Why Trade Desk Earnings Are Explosive

February 23, 2018 by Chris Lange

When Trade Desk Inc. (NASDAQ: TTD) released its fourth-quarter financial results late on Thursday, the company said that it had $0.54 in earnings per share (EPS) and $102.6 million in revenue. Consensus estimates had called for EPS of $0.44 and $101.7 million in revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had $0.33 in EPS on revenue of $72.4 million.

During the quarter, mobile spend surpassed display spend for the first time, driven by newer channels such as mobile video. Omnichannel solutions remain a strategic focus for Trade Desk as the industry continues shifting toward transparency and programmatic buying. Specific channel highlights included the following:

  • Audio grew 648% year over year in the fourth quarter.
  • Connected TV grew 535%.
  • Mobile video grew nearly 121% in 2017.
  • Native spend grew 587% in 2017.

Trade Desk ended 2017 with 657 active customers, and customer retention remained over 95% during the quarter, as it has for the previous 16 quarters.

In terms of the outlook for the first quarter, the company expects to see revenue at $73 million and adjusted EBITDA at $7.5 million. The consensus estimates call for $0.11 in EPS on $64.42 million in revenue for the quarter.

Jeff Green, Trade Desk founder and CEO, commented:

The fourth quarter was outstanding for the Trade Desk and a capstone to a terrific 2017.  For the year, we surpassed $1.55 billion in gross spend on our platform, grew revenue 52% to more than $308 million and generated over $95 million of adjusted EBITDA. Our mission has always been to change the way advertising is bought on our software platform and 2017 marked a year of great strides toward that goal.  Exiting the year, we had more of the largest brands in the world spending on our platform than ever before as they recognize we are the only purely independent platform buying media at scale, objectively, across digital channels and devices. We also invested more into technology and product development than we ever have before to help drive our next stage of growth in the coming years. We expect 2018 to be another record year for the company as we continue to see great momentum in the adoption of programmatic advertising on our platform worldwide.

Shares of the Trade Desk were last seen up over 23% at $59.67 on Friday. The consensus analyst price target is $62.75, and the 52-week trading range is $34.79 to $67.30.

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