Global-e Reports Record Breaking Quarter
Taking a Look at Global-e's (GLBE) Earnings Results.
The Breakout Quarter
Global-e (GLBE) closed out 2024 with a very solid Q4. The company actually delivered its strongest quarter ever, they also achieved GAAP profitability for the first time as a public company, a major milestone in its growth story. However, the market seems to disagree with this performance, and I’ll explain why that might be below.
Q4 2024 Key Financials
GMV (Gross Merchandise Value): $1.71B, up 44% YoY
Revenue: $262.9M, up 42% YoY
Service Fees Revenue: $117.3M
Fulfillment Services Revenue: $145.6M
Gross Profit:
GAAP: $118.7M
Non-GAAP: $120.9M, up 53% YoY
Gross Margin:
GAAP: 45.1%
Non-GAAP: 46%, up 330 bps YoY
Adjusted EBITDA: $57.1M, up 62% YoY
Net Profit: $1.5M
Operating Cash Flow: $129.3M
Free Cash Flow: $128.8M
Cash Position (Cash & Equivalents + Short-term Deposits): $438.1M
This performance exceeded expectations, with a notable increase in profitability and operational efficiency, pushing GLBE's Adjusted EBITDA margin past 20%, a target it actually set when they IPO’d.
Full-Year 2024 Recap
GMV: $4.86B, up 37% YoY
Revenue: $752.8M, up 32% YoY
Gross Profit:
GAAP: $339.4M
Non-GAAP: $349.4M, up 43% YoY
Adjusted EBITDA: $140.8M, up 52% YoY
Net Loss: $(75.5M), significantly reduced from $(133.8M) in 2023
Free Cash Flow: $167.1M
Cash Position: $438.1M
Yes, the company still posted a full-year net loss, but the trajectory toward profitability is pretty clear.
Key Growth Drivers
New Merchant Partnerships: Expanded across North America, Europe, and APAC, onboarding brands like Logitech, Spanx, Tom Ford, and Compressport.
Shopify Managed Markets Expansion: Continued investment in joint initiatives with Shopify to make cross-border selling more seamless for merchants.
Market Expansion: Added new regions for existing brands, including Adidas (Romania & Croatia) and John Smedley.
2025 Outlook
Looking ahead, GLBE expects another strong year, forecasting:
GMV: $6.19B – $6.49B
Revenue: $917M – $967M
Adjusted EBITDA: $179M – $199M
This is where the market decided to punish GLBE, on guidance (and other things). Forward-looking guidance came in below what analysts were expecting.
My Take
Companies like GLBE, which are on the verge of a major inflection point, really call for a “big picture” perspective when we dig into their performance. This Q4 was impressive overall, with the company hitting some notable milestones. However, before we dive into what went well, let’s acknowledge the bad mentioned in their recent call and reports, then I will wrap things up on a more optimistic note.
The “Bad”
One of the primary concerns from the earnings call focused on declining take rates for 2025. The company expects these rates to drop to 14.9%, down from 15.5% in 2024, largely because of a shift toward multi-local fulfillment and 3B2C (business-to-business-to-consumer) models. Rising tariffs and global trade uncertainty are pressuring merchants to change how they handle fulfillment, which ultimately cuts into the amount GLBE can collect on each transaction. Some analysts wondered if this assumption was overly conservative, but the company noted that merchant behavior is already shifting in response to changing tariff policies, suggesting this downward pressure on take rates might continue.
Take rates refer to the percentage of each transaction that a company like GLBE keeps as revenue when facilitating sales for merchants. Think of it like a commission fee, when a brand sells products internationally through GLBE’s platform, GLBE handles payments, taxes, shipping, and localization. In return, the company takes a small percentage of the total transaction value (GMV) as its fee. This percentage is known as the take rate. However, take rates can fluctuate based on different factors. If more merchants choose multi-local fulfillment, where they store inventory in different countries instead of shipping everything internationally, GLBE collects less in fees since cross-border logistics are a key revenue driver. Similarly, larger merchants typically negotiate lower take rates because of their higher sales volume, while smaller brands may pay more. Other factors, like changes in global trade policies and tariffs, can also impact take rates by influencing how merchants choose to structure their logistics.
One of the big talking points right now is the potential impact of new U.S. tariffs and changes to the de minimis rule—both of which could raise the cost of cross-border e-commerce. Naturally, this creates uncertainty for merchants, who might respond by restructuring their supply chains in a way that leans more on multi-local fulfillment (which lowers GLBE’s revenue capture) or even dialing back on international expansion. But here’s the twist: management actually sees a bright side in the long run, despite all the near-term ambiguity.
Why? Because as tariffs rise and shipping from one country to another gets more expensive, merchants will be forced to reconsider how they handle global fulfillment, and that complexity often drives businesses toward cross-border experts like GLBE. Instead of shipping directly across borders and taking the tariff hit, many brands will shift to multi-local fulfillment or 3B2C models, essentially, storing inventory in multiple countries or bringing it in wholesale and then selling domestically. Management is framing it as a long-term win for GLBE, since merchants will need more help navigating these challenges. Sure, there’s some short-term bumpiness/uncertainty, but it could open doors for GLBE’s solutions down the road.
Taking a closer look at guidance, Q1 2025 revenue is projected at $184.5M–$191.5M, falling just shy of the analyst consensus of $192.68M and hinting at a slower 29% growth rate (compared to 42% in Q4 2024). This deceleration, combined with management’s reference to “normalization” in consumer demand, might raise concerns that Q4’s impressive results were more about seasonality than sustained momentum (though this is speculative). It’s also worth noting that many of the large merchants onboarded in late 2023 are heavily holiday-focused, so their standout performance in Q4 2024 may naturally wane in the coming quarters.
On a more nuanced front, most “borderfree” merchants successfully migrated to GLBE’s platform, but a few didn’t make the switch due to internal priorities or integration hurdles. GLBE lost some GMV from these merchants, but it’s still maintaining solid growth. And while the Ted Baker bankruptcy did cut off a high-margin service fee revenue stream, it’s not having a major operational impact—the company will just have to rebuild that relationship over time.
Despite all the worries, 2024 was actually a strong year for GLBE, GMV jumped 37%, revenue climbed 32%, and adjusted EBITDA rose by 52%. Those are excellent numbers by almost any standard. However, when a stock rallies hard going into earnings, expectations can get a bit wacky. Even the faintest sign of weakness—like conservative guidance or lingering macro concerns—can trigger a sell-off. That seems to be what happened here: while Q4 results were solid, the market’s doubts about potential margin pressures and a slowing growth rate going into 2025 ended up overshadowing the good news.
The “Good”
The standout milestone this quarter was that GLBE achieved GAAP profitability for the first time since going public, posting a $1.5M net profit in Q4. Management now expects 2025 to mark the company’s first full year of GAAP profitability, definitely a confidence booster for investors looking for sustainable earnings. This is a true inflection point, and if GLBE can keep this momentum going and continue to scale, it often paves the way for long-term success.
Revenue growth really took center stage this quarter, with Q4 revenue hitting $262.9M, a 42% jump YoY. This boost was driven by a surge in merchant activity and a good holiday season. On top of that, gross margin expanded to 46%, improving 330 basis points from last year, a signal to great cost control and operational efficiency. Across the full year, adjusted EBITDA soared 52% to $140.8M, complemented by $167.1M in FCF. With a cash balance of $438.1M, GLBE is clearly on strong financial footing.
Now, let’s talk about the real “big picture” metric: GMV. In Q4, GLBE’s GMV reached $1.71B, up 44% YoY, making it the company’s best quarter to date. For the full year, GMV climbed to $4.86B (+37% YoY), highlighting the platform’s ability to scale and onboard new merchants effectively (even as a few churn out). A big part of this success came from adding high-profile brands like Logitech, Spanx, Tom Ford, and Compressport, demonstrating just how well the leadership team executes. Meanwhile, existing partnerships with Adidas, John Smedley, and Harrods also expanded into new markets, further fueling growth.
A standout growth driver for the company continues to be its partnership with Shopify, where “Shopify Managed Markets” already accounts for 5% of the company’s GMV, starting from almost nothing in 2023. Even though enterprise adoption has been slower than initially expected, they are working hand-in-hand with Shopify to refine the merchant experience, a move that could spark more growth down the line. Another noteworthy step their dive into consumer electronics, an industry notorious for complicated international fulfillment requirements. The fact that Logitech, Jabra, and Suunto have all come on board proves that GLBE’s multi-local fulfillment model is flexible enough to pull in new merchant categories and widen its TAM.
Beyond just onboarding more merchants, GLBE is doubling down on AI and automation to power its operations and drive efficiencies. For instance, its AI-powered chatbot already handles nearly 50% of customer service tickets, cutting support costs and upping customer satisfaction. The company is also developing AI-driven localization tools, which let merchants swiftly translate and adapt their content for multiple countries, making the international e-commerce process even smoother. Plus, these AI tools help cut down on chargebacks and improve payment dispute resolutions, boosting profitability in the process.
Sure, the company does face macro challenges, things like rising tariffs and shifting merchant fulfillment strategies, but we can’t overlook this company’s execution on the operational side. Ironically, the “bad news” some people focus on actually compliments GLBE’s strengths in cross-border operations, a perspective that seems very underrated by many investors. If management can keep a handle on take rate pressures and stay nimble with evolving trade policies, hitting that $1B+ annual revenue milestone in 2025 looks obtainable. Yes, the post-earnings sell-off might be warranted from an expectations standpoint, but performance-wise, this company is still firing on all cylinders. If it keeps this up, sustaining profitability, long-term investors will be rewarded handsomely.