Shopify Crushes Earnings, Topping $1B In Revenue For First Time

Total second-quarter revenue jumped 57% year-over-year for Shopify, signaling that there is no slowdown happening in the e-commerce space.

The company said revenue was $1.12 billion and gross profits increased 64% to $627 million, compared to $381.4 million in Q2 2020. In fact, Shopify SHOP posted increases in nearly every financial category. Subscription solutions revenue increased 70% year-over-year to $334.2 million; merchant solutions was up 52% to $785.2 million, gross merchandise volume (GMV) increased 40% to $42.2 billion; and monthly recurring revenue (MRR) was $95.1 million as of June 30, up from $57 million on June 30, 2020.

Shopify provides infrastructure and e-commerce storefronts for sellers around the globe. In its earnings, released Wednesday morning, the company said its outlook for the remainder of 2021 remains unchanged.

"Shopify fired on all cylinders in our second quarter, keeping our merchants well equipped to seize the opportunities presented in a post-pandemic retail era," said Amy Shapero, Shopify's CFO. "As consumer spending remained strong, our merchants thrived and extracted more value from our platform, contributing to our rapid growth. We built on our momentum, making significant updates to our platform infrastructure, expanding strategic partnerships and advancing our portfolio of growth initiatives to future-proof the success of tomorrow's entrepreneurs."

Shopify reported Shopify Plus, its large brand subscription program, contributed $25.2 million to MRR, or 26% of the total, which was down from 29% a year ago. The company attributed the percent decline to growth in new customers using the firm's standard platform.

The gross payments volume (GPV) share of GMV increased three percentage points over Q2 2020 to $20.3 billion or 48% of GMV. Gross profit dollars jumped 66% to $620.9 million, and adjusted gross profit dollars grew 64% to $627 million.

Operating income for the second quarter of 2021 was $139.4 million, or 12% of revenue, versus income of $300,000 or 0% of revenue, for the comparable period a year ago. Adjusted operating income for Q2 2021 was $236.8 million, or 21% of revenue, versus $113.7 million, or 16% of revenue in Q2 2020.

Net income for Q2 2021 was $879.1 million, or $6.90 per diluted share, compared with net income of $36 million, or 29 cents per diluted share, for Q2 2020. Q2 2021 net income includes a $778 million unrealized net gain on equity investments. Adjusted net income for the second quarter of 2021 was $284.6 million, or $2.24 per diluted share, compared with adjusted net income of $129.4 million, or $1.05 per diluted share, for the second quarter of 2020.

2021 Outlook

While its outlook for the remainder of the year is unchanged, Shopify does expect to see continued growth, it said.

"We have seen an improvement in the overall economic environment through the first half of 2021, consumer spending beginning to rotate back to services and off-line retail, and e-commerce growing at a more normalized pace relative to 2020," the company said in the earnings release. "In view of these factors and Shopify's performance for the six months ending June 30, 2021, we continue to expect to grow revenue rapidly in 2021, but at a lower rate than in 2020."

Shopify expects more merchants to join its platform in the second half of the year, just at a slower rate than the record pace of 2020, and the "growth rates of subscription solutions and merchant solutions revenues to be more similar to each other than in the recent past."

Operating expenses are expected to accelerate in Q3 and Q4, the company said.

"Due to the sustained momentum of digital commerce trends in the first half of 2021 combined with the U.S. stimulus distributed in March and April of 2021, Shopify generated higher-than-anticipated revenue while incurring lower-than-planned operating expenses as a percent of revenue in the first half of 2021. As a result, we now expect full-year 2021 adjusted operating income to be above the level we achieved in 2020," it said.

Click for more Modern Shipper articles by Brian Straight.

You may also like:

Social Auto Transport raises $1.5M in seed funding to expand gig economy auto-moving business

Bringg's collaboration with Uber opens new doors for e-commerce

Walmart to begin drone delivery pilot this summer

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay