How Yelp Crushed Earnings Despite a Loss

Yelp Inc. (NYSE: YELP) reported its first-quarter financial results after the markets closed on Thursday. The company said it had a net loss of $0.08 per share on $158.6 million in revenue. That compared to consensus estimates of a net loss of $0.15 per share on $155.6 million in revenue.

In the first quarter, Local revenue totaled $138.1 million, an increase of 40% from the same period in the previous year. Apart from this, Transactions revenue totaled $14.5 million, versus $6.6 million last year, primarily due to the Eat24 acquisition.

Also during this quarter, an average of 21 million unique devices accessed Yelp through its mobile app on a monthly basis, noting an increase of 32% compared to the same period in 2015.

In terms of the outlook, the company expects net revenues to be in the range of $167 million to $171 million for the second quarter, while adjusted EBITDA is expected in the range of $21 million to $25 million. Consensus estimates call for a net loss of $0.08 per share on $167.69 million in revenue.
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Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp’s co-founder and CEO, commented:

We had a great start to the year with local revenue growth accelerating to 40% year over year. We hit a major milestone in the first quarter, surpassing 100 million cumulative reviews. With a mobile review contributed every two seconds on average in the quarter, our fresh, relevant review content is what makes Yelp a destination for consumers looking to find and transact with great local businesses. Our sizable, purchase-oriented traffic makes us the perfect place for local businesses to advertise and positions us well to capture the significant opportunity as local ad dollars continue to shift online.

On the books, cash, cash equivalents and short-term marketable securities totaled $375.5 million at the end of the quarter compared to $370.8 million at the end of 2015.

Shares of Yelp were last trading up 17.5% at $25.17, with a consensus analyst price target of $22.78 and a 52-week trading range of $14.53 to $50.99.