Data management and barcode scanner specialist Zebra Technologies (NASDAQ: ZBRA) sprinted across the finish line in Tuesday's first-quarter earnings report. The company beat Wall Street's estimates across the board and also exceeded management's own profit estimates by a country mile. And that's not the end of Zebra's surprises -- the company also raised its outlook for the rest of 2021 because the good times have only started to roll.
Zebra's first-quarter sales rose 28% year over year to $1.35 billion. Adjusted earnings jumped 79% higher, landing at $4.79 per diluted share. Your average analyst firm would have settled for earnings of roughly $4.39 per share on net revenues near $1.33 billion. Adjusted EBITDA margins rose from 19.1% to 25.3%. Here, Zebra's management had been aiming just above the 23% mark.
The business gains were spread out across all of Zebra's geographic regions and major product categories. When I asked CEO Anders Gustafsson to point out the biggest winner in the bunch, he simply declined to do so. Every unit performed above expectations. He did admit that Zebra's largest customers were at the forefront of the order flows in the first quarter, as they have been throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The large-scale shift toward contactless services and home-delivery options is forcing many companies to develop and maintain the infrastructure that these new operating models require, and Zebra is ready to support it.
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Zebra Technologies Is Hot to Trot