Payment company Square reported quarterly earnings and revenue that beat analysts' expectations on Wednesday but came up slightly short on forward guidance.
Here's how the company did compared with what Wall Street expected:
Earnings: 13 cents per share vs. 11 cents per share, forecast by Refinitiv.Revenue: $431 million vs. $413.9 million, forecast by Refinitiv.Adjusted revenue grew 68 percent year over year. The company reported its first quarterly profit of $20 million, compared to a net loss of $16 million in the third quarter of last year. Square's chief financial officer Sarah Friar said a "big driver" of the profitability was its acquisition of EventBrite, which went public in October.
Square met expectations for Wall Street's fourth quarter revenue guidance but came up short on earnings guidance for the upcoming quarter. It expects to earn between 12 and 13 cents, below Wall Street's expectations of 15 cents for the fourth quarter.
Shares of the fintech company fell more than 7 percent in after-hours trading Wednesday. The stock has popped more than 120 percent year over year, and is up 136 percent this year alone.
Subscription and services-based revenue grew 155 percent year over year to $166 million in the third quarter of 2018.
In October, Square announced Friar was stepping down to become CEO of start-up Nextdoor. Shares of Square dropped as much as 8 percent after the announcement.
Square CEO Jack Dorsey, who also runs Twitter, said on the call with analysts that Square had not yet hired a new CFO yet but was "working with urgency" to do so. Dorsey called finding Friar's replacement was "number one focus for the company."
San Francisco-based Square is well-known in the payments sector for its credit card processor, payment hardware and popular Cash app. But Friar recently hinted at more moves into traditional banks' turf, saying that "anything you do today with a bank account, you should look to the Cash App to begin to emulate more and more of."
Square has expanded its small-business lending — an increasingly competitive area in fintech — through Square Capital. In the third quarter of 2018, Square Capital facilitated more than 62,000 business loans, up 34 percent year over year.
The company announced in October it would let businesses using Square's payment network give customers the option to break big payments into smaller, fixed monthly ones.
Square launched bitcoin trading through its popular Cash App in January and generated $43 million in revenue from the cryptocurrency in the third quarter.
