(Update: Sept 10, 2021 at 04:05 a.m. ET)
Affirm Holdings Inc. has been riding some momentum since announcing a buy-now pay-later partnership with Amazon.com Inc., and it looks to be continuing that traction following its latest earnings report.
Shares of Affirm, which enables consumers to split purchases into installments, were up more than 21% in premarket trading Friday after the company easily topped revenue and volume expectations for the most recent quarter and gave an upbeat volume forecast for the full year--even without factoring in potential contributions from the Amazon arrangement.
The company reported a fiscal fourth-quarter net loss of $128.2 million, or 48 cents a share, whereas it posted net income of $35.4 million, or 17 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. Affirm's loss includes a $105.2 million increase in stock-based compensation following the company's January initial public offering.
Revenue for the period rose to $261.8 million from $153.3 million a year prior, while analysts tracked by FactSet had been expecting $224.4 million. Affirm's gross merchandise revenue increased to $2.5 billion from $1.2 billion, while analysts were anticipating $2.2 billion.
"The secular shift toward flexible and transparent financial products continues to accelerate," Chief Executive Max Levchin said in a release.
For the current quarter, Affirm expects revenue of $240 million to $250 million and GMV of $2.42 billion to $2.52 billion. Analysts were projecting $232.6 million in revenue and $2.2 billion in GMV.
Looking at the full fiscal year, Affirm projects $1.16 million to $1.19 million in revenue and $12.45 billion to $12.75 billion in GMV, while the FactSet consensus was for $1.16 million and $12.0 billion, respectively. Affirm noted in its release that it hasn't factored its recently announced Amazon partnership into its revenue or GMV forecasts.
The Amazon deal is non-exclusive, according to Affirm's release, and it is currently in a test mode with select customers. The companies plan to broaden availability in the "coming months."
"While management revealed that the AMZN partnership was non-exclusive, this is unlikely to hurt the significant growth opportunity ahead, especially given that FY22 guidance does not include any AMZN contribution," Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev wrote in a note to clients. He called the company's outlook "very conservative."
Affirm expects a moderation in GMV and revenue from Peloton Interactive Inc. during the fiscal year and anticipates that, overall, GMV growth will outpace revenue growth as the company's mix shifts toward shorter-duration volume and sees less concentration from longer-duration Peloton financing.