Upwork (NASDAQ:UPWK) shares are up over 18% in pre-market Thursday after the platform for freelancers reported better-than-expected Q2 results and raised its full-year profit outlook.
Upwork reported a profit per share of $0.10 on revenue of $168.6 million, ahead of the consensus for earnings of $0.00 per share on revenue of $162.5M. Sales rose 7.5% as marketplace revenue jumped 8.5% year-over-year.
For this quarter, the company sees adjusted Ebitda of $15.5M on revenue of $167.5M. Analysts were looking for an adjusted Ebitda of $14.4M on revenue of $165.8M.
The company lifted its full-year profit forecast so it now expects adjusted EPS in the range of $0.36-0.39, easily ahead of the consensus of $0.26.
On the earnings call, the management said that AI is the most important and diverse growth opportunity facing the company today.
Roth MKM analysts hiked the price target by $1 to $13 per share on the Buy-rated UPWK stock.
Goldman Sachs analysts also lifted the price target as they believe the Q2 results demonstrate solid execution on efficiency initiative & AI theme in a stable macro environment.
“While new enterprise client growth remains a headwind, we think the Open AI partnership unlocks an interesting avenue that could stimulate demand/supply for clients in need of expertise/talent in the growing AI field,” analysts said.