Vistaprint Continues Steady Growth

According to a survey of 750 micro business owners in the U.S., 64% of respondents indicated that they were planning to invest in marketing and business promotion expenses during the year. Eighty-eight percent of owners are planning to increase spending over with the previous year, and 34% suggested they would expand the use of social media/networking during the year. Increasing marketing spending by small and micro businesses is helping to drive growth among online print supplies and services provider, Vistaprint (NASDAQ:VPRT).

Vistaprint’s Financials
Netherlands-based Vistaprint’s Q4 revenues grew 27% over the year to $208.8 million. Excluding exchange impact, revenues would have grown 20% over the year. EPS grew 13% over the year to $0.43. The market was expecting revenues of $205.8 million with EPS of $0.43.

For the year, the company reported revenue growth of 22% over the year to $817.0 million, while EPS grew 16% over the year to $2.30.

During  the quarter, the company acquired 1.8 million new customers to record 7.4 million new customers during the year. Total order volume in the quarter of 5.6 million grew 17% over the year.  The average order value in the quarter was $37.72 compared to $34.56 a year ago.

For the current year, Vistaprint projects revenues of $980 million-$1.3 billion with EPS of $1.58-$1.68. Current quarter revenues are projected to be $207 million- $215 million with EPS of $0.20-$0.30.

Vistaprint has set a target of EPS and annual revenue growth rate of at least 20%. Within the next five years, they expect to earn annual revenue rate of $2 billion. To attain these tough targets, the company has begun investing heavily in marketing, manufacturing, and customer satisfaction projects, thus impacting earnings in the near future.

Vistaprint’s International Growth
Vistaprint continued to expand internationally and recently entered the Indian market through the acquisition of PrintBell.com. PrintBell provides corporate and small businesses online solutions for printing of business cards, flyers, letterheads, calendars, and similar products. Vistaprint hopes to launch their full site of operations in India in 2012. With the acquisition, Vistaprint now has a presence in 24 countries and ships products to more than 130 countries around the world.

Vistaprint’s Expanding Service Offerings
As part of their growing suite of services, earlier this year Vistaprint launched a custom embroidery service. Patented visualization software automates conversion of images to stitch patterns, thus reducing setup and design costs while ensuring higher quality and custom-branded products. Vistaprint hopes to expand in a market that is estimated to be worth $8.5 billion annually in the U.S. alone.

Vistaprint’s stock is trading at $30.63 with market capitalization of $1.23 billion. It touched a 52-week high of $56.25 in May of this year.