Kristina Salen
Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your question please
Thanks, Chad, and hello to everyone. Just a heads-up, unless I say so, all comparisons I'll be talking about here are on a year-over-year basis. Let's start with GMS. During the first quarter of 2016, the Etsy marketplace generated $629.9 million in GMS, up more than 18%. Growth in GMS is driven by growth in active sellers and active buyers. At the end of the first quarter, Etsy had 1.6 million active sellers, up about 12%. As a reminder, an active seller is one who has incurred at least one charge from us in the past 12 months. Also at the end of the first quarter, Etsy had 25 million active buyers, up about 20%. Active buyers are those who have bought on Etsy at least once in the past 12 months. Etsy's first quarter results demonstrated our continued year-over-year progress in narrowing the gap between mobile visits and mobile GMS and highlighted the results of continued improvement in our mobile offering. Roughly 63% of our visits come to us from a mobile device, which is up nearly 400 basis points from last year and up roughly 200 basis points from last quarter. This growth continued to outpace the rate of growth on desktop. More importantly, about 47% of our GMS came from a mobile device, up more than 400 basis points from last year and approximately 300 basis points from last quarter. Etsy's international business continued to expand, with international revenue growing roughly 47% in the first quarter. Percent international GMS was 30.3%, which was a slight decrease compared with the 35% last year, but an increase compared to the 29.2% last quarter. And as a reminder, percent international GMS is the percent of total GMS from transactions with either the buyer or the seller is outside the U.S. We continue to believe that we can grow percent international GMS over time to represent 50% of our total GMS. Currency rates continued to directly and indirectly affect Etsy's overall GMS growth rates and percent international GMS. Excluding the direct impact of currency translation on our non-U.S. dollar denominated goods, Etsy's GMS growth would have been approximately 19%. The 0.7 percentage point impact is an improvement compared to both last year and last quarter. We continue to believe that weaker local currencies in key international markets are having an indirect impact on international buyer behavior and GMS growth. That said, as we begin to anniversary the U.S. dollar's major gains against global currencies, it becomes increasingly difficult to estimate the indirect impact of currency exchange rates on international buyer behavior. GMS between international buyers and U.S. sellers continued to decline year over year, albeit less than we've seen in previous quarters. For comparison purposes, this bucket of GMS was down about 11% in the first quarter of 2016, which compares to an approximate 13% decline last quarter. The continued year-over-year decline leads us to believe that the indirect impact is still a drag on overall GMS growth. This trend has extended into the second quarter of 2016 as GMS between international buyers and U.S. sellers still declined year over year but improved sequentially compared to the first quarter of 2016, in the month of April. In contrast, excluding ALM, GMS between international buyers and sellers in the same country grew about 56% in the first quarter, and we also saw this growth accelerate further in April. Turning to revenue, during the first quarter, total revenue was $81.8 million, up 40%, driven by growth in seller services revenue and, to a lesser extent, growth in marketplace revenue. We also recognized $1.7 million in gift card revenue. This benefit reflects a payment from our third-party service provider related to unused gift cards. Excluding this payment, revenue growth would have been about 37%. Marketplace revenue grew 18.5%, primarily due to growth in transaction fee revenue, and to a lesser extent, growth in listing fee revenue. Seller services revenue was up roughly 60% and revenue from each of our three services grew faster than GMS and marketplace revenue. Of note, direct checkout continued to benefit from our integration of PayPal into our payment service in late October 2015, and therefore saw its growth accelerate for the second quarter in a row. Gross profit for the first quarter was $53.9 million, up nearly 43%, and gross margin was 65.9%, up 130 basis points. Once again, gross profit grew faster than revenue. This was due to the leverage we achieved in our technology infrastructure and employee-related costs and the gift card revenue, which carries a very high incremental margin. Turning now to operating expenses. Etsy's total first quarter operating expenses were $47.2 million, up 10.5%. Total OpEx as a percent of revenue declined to about 58% in the first quarter, compared with roughly 73% last year. This favorable comparison was partly due to a one-time expense in the first quarter of 2015 related to the $3.2 million charitable contribution we made to Etsy.org. Excluding this expense from last year, OpEx would have grown more than 19% year over year but still would have grown more slowly than revenue. Marketing expenses totaled $15.8 million, up nearly 30%, representing about 19% of total revenue, versus roughly 21% last year and roughly 26% in the last quarter. The increase in marketing expenses continues to be driven primarily by increased spending on digital marketing, including product listing ads and affiliate marketing campaigns, as well as from higher employee-related expenses. Digital marketing continues to generate strong returns for Etsy. Digital marketing expenses in the first quarter grew roughly 30% and generated positive ROI based on our global attribution model. Like last quarter, this resulted in a paid GMS growth rate that was more than triple our reported GMS growth rate. This performance demonstrates that, as we optimize our spend in digital marketing and scale our strategy, we can generate efficiency gains and strong ROI. Product development expenses totaled $12.2 million, up 22%, representing nearly 15% of total revenue, versus about 17% last year and about 13% last quarter. The increase in product development expenses was driven by higher employee-related expenses as we continued to grow our products and engineering staff. G&A expenses totaled $19.1 million, down about 7%, representing roughly 23% of total revenue versus roughly 35% last year and roughly 18% last quarter. Excluding the one-time contribution to Etsy.org made in the first quarter of 2015, G&A expense growth would have been 10.5%, driven by increased professional services spend and rent expense for new office locations. Finally, from a comparison perspective, we also benefited from a mark-to-market adjustment that resulted in lower stock-based comp related to our acquisition of ALM. Headcount at the end of the quarter grew to 852 people, compared with 819 as of December 31, 2015. Looking ahead to the rest of 2016, we expect the pace of hiring to acceleration. Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA was $14.8 million, up roughly 121%. This resulted in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 18%, up 630 basis points year over year and was driven by the leverage we gained from employee expenses, the high-margin revenue from the gift card benefit I mentioned, and leverage we gained in marketing spend. First quarter net income was $1.2 million, compared with a net loss of $36.6 million last year. Etsy's net income included an $8.1 million foreign exchange gain and a $13.6 million tax provision, both mostly non-cash. During the quarter we recorded positive cash flow from operations of $1.8 million. This compares with $8.9 million in cash from operations generated last year. The year-over-year decrease in net cash provided by operating activities for the quarter was mainly due to the timing of payments to certain vendors. Additionally, to date, we've invested $20 million on the build-out of our new headquarters, including about $10 million in the first quarter. As we've said before, we intend to invest up to $50 million for the build-out. As of March 31, 2016, we had cash, marketable securities and short and long-term investments totaling $281.7 million. To wrap this up, we are reiterating both our 2016 and our three-year guidance. As a reminder, we expect a three-year revenue CAGR in the 20% to 25% range and a three-year GMS CAGR in the 13% to 17% range. In 2016, we expect revenue growth to be at the high end of this range and that GMS's growth will be near the midpoint of this range. We continue to anticipate that the key factors impacting revenue and GMS growth over the next three years will be, number one, the further narrowing of the gap between mobile visits and mobile GMS. Number two, stable percent international GMS. And remember, our guidance assumes that currency remained stable compared to average levels in December 2015. Number three, continued revenue growth in our listing seller services, driven by both adoption and product enhancements. And finally, number four, modest contributions from new product launches and new seller services, including recently developed products and tools such as Pattern by Etsy. We expect to exit 2018 with a full year gross margin that is in the mid-60% range and that 2016 gross margin will be 64% to 65%. We anticipate that the key factors impacting our gross margin forecast over the next three years will be, number one, continued revenue growth from our existing seller services, driven again by adoption and product enhancements, and number two, the impact from new seller services including Pattern by Etsy. I would note though that we don't anticipate launching any new seller services over the next three years that will be dilutive to our gross margin. We also expect to gain leverage in our operating cost structure over the next three years, particularly within marketing spend. In 2016 we expect marketing expense as a percent of revenue to decline, but that overall operating expenses as a percent of revenue will increase This increase will be driven by expenses associated with our new headquarters here in Brooklyn and with Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. As we planned, we expect to complete construction and move in to our new Brooklyn home in the second quarter of 2016. To remind everyone, our headquarters is subject to build-to-suit accounting, and therefore we will not recognize rent expense once we move in. Instead, we expect to recognize incremental depreciation and interest expense of between $1 million to $2 million in the second quarter. After the second quarter we expect to record on average $3 million in depreciation and interest expense per quarter for the duration of our 10-year lease. Finally, from an adjusted EBITDA margin perspective, we estimate that our margin in 2016 will be comparable to 2015 in the 10% to 11% range and that it will expand to high-teens exiting 2018. Over the next three years this translates into overall adjusted EBITDA growth that will be more than two times faster than revenue growth. As a reminder, our strong adjusted EBITDA performance in the first quarter was largely driven by the leverage we gained in employee expenses, the positive impact from that high-margin gift card revenue, and the seasonally low level of marketing spend. In the second quarter we expect to accelerate the pace of hiring. We also don't anticipate another significant gift card revenue benefit. And we expect to accelerate our marketing spend as is typical. Based on these factors, we anticipate adjusted EBITDA margins that will be in the 6% to 7% range in the second quarter. And as a final reminder, historically we record the lowest adjusted EBITDA margins during the second and third quarters. So with that, thanks for listening. I'd like to turn the call back over to Letif [ph], our operator, to open it up for Q&A.