Robinhood Beats Expectations With Big Earnings

Crypto-friendly trading broker Robinhood saw its shares (HOOD) surge in intraday trading Thursday following the company’s announcement of record profits and sales fueled by booming cryptocurrency trading.

Robinhood reported earnings per share (EPS) of $0.18 in the first quarter, surpassing analysts’ estimates by threefold. The platform’s revenue also saw significant growth, rising 40% year-over-year to $618 million —also exceeding expectations.

Transaction-based revenue experienced a remarkable 59% surge to $329 million, which was “driven by cryptocurrency revenue,” the company said, which also soared to $126 million, a 232% increase YoY.

“We delivered significant revenue growth and margin expansion in Q1 as we remain focused on driving another year of profitable growth in 2024.”

Robinhood’s user base substantially expanded in the first quarter of 2024. The platform added over 500,000 new accounts, surpassing the total for the previous year and marking the highest quarter for new accounts since Q1 of 2022. 

The number of funded customers increased to 23.9 million, with the average revenue per user (ARPU) rising 35% to $104.

A few weeks ago, Robinhood added Shiba Inu (SHIB), Avalanche (AVAX), and Compound (COMP) to its trading platform, yet the tokens are only available to New Yorkers. This probably rang the bells for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which hit Robinhood with a wells notice on May 4.

The SEC’s chair, Gary Gensler, recently stated that these and most cryptocurrencies are unregistered securities and reassured that the SEC “won’t allow manipulation.”