Wayfair Should Hit $1 Billion In Sales During Q4

Wayfair Inc (NYSE: W) is scheduled to report its fourth-quarter results on February 23. The company would likely reach the $1 billion mark in quarterly revenue for the first time in Q4, ahead of expectations, Wedbush’s Seth Basham said in a report. He maintains an Outperform rating on the company, while raising the price target from $40 to $45.

Basham identified the declining advertising leverage, against the backdrop of the latest moves by Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) in Google’s Product Listing Ads [PLAs], as well as declining orders per average customer as the “focal points to monitor.”

Q4 Preview

Basham expects Wayfair to report revenue of $1 billion, representing 35 percent year-over-year growth and ahead of the consensus estimate of $967 million. He added, “We believe that good trends through early November and a strong Cyber 5 carried the quarter.”

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At the ICR Conference, Wayfair indicated solid holiday sales, while adding that the macro pressures that were mentioned during the Q3 conference call “appeared less relevant in hindsight.”

Citing Wayfair.com traffic data and category sales data from comScore, the analyst stated that although sales growth is likely to have moderated in December, they remained “strong enough to drive upside for the quarter.” He added that guidance for Q1 2017 may be marginally short of expectations, but “investors are braced for this conservatism that the company has demonstrated for the last two quarters.”

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