Andy Brown
Analyst · Aaron Kessler with Raymond James. Please proceed
Thanks, Dan, and good afternoon everyone. My comments today are on a non-GAAP basis, when I discuss our financial performance and updated 2015 outlook. As Dan mentioned, the Chegg team executed at a high level in Q2 and through the first half of the year, exceeding our financial and operating targets. As our digital businesses continue scale and the Ingram partnership ramps, we’re seeing a positive mix shift in our revenue from lower margin print-based revenue to higher margin digital revenue. You can see the full transition period graph on slide 17 in the investor deck on our IR website. During this transition, which we expect to be complete by the end of 2016, we will also report on our pro forma, which more accurately reflects the growth rate and profitability of Chegg, going forward. In the second quarter, we continued to see the positives effects from this shift in revenues. Digital revenues grew by 62% year-over-year on increased subscribers and as expected, print revenue declined due to the Ingram transition. Digital revenue now comprises 45% of our total revenue, more than doubling in less than two years. We remain confident in our objective of becoming a 100% digital company by 2017, also as reflected on slide 17. On pro forma basis, revenue grew 37% year-over-year to $32.7 million. In the quarter, we saw gross margin improve by 6.7 points year-over-year to 47.1%, reflecting the growth of our higher margin digital businesses as well as the expanding mix shift to our Ingram commission-base model. This resulted in adjusted EBITDA doubling year-over-year to $3.2 million, reflecting our improved business model. During the quarter, operating expenses came in at $30.2 million, slightly higher than expected due to the timing of textbook liquidations and the associated impact on gain loss. After the Ingram transition is complete, this will no longer be part of our business model, since we will no longer on text books. Looking at the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with cash, cash equivalents and investments of approximately $67.2 million and no debt. The second quarter is a seasonally low period for cash and we expect to finish the year with approximately $100 million in cash, cash-equivalents and investments. In addition, we started the year with approximately $80 million in text book inventory, finished the second quarter with $61 million and we’re on track to end 2015 with less than $40 million. Any books remaining in our warehouse after the fall rush will move to Ingram’s warehouse as in Q4, enabling us to exit our Kentucky warehouse and saving Chegg approximately $6 million to $8 million annually, starting in 2016. Looking ahead, let me turn to our third quarter and fiscal 2015 outlook. There are few things to note. Our digital business is currently comprised of two components, subscription and advertising. Subscription consists of Chegg Study, eTextbooks and Chegg Tutors, while advertising consists of enrollment marketing, brand partnership and commission-based revenue from partners such as Ingram. For 2015, we continue to expect the split to be approximately 70% subscription and 30% advertising. Starting next year, we’ll begin guiding and reporting on a pro forma basis and thus will not guide on print revenue since we expect to be completely through the Ingram transition by the end of 2016. With the second half forecast now finalized for the fall rush, we anticipate slight changes to the timing and mix of revenues for the second half. Overall, we remain on track to meet our improved guidance for the year. While text book volumes and GMV [ph] remain the same as we expected on our last call, we now anticipate that Ingram will fulfill approximately 5 million more GMV, which result in a corresponding reduction of print revenue and an approximate $1 million increase in digital revenue from the 20% Ingram commission. In addition, we now expect a slight revenue shift from Q3 to Q4 to reflect our current assessment of school start days. Therefore, for the third quarter, we expect total revenue to be between $74 million and $80 million digital revenue between $34 million and $38 million; gross margin between 23% and 25% and adjusted EBITDA loss between $12 million and $9 million, a more than 30% improvement from last year. This loss reflects the seasonality of the print business while Q3 is impacted by the recognition of expense associated with the start of the school year, but revenues recognized ratably over the semester. As we fully transition to Ingram, this seasonality will lessen because we will recognize commission-based revenue immediately and we will eliminate logistical costs. For fiscal 2015, we expect total revenue between $295 million and $310 million and digital revenue between $137 million and $145 million, reflecting the shift of approximately $5 million in GMV to be service by Ingram rather than Chegg as well as improved organic strength of our digital businesses. On a pro forma basis, we expect revenue to be between $175 million and $180 million, gross margin between 36% and 38%, adjusted EBITDA of breakeven to $5 million and finally, we expect between $15 million and $20 million in free cash flow for the year. The slight reduction on the high end is a result of one-time cost associated with the Ingram transition. This is an exciting time for Chegg and we continue to make excellent progress executing on the Ingram transition and expanding our digital revenue. As a result, during 2017, we expect to reach revenue growth of greater than 25%, gross margins of greater than 60% and EBITDA margins of greater than 25%. With that I’ll turn it over to the operator for your questions.