Boston, MA 03/04/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Vipshop Holdings Ltd – ADR (NYSE:VIPS), a fast-growing online discounts retailer, reported very encouraging quarterly results and followed the same with attractive guidance for the current quarter. However, that was not enough to keep the stock from tumbling in the last session. Experts are reading the ongoing standoff between Russia and Ukraine and the threats from U.S. and Western powers as potentially bad news for global stocks.
In the latest financial reporting, the China-headquarter Internet discount company laid out growth in all its key performance metrics. The better than anticipated results were helped by improving revenue and margins. As if to justify that the future was even looking brighter, the management guided revenue figures that exceeded what analysts expected.
Fourth quarter performance
Vipshop Holdings Ltd – ADR (NYSE:VIPS) announced profit of $25.4 million, compared with $6.3 million in the corresponding fourth quarter of 2012. The net revenue for the quarter was $651 million, topping the figure that the management forecasted for the quarter. The management expected revenue to come between $580 and $590 million in the November 2013 forecast.
The strong revenue was helped by increase in orders and improvement in the number of active users. Vipshop Holdings Ltd – ADR (NYSE:VIPS) reported that its active user numbers increased to 5.7 million, significantly above 2.6 million that it had in the same period last year. The total orders in the latest quarter was 17.7 million, again exceeded 8.8 million that was noted last year over the same duration.
Yet another metric improvement that helped towards posting of strong results was gross margin that widened from 22.9 percent to 24.5 percent.
First quarter guidance
Vipshop Holdings Ltd – ADR (NYSE:VIPS) guided that it expects to generate revenue between $640 and $650 million, thus topping the estimate from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters which is $554.5 million.
Shares of Vipshop Holdings Ltd – ADR (NYSE:VIPS) were down more than 2.7 percent to $127.76 in the last session. The stock has been on the rise over the past year and it has rise by 53 percent since the start of 2014.
