YoY and QoQ
Year over year (YoY) compares a quarter with the same quarter a year earlier; quarter over quarter (QoQ) compares it with the quarter just before. They answer different questions: YoY shows the growth trend, QoQ shows the most recent change.
How to read it
Seasonal businesses (retail's holiday quarter, Apple's new-device launch quarter) can only be read year over year. A sequential decline may be nothing more than the shift from peak season to off season.
For fast-changing companies, look at both. If YoY growth is slowing while QoQ growth continues, the base has gotten bigger but the business is still expanding.
Changes in margins are expressed in percentage points (pp), not percent: a gross margin that goes from 70% to 72% has risen 2 percentage points.
Common pitfalls
- If the year-ago quarter included a one-time factor (an acquisition being consolidated, a depressed pandemic base), the YoY figure is distorted. Look at the two-year compound growth rate instead.
On FinDog
The "Multi-quarter financial trend" section on each stock page lists quarterly revenue and its YoY change. The full quarterly financials page shows the quarter-by-quarter path of revenue, gross margin, net income and free cash flow.
See it on a stock page →Related terms
- Fiscal Year and Fiscal QuartersA fiscal year is a company's own accounting year, and it does not have to match the calendar year. Nvidia's fiscal year ends in late January, Apple's in late September and Microsoft's at the end of June, so the same calendar quarter goes by different names at different companies.
- Gross MarginGross margin is (revenue minus cost of revenue) divided by revenue: how much of each dollar of sales is left after direct costs. It reflects the profitability of the product itself and the company's pricing power.