Trade Me profit beats forecast
Trade Me, the online auction site spun off by Fairfax Media in December, beat its prospectus forecast for earnings on classified sales growth and the rollout of new smart phone applications.
Profit rose 8.4 per cent to $NZ75.6 million in the 12 months ended June 30, the Wellington-based company said.
Sales increased 13.8 per cent to $142m. Analysts had expected profit of $NZ70m on revenue of $NZ146m.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation increased 11.3 per cent to a record $NZ110.4m, beating its prospectus forecast by 4.7 per cent.
A "strong performance" of revenue from the sale of general items through the website was led by an eight per cent increase in trading via mobile phones after the development of smartphone applications across the company's individual businesses.
Trade Me's classified business - motor, property and jobs - beat expectations following the acquisition of vehicle listing aggregator AutoBase.
"Our core general items marketplace performed in line with our expectations, with a definite shift in activity towards mobile," chief executive Jon Macdonald said.
"Throughout the year, we've also seen the proportion of fixed price transactions continue to grow as buyers move towards new goods and instant ecommerce experience."
Growth in mobile, online mobile and the migration of advertising yield online all provide excellent opportunities for Trade Me over the coming years, he said.
Trade Me also on Wednesday announced the acquisition of cloud-based inventory management tool Tradevine.
It will provide users with a dashboard to manage sales, inventory and listing. That follows April's venture with e-commerce software company ChannelAdvisor in a deal that will let retailers from around the world list their products on Trade Me in time for Christmas.
Trade Me shares last traded at $NZ3.79 and have gained about 34 per cent this year.
