Business
StoneCo Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2021 Results
Total Revenue and Income growth of 87% year-over-year in 4Q21 to R$1.9 billion;Record Quarterly Net Addition of 378k Clients, reaching 1.8 million Active
About this update from Stoneco Ltd.
[{"type":"text","content":"Total Revenue and Income growth of 87% year-over-year in 4Q21 to R$1.9 billion;Record Quarterly Net Addition of 378k Clients, reaching 1.8 million Active Clients;MSMB Take Rate sequential increase to 1.71% in 4Q21 and 2.02% in January/22 GEORGE TOWN, Grand Cayman, March 17, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- StoneCo Ltd. (Nasdaq: STNE) (“Stone” or the “Company”), a leading provider of financial technology and software solutions that empowers merchants to conduct commerce seamlessly across multiple channels, today reports its financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2021. “Dear Shareholders, As we report our Q4 and full-year 2021 results, I want to reflect on the last year, lessons we learned, and actions we’ve taken to refocus and position our company for continued growth and improved profitability in 2022. 2021 was an unsatisfying year for Stone. We executed well in some areas but faced challenges in others. We believe our market opportunity is huge and merits an aggressive approach, but we tried to do too much last year and did not execute as well as we would have liked. Our aggressive commercial approach, combined with a challenging macro environment, impacted our profitability. In credit, we ramped up our offering quickly, but did not manage it well. Our execution challenges were exacerbated by the problems of the national registry system, which we did not expect and therefore were not well-prepared for. As you know, in mid-2021 we paused our credit operations. In prepayment, our focus on growth delayed re-pricing of our solutions while interest rates in Brazil were rising sharply throughout the year. At the same time, we continued making significant investments and expanded our operating costs. In the fourth quarter, we increased selling expenses 94% year over year to R$272 million (excluding Linx) and continued to invest in building our TON product, banking ecosystem, software solutions and enhancing our technology and customer service, which remain a key competitive advantage for Stone. I still believe this was the right strategy directionally, but given the margin impact from credit and prepayment, I think we could have managed these investments more effectively by spreading them out over a few more quarters. As we managed all these issues at once, we were also integrating an entirely new part of...