Earnings Results: AMC beats earnings expectations, but warns that ‘virus continues to be with us’

AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. said Monday that its quarterly results beat expectations across the board, with revenue increasing more than sixfold year over year during a quarter in which “substantially all” of its theaters were open for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2019.

The movie-theater chain said it “safely welcomed back” 40 million guests in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East in the third quarter, while analysts had expected 37.2 million.

In a news release, AMC
AMC,
+8.06%

Chief Executive Adam Aron reiterated that October theater-admission revenues were the highest of any month since before the coronavirus pandemic forced the company to close its theaters. But he also said “We wish to emphasize that no one should have any illusions that there is not more challenge ahead of us still to be met. The virus continues to be with us, we need to sell more tickets in future quarters than we did in the most recent quarter, and Adjusted EBITDA is still well below pre-pandemic levels.”

AMC shares seesawed after hours. They rose more than 8% in the regular session to close at $45.06. The meme stock has surged more than 2,000% so far this year, compared with the S&P 500 Index
SPX,
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which is up more than 25% year to date.

The movie-theater chain reported a third-quarter net loss of $224.2 million, or 44 cents a share, compared with $905.8 million, or $5.70 a share, in the year-ago period. Revenue rose to $763.2 million from $119.4 million in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted Ebitda was a loss of $5.4 million.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast a loss of $257 million, or 53 cents a share, on revenue of $708.3 million.

This post was originally published on Market Watch

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