Yelp Surprises With Better Than Expected (And Early) Earnings, but Loses CFO and Stock Tanks

Shares of Yelp began the day in a nose dive in anticipation of an expected bruising fourth-quarter report at the close of markets.

Then Yelp went and released its earnings early* — and they were better than expected. Net revenue was $153.7 million on 11 cents per share. Wall Street was looking for something close to $152.4 million in quarterly sales, and has voiced concern over the company’s slowing user growth and rising sales costs.

The local reviews company, which reportedly considered a sale this summer, has frequently blamed Google for hampering Yelp by promoting Google’s own local content above others. It’s clear that Yelp is getting more traction on its mobile app than on the Web. The company reported around 20 million monthly uniques to its app, a 38 percent year-on-year growth. And Yelp said those app users were 10 times as engaged as website visitors.

Yelp also disclosed that Rob Krolik, its CFO since 2011, would be stepping down “in the coming months.”

After the early release, Yelp’s stock bounced above its opening price but quickly plummeted again. As of 10:55 am PT, it’s down around 11 percent for the day.

[graphiq id=”c4JAk15Cpw1″ title=”Yelp Inc. (YELP) Stock Price” width=”600″ height=”646″ url=”https://w.graphiq.com/w/c4JAk15Cpw1″ link=”http://listings.findthecompany.com/l/13714922/Yelp-Inc-in-San-Francisco-CA” link_text=”Yelp Inc. (YELP) Stock Price | FindTheCompany”]

* The company blamed the early release on an error from vendor PR Newswire.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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