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Deep amid a business transition, LinkedIn ( LNKD ) late Thursday reported first-quarter earnings and sales that beat Wall Street consensus expectations, as did its Q2 earnings and sales guidance. LinkedIn stock at first jumped 15% in after-hours trading, after the earnings release, but later was up 8%. In the regular session, LinkedIn stock rose 3.5%, to 123.01. Fellow social network Facebook ( FB ) rose 7.2% Thursday after that company late Wednesday posted Q1 results and gave guidance that beat analyst views. Thursday’s reaction is in marked contrast to three months ago, when LinkedIn posted a Q4 beat but gave guidance that fell well short of expectations, sending shares plummeting 44% the next day, to 108. Shares have been slowly recovering. LinkedIn reported Q1 revenue of $860.7 million, up 35% year over year and beating the consensus of $828.5 million. It reported earnings per share minus items of 74 cents, up 30% and beating the consensus of 60 cents, as polled by Thomson Reuters. For Q2, LinkedIn sees sales of $885 million to $890 million, up 25% at the midpoint and above the $886 million analysts had modeled. The company expects EPS ex items of 74 cents to 77 cents, up at least 35% from 55 cents in Q2 2015 and above the 71 cents analysts had modeled. LinkedIn provided full-year sales guidance of $3.65 billion to $3.7 billion, with the midpoint in line with analyst consensus of $3.67 billion. Non-GAAP EPS is expected to be between $3.30 and $3.40, above the consensus of $3.19. LinkedIn, which provides most of its services to members at no cost, generates revenue from three business segments. Revenue from Talent Solutions, which gets fees from companies and headhunters seeking hires, rose 41% year-over-year to $558 million. Revenue from Marketing Solutions, which sells ads, increased 29% to $154 million. Revenue from Premium Subscriptions increased 22% to $149 million. LinkedIn said it ended the quarter with 433 million members, up 19% and its strongest net additions since the beginning of 2014, the company said. Unique visiting members rose 9% to an average of 106 million members a month, and member page views grew 34%. Page views per unique visiting member hit an all-time high in Q1, with 23% year-over-year growth, LinkedIn said. “Q1 marked the first full quarter for our new mobile flagship experience, and we are pleased with the performance thus far,” said CEO Jeff Weiner in the company’s earnings conference call. “Members are engaging at record levels with the more relevant and comprehensive feed.” The weak Q1 guidance three months ago caused analysts to slash their estimates, partly on an apparent deceleration of the Talent Solutions segment. At the time, LinkedIn said a reshuffling of product strategy would impact short-term revenue growth in favor of the long term. Then, the company also said it would shutter a business called Lead Accelerator. That decision cut the company’s 2016 revenue forecast by $50 million. The Lead Accelerator business had been created out of LinkedIn’s $175 million acquisition of Bizo in July 2014. The technology focuses on boosting the ability of marketers to target prospects and had been considered a high-growth opportunity. LinkedIn said the manpower needed to boost Lead Accelerator was not worth the time and effort, and that it was “a higher-than-anticipated demand on resources.” The move did not go over well with analysts, with one calling it a “gigantic mistake.” But that move along with other strategy shifts have set the stage for future growth, Weiner said. He said LinkedIn strengthened its core Recruiter product while also laying the groundwork for the rollout of a number of emerging growth drivers. Its Recruiter platform, within the Talent Solutions group, “is the foundation of our long-term growth strategy,” Weiner said, adding that recruiters are experiencing “greater success” with the new product. The company said hiring revenue contributed$502 million in revenue in Q1, up 27% from Q1 2015. Scalper1 News
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