Impinj, the Seattle maker of high-tech tags for connecting billions of items to the internet, finished 2018 strong, posting its second consecutive record quarter for revenue. However, two good quarters didn’t totally make up for the company’s slow start to 2018, and Impinj reported a revenue decline for the full year and more than doubled its losses from 2017.
Revenue: Impinj brought in $34.6 million in revenue in the fourth quarter, up nearly 29 percent over a year ago, and well ahead of analyst expectations of $32 million. For all of 2018, Impinj reported $122.6 million in revenue, ahead of the $120 million analyst expected, but down 2 percent from the year before.
Profit: Impinj posted a net loss of $2 million in the fourth quarter — or $0.09 per share — beating analyst expectations of $0.14 per share. Impinj’s fourth quarter loss dropped 66 percent over the year before, but for the full year, losses more than doubled from $6 million in 2017 to $14.5 million in 2018.
Looking ahead: Impinj projects a net loss of $5.9 million to $4.4 million in the first quarter — $0.29 to $0.22 per share — on $30 million to $32 million in revenue. That’s more revenue than analysts expected but also steeper losses.
“I’m proud of our team’s execution in fourth quarter 2018 and feel we have strong momentum heading into 2019,” Impinj CEO Chris Diorio said in a statement. “We delivered our second consecutive quarter of record revenue and record systems sales. We also shipped our 30 billionth endpoint IC, marking another step in our journey to connect every item in our everyday world.”
Impinj stock rose 9 percent Wednesday, prior to Impinj’s earnings report, suggesting optimism among investors. Following the release of its financials, Impinj stock rose another 3 percent in after-hours trading, but the sentiment turned and the stock was quickly down close to 5 percent.
