Andrew Christiansen
Analyst · Truist Securities. Your line is now open
Thank you, Lynne. We're excited to announce the acquisition of Dosh. And I'll echo Lynne in welcoming the Dosh team in Cardlytics. I believe this acquisition will create many long-term opportunities to grow our business together over the coming years. We expect our balance sheet and liquidity will remain extremely strong following the acquisition. We ended the year with $293 million in cash and cash equivalents, compared to $288 million at the end of Q3. Depending on the timing when the deal closes, we expect our total cash position to be over $140 million. In December, we extended the term of our loan facility and increased the capacity to $50 million, which also remains undrawn at this time. Now, turning to the quarter and full year performance. We are pleased with our better-than-expected fourth-quarter results in light of the challenging environment, especially in the UK. As we've mentioned before, we expected to see month-of-the-month improvement in our results through the end of the year. Actually seeing this play out gives us a lot of confidence that our return to year-over-year growth is right around the corner. We'll see the usual seasonal sequential decline from Q4 to Q1. We're expecting strong year-over-year comparisons throughout 2021. But before I dive in the guidance, I'll share a few more financial highlights. Billings during the fourth quarter decreased 7% year-over-year to $94 million. The revenue decreased 3% year-over-year to $67.1 million, outperforming our prior guidance. On a sequential basis, billings and revenue in Q4 were up 51% and 46% respectively compared to Q3. US revenue during the fourth quarter increased 2% year over year. However, UK revenue was down 43%. Our UK business continues to be severely impacted by the pandemic and the recent lockdown that was implemented to slow the spread of the new coronavirus variant. Latest reports about the lockdown will slowly unwind between April and June, so we anticipate some continued pressure on our UK results in the near term. For the full year, total billings was $263 million, a decline of 17% year-over-year. Total revenue was $187 million, a decrease of 11% from 2019. Adjusted contribution was $29.7 million in the fourth quarter, down 4% year-over-year and up 50% sequentially from Q3 of 2020. For the full year, adjusted contribution was $82 million, down 14% from $95 million in 2019. Adjusted EBITDA was a gain of $4.5 million in Q4, which was 7% of revenue, compared to a gain of $6.9 million in Q4 of 2019, which was 10% of revenue. The decline was primarily driven by a $1.4 million decline in adjusted contribution and the increase in headcount to enhance our product development capabilities. For full year 2020, adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $7.8 million, compared with a gain of $6.1 million in 2019, which largely reflects the $13 million year-over-year decline in adjusted contribution. As we've discussed, the strategic investments we are making to support our long-term growth, including potential cost to support the acquisition and integration of Dosh, as well as the lingering effects of the pandemic, especially in the UK, may cause fluctuations in our quarterly EBITDA during 2021. As Lynne mentioned earlier, MAUs grew 23% year-over-year to $163 million in Q4, partially reflecting the Wells Fargo launch. ARPU during the fourth quarter was $0.41, down 21% year-over -year. As expected, ARPU continues to experience pressure year-over-year due to our significant MAU growth and more revenue. On a sequential basis, ARPU increased 41% from the third quarter of 2020. Our full year 2020 ARPU was $1.20, compared to $1.72 in 2019, reflecting the same factors impacting our Q4 ARPU. In the coming quarters, we expect ARPU to increase on a year-over-year basis, as MAU stabilize as a return to revenue growth. We had 27.9 million shares outstanding at the end of Q4. Weighted average shares outstanding during the quarter was 27.7 million, compared to 27.3 million during Q3 of 2020. Now, turning to guidance. Our guidance range is a bit wider than usual, reflecting a wider range of potential outcomes due to the lingering effects of the pandemic. Please note that depending on the circumstances, we may decide to withhold guidance in the future. Additionally, our guidance does not include the Dosh acquisition. We currently expect the billings of Q - in Q1 between $67 million and $75 million, revenue of between $47 million and $53 million, and adjusted contribution of between $20 million and $24 million. I want to remind everyone of the normal seasonal decline from Q4 to Q1 due to heightened consumer spending and advertising budgets that typically exist during the fourth quarter. For the full year, we expect billings of between $360 million and $400 million, revenue of between $250 million and $275 million, and adjusted contribution of between $110 million and $125 million. Overall, we've been pleased to see the business adapt to recover in a rapidly evolving landscape. And like many other companies, we've grown more comfortable in this operating environment. As Lynne mentioned earlier, there are a lot of great stories that underpin our return to growth, and those offer a glimpse as to why we're optimistic about our outlook for 2021 and beyond. As always, we remain very focused on growing long-term shareholder value and growing the relationships with our partners. And we now look forward to growing an expanded set of meaningful relationships through Dosh. Now, I'll hand it back to Lynne for her closing thoughts.