Marijuana sales were down quarter over quarter, but recreational use continues to be a bright spot for Canadian cannabis company Aphria, CEO Irwin Simon told CNBC’s Jim Cramer Wednesday.
Aphira earlier that day posted its final quarterly results for the 2020 fiscal year, in which Simon said recreational sales were up 28%.
“That’s where the big opportunity is, it’s recreational cannabis,” he said in a “Mad Money” interview.
Aphria, a major producer of medical and recreational marijuana, recorded more than $42 million, in U.S. dollars, in sales of adult-use cannabis in its last quarter ended May 31. The company also said that net revenue came in at about $114 million during the three-month period, an 18% increase from the $96.43 million in the year-ago quarter. That beat the $109 million that analysts were looking for, according to Factset estimates.
Aphria’s quarterly losses, however, fell well below Wall Street’s estimates of a loss of 3 cents per share.
Shares of Aphria, along with the rest of the cannabis cohort, bounced with the broader market from the March lows. The stock surged more than 181% from its lows in mid-March prior to Wednesday’s quarterly report, but the share price plummeted almost 20% to $4.85 during Wednesday’s session as executives did not offer guidance, Cramer noted.
Despite the lack of guidance, Simon said that Aphria is keeping an eye on the growing interest to legalize marijuana in the United States, where marijuana has been legalized in a dozen states and remains fully illegal in 11 others. The plant is legalized in some form in the remaining states.
“One of the important things … is legalization in the U.S.,” Simon said.
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