Yelp Earnings and Guidance Take a Reality Check

The company gave guidance for the fourth quarter net revenue in a range $107 million to $108 million, representing a growth of 52% from the previous fourth quarter. The consensus estimates for fourth-quarter earnings are $0.06 per share on $110.96 million in revenue. The company’s outlook for the full year has revenues in a range of $375 million to $376 million, representing a growth of 61% from 2013. The consensus earnings estimates for 2014 are $0.09 per share on $375.20 million in revenue.

The big takeaway here is that, despite the sell-off that had been seen from highs, Yelp shares were still valued at more than 100 times earnings estimates for 2015. That is generally considered to be priced for perfection. Soft guidance does not equate perfection by most counts.

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Net income for the third quarter was $3.6 million, compared to the net loss of $2.3 million from the third quarter of the previous year. Yelp is now in 29 countries and available in 16 languages. This quarter it launched in both Chile and Hong Kong. Consumers can also transact with approximately 28,000 businesses through the Yelp platform. This number is projected to grow as active local business accounts grew by 51% year over year to more than 86,000.

The third quarter also added 5.3 million reviews, which is the largest quarterly increase to date, and 45% of these reviews were through mobile devices. Cumulative reviews grew by 41% year over year to an approximate total of 67 million.

Rob Krolik, Yelp’s CFO, said:

We continue to deliver strong results. In the third quarter, revenue increased 67% year over year while adjusted EBITDA grew almost 150% year over year, demonstrating the leverage we see in the financial model.

Yelp was started as Hold at Brean Capital, almost immediately ahead of its earnings report. Cowen recently had a $93 price target, and the Wall Street consensus figure is $89.21.

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Shares of Yelp closed Wednesday down about 1.5% at $70.23. Following the earnings report, the initial reaction in the after-hours has been negative and shares were down over 14% at $60.30. The company’s stock had a consensus analyst price target of $89.21 before this report and a 52-week trading range of $49.11 to $101.75.