Shopify grew revenue 32% and lost 8.74%, because two numbers came in slightly short

Shopify

Shopify shares closed at US$142.57 on Tuesday, down 8.74%, after gapping down to open at US$136.43. The company had reported revenue of US$3.74 billion for the September quarter, up 32%, and earnings of 49 US cents a share against the 33 cents analysts expected.

The misses were small. Gross merchandise volume, the total value of goods sold through Shopify's merchants, came in at US$119.1 billion against the US$120.1 billion expected. Subscription revenue was US$836 million against about US$850 million.

Neither gap reaches 2%. It was Shopify's first quarterly revenue miss since 2022. Merchants still put 30% more through the checkout than a year ago, measured at steady exchange rates.

Chart: Shopify's sales rose every year. Its shares did not. Two scales: revenue by year in US$bn as columns on the left, the share price at each year end in US$ as a line on the right, ending at Tuesday's close. — This story’s chart of the day.

Cash went the other way. Free cash flow was US$816 million, a 22% margin on revenue against 18% a year earlier. Net income reached US$462 million, up from US$264 million.

The other side

Shopify has guided to another quarter of low-thirties revenue growth, so nothing in the numbers says the business has turned. What changed on Tuesday is that it met its own forecast instead of beating it, and years of beating it is what the share price had assumed.

This story ran in Chips Answer Back Wednesday 4 November’s edition, with the market snapshot, the other two stories, the numbers and the week ahead. Read the whole edition →

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