Etsy beats revenue expectations on solid demand; Outlook inline

By Liz Moyer

Investing.com -- Online crafts marketplace Etsy Inc (NASDAQ:ETSY) beat revenue expectations as shoppers continued to buy clothes, jewelry and home goods.

Shares rose 4.5% in after-hours trading and are up 7% so far this year.

The company reported $807.2 million in consolidated revenue for the quarter, up 12.6% from a year earlier, and a record, it said. That compares with the $755M expected by analysts. Earnings per share of 77 cents fell short of the 80 cents a share forecast.

Consolidated gross merchandise sales were $4 billion, down 4% from the same time a year earlier. Etsy marketplace reported GMS of $3.7B, down 3.5% in the quarter. Analysts had forecast GMS of $3.87B.

"We are extremely proud of our team's ability to dramatically improve the Etsy customer experience over the course of 2022," said CEO Josh Silverman. "Despite significant macroeconomic headwinds, we maintained the vast majority of our pandemic gains and delivered double digit revenue growth and excellent profitability for the year.”

Full-year 2022 gross merchandise sales dipped 1.3%, to $13.3B, while revenue rose 10%, to $2.57B.

For the first quarter of 2023, Etsy is guiding for GMS of $2.95B to $3.15B, while revenue is projected to be $600M to $640M. Analysts expected first quarter revenue of $622M.

"The Etsy marketplace's strong holiday performance and accelerating year-over-three-year GMS in the fourth quarter enabled us to end the year on a high note," said CFO Rachel Glaser. "We are now nearly three times the size we were pre-pandemic, and we've been careful about how we have grown our cost basis to catch up with the size of the business - visible in our sustained profitable growth and strong free cash flow."