Tag Archives: amzn

JD.Com Earnings Will Provide Clues On China Internet Economy

JD.com ( JD ), one of China four biggest Internet companies, early Monday is expected to post a 48% jump in Q1 revenue, despite the slowing economy in its home nation. JD, China’s largest online direct sales company, similar to Amazon.com ( AMZN ), is expected to report revenue of $8.36 billion, up 48% in local currency vs. Q1 2015. Its revenue has grown at double- or triple-digit rates for more than 17 quarters. On the bottom line, analysts expect a 2-cent per-shere loss, minus items, the same as in the year-earlier quarter. JD stock has been on a roller coaster ride since hitting an all-time high of 38 almost a year ago. It hit an all-time low of 22.55 in August. JD.com stock closed Friday at 25.20, up 1.4%. JD reported better than expected Q4 earnings on March 1, and its Q1 outlook then topped Wall Street expectations. The company offers a wide range of electronics, apparel, home appliances, food and beverages and other general merchandise. JD’s earnings follow that of China e-commerce giant Alibaba ( BABA ) on Thursday. Alibaba, for its fiscal fourth quarter , reported revenue of $3.75 billion, beating the Wall Street consensus of $3.58 billion. Sales rose 39% in local currency, the company’s highest growth rate in the past four quarters. Earnings per share minus items rose 88% to 33 cents, but that was far below the consensus of 55 cents.

Alibaba’s Audacious Goal To Reach $1 Trillion In Merchandise Sales

Alibaba ( BABA ) says it’s on a path to realizing its vision of achieving $1 trillion in gross merchandise volume in about four years, as it also pursues a goal of reaching 2 billion consumers on its e-commerce platforms. During the company’s conference call after posting its fiscal-fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday, company CEO Daniel Zhang cited reasons he’s optimistic of hitting the $1 trillion GMV goal. One big reason, he noted, is Alibaba’s successful transition from PCs to mobile devices. By comparison, e-commerce software firm ChannelAdvisor ( ECOM ) estimates Amazon.com ‘s ( AMZN ) GMV in 2015 at $225.6 billion, with 310 million users. At the time of Alibaba’s initial public offering in September 2014, mobile contributed less than 40% of GMV. Today, it’s 73%. Success also depends on international expansion and in continuing to transform its e-commerce business, along with continued investments and growth in its media and digital entertainment platforms, as well as its cloud computing business. Alibaba is one of the four largest Internet companies in China. The others are JD.com ( JD ), which runs a direct-to-consumer e-commerce site similar to Amazon ( AMZN ); China search-engine leader Baidu ( BIDU ); and Tencent Holdings ( TCEHY ), which dominates in gaming and mobile messaging. For all Zhang’s bravado, Alibaba is less than halfway toward its goal: For its fiscal year ended March 31, Alibaba had GMV of $485 billion, up 27%. And it said it had 423 million active buyers, up 21%. GMV is the total value of goods sold across Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms. Alibaba does not take part in direct sales, hold inventory or compete directly with its merchant base. Businesses and consumers use Alibaba’s e-commerce platform, and Alibaba takes about a 2.5% cut of GMV sales. It also makes money from advertising. Alibaba Counts On Growth For Tmall, Taobao Alibaba’s core e-commerce retail platforms are Taobao, Tmall and Juhuasuan. Together, they have 367 million active buyers, with about 90% of Alibaba’s revenue generated in China. Getting to $1 trillion will depend on the growth and expansion mainly of Tmall and Taobao. Tmall is China’s largest business-to-consumer website. Taobao is a consumer-to-consumer e-commerce website similar to eBay ( EBAY ). Taobao is the larger of the two. In fiscal 2016, it hit GMV of $295 billion, up 18%. Tmall reached $190 billion, up 43%. Part of Alibaba’s GMV growth is pegged to global expansion. Alibaba last month announced it acquired a controlling stake in Singapore-based Lazada, a leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, for $1 billion. Lazada operates online retail platforms across Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore, with GMV of $1 billion in 2015. “Our acquisition of a controlling stake in Lazada will allow access to 560 million consumers in one of the most promising markets for e-commerce,” said Chung Tsai, Alibaba executive vice chairman, in the earnings conference call. Alibaba in the March quarter showed its highest growth rate in a year, despite an economic slowdown in China. “In these challenging times for the global economy, Alibaba is bucking the trend,” said Tsai. He said Chinese households today have aggregate net cash reserves of more than $4.6 trillion. “This accumulated wealth and liquidity is the result of real double-digit wage growth over the past decade,” he said. Kerry Rice, an analyst at Needham, says Alibaba has a lot of room for growth ahead. “We expect the company’s core business to continue to be the engine of growth, and despite its scale and dominant market share, we believe it still has significant room for growth,” Rice wrote in a research report. Rice rates Alibaba stock a buy, with a price target of 95. Alibaba stock was up a fraction in afternoon trading in the stock market today , near 79.50. Alibaba stock is up nearly 30% since touching a seven-month low in early February. Alibaba’s stock has had a rocky trip since its blockbuster IPO raised $24 billion, the most ever. Shares priced at 68 and hit a peak of 120 in November 2014. RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney has an outperform rating and price target of 105 on Alibaba stock, up from a previous target of 89. Based on its strength in mobile, “we believe this means Alibaba can sustain premium growth rates in its key retail segment for the foreseeable future,” Mahaney wrote in a research note.

CyberArk Yanked On Imperva ‘Quota’ Blunder, Lagging FireEye Sales

Cybersecurity stocks toppled broadly Friday despite a  CyberArk Software ( CYBR ) blowout Q1, losing ground on disappointing results from FireEye ( FEYE ) and Imperva ( IMPV ) that included, respectively, a sudden CEO shift and ousted EMEA management on lagging sales. IBD’s 26-company Computer Software-Security industry group, which already ranks a lowly No. 178 of 197 groups tracked, was down 5.5% in morning trading on the stock market today , touching a more than two-month low. Imperva and FireEye stocks led the deluge, down a respective 26% and 18%, near 33.50 and 13. CyberArk stock was down 2%, near 39.50. In fact, the only stocks on the rise in the sector were tiny Mimecast ( MIME ) and Qualys ( QLYS ), which was up just a fraction. Viewfinity ‘Meaningfully’ Helps CyberArk Late Thursday, CyberArk reported 43% year-over-year sales growth to $46.9 million and 23 cents earnings per share, up 44% vs. the year-earlier quarter. Both metrics topped the consensus of 17 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters for $43.4 million and 16 cents. Current-quarter guidance for $47.5 million to $48.5 million in sales and 18-20 cents EPS ex items beat Wall Street’s forecast for $47.5 million and 18 cents at the midpoints. On a year-over-year basis, sales would be up 32%, and EPS minus items would be flat. License sales drove CyberArk’s Q1, up 38% to $27.5 million (59% of total revenue), leading 41% growth in the maintenance and professional services segment. Q1 marked acquisition Viewfinity’s first “meaningful contribution,” Piper Jaffray analyst Andrew Nowinski wrote in a research report. Nowinski reiterated an overweight rating and 55 price target on CyberArk stock, noting “broad adoption” across all segments. “They are seeing increased activity with midsize organizations, including universities, credit unions and law firms, which supports the belief that firms of all sizes need this layer of security,” he wrote. Government growth included six-figure deals in all three regions. FireEye Sees ‘Inflection Point’ Dougherty analyst Catharine Trebnick called FireEye’s Q1 an “inflection point” that saw subscriptions replace products as FireEye’s leading segment — up 71% vs. down 16% on a year-over-year basis. The unexpected transition caused FireEye’s Q1 sales to miss but billings to fly. And CEO David DeWalt stepped down to executive board chairman, succeeded by Kevin Mandia, Mandiant founder. FireEye acquired Mandiant in 2014, and Mandia has held several positions at FireEye since. Late Thursday, FireEye reported $168 million in sales and $186 million in billings minus items, up a respective 34% and 23%. A 47-cent loss per-share ex items shrunk by a penny vs. last year’s loss. Billings topped FireEye’s $163 million-$183 million model, and losses beat the consensus of 35 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters for 50 cents. But sales missed the projection for $171.8 million, and on Friday, at least four analysts cut their price targets on FireEye stock. Of the 28 deals worth more than $1 million, 80% included multiple products/subscriptions, and 50% had three or more, Trebnick wrote in a report. More than half of the seven-figure deals included FireEye-as-a-Service — or cloud — products. Trebnick is neutral on FireEye stock. For the current quarter, FireEye guided to $178 million to $185 million in sales, up 23% at the midpoint, and a 38-cent to 40-cent per-share loss minus items, missing the consensus for $192.8 million and a 36-cent loss. Billings views for $200 million to $215 million would be up 16%. Imperva’s ‘Doubly Whammy’ Hits Q1 Imperva, on the other hand, experienced a “double whammy” during Q1 as Web-application firewall and Europe/Middle East/Asia sales stalled, prompting the firm to shift channel priorities and remove its EMEA head of sales. Summit Research analyst Srini Nandury reiterated a buy rating but trimmed his price target on Imperva stock to 50 from 70. Imperva trimmed Q2 guidance but inched 2016 views up — the latter of which Nandury sees as an impossibility. “We worry that the year will be back-end-loaded with no margin of error,” he wrote in a report. For Q1, Imperva reported $59.8 million in sales, up 34%, and a 25-cent per-share loss minus items vs. a 26-cent loss in the year-earlier quarter. Sales met Wall Street expectations, while losses were better by 3 cents. Imperva’s Q2 view for $65.5 million to $66.5 million in sales would be up 23%, but it missed the consensus of 22 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters for $70.2 million. The company’s outlook for a 2-cent to 4-cent loss per share ex items edged views for a 4-cent loss. “Guidance was lowered mainly due to sales execution challenges in EMEA and U.S.,” Nandury wrote in a report. “Some sales force reps were only selling Database Security product so that they can close out their quota for the quarter, while ignoring lower-priced WAF products.” But Nandury sees the issues as fixable. Gartner, IDC and Forrester industry trackers rate Imperva’s products highly, he wrote. Amazon.com ‘s ( AMZN ) Amazon Web Services cloud business can’t touch Imperva’s Database Security, he said. “We do not see evidence that enterprises are going to rely on cloud providers such as AWS to provide security to their data,” he wrote.