Barclays: Big Photo-Sharing Partner Could Bolster Shutterfly's Weak Consumer Growth

Shares of Shutterfly, Inc. (NASDAQ: SFLY), a provider of personalized photo-based and other products and services, surged to a new 52-week high of $54.60 on Thursday after the company reported a better-than-expected second quarter print.

Christopher Merwin of Barclays commented in a note that Shutterfly's new management team remains focused on the Shutterfly 3.0 transition, which includes the integration of photo sharing service ThisLife and a new mobile app later this year.

Meanwhile, Shutterfly grew its enterprise-related revenue in the most recent quarter by 117 percent, but consumer growth slowed to just 3 percent from 10 percent in 2015.

EBITDA margins of 9 percent in the recent quarter was ahead of the analyst's expectations of 6 percent. The analyst added that he expects full year fiscal 2016 margins to improve 100 basis points year-over-year to 19.2 percent. Longer-term margins remain unclear, especially if the lower-margin enterprise segment outpaces the slower growing consumer segment.

In addition, Merwin cautioned that the Shutterfly 3.0 concept represents a "long road to get back to double digit growth" for the consumer segment. As such, a partnership with a larger photo sharing site could be beneficial and become a "necessary catalyst" to achieve an acceptable rate of growth.

Shares remain Equal-Weight rated with a price target raised to $48 from a previous $45.