OTTAWA — Shopify Inc. is reporting US$36 million in profits in the second quarter on a nearly doubling of revenues as it reaped the benefits of COVID-19 lockdowns.
The Ottawa-based tech company says it earned 29 cents per diluted share for the three months ended June 30, compared with a loss of 26 cents per share or US$28.7 million in the prior year.
Reporting in U.S. dollars, adjusted earnings reached $129.4 million or $1.05 per share, up from $10.7 million or 10 cents per share in the second quarter of 2019.
Revenues surged 97 per cent to $714.3 million from $362 million a year earlier.
Shopify was expected to report a net loss of 59 cents per share or adjusted profit of one cent per share on $513.8 million in revenues, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv.
The company says the ongoing effect of the pandemic has been to accelerate the shift of purchase habits to e-commerce with new stores created on the Shopify platform growing 71 per cent in the quarter.
“The world is changing fast. With the rapid shift to online commerce, massive disruption to conventional employment, and growing conviction that opportunity needs to be more evenly distributed, entrepreneurship has never been more important,” said CEO Tobi Lutke
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 29, 2020.
