MELI - MercadoLibre stock moves higher on soaring sales payment volume

2023-05-03 16:17:28 ET

MercadoLibre ( NASDAQ: MELI ) shares surged in after hours trading on Wednesday after topping earnings

The Latin American e-commerce leader posted $3.97 in earnings per share for the quarter, outpacing consensus estimates by $0.84. Meanwhile, a 35.1% jump in revenue from the prior year narrowly came in $160M above consensus expectations.

“We set a new Q1 record of $340M for income from operations, with the margin over revenue expanding from 6.2% in Q1’22 to 11.2% in Q1’23. As the business continues to scale, we remain focused on strengthening operational efficiency so that our long term growth - which remains our top priority - is sustainably profitable,” management said in a letter to shareholders. “Our Q1’23 KPIs highlight that momentum is strong across geographies, and that we are executing well as we pursue the long-term growth opportunities offered by Latin America’s commerce and financial services markets.”

Growth in items sold on the platform accelerated to almost 16% year-on-year and Gross Merchandise Volume roared 43.3% higher . Meanwhile, total payment volume in the fintech business grew at 96% on a currency neutral basis, touching $37B. Unique active users also boomed to over 100M from 81M in the prior year quarter.

“After a good start to 2023, we remain focused on continuing to execute well through the rest of the year. We are pleased to see how many of our businesses are contributing to our sustained margin expansion. The business has good momentum as we look to the remainder of 2023, and further ahead,” the quarterly letter to shareholders concluded. “We continue to believe that there are attractive growth opportunities in front of us, with many new products still to develop. The recent announcement that we will hire an additional 1,700 engineers in 2023, on top of almost 14,000 already working at MercadoLibre at the end of 2022, is testament to that.”

Shares of Mercadolibre rose 4.8% in Wednesday’s extended session after the print .

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