You could call it judgment day for CarGurus, as the Cambridge-based online auto marketplace released its first quarterly financial results Tuesday evening. And lo, the judgment was good.
After beating Wall Street's expectations on revenue and earnings for the company's third quarter, CarGurus' stock price initially climbed 18 percent in after-hours trading Tuesday, eventually teetering off to more than 9 percent increase to $32.75 per share. When the company made its debut on the stock market on Oct. 12, the company's stock price skyrocketed 80 percent over its $16 IPO price.
CarGurus' revenue in Q3 was $83 million, a 56 percent year-over-year increase and above the average analyst estimate of $79.2 million. The company's net income also beat Wall Street's expectations at 2 cents per share. Those strong results prompted the company to upgrade its guidance for Q4 revenue to a range of $85-86 million, also above analyst estimates.
“We are very pleased with our third quarter results, which are highlighted by robust top line growth and ongoing profitability,” Langley Steinert, CarGurus' founder and CEO, said in a prepared statement.
At the end of Q3, the company had 26,553 paying car dealers on its website, a 37 percent increase from the same period last year, while average revenue per subscribing dealer was up 16 percent to $11,526. The company's website brought in a monthly average of 26 million unique visitors for Q3, a 24 percent year-over-year increase.
Based on its Q3 results, CarGurus anticipates finishing 2017 with annual revenue in the range of $311.3-312.3 million. Not bad for a company that bootstrapped for its first nine years.
