Harry Harrison
United Kingdom
Shopify Q4 2025 Earnings: The Commerce Machine Keeps Compounding Shopify, which we first bought in 2017 and has been our best ever investment, just dropped its Q4 and full-year 2025 numbers. To put it plainly: they were great. ๐Ÿ“ˆ The Top Line The headline: 31% revenue growth in Q4, hitting $3.67 billion. For the full year, $SHOP (Shopify Inc.) crossed $11.5 billion in revenue โ€” nearly 4x where they were in 2020. Thatโ€™s durable, compounding growth at serious scale and means they've now strung together 11 consecutive quarters of 25%+ revenue growth (excluding their logistics divestiture). At this size, that consistency is remarkable. ๐Ÿ›’ GMV and Market Share GMV came in at $123.8 billion for Q4, up 31% year-over-year, bringing the full-year total to $378.4 billion. Shopify now commands over 14% of all US ecommerce. That's not a niche platform โ€” that's core infrastructure for online retail. ๐Ÿš€ Multiple Growth Engines What really stands out is where the growth is coming from. International revenue surged 36%. Offline revenue grew 27%, showing Shopify's point-of-sale push is landing with merchants. B2B GMV nearly doubled at 96% growth โ€” still a small slice of the pie, but the trajectory is hard to ignore. Shop Pay GMV jumped 62%, cementing its role as a genuine checkout competitor. Shopify is firing on multiple cylinders simultaneously. ๐Ÿ’ฐ Profitability They delivered $715 million in free cash flow for Q4 (19% margin) and $2 billion for the full year. Operating income hit $631 million in Q4, up 36% year-over-year. Full-year operating income of $1.47 billion represents a 13% GAAP operating margin. On a non-GAAP basis, operating margin was 21% in Q4 and 17% for the year. Ten consecutive quarters of double-digit free cash flow margins โ€” they've clearly moved past the "growth at all costs" era. ๐Ÿฆ Balance Sheet and Capital Returns The balance sheet is a fortress. Cash and marketable securities total $5.8 billion. Total assets sit at $15.2 billion against just $1.7 billion in liabilities. They retired $1.04 billion in convertible notes during Q4, cleaning up the capital structure. And the board just authorized a $2 billion share repurchase program โ€” a clear signal that management sees value in its own stock and has the firepower to act on it. ๐Ÿ”„ Revenue Mix Merchant solutions revenue grew 35% to $2.9 billion in Q4, now representing 79% of total revenue. Subscription revenue grew a more modest 17% to $777 million, with MRR reaching $205 million. The take rate continues expanding as Shopify monetizes payments, capital, and fulfillment services layered on top of subscriptions. ๐Ÿ”ฎ Forward Guidance Management guided Q1 2026 revenue growth at low-thirties percent โ€” essentially sustaining Q4's pace. They expect operating expenses at 37-38% of revenue and free cash flow margin in the low-to-mid teens. The slight margin compression reflects continued investment in AI tools like Sidekick, their catalog product, and the Universal Commerce Protocol (www.shopify.com/mx/ucp) but thatโ€™s easily a trade-off worth making if it widens the competitive moat. โš ๏ธ The Risk to Watch Transaction and loan losses jumped to $417 million for 2025, up from $227 million in 2024 โ€” an 84% increase. Shopify Capital is scaling aggressively, and higher losses come with the territory, but this line item deserves monitoring as the lending book grows. ๐Ÿ” Earnings Quality Net income on a GAAP basis was $743 million in Q4, though that includes a $248 million gain on equity investments. Stripping those out, adjusted net income was $594 million, up 30% from Q4 2024. For the full year, GAAP net income was $1.23 billion, dragged down by a Q1 loss driven by equity investment markdowns. The non-GAAP full-year net income of $1.86 billion gives a cleaner picture of operational performance. โœ… Bottom Line Shopify is executing at a level that justifies premium valuation. They're growing 30%+ at $11.5 billion in revenue, generating $2 billion in free cash flow, expanding internationally, and investing in AI while maintaining discipline. The buyback adds a new capital return lever. This is what a best-in-class SaaS-meets-commerce platform looks like when it hits its stride. Disclosure: This is my personal analysis and not financial advice. Always do your own research. From 2018 - 2025, I had one of the highest returns of all Popular Investors - etoro.tw/4b3pl7o Check out my profile to learn more about my investment strategy and if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below. Thanks for taking the time to read this! ๐Ÿ˜€ Harry $AMZN (Amazon.com Inc) $MELI (MercadoLibre Inc) $NSDQ100 $SPX500
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