Shopify Inc.’s revenue was $44.9 million in its first quarter, 89% higher than the same quarter last year, as Shopify processed more payments on its platform, the e-commerce platform provider said in a statement Thursday. Analysts had predicted revenue of $37.2 million.
“The merchant base processed over $1.6 billion of orders in the quarter,” Shopify chief financial officer Russ Jones said on a conference call. “That was the total amount that we processed in 2013.”
Shopify processes payments through a partnership with Stripe Inc., receiving a percentage of each purchase. The company also gets a cut of payments made using PayPal Holdings Inc.’s services.
More than 175,000 merchants used Shopify’s products as of the end of the quarter. About 80% of the company’s North American customers and 55% of its U.K. customers are using Shopify Payments, Jones said. Shopify serves six of Internet Retailer’s Top 1,000 e-retailers.
In addition to enabling retailers to sell via their own e-commerce sites, Shopify is taking part in tests with Facebook and Pinterest to let its merchants sell directly on those platforms.
“Given that social networks are a natural place where consumers can find products, we’re working with social networks to make it easier for businesses to sell and transact at that moment of discover,” Satish Kanwar, Shopify’s director of product tells Internet Retailer.
Shares of the Canadian maker of software for online retailers increased 10% to $37.60 at 10:20 a.m. in New York, and reached as high as $40.25, the biggest jump since the company’s initial public offering May 21. The stock had doubled through Wednesday.
The company still isn’t profitable, however, and reported a loss of 3 cents a share, excluding some items, compared with analysts’ average 8-cent loss estimate.
“As growth accelerates, our plan is to keep reinvesting,” Jones said. “The opportunity in front of us is so large that that clearly makes sense.”