Blue Apron turns profit as more Americans cook at home during coronavirus pandemic
Meal-kit maker forecasts net sales growth in remainder of the year
Blue Apron Holdings Inc. swung to a first-quarter profit as the company raked in sales from Americans cooking at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The New York-based meal-kit maker earned $1.1 million, or 8 cents per share, as revenue rose 10 percent from a year ago to $131 million. Wall Street analysts surveyed by Refinitiv were anticipating a 45-cent per-share loss on revenue of $102.9 million.
“Our progress with our strategic growth plan, together with the increase in demand we saw from the COVID-19 pandemic, resulted in solid and continued year-over-year growth in key customer metrics,” CEO Linda Findley Kozlowski said in a statement. We expect to see “year-over-year net revenue growth in the second half of 2020.”
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Blue Apron added 20,000 customers during the three months through June, helping increase its order count by 389,000. The average order value increased to $60.88 as the number of orders per customer rose to 5.4. That brought the average revenue per customer to $331, up 22 percent from the first quarter.
The company had $45.4 million in cash and cash equivalents at the end of June.
Blue Apron’s board of directors continues to explore strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value.
Looking ahead, management sees third-quarter revenue climbing 13 percent year-over-year to $112 million and a net loss of no more than $18 million.
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Blue Apron shares rose 114 percent this year through Tuesday, outperforming the S&P 500’s 0.38 percent loss.