Eventbrite shares plummeted nearly 30 per cent in early trading today (Friday), after the company reported financial results that fell short of predictions and provided weak Q1 projections.
Despite reducing its losses and increasing paid ticket sales, the ticketing and event management platform opened trading at its lowest share price since October.
Eventbrite’s Q1 revenues came in at around the $80m (£61.2m/€71.2m) mark – significantly below the $91m that analysts had forecast.
The San Francisco-based company experienced net loss of $13m (17 cents per share), which is a decrease of 36 per cent of the same period last year.
However, Eventbrite saw net revenue for the fourth quarter increase by 21 per cent to $76m, surpassing the Wall Street estimate of $73m, thanks to an 18 per cent rise in paid tickets (39 per cent YoY). Net revenue per paid ticket grew 5 percent for the year from $2.84 in 2017 to $3.00 in 2018.
This year’s overall company shares were up 16 per cent from last year before the financial results were revealed, though the stock price drop has eliminated all of these gains.
“We believe that as we exit this period, we will see a much better growth rate” because “we are winning customers who were never on Eventbrite or Ticketfly,” explained chief financial officer Randy Befumo to investors. He said the group now has “a product that we can take globally and many of the capabilities we’re building for venues extend well beyond music venues into a variety of other areas.”
Company executives further emphasised the potential for global expansion, with international revenue making up 27 percent of net revenue last year. The company recently announced new payment integrations, entry into Asian market via Singapore and a localised platform for Mexico.
[Above – Eventbrite share price just before 10am EST, Friday 8 March 2019] Live update via MarketWatch here.
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