Earnings Labs

Snap Inc. (SNAP)

Q4 2018 Earnings Call· Tue, Feb 5, 2019

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, everyone and welcome to Snap Inc.'s Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2018 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] This call will be recorded. Thank you very much. Mr. David Ometer of Investor Relations, you may begin your presentation, sir.

David Ometer

Analyst

Thank you and good afternoon everyone. Welcome to Snap’s fourth quarter and full-year 2018 earnings conference call. With us today are Evan Spiegel, Chief Executive Officer and Co‐Founder; Jeremi Gorman, Chief Business Officer; and Lara Sweet, Interim Chief Financial Officer. Earlier today we made a slide presentation available that provides an overview of our user and financial metrics for the fourth quarter and full-year 2018, which can be found on our Investor Relations Web site at investor.snap.com. Now I will cover the Safe Harbor. Today's call is to provide you with information regarding our fourth quarter and full-year 2018 performance in addition to our financial outlook. This conference call includes forward‐looking statements. Any statement that refers to expectations, projections, guidance, or other characterizations of future events, including financial projections or future market conditions, is a forward‐looking statement based on assumptions today. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed in these forward‐looking statements, and we make no obligation to update our disclosures. For more information about factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from forward‐looking statements, please refer to the press release we issued today, as well as risks described in our quarterly report on Form 10‐Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2018, particularly in the section titled Risk Factors. This information can be found in our other filings with the SEC, when available. Our commentary today will also include non‐GAAP financial measures and we believe that the use of these non‐GAAP financial measures provides an additional tool for investors to use in evaluating ongoing operating results and trends. These measures should not be considered in isolation from, or as a substitute for, financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations between GAAP and non‐GAAP metrics for our reported results can be found in our press release issued today, a copy of which can be found on our Investor Relations Web site. Please note that when we discuss all of our expense figures they will exclude stock‐based compensation and related payroll taxes as well as depreciation and amortization and non‐recurring charges. At times in our prepared remarks, or in response to questions, we may offer additional metrics to provide greater insight into our business or our quarterly and annual results. This additional detail may be one‐time in nature, and we may or may not provide an update in the future on these metrics. Please refer to our filings with the SEC to understand how we calculate our metrics. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Evan.

Evan Spiegel

Analyst

Hello everyone, and thanks for joining our call. In 2018, we focused on building a foundation for Snap to scale over the long-term by driving sustainable product innovation, scaling our advertising platform, and hiring the leadership team that will help us achieve our future goals. We ended the year with user engagement stabilizing in advance of the broad rollout of our Android improvements, with overall Q4 daily active users flat quarter‐over‐quarter and average time spent above 30 minutes per day. Despite a 0.3% decline in daily active users year‐over‐year, we feel we have made significant progress towards our mission of contributing to human progress because we’re now able to offer a higher quality content experience, while simultaneously empowering people to express themselves with their close friends and family. These sorts of long-term investments will serve our business well as we continue to expand our product offerings and grow our business. We are substantially closer to achieving profitability, with our Q4 adjusted EBITDA loss of $50 million representing a 68% improvement when compared to Q4 of last year. We have maintained a relatively flat cost structure across the past five quarters, while growing full‐year revenue of 43% year‐over‐year, with 100% of our incremental Q4 revenue flowing through to our bottom line. This limited our Q4 losses to just 13% of our revenue, compared to just one year ago when our Q4 losses totaled more than 50% of revenue. We are proud of the progress we’ve made as we enter 2019 focused on growing our business and driving towards profitability. We have worked hard to develop our team and culture in 2018. The transitions we made in both the Snapchat platform and our business last year were necessary and created many of the opportunities we have ahead of us, but change is…

Jeremi Gorman

Analyst

Thanks, Evan. I was thrilled to join Snap in November as Chief Business Officer. I see significant opportunities for our business in 2019 and beyond. First, we’ve a large, highly‐engaged Millennial and Gen Z audience who can be difficult to reach on other channels. Our community is leaned in and having fun because they use Snapchat to communicate with close friends and watch made‐for‐mobile content. Second, 2018 was a pivotal year in our maturation into a scalable advertising business, as long‐standing strategies around an auction‐based, self‐service model came to fruition. We improved our tooling, optimization, and pricing capabilities, and advertisers can now bid against a range of key performance indicators, such as purchases, sign‐ups, and app installs. We continue to deliver incredibly competitive CPMs and low cost per outcomes, resulting in highly performant campaigns. In addition, we made significant improvements to our machine learning models for app installs and lower‐funnel bidding events, which means that advertisers will see efficiency even as prices increase, showing our commitment to performance advertisers is paying off. Finally, Snapchat is home to many of the most innovative and engaging formats ever built for mobile. One theme we heard repeatedly in advertiser conversations throughout 2018 was their desire to leverage Snapchat to break out of the sea of sameness, as social media content and ad campaigns converged upon a similar look and feel. This has led many advertisers to seek new ways to stand out. Thanks to our creative and innovative content, paired with brand‐oriented buy models such as reserved reach & frequency, we are in the best position to fulfill all these needs in 2019. For instance, we believe that our groundbreaking augmented reality ad formats are the first time advertisers can organically participate in conversations between friends at scale. Conversation in Snapchat starts with…

Lara Sweet

Analyst

Thanks, Jeremi. Our fourth quarter 2018 financial results reflect our focus on driving growth and operational efficiencies. This quarter we delivered strong financial performance compared to the prior year and the prior quarter. We generated significant growth and record results on the top line. We also had strong improvements in gross margin, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin and free cash flow. Our Q4 2018 operating cash flow improved $50 million to negative $126 million, compared with Q4 2017, and improved $6 million, compared with Q3 2018. The year‐over‐year change in operating cash flow is driven by a $109 million improvement in adjusted EBITDA, offset by changes in the timing of working capital. Similarly, the sequential change in operating cash flow is driven by an $88 million improvement in adjusted EBITDA, offset by changes in the timing of working capital. Our capital expenditures, which are nominal, are mainly associated with the build out of our office facilities. Q4 2018 capital expenditures were $23 million, up $2 million from Q4 2017 and $4 million lower than the prior quarter. Our Q4 2018 free cash flow improved $49 million to negative $149 million compared with Q4 2017, and improved $10 million compared with Q3 2018. Common shares outstanding plus shares underlying stock‐based awards outstanding totaled 1,507 million on December 31, 2018, compared with 1,453 million a year-ago. We ended the quarter with $1.3 billion of cash and marketable securities. Our change in cash for the quarter was negative $135 million. The change in cash was $120 million better than the prior year and improved $20 million versus the prior quarter as we continue to make progress towards generating free cash flow. We feel good about our cash position as we move forward and scale our business. We have a number of drivers of…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And that concludes the prepared remarks for today’s earnings call. And we will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] And the first questioner today will be Justin Post with Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead with your question.

Benjamin Garneau

Analyst

Hi, guys. Benjamin Garneau on for Justin. Thanks for taking my call. I was just wondering where you see the best opportunities on the sites for an improved monetization. And also just wondering if you had any update on the timeline for the updated android application? Thanks.

Evan Spiegel

Analyst

Hey, Justin. Yes, as far as monetization is concerned we are most focused on Discover and improving the depth of engagement there. We are really excited about the [indiscernible] improvements we are seeing around personalization. I think there is a lot more to do there and also around merchandising content more effectively. I think today we see a lot of demand for content created by our community, a user generated content and also huge demand for shows and more premium content. And so we are working through is helping surface both of those types of content in a way that really resonates for users and it's easy to find. So we are working a lot on that. And then, I think we continue to see huge opportunity around augmented reality. I think we have some of the most immersive advertising experiences in the world in our camera and advertisers are doing really incredible things there. So I think looking out towards the future over the next 3 to 5 years, just focus on experiences and helping people, experience brands in its wholly new way to the camera will be very important to us.

Operator

Operator

And the next questioner today will be Jason Helfstein with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Jason Helfstein

Analyst

Thanks. So let me sneak into just to clarify on the comment first on the guidance. So are you thinking about it that you’re not obviously telling us exactly what the Olympic impact was, but should we broadly think it about it that if you took out that headwind, that revenue growth at the midpoint or the high-end would be in line with the fourth quarter, because if I use 8%, that will be 40% growth which will be an acceleration. So just some more color there. And then, secondly can you talk about within demos, so in the quarter, daily user were flat as you call that quarter-to-quarter. If we think about it within demos, is 13% to 34% still growing, while 35% plus is declining. Any color there would be helpful. Thank you.

Evan Spiegel

Analyst

We can't give you more color on the guidance and we don’t breakout DAU like that. Although I would say we are very excited about the android opportunity. I think we shared last quarter that, a lot of the drag we were seeing on DAU is coming from android. We’ve shifted most of our resources internally to the rebuilded android, and so we are really waiting for that to roll out broadly. So we continue to improve android experience. I think for us, broadly speaking, the way to think about it, in terms of android opportunity, there's roughly 2 billion or so or may be more 2 billion people who are on android and don’t have Snapchat. So we can take a few percent market share there to make a real different story [indiscernible].

Operator

Operator

And the next questioner today will be Ross Sandler with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Ross Sandler

Analyst

Hey, guys. Two questions. What is the early data shown in the android test and I guess any update on the timing in terms of when that’s going to be rolled out. Any structural reason why once the [indiscernible] in place on the android side, that platform you can't be as good or showing as good results as we are seeing in iOS. And then the second question is, Facebook now got 2 million advertisers barring [ph] stories. So how do you think, Jeremi, the standardization of this ad unit, we are seeing in the industry is going to have an impact on your conversations with advertisers in 2019. Do you think that those conversations will be the easier? Do you see the advertiser adoption curve ramping up now that it's getting standardized. Thanks.

Evan Spiegel

Analyst

I think as it pertains to android, we are really excited about what we’re seeing, especially in terms of accessibility. So making the app more usable on low-end devices, in particular. So I think there are some incremental customers who just can't use our product today on lower end phones, they will be able to use it in the future. We are definitely excited about that and I think for comparable devices, I do think that the android experience can certainly be equal to or even surpass what we see on iOS given our huge investment in restructuring the service and the way that works.

Jeremi Gorman

Analyst

And thanks for the second question, Ross. We are really excited about the wide adoption of the vertical ad format. We really believe that rising tides, rise our boat when it comes to this. We were widely criticized for this format several years ago and now it's becoming incredibly well adopted throughout the industry, and we believe that it will be a tailwind for our business to more advertisers that have the format, the more seamlessly they can buy on our platform. And we do continue to add advertisers to the business every quarter since Q2 of 2017, and we really expect that this format will help us do even more of that.

Ross Sandler

Analyst

And our next questioner today will be Mark Mahaney with RBC. Please go ahead with your question.

Mark Mahaney

Analyst

Okay. Two questions, please. And I think you were just talking about advertisers continuing to grow. Any color on where some of the new advertisers are coming from? What are you seeing in terms -- is the ad revenue grown just by new advertisers or more spend by current advertisers, are there particular verticals that are starting to come on strong? And then, one question, could you quantify the percentage of your ad revenue that now comes from premium content? We assume its relatively small, but if you could quantify it, really appreciate it. Thank you.

Jeremi Gorman

Analyst

Thank you for the question. We don’t quantify the percentage of our revenue that comes from premium content, but I will answer the first part of your question. Thanks again for asking. We made a deliberate pivot to work with direct response advertisers last year as we shifted to self-service. We are seeing highly performant ads and advertisers are allowed to bid up against their KPIs. So just app downloads or install or sales of direct-to-consumer businesses. So we are seeing a lot of success in that direct response business. We have a lot of opportunity with brand advertisers where we do have success in our augmented reality format as well as our commercial format, which is a six second un-skippable video within our premium content. We know that there is still more opportunity with brand. We reorganize the sales team accordingly, so that we can focus to go deep and broad with brand advertisers across the globe.

Operator

Operator

And our next questioner today will be Heath Terry with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Heath Terry

Analyst

Great. Thanks. Evan, over 30 minutes stat has been incredibly consistent since you guys went public. Curious if you can share with us just sort of a little more depth even if it's just sort of qualitative in terms of how user engagement is evolving, whether its within certain demographics or cohorts, within certain products, always interested in sort of how people are using the product and how that time spent is split to the extent that you can sort of share with us where you're seeing those changes?

Evan Spiegel

Analyst

Hi, Heath. Yes, thanks for the question. I mean, I think we’ve -- I’m not sure we’ve ever actually broken out time spent on our service. I think we talked a little bit in the script about how excited we are with what we’re seeing on the content side of the business. So I think our big bet last year separating our content from friends, from content, from publishers and shows and things like that is really paying off. And I think it's going to be exciting to see what we can do in terms of personalization going forward. So in terms of time spent, that’s we are really excited about right now.

Operator

Operator

And the next questioner today will be John Egbert with Stifel. Please go ahead.

John Egbert

Analyst

Thanks for taking the question. I think, Jeremi, noted how growing advertiser account can lead to rising yield per impression alongside decreasing cost per outcome for advertisers. Obviously, in aggregate pricing per impression is still down year-over-year, but less so quarter-for-quarter. So I'm wondering if you're seeing like-for-like ad pricing growth or stabilization across any specific ad formats, maybe some of the ones that have been [indiscernible].

Jeremi Gorman

Analyst

While we don't -- thank for the question. While we don't break out the different pricing models across our different ad formats. I think that as were shown in the 3% sequential increase in pricing, there is a overall strength and adoption of our variety of formats. And I think that gets us really excited as we look forward into 2019, as we deepen our engagement with our community and monetization opportunities.

Operator

Operator

The next questioner today will be Lloyd Walmsley with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Lloyd Walmsley

Analyst

Thanks. Wondering when you look at the effort to return the user growth over in the near-term and over the longer term, what are -- what can you share on the go-to-market on driving that? Do you think it's more of a function for converting MAU to DAU or growing MAU into new demographics or geographies? I guess, beyond improving the android app, how do you kind of drive awareness of that and kind of where do you see the biggest sources of user growth.

Evan Spiegel

Analyst

Yes, so I mean, I think about this sort of in terms of three key priority areas. First and foremost, 13% to 34% in the U.S and Europe, which is a really strong core market for us. We are thinking a lot about deepening engagement and that have to do a lot with some of the content stuff we talked about today. I think the second area of focus will be international, 13% to 34%, and even 13% to 24%, which is a massive opportunity primarily on android. So we’ve been working really hard on that over the past year to make sure that our product offerings really delight folks around the world. And as part of that too we’re learning how to become a more global company in terms of our marketing and explaining our core product value to customers everywhere. So we are doing a lot of work on that and then sort of the last area that we’re thinking a lot about is how to expand 34% plus in our core markets. And historically that’s happened naturally as people have gotten older, and so we focused on adding incremental younger users in the hope that they will grow old with us over time. But I think now we're doing a lot more to customize and personalize the experience for folks who are little bit older whether that's in terms of our augmented reality experiences and making them perhaps, age-appropriate or also on the content side where I think we can continue to broaden our content offering to appeal the folks of all ages. So those are sort of the three areas where we're investing and we are making progress on all three.

Operator

Operator

Our next questioner today will be Mark May with Citi. Please go ahead.

Mark May

Analyst

Thank you. In terms of the DAU outlook for Q1, is the potential for slightly better DAU growth in Q1 versus what you’re just reporting Q4, is that more driven by seasonality or would you attribute that to something else. And then on expenses, the company has done a lot over in the last year to right size the expense base. How much more do you think you have there, or should we think about hitting breakeven and profitability targets going forward being driven much more by revenue or as opposed to save expense rationalization or more modest hiring plan? Thanks.

Jeremi Gorman

Analyst

Thanks for the question. We are not going to give specific guidance on our daily active users, except that we are cautiously optimistic and we don't foresee a sequential decline in our DAUs in Q1 2019. As it comes to breakeven, it's a reminder we had the internal stretch goal of accelerating revenue growth and full-year free cash flow and profitability, which is not a forecast and it's not guidance. But it is also what help us to achieve the strong results that we’ve seen this quarter. And as we look forward to our -- achieving a profitability and free cash flow in the future, I think it really focuses on our revenue growth, which will come from expanding our community, increasing engagement, improving monetization, while keeping a close eye on the operating efficiencies that we've achieved to date.

Operator

Operator

Our next questioner today will be John Blackledge with Cowen. Please go ahead.

John Blackledge

Analyst

Great. Evan, you mentioned several new products like commercials, collection ads among others, is there one or two that you’re most excited about and maybe it could be most impactful for advertisers and scalable for Snap? And then, just on revenue, rest of world was stronger than we expected. Any color out there would be helpful. Thank you.

Evan Spiegel

Analyst

I’m really excited about commercials. Just one of the things that’s really exciting to me is that people are investing a lot in the quality of commercials and really taking the format seriously. So I think to see that level of narrative excellence and creativity around video on mobile, it's just great for the future. So I think over the next 5 or 10 years as mobile video continues to develop, we are already seeing sort of the early stages of really advanced narrative development. In a format that it really works for customers, because they’re already in lean back experience watching shows that have a more narrative -- have a narrative arc [ph] effectively over several minutes. So I think that for us is really exciting. I think also in terms of augmented reality there have been some just beautiful executions lately on the augmented reality side as I think people are really testing their capabilities of Lens studio which has opened up a whole new avenue for creativity on our platform.

Operator

Operator

And the next questioner today will be Doug Anmuth with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Doug Anmuth

Analyst

Thanks for taking the questions. I mean, just wanted to ask about how you think about adding kind of more functionality into the platform, obviously, the 30 minutes plus daily is very strong engagement. But are there other things in terms of functionality things like gaming and potentially others that you can add into the platform. And then, secondly, just curious if you think there are any -- I mean, key spots perhaps to fill across the management team? And then, just more broadly, how do you think about recruiting and retention given the departures that you've seen over the past year plus? Thank you.

Evan Spiegel

Analyst

Yes, there are huge opportunities for us across the platform to continue to build on functionality. I think gaming certainly is interesting, it's something that we’ve been looking out for quite some time So we will continue investing and innovating in the platform. And I think as we look forward to CFO roles, a critical role for us, I think we are really fortunate to have Lara in the Interim role right now. She knows the company really well, has been with us for a long-time. So that really gives us the flexibility to take our time with the search and really get it right. And I think if we look at this, the development over the leadership team, over the last year it's made a massive difference in the business and also for me personally because now I'm freed up to do the things I really love to do on the product side. So I think the teams really evolved and I think ready for the next stage of growth. So just really excited to see everyone come together and to really see the teamwork. It's really exciting for me.

Operator

Operator

The next questioner today will be Rich Greenfield with BTIG. Please go ahead.

Rich Greenfield

Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking the question. I got a couple. One, you've historically just -- maybe a quick housekeeping. You talked about Snaps per day, I was wondering if you could give us any update on kind of where that is in terms of usage. And then, Evan, you laid out I know this letter got leaked [ph] and it wasn’t intended to leak, but you put out your 2019 okay hours and it was make Snapchat the fastest way to communicate, find best friends for all Snapchatters, achieve full year profitability, lead the way in augmented reality and spread positivity. Wondering kind of how you think you’re positioned. Is that still the goals for '19? Has that shifted since you wrote that late last year and how you’re thinking about it? And then just you’ve talked about it a few times in terms of kind of thinking about or rethinking Discover to make it highlight kind of the -- I would call the more professional content versus the more user generated content. I know you mentioned it on last call that you were working on it. Where do we stand on kind of updating Discover to focus on publisher content? Thanks.

Evan Spiegel

Analyst

Thanks, Rich. Yes, so on the Snaps, we are above 3 billion a day. So I think that, I guess, the latest update there on the leaked memo. Those are still the goals and I think the team is executing really well against them. So happy to see the progress and I think we are going to continue to see it throughout the year. And as far as Discover is concerned, there is sort of three things that I'm thinking about when it comes to our progress there. The first is personalization were I think we made the most progress in the last quarter. We’ve been really working to refine our algorithms there and we’re seeing improvements in time spent and things like that. We are going to keep iterating on that. It's going to take time, but definitely seeing momentum there on the personalization front. The second thing we’re thinking a lot about is merchandising the content and really trying to help people find the things that they're interested in. I think today it's almost like walking into a supermarket without the [indiscernible] or something like that. So I think for us to really organize things more effectively will be really beneficial to the community on Discover. And then the third piece that we are thinking a lot about is playback. We really innovate around our full-screen, playback experience and I think there's more to do with playback there. So those are sort of the three things we're prioritizing when it comes to Discover.

Operator

Operator

The next questioner today will be Anthony Diclemente with Evercore. Please go ahead.

Anthony Diclemente

Analyst

Great. Thanks, guys. Actually I have two for Lara. I think rest of world revenue and ARPU is up a lot year-over-year and sequentially. Was there anything to call out in there in terms of lump sum or partner payments, or potentially new countries that entered [ph] in the quarter or new contracts in that rest of world region. And then secondly, a follow-up to the question about sustainability of the gross margin expansion. Where can that go so that the efficiencies that you discuss from cloud partners and can those continue much further from here and I’m wondering whether additional restructurings in addition, I know you had AWS last year, was there anything -- any other cloud contracts that were improved in the quarter or since AWS? Thanks.

Lara Sweet

Analyst

Thank you for the question. So I think as we look at international, we are really excited about how that has the ability to scale internationally through our self-serve platform, and additionally how our self-serve platform enables us to enter new markets more quickly. So we think we’ve a lot of opportunity there that we're excited about. As we think about our sustainability of gross margin, I think it's really interesting when you look at our revenue growth and how our cost of revenue has increased at a slower rate than our revenue growth. And we expect to continue to see and focus on that trend. When we look at our overall model with our partners, I think the exciting part is we’ve a continuous focus on looking at efficiencies and our infrastructure model, as does our benefit of the multi cloud model -- excuse me, where we benefit from our cloud partners continuous investments in technology innovation and cost efficiencies too, which we typically see that pass along to customers over time. So we are pleased with that.

Operator

Operator

The next questioner today will be Brent Thill with Jefferies. Please go ahead with your question.

Brent Thill

Analyst

Thanks. Good afternoon. Evan, I just want to go back to the developing team and culture, there have been a lot of changes. I'm just curious if you could comment on what percent of the change you think you’re through in the senior team? Are there any open -- opening to be on the CFO role that we have to consider?

Evan Spiegel

Analyst

On the senior team, we are really focused on the CFO role and also on the marketing role. So those are the two priorities for me. Most of the changes we made over the past year, year and half as we look sort of forward towards the business scaling, I’m really happy with the way the teams come together and the way they’re working together. So those are related to focus areas for us.

Operator

Operator

And the next question will be from Ron Josey with JMP Securities. Please go ahead.

Ron Josey

Analyst

Great. Thanks for taking the question. Jeremi, Evan, I wanted to talk a little bit more about just the sales force shift to a vertical model. Jeremi, when you join what did you see that suggested that's the right thing to do, understanding that that there's a lot of businesses that are built that way and also when that took place? And then, the second sort of follow-up just on reach, you talked about reaching 70% of 13 to 34 year-old with premium video ads. Just wondering how that trended over time? Thank you.

Jeremi Gorman

Analyst

Thanks for the question, Ron. You’re right. There are a lot of sales teams that are aligned vertically. I think when I came in -- I’ve been here three months and when I came in I noticed that the team is really set up to get as big as -- big as possible, as quickly as possible. And oftentimes that means everybody can go after every account and make every call that there is and it's the right thing to do during a growing business. But now that we’re over a $1 billion in revenue, the goal is really to ensure that we are set up for a durable structure for the future, and not as important in a vertical model. But it allows us to do is to really understand our customers and the industries in which they operate, so that we can be consultative sellers and go deep with those particular brands. In addition, we have reorganized the sales team so that there is a specific set of people that will be focused on emerging accounts. And what that means is that they have DR expertise that they're able to go deep on optimization and really grow that side of the business as well. Those are the two indicators to me that that this was the right thing to do. We made that change last week and it will be rolling over the next six months, so that we can continue to move forward. In addition to that question to answer your second question, for our reach that we had 70% of 13 to 34-year-old and how that has tended over time, we're always working to grow ad reach efficiently with our engagement. And our premium content is growing, and that’s very important as you can see from the way that people are taking -- they’re watching our shows in that lean back environment. That they’re completing shows that they started. That gives us more ad inventory in premium environment, so we can continue to grow on that really important base. Thanks again for the question.

Operator

Operator

And the next questioner today will be Youssef Squali with SunTrust. Please go ahead.

Sagar Vachhani

Analyst

Hi. This is Sagar on for Youssef. How are you thinking about the expansion of content creation or consumption on the other platforms or devices? You created Snap Camera last year and the reports potentially of allowing longer-lasting public Snap stories to better allow publishers to use for broader distribution on their properties. Just hoping to get a better sense of how your thinking has been evolving there?

Evan Spiegel

Analyst

We are constantly looking at opportunities to extend our platform, in particular our augmented reality platform as you mentioned is now that extended on to desktop and I think there are going to be more opportunities to extend that platform on to different cameras in the future. So that’s very exciting for us. And then in terms of consumption, again always experimenting there and I think we’ve a lot of great unique content to offer.

Operator

Operator

The next questioner today will be Robert Gilbert with Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.

Robert Gilbert

Analyst

Good afternoon and thanks for taking my questions. Two please. I wanted to ask first on the revenue share expense. It looks like it reaccelerated in the fourth quarter. Wondering if you could talk us through trend [indiscernible] particularly around shows. Are you continuing to drive more fixers, variable deals and maybe if you could tell us how rapidly you’re amortizing investments and shows, assuming those are governed by more fixed deals. Then also on commercials, just wanted to ask about the sales channel there. I think you mentioned in the deck and also in the press release the premium content targeting tool. Just wanted to ask are you limiting access on the product today and if you could talk about sort of pent-up demand that there might be for that product? Thank you.

Jeremi Gorman

Analyst

Thank you for the question. I will talk about the content side. And -- we're really excited about our content platform and we are going to continue to invest in engagement there. I think when we talk about our content partners, making sure our partners are taking care of the priority for us. And we think that our redesign enables the breadth and depth of engagement that is healthy for not only us, but the partners that we work with. And that’s demonstrated by the fact that 30% more people are watching our publisher stories and shows every day. As it comes to how we actually structure those deals, that’s not something that we are going to go into at this time.

Lara Sweet

Analyst

And to answer the second part of your question regarding commercials being a premium content targeting tool and whether or not we are limiting access for pent-up demand. This is a tool for big brands and agencies. One of the things that excited me most about coming to Snap is that if I had a nickel for every time that I had heard that advertisers want unskippable video, I would have a lot of nickels. And to say that we -- and have that format continuing to invest in it, build premium content and commerce and the commercials within them, really good that’s a platform to bring premium advertisers into that premium environment. I’m very confident with that format as the six second unskippable vertical video within premium content. And we will continue to double down in that effort.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And the next questioner today will be from James Lee with Mr. securities. Please go ahead.

James Lee

Analyst

Thanks a lot for taking my questions. I got a couple of questions regarding DR advertising and Jeremi maybe you can talk about, maybe DR as a percentage of revenue to help us understand kind of progress so far? And maybe you can break down, maybe some of the top verticals of DR specifically. And last question, I’m particularly curious about your progress in e-commerce. Obviously, you guys talk about that in the past. And what specific improvement you’re working that not only allow you to gain scale and also drives better conversions? Thanks.

Jeremi Gorman

Analyst

Sure. Thank you for the question. We don’t break that out specifically by vertical, but we are seeing a lot of success in gaming and in-app install and direct-to-consumer e-commerce as well. We have made a lot of innovations in our e-commerce ads such as the collection ads, where you can feature up to four products within the ads and buy them directly from that environment. So we are continuing to innovate on those and we are seeing a lot of success. But we are just getting started with e-commerce. We know that there are a lot of challenger brands, insurgent brands out there, and that we can help them reach their audiences, particularly when they can build on -- to bid on a KPI that’s relevant for them. If they want to sell more products they can bid to optimize that way, if they want more app installed, they can bid to optimize that way. And we’ve had a lot of success with DR advertisers, although we don’t break out the specifics on that.

Operator

Operator

And our last questioner today will be Mark Kelley with Nomura. Please go ahead.

Mark Kelley

Analyst

Great. Thanks very much. Just two quick ones. Can you talk about what the Snap original show pipeline looks like this year? What kind of content can we expect and are there any target demos you like to prioritize? And then, I know you’re not given guidance for the full-year, but curious given that your cost structure has been pretty flat for several quarters, can we expect the EBITDA improvements that we saw through 2018 that kind of be the same in 2019? Thanks.

Evan Spiegel

Analyst

Yes, I don’t want to ruin the surprise on the shows -- the shows coming up, but I will say we have a partner summit coming up on April 4, in Los Angeles, which I think will be a great opportunity to celebrate [ph] our partners and a lot of their creativity that we are seeing on the platform. So April 4 will be a fun day for Snap.

Lara Sweet

Analyst

And on the guidance standpoint, as you said, we are not going to provide full-year guidance. But if you think about our results and how we are continued to focus on operating efficiencies, I think it's demonstrating the fact that while we are continuing to maintain a roughly flat cost structure, we are able to grow revenue and that’s something that we maintain critical focus on.

Operator

Operator

And this will conclude our question-and-answer session as well as Snap Inc.'s fourth-quarter and full-year 2018 earnings conference call. Thank you all for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect your lines.