ZW Data Action Technologies, Inc. (CNET) stock prices were up by 6.50% as of the market closing on July 1st, 2021, bringing the price per share up to USD$2.13 at the end of the trading day. After-hours trading saw the stock plummet by 7.04%, bringing it down to USD$1.98.
Revenue Reports
Revenues for the quarter ended March 31st, 2021 were reported at USD$8.40 million, a 91.5% increase from the USD$4.38 reported in the same quarter of the prior year. The year-over-year difference is largely attributable to increases in revenue from the company’s internet advertising and related service business segment. This, in turn, has benefitted from the economic recovery since the Covid-19 outbreak in the second half of the prior year.
Costs of Revenues
Q1 2021 total cost of revenues came out to USD$9.11 million for the quarter ended March 31st, 2021, up a massive 161.5% from the USD$3.49 million reported for Q1 2020. The year-over-year difference was largely driven by increases in cost derived from the distribution of the right to use search engine marketing services that CNET had previously purchased from key search engines. Further contributing to the yearly difference were costs related to the provision of Internet advertising services with various ad portals.
Gross Loss and Margins
Gross loss for the quarter ended March 31st, 2021 was reported at USD$0.72 million down from the gross profit of USD$0.90 reported in the same period of the prior year. This difference over the year is primarily attributable to the negative gross margin rate resulting from the main stream of service revenues. Accordingly, the gross loss margin was 8.5% for the quarter, while the prior-year quarter reported a gross profit margin of 20.5%.
Meme Stock Phenomenon
With no recent news coverage since the end of May 2021 and no significant changes in fundamentals, CNET seems to have found itself to be the target of the meme stock phenomenon that has resurged through the markets lately. After the massive volatility around the end of June 29th, 2021, CNET stock continues to dip and rally in significant swings. Driven by retail investors who coordinate on the social media platform Reddit to execute a collaborative short squeeze of underperforming companies with little to no sound bases for being invested in, meme stocks have been all the rage lately.
Future Outlook for CNET
Armed with the fortuitous strengthening of the position of its equity value, CNET is poised to capitalize on the opportunities presented to it in a bid to usher in more organic growth. Investors are hopeful that management will be able to keep the snowball going rather than a massive downward correction, as is seen very often with meme stocks.
