Adyen shares tank following underwhelming H1 2023 results
Shares in Adyen have hit a three-year low after the Dutch payments processor failed to meet its half-year earnings for 2023.
Adyen’s H1 2023 results shake its shares
In a letter posted to shareholders on Thursday, CEO Pieter van der Does acknowledged that “in some areas, the business grew at a lower rate than anticipated”, following the company’s reported lacklustre performance in North America.
A partner to the likes of Meta, Uber, H&M, eBay and Microsoft, Adyen delivered an EBITDA of €320 million in H1, with the figure down 10% compared to last year.
Its net revenue increased 21% to €739.1 million, but even this was lower than the 25+% growth the company had previously anticipated.
The letter to shareholders attributed its performance to a variety of macro and microeconomic factors, namely higher inflation and interest rates, growing competition and unsustainable hiring costs.
“We would have liked to grow our team at a higher pace but were unable to hire enough top-quality talent. We now see the impact of a sales team size that did not match our ambitions, particularly in North America,” the letter states.
“While we see the changing industry tides reflected in this period’s results, we remain focused on building Adyen for the long term.”
However, this promise seemingly failed to prevent the ensuing tumble of its shares on Thursday, which fell 39% on Amsterdam’s Euronext and closed at €898.4, wiping €17.8 billion off of its market capitalisation. This decline continued into Friday with a low of €838.5, its lowest since April 2020.
The company’s shareholders include Blackrock, Allspring Global Investments and Vanguard.
“We know that growth will not always be linear, and while we saw net revenue growth decelerate in H1, we did not see any substantial developments that structurally change our medium to long-term opportunity,” the company’s statement continues.
“In addition, we anticipate our business model’s high operating leverage to kick in as we move out of this accelerated investment phase in 2024.”
