Teladoc Health reported $180.8 million in revenue for this year's first quarter, up 41% from $128.6 million posted in the year-ago quarter.
That meant Teladoc beat its own revenue guidance for the quarter by multiple millions of dollars, as telemedicine use has soared in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. In February, the Purchase, N.Y.-based telemedicine provider had said it expected its revenue for the quarter to be in the range of $169 million to $172 million.
"We're playing a critical role during the global outbreak of COVID-19," Jason Gorevic, Teladoc's CEO, said on a call with investment analysts Wednesday. "We've seen a significant increase in inquiries from both existing and new potential clients."
Investors may have expected more, as the stock price fell more than 3% on a day the broader market was up more than 2%.
In total, Teladoc onboarded more than 6 million new paid members in the U.S. during the first quarter, Gorevic added.
Teladoc's growth was in part driven by a sharp rise in revenue from telemedicine visits, with the company reporting $43.7 million in revenue from visit fees, up 93% from $22.6 million during the same period in 2019.
Teladoc also reported a rise in revenue from subscription fees, which was up 29% at $137.1 million for the quarter.
Teladoc's quarterly visits were up 92% at 2 million—a first-ever for the company. By contrast, in 2019's first quarter, the company had 1.1 million visits. In the fourth quarter of 2019, it had 1.2 million visits.
Teladoc reported a net loss of $29.6 million for the first quarter, compared to a net loss of $30.2 million during the same period last year.
In 2020's second quarter, Teladoc officials said they expect to see revenue in the range of $215 million to $225 million and visits between 2.3 million and 2.4 million.
While Teladoc officials said they expect to see continued telemedicine use, they don't expect the spike in adoption to continue at the same rate.
"Our guidance ranges assume the significant surge in visit volume that we're currently experiencing eases over the course of the next few months," as states lift shelter-in-place mandates and insurers stop waiving co-pays, Gorevic said. "We expect volumes to settle in the second half of the year at a permanently higher level of utilization than pre-COVID levels."
Teladoc adjusted its expectations for revenue for the full 2020 year, now indicating it expects to see between $800 million and $825 million, up from the $695 million to $710 million it had included in the company's guidance issued in February. The updated guidance doesn't include a possible increase in visit volumes if a second wave of COVID-19 cases emerges in the fall, Gorevic noted.
Teladoc also increased its expectations for 2020 visits to between 8 million and 9 million, up from an expectation of between 5.5 million and 5.9 million. Teladoc reported 4.1 million visits in full-year 2019.
Gorevic said the company won't try to guess what telemedicine utilization will look like past year-end. "We're going to stop short of trying to give longer-term guidance relative to what's the 'new normal,'" he said. "We feel very strongly that it will be materially higher than it's been in the past … but we're definitely not prepared to give longer-term utilization guidance."
