMS growth of 5% to 15% YoY.   

In Q1, the Etsy marketplace reported the highest growth rates for active buyers, repeat buyers, and habitual buyers since becoming a public company, acquiring 16.3M new and reactivated buyers. Active buyers grew 91% YoY; repeat buyers who made two or more purchases in the last year grew 114%; while habitual buyers, the company’s most loyal consumers, grew more than 205%. 

Conclusion

Like many e-commerce stocks, in 2020 Etsy benefited from Covid-19 through an acceleration in revenue. The company is now facing tougher comps and is guiding for decelerating growth. E-commerce valuations have contracted, and Etsy is not the cheapest e-commerce growth stock we analyzed above. 

As of May 25, Etsy was trading at 9x forward revenue versus 6.36x for Farfetch and 7.78x for Poshmark, which we previously covered. Unlike other popular e-commerce stocks, Etsy is profitable with a gross margin of 74%, and projected revenue and EPS growth in 2021 of 32% and 12% respectively.

 

Square:

Covid-19 accelerated the trend towards digital payments, with more than 70 million transactions being processed globally in 2020, representing growth of 41% YoY, according to a recent report from ACI Worldwide and GlobalData. 

The value of those transactions rose 32.8% YoY to $69T, while the share of digital transactions was 9.8%, up from 7.6% in 2019. 

Digital payments are nascent with plenty of room for growth, according to the report. 

top 10 countries by number of digital transactions in 2020

Digital transactions have a projected CAGR of 12% by 2025, with the fastest growth of digital payments from 2020 to 2025 in Croatia, 374.4%, Columbia, 112.7%, Malaysia 83.9%, Peru, 74.4%, and Finland 71.4%. 

North America is expected to be the fastest growing region, with a CAGR from 2020 to 2025 of 36.5%.

Square, a popular fintech stock, allows users to trade Bitcoin via its mobile application. Square’s Cash App has outpaced PayPal’s Venmo in quarterly downloads every quarter since launching Bitcoin trading in Q4 2017, based on data from Sensor Tower. 

cash app & venmo app quarterly downloads

Square reported Q1 earnings May 6, beating on the top and bottom lines, driven by a surge in Bitcoin revenue. Revenue of $5.06B, up 266% YoY, beat by $1.73B. Excluding bitcoin, total net revenue was up 44% YoY to $1.55B. 

 Cash App revenue was $4.04B, up over 650% YoY, with gross profit of $495M, up 171% YoY. Cash App generated Bitcoin revenue of $3.51B with gross profit of $75 million. Excluding Bitcoin, Cash App generated revenue of $529M, up 139% YoY.

Gross profit grew 79% YoY to $964M. Seller generated revenue of $1.02 billion, up 19% YoY, and $468 million of gross profit, up 32% YoY. 

To bring in new customers, last March, Square began offering Cash App users the ability to send Bitcoin for free. During the quarter, Square also integrated Square Loyalty into Cash App, which it says is “a flywheel for seller and buyer discovery, engagement, and retention.” 

Square officially launched its industrial bank, Square Financial Services, last March. It is expected to launch business checking and savings accounts, according to a recent report

Excluding Bitcoin revenue, Square trades at a premium compared to peers PayPal, Fiserv, and Shift4. However, for 2021, Square is projected to grow revenue 115% YoY and EPS 80% YoY, which is higher than other fintech stocks. Gross margins for Square are lower than its competitors, as Bitcoin boosts revenue but reduces gross margins. 

fintech companies metrics

Conclusion 

Moving forward, Square faces increasingly difficult comps and trades at nearly 16x forward revenue, which is a premium compared to peers and related to its higher revenue growth.

 

Palantir:

Total commercial revenue grew 19% YoY to $133M, while US commercial revenue grew 72% YoY. Commercial growth was more muted due to the ongoing impacts of Covid-19, including in Europe, according to the report.

Palantir is continuing to make progress on commercial customer growth, according to the report. CEO Shyam Sankar struck a bullish tone, reporting a substantial increase in new leads: 

“We see strength and forward looking indicators and customer interest,” he said. “Since the beginning of February, qualified commercial opportunities in the US and the UK are up 2.5 times. Active commercial pilots across the business have more than doubled and opportunities across the US and UK government continue to develop at pace.” 

Right now, the closest competitor to Palantir is Semantic AI, a private company headquartered in San Diego, but more competitors are likely being developed in the startup ecosystem. We cover this and more in a previous write-up by Beth Kindig here.

Last April, Palantir demonstrated Apollo for Edge AI. The product is now live and takes a “pioneering approach” to AI using micro models, Sankar said: 

“Apollo for Edge AI is the next evolution to transform AI into alpha, enabling customers to train, manage and deploy multiple independently versioned chained models to the Edge with ease,” he said. 

Below we compare Palantir with other high growth tech stocks. While Palantir has healthy gross margins of 78%, projected 2021 revenue growth is lower than growth tech stocks like DDOG, SHOP, and ZS, which also trade at valuations under 30x. 

 

palantir compared to other high growth tech stocks

Conclusion

Although Palantir is guiding for revenue growth of 30% or more through 2025, we believe the company will needs to do a lot to execute in the Commercial market against the thriving AI startup ecosystem. However, it may take a few years before AI startups can effectively compete against Palantir. The number to watch will be commercial revenue growth, which was low at 19% this past quarter. Without more growth here, the product may not show signs of product-market fit in the commercial sector.   

Disclaimer: The author, Jessica Ablamsky, owns shares of Etsy and Square. The content in this article is intended to be used for informational purposes only. The author has not received any compensation from any third party or company discussed in this article. The content is the expressed opinions of the author and is intended for educational and research purposes. Any thesis presented is not a guarantee of any particular stock’s future prices, so please factor this risk into your own analysis. It is very important that you do your own analysis before making any investments based on your personal circumstances. The author is not a licensed professional advisor. Please seek counsel form a licensed professional before acting on any analysis expressed in this article, to see if it is appropriate for your personal situation.

Gains of up to 2,390% from our Free Newsletter.


Here are sample stock gains from the I/O Fund’s newsletter --- produced weekly and all for free!

+2,390% on Nvidia

+450% on Bitcoin

*as of Jun 25, 2024

Our newsletter provides an edge in the world’s most valuable industry – technology. Due to the enormous gains from this particular industry, we think it’s essential that every stock investor have a credible source who specializes in tech. Subscribe for Free Weekly Analysis on the Best Tech Stocks.

If you are a more serious investor, we have a premium service that offers lower entries and real-time trade alerts. Sample returns on the premium site include 3,900% on Nvidia, 850% on Chainlink, and 695% on Bitcoin. The I/O Fund is audited annually to prove it’s one of the best-performing Funds on the market, with returns that beat Wall Street funds.

beth

More To Explore

Newsletter

Jensen Huang at Convention

Nvidia Stock Is Selling Off: It’s Not Because Of Blackwell

Direct liquid cooling doesn’t lie as it’s intricately linked to the Blackwell launch, implying that Blackwell would indeed ship by Q4 – and Nvidia just confirmed that (multiple times) in Q2’s release.

September 02, 2024
Jensen Huang's Presentation

Nvidia Stock: Blackwell Suppliers Shrug Off Delay Ahead Of Q2 Earnings

Bulletproof Nvidia showed an unusual bout of weakness this past month following a report from The Information that Nvidia’s new AI chips are delayed. The report asserts that Nvidia’s upcoming artifici

August 26, 2024
Microchips

Arm Stock: Buy Its Customers, Not The Stock

Arm Holdings is the third-best performer of 2024 in AI-related semiconductor stocks with a 56% YTD return, behind only Nvidia and Taiwan Semiconductor.

August 20, 2024
Big Tech Battles on AI

Big Tech Battles On AI, Here’s The Winner

The major theme over the past month in Big Tech and AI semiconductors has been the durability of demand: essentially, what is Big Tech’s return on more than $150 billion in capex over the last twelve

August 12, 2024
Bitcoin Update - Next Stop $100,000

Bitcoin Update: Next Stop $100,000

Bitcoin is the best performing asset in market history. There is no stock or asset that has come close to delivering the returns of this digital currency --- it has greatly outperformed all FAANGs, an

August 01, 2024
Mag 7 Stocks Should See One More High

Mag 7 Stocks Should See One More High

Optimism around the Fed could spark a continuation of the relief rally in the Russell 2000 and further rotation out of the Mag 7. Below, we look at the pros and cons of a Mag 7 rotation and how we pla

July 25, 2024
https://images.prismic.io/bethtechnology/Zp8WKh5LeNNTxaPe_Palantir%E2%80%99sStockIsPricedForPerfection.jpg?auto=format,compress

Palantir’s Stock Is Priced For Perfection

Heading into 2024, Palantir was exhibiting “multiple signs of acceleration” stemming from strong growth in its US commercial segment, driven by AIP, Palantir’s Artificial Intelligence Platform that le

July 22, 2024
https://images.prismic.io/bethtechnology/ZpZ1bx5LeNNTxMuv_Tesla%E2%80%99sQ2DeliveriesStrong%2CButWhat%E2%80%99sToCome_.jpg?auto=format,compress

Tesla’s Q2 Deliveries Strong, But What’s To Come?

After months of being the lowest performing Mag 7 stocks, Tesla saw rapid gains — up 42% in a one month rally, with 37% of those gains in eight sessions — after it reported Q2 deliveries ahead of expe

July 16, 2024
Knox at SA conference

How to Participate in Tech: The Million Dollar Question (Video Highlights)

With audited returns of 131% since inception, compared to the NASDAQ-100’s 82%, portfolio manager, Knox Ridley, lays out how we have successfully maintained an overexposure to the right tech stocks, w

July 03, 2024
This AI Stock Could Outpace Nvidia’s Returns by 2030

This AI Stock Could Outpace Nvidia’s Returns by 2030

Lead Tech Analyst and CEO Beth Kindig recently joined Real Vision’s Nico Brugge to discuss her AI outlook on leading AI stock Nvidia, while sharing which AI stock she believes may outpace Nvidia’s ret

July 03, 2024
newsletter

Sign up for Analysis on
the Best Tech Stocks

https://bethtechnology.cdn.prismic.io/bethtechnology/e0a8f1ff-95b9-432c-a819-369b491ce051_Logo_Final_Transparent_IOFUND.svg
The I/O Fund specializes in tech growth stocks and offers in-depth research for Premium Members. Investors get access to a transparent portfolio, a forum, webinars, and real-time trade notifications. Sign up for Premium.

We are on social networks


Copyright © 2010 - 2024