Michelle Clatterbuck
Analyst · Credit Suisse. Your line is open
Thanks, Sasan. Good afternoon, everyone. We are successfully executing on the principles we laid out last quarter for operating in a downturn. These principles are designed to accelerate our execution and help both our customers and Intuit emerge from the downturn stronger than ever. Let me now turn to our results. As a reminder, fourth quarter reflects -- fourth quarter results reflect a shift of a significant portion of tax filings out of the third quarter and into the fourth quarter. For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020, we delivered revenue of $1.8 billion, GAAP operating income of $483 million versus a loss of $153 million last year, non-GAAP operating income of $616 million versus a loss of $47 million last year, GAAP diluted earnings per share of $1.68 versus a loss per share of $0.17 a year ago and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $1.81 versus a loss per share of $0.09 last year. Turning to the business segments, Consumer Group revenue grew 13% in fiscal 2020, TurboTax units grew 11% and our retention rate increased again this year for our online tax customers. There are four primary drivers in our Consumer business. The first is the total number of returns filed with the IRS. Based on the latest IRS data through July 24th, we estimate total returns including paper filings grew 3% to 4%. This excludes approximately $7 million to $8 million stimulus-only filings. The second is the percentage of those returns filed using Do-It-Yourself software. Excluding stimulus-only filings, we estimate category share grew over 2 points this season, the fastest pace in 15 years. As a reminder, the DIY category growth is our largest revenue growth lever. The third driver is our share within DIY, excluding stimulus-only filings, we estimate our share of total tax returns grew over 1.5 points and our share of the category was flat. The fourth is average revenue per return, which increased again this season. The growth reflects the stronger contribution by TurboTax Live and minor price increases in the premier product and state attached. Turning to the Strategic Partner Group, we reported $493 million of professional tax revenue in fiscal 2020, up 4%. In the Small Business and Self-Employed group, revenue grew 16% during the quarter and 15% in fiscal 2020, including nonrecurring PPP revenue. Excluding PPP, Small Business and Self-Employed Group revenue grew 13% during the quarter and 14% in fiscal 2020, reflecting the impact of the pandemic on small businesses. Online Ecosystem revenue remained resilient, with growth of 29% during the quarter and 31% during the year, including nonrecurring PPP revenue. Excluding PPP, Online Ecosystem revenue grew 25% in fiscal Q4 and 30% in fiscal 2020. Our strategic focus within Small Business and Self-Employed is to grow the core, connect the ecosystem and expand globally. Last quarter, I shared recent business trends and I’d like to update you on those same trends compared to pre-COVID levels in the first half of the third quarter. First, we continue to focus on growing the core. QuickBooks Online accounting revenue grew 34% in fiscal Q4 driven mainly by customer growth, higher effective prices, and to a lesser extent mix shift. During the fourth quarter, QBO new customer acquisition accelerated by approximately 10 points versus the second half of the third quarter, but it’s still down 5 points from pre-COVID levels. Retention within the existing customer base improved during Q4, but full year QBO retention is down two points to 77%. Second, we continue to focus on connecting the ecosystem. Online Services revenue grew 21% in fiscal Q4 driven by payments, PPP loans, payroll and Time Tracking. Excluding non-recurring PPP revenue, Online Services revenue grew 12%. Within Payroll, we continue to see revenue tailwinds during the quarter from a mix shift to our full-service offerings. The number of workers paid was roughly flat year-over-year in the fourth quarter, improving from a 10% year-over-year decrease during the second half of the third quarter, but still 20 points below pre-COVID levels. Similarly, the number of companies running Payroll grew approximately 10% year-over-year in the fourth quarter, improving from flat year-over-year in the second half of the third quarter. This is still 5 points below pre-COVID levels. Within Payments, revenue growth reflects continued customer growth along with an increase in charge volume per customer. Payment charge volume grew 15% in the fourth quarter, improving from flat year-over-year in the second half of the third quarter. This is still 15 points below pre-COVID levels. Third, our progress expanding globally added to the growth of Online Ecosystem revenue during fiscal Q4. Total international online revenue grew 31%, reflecting subscriber and ARPC growth earlier in the fiscal year. Desktop Ecosystem revenue was up 3% in the fourth quarter and roughly flat for the year. Excluding nonrecurring PPP revenue, Desktop Ecosystem revenue was flat in the fourth quarter. The decline in Desktop units moderated in the fourth quarter and QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise revenue grew mid-single digits. Intuit helped facilitate more than $1.2 billion in Small Business loans from the Paycheck Protection Program through QuickBooks Capital. This resulted in approximately $30 million in non-recurring revenue in the fourth quarter. Turning to our financial principles, we remain committed to growing organic revenue double digits and growing operating income dollars faster than revenue. We take a disciplined approach to capital management, investing the cash we generate in opportunities that yield an expected return on investment greater than 15%. We continue to focus on reallocating resources to top priorities with an emphasis on becoming an AI-driven expert platform. These principles remain our long-term commitment, though we recognize that we may not be able to achieve them in the current environment. During the fourth quarter, we refocused our investments to ensure our capabilities are aligned against our AI-driven expert platform strategy and Big Bets. This resulted in the departure of over 700 employees and a one-time charge of $43 million in both GAAP and non-GAAP results. We plan to hire about 700 employees in our most strategic areas including systems, full staff and beta engineering, data science, customer success and sales. Turning back to our financial principles, our first priority for the cash we generate is investing in the business to drive customer and revenue growth. We consider acquisitions to accelerate our growth and fill out our product roadmap. We return excess cash that we can’t invest profitably in the business to shareholders via both share repurchases and dividends. We finished the quarter with approximately $7.1 billion in cash and investments on our balance sheet. In June, we issued $2 billion in senior notes to fund a portion of the Credit Karma acquisition and for other general corporate purposes. These notes carry a blended coupon rate of 1.15%. Following the end of the quarter, we repaid the $1 billion balance on our revolver. We did not repurchase any stock during the fourth quarter, as we have temporarily suspended share repurchases in conjunction with the Credit Karma acquisition. We have approximately $2.4 billion remaining on our authorization and we expect to be in the market in the future. The Board approved a quarterly dividend of $0.59 per share payable October 19, 2020. This represents an 11% increase versus last year. Looking ahead to fiscal 2021, while we are not providing company level guidance today reflecting uncertainty in Small Business trends, we believe the current environment accelerated our consumer results this season, creating a more challenging comparison for next year. We see several scenarios for how the economic recovery may impact our Small Business performance and that we are considering as we run the business. The first scenario is that the pace of economic recovery continues at its current pace, reaching normalized growth in the spring of 2021. Under this scenario, we could see Small Business and Self-Employed Group revenue grew high-single digits. The second scenario is a more gradual opening of the economy, including ongoing headwinds from Small Business failures. This W-shaped recovery assumes cases increase during the winter months coinciding with our peak season in the U.S. Under this scenario, we could see Small Business and Self-Employed Group revenue grow mid-single digits. The third scenario is a choppy recovery and more than one wave of Small Business failures or shutdowns, creating a double W-shaped recovery. Under this scenario, we could see Small Business and Self-Employed Group revenue flat-to-up low-single digits. In addition, we expect a slower Small Business and Self-Employed revenue growth in the first half, as compared to the second half of fiscal 2021. We supported customers during the second half of 2020 by delaying price increases, migration to our new payroll offerings and upgrades to QBO Advanced. As a reminder, we began rolling out a QBO price increase in first quarter of fiscal 2020 and will start lapping the full impact of that increase in the second quarter of fiscal 2021. Keep in mind that there is also a lagging impact to QuickBooks Online accounting revenue from the slower customer acquisition and higher attrition we experienced during third quarter. To reiterate, our long-term expectations include revenue growth of 8% to 12% for the Consumer Group and 10% to 15% for the Small Business and Self-Employed Group. We continue to expect Online Ecosystem revenue growth of more than 30% longer term. Lastly, we expect a GAAP and non-GAAP tax rate of 23% for fiscal 2021. And with that, I will turn it back over to Sasan.