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Shutterstock, Inc. (SSTK)

Q3 2018 Earnings Call· Tue, Oct 30, 2018

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q3 2018 Shutterstock Inc Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Ms. Amy Behrman, Senior Director of Corporate Development, Strategy and Investor Relations. You may begin.

Amy Behrman

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us for Shutterstock's third quarter 2018 earnings call. Joining me today is Jon Oringer, our Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman; and Steven Berns, our Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. During this call, management may make forward-looking statements that are subject to risk and uncertainty, including predictions, expectations, estimates and other information. These include statements referring to long-term effects of our investments in our business, the future success and financial impact of new and existing product offerings. Our future growth and profitability, our long-term strategy, our growth potential, potential future results of efforts to reduce our expense footprint and implementation of large-scale business solutions, and our 2018 guidance. Our actual results may differ materially from the results predicted, and reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. Please refer to today's press release and the reports and documents we file from time-to-time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including the section entitled Risk Factor in the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017, and quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2018, and September 30, 2018 for discussions of important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in any forward-looking statements we may make on this call. On this call, we will refer to adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, revenue growth on a constant currency basis, including and excluding Webdam, revenue per download on a constant currency basis and free cash flow, all of which are non-GAAP financial measures. You can find a description of these item along with a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures in today's earnings release, which is posted on the Investor Relations section of our website. We believe that the use of these measures in conjunction with GAAP financial measures allows investors to consider our operating results on the same basis used by management. This provides them with important additional insights about the company's overall business and operating performance and enhances comparability in assessing our financial reporting. However, these non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered as a substitute for or superior to financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP. Lastly, as a reminder, we sold Webdam in February of 2018, and therefore, Webdam did not contribute to our third quarter 2018 operating results. However, Webdam was included in our 2017 results and therefore, some of our commentary today will specifically state that we are excluding the results of Webdam, meaning that we are excluding it from the third quarter of 2017 to provide a comparable basis to the third quarter of 2018. And with that, I would like to turn the call over to Jon.

Jon Oringer

Analyst

Thanks, Amy, and thank you, everyone, for joining us for today's Shutterstock, for today Shutterstock's Third Quarter 2018 Earnings Call. During the third quarter, we continued to execute on our strategic goal of being the go-to global platform for our customers' creative and editorial needs, empowering them with compelling content, innovative tools and valuable services, our focus on cost management and operational efficiencies yielding results and improving margins and increased free cash flow generation. At the same time, we are also investing considerable time and resources to upgrading our technology infrastructure to enhance the customer experience. Revenue increased 7.5% on a reported basis. Excluding the impact of Webdam and the impact of foreign currency movements, third quarter revenue increased 11.3%. Adjusted EBITDA grew 8.1%, driven primarily by the impact of increased revenue and the benefits of our continued cost management efforts. Our e-commerce channel grew 8.5%, driven by the success of our image products, however, our revenue growth, specifically related to footage, was negatively impacted by some issues being encountered during the implementation of certain technology initiatives in the quarter. We have taken actions to correct and stabilize our technology environment and believe the impact to revenue was temporary and that we are well positioned for improved growth. Across e-commerce channel, we continue to pursue marketing activities with a strong ROI and are focused on increasing conversion and customer lifetime value. We continue to optimize pricing and packaging options. We also introduced UI and UX improvements on our footage site, and we are continuing to optimize that user experience. Our enterprise channel delivered top line growth of 14.1%, as compared to the third quarter of 2017, driven by the APAC and EMEA regions. While the growth in the quarter was below our expectations, we have and continued to invest in…

Steven Berns

Analyst

Thanks, Jon, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Before I discuss our performance, as always, I want to let you know that we posted a brief information deck on our website that contains supporting materials for today's call. Moving right into the financial performance. Revenue on a reported basis grew 7.5%, as compared to the third quarter of 2017, and as Jon said, adjusted EBITDA grew 8.1%. Two items, which impacted our year-over-year growth -- revenue growth rates in the third quarter were that given that we sold Webdam in February of 2018, there was no revenue related to Webdam in the third quarter of this year, and the other impact is that of foreign currency fluctuations. So excluding the impact of foreign currency movements, revenue growth was approximately 8% in the third quarter, as compared to 2017. Excluding the impact of Webdam from the 2017 third quarter, revenue growth in the third quarter of 2018 was approximately 10.7%. And excluding both FX movements and Webdam, revenue grew 11.3% in the third quarter of 2018. Regarding some key metrics that we discuss each quarter, on a year-over-year basis, our customer base grew by 5.1% to nearly 1.9 million customers, paid downloads grew by 4.9% to 43.9 million, and revenue per download grew by 5.3% on a reported basis and 5.7% on a constant currency basis. Our image library expanded by 42% to approximately 221 million images, and our video library increased by 44% to approximately 12 million clips. As Jon mentioned earlier, revenue generated by our e-commerce channel improved 8.5% to $88.7 million, as compared to the prior year third quarter. And our enterprise channel grew by 14.1% to $62.9 million in the quarter. GAAP net income in the quarter was $7.4 million or $0.21 per diluted share,…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Youssef Squali with SunTrust. Your line is open.

Youssef Squali

Analyst

Great. Good morning. And thank you very much for taking the questions. I have a couple. Jon, you mentioned the issue, the implementation of technology initiatives issue that you had during the quarter. I was wondering if you can flush that out a little bit? And more importantly, maybe Steven, you can -- if you can quantify the impact of that on revenue growth this quarter will be super helpful. I'm assuming that hit the enterprise business, but I'm not sure, because the enterprise business shows a pretty strong decel from 30% plus to 14% this quarter. And then just stepping back a little bit, historically, you guys have talked about the business sustaining double-digit revenue growth for the next few years, considering the performance this quarter and even guidance for Q4, is that still realistic? And if so, how do you reaccelerate growth? And on the margin side, you guys have also talked about 20%, mid-20s, south of long-term EBITDA margin, is that still achievable? Thank you.

Jon Oringer

Analyst

Yes. I'll start with -- thanks for the question. I'll start with the technology issue that we ran into. It relates to our data center to AWS move and a couple of issues around that, one of which was a manhole fire in Queens, which affected some of our technology stack for a certain amount of time. Another was a software issue. We believe, we've fixed both. We've installed redundant lines and we've also made sure that whatever the issue was should not come back again. It -- as it -- on your question of whether it affected both e-commerce and enterprise, yes, it affected both.

Youssef Squali

Analyst

And in any way you can quantify it?

Steven Berns

Analyst

Yes. As it relates to being able to quantify something like that, it's not really something that we can estimate with any degree of precision. We certainly know that the user experience is impacted. We also know that, that is not something that we expect to happen going forward. So I would not, I would not quantify it, we believe that our customers recognize that things will happen from time-to-time and we will work to make sure that they are few and far between as ever. So our point of view is that, while the quarter was impacted, it was not, it's not a number that we can answer with any degree of precision or even a range at this point. What I would say with regard to our long-term guidance, and kind of the fourth quarter of 2018 as well as both revenue and EBITDA as you say for the long term. I think it's important to look at the longer, the rolling 12-month period and the mid-20% growth that we've had on the top line and not look at the third quarter as a proxy for everything that comes here and after. And as well as from a profitability standpoint, we started to see the impact of some of the actions we've taken, we have lots of continuing actions to reduce the growth rate in costs and do believe that the EBITDA margins in the mid-20s are achievable in the medium term.

Youssef Squali

Analyst

Okay. So if I can just follow up with one question, maybe on the competition. Jon, maybe you can just update us on, just what you see on the competitive landscape. Adobe stocks growth seems to be, have accelerated in the last quarter or so relative to what they've done in the last few quarters, and Getty seems to be back with the family looking to refinance the debt et cetera. Is this leading to any increase in the competitive intensity in the space that you're seeing or that you expect? Thank you.

Jon Oringer

Analyst

We don't see any difference in the competitive environment, any difference in how competitive the environment is compared to previous quarters or years. This has been a competitive space from the start, it's been a competitive space for 15 years. There's been some consolidation along the way and competitors have changed, but we still strive to be that go-to marketplace for both the buyer and the seller. And we see that plenty of times. We are the first for both.

Youssef Squali

Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you, both.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Brian Fitzgerald with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Brian Fitzgerald

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

Thanks guys. A couple of quick ones, and some of my follow-ups to Youssef's questions. On the enterprise side, was there anything to call out in specific geographic regions that also contributed there? Second question is, we saw Vimeo move into stock footage space. You've always been nimble at maybe testing and optimizing elasticities, it looks like their economics may favor the contributor. Are you seeing anything specifically with Vimeo on the stock footage side? And then my last one is around deployment of capital. You have over $200 million of cash on the balance sheet, no debt, last quarter you executed your special dividend and it looks like you didn't do any of the buyback. Can you talk a little bit about what you think of the best uses of the capital right now? Thanks guys.

Jon Oringer

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

Yes. I'll start with Vimeo. I mean, this goes back to the competitive question earlier. There have been companies of all sizes that enter this space, there are companies of all sizes that have exited the space as well. We continue to compete, and we don't see any major changes on the contributor or the buyer side and that goes, especially for the Vimeo entry into the space.

Steven Berns

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

As it relates to the enterprise growth in the quarter, as it relates to the various regions, we did not see any particular, if you would, variation among the regions. All the regions experienced weakness relative to our growth in the prior quarter over the second quarter of 2017. Clearly, we, as Jon indicated in his comments and as I have stated, there's a number of actions that we have been taking and continuing to take to make sure that, that stabilizes. And our recent experience since the end of quarter is evidence of the fact that, that is performing better. As it relates to the deployment of capital, I think, it's, as you said, we did pay a dividend of about $105 million. We did not buy shares in the period, and we don't have a repurchase plan, was not on autopilot for taking into account. We had other potential distributions of capital. What we've said is, our target cap positioned has been in the $200 million to $250 million range and so we are comfortable where we are at this point. And every quarter, if not more frequently, we evaluate what the opportunities are and we'll continue to do so, but we don't have any plans to announce today in terms of future distributions if any.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Ralph Schackart with William Blair. Your line is open.

Ralph Schackart

Analyst · William Blair. Your line is open.

Steven, just one follow-up on your last response. I think, you had mentioned that you've taken a number of actions on enterprise business and that the recent experiences suggest that it's improved the business. Just curious if you could, sort of, give a little bit more color what specific actions you've taken? And then should we interpret the comments of recent experience to mean that the business has returned back to, sort of, the normal growth that we've seen in prior quarters?

Steven Berns

Analyst · William Blair. Your line is open.

Yes, so, I mean, clearly, we're at the 30th of October and so we've seen, we see the month of October to this point, and my comments are reflective of our, of what we see to date for October. I think, as it relates to the actions we take, as Jon mentioned, the site stability issues that we had in the third quarter, we believe, we have corrected and continue to make sure that the performance improvement of our site on a global basis. Now that we're in AWS as well as implementing other technology improvements in, prior to the third quarter, but also in the third quarter, we are starting to see significant benefit from user experience. And we believe that, that will translate into revenue growth -- increased revenue growth going forward.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our last question comes from Lloyd Walmsley with Deutsche Bank.

Lloyd Walmsley

Analyst

Hey. Wanted to just ask another one on the enterprise business. It looks like it sequentially even was down quarter-over-quarter. We haven't really seen that and that seems like something more pronounced than short-term technical issues. So is there anything you can point to more specifically that's been weighing on that business? And then you've mentioned pricing and packaging optimization, were there any changes in price around the enterprise business? Or just can you give us a sense of what the pricing and packaging optimization was in the quarter?

Jon Oringer

Analyst

So as we have talked about, Lloyd, in the past, our -- some of the implementation we've done on our new tech stack enables us to have a more robust testing environment where we are able to be far more iterative in what we offer customers, what we see that -- what works, what doesn't work and so that enables us to be more nimble. We have not seen, if you would, anything, there's nothing in the third quarter that I would specifically point to other than, I'd say, our execution in the quarter was not as good as we would have expected. I think the growth in the third quarter of 2017 relative to the prior quarter on a sequential basis, in 2017, was strong. We had a relatively good summer, but as we said, as we got into August and September, we did experience some technical issues, which, we think, had an impact on our business. I'm not attributing a 100 -- all of that to that, but I do think, it's important that you consider not just the 3 months of -- and I said this is the second quarter -- it's the second quarter results and I'll say it again, when we do well and when we do less well in the quarter, it is not necessarily indicative of a trend. And I think a more reasonable trend is on a rolling 12-month basis and we're up 27% on a rolling 12-month basis. And so things will have ebbs and flows. And we're focused onto the key fundamentals that we put in place to drive both revenue growth and profitability. And we believe that we've continued to do that in the third quarter despite the fact that the financial results in the third quarter don't reflect the full impact of the actions we've taken.

Lloyd Walmsley

Analyst

Okay. And then just on the pricing and packaging optimization. Anything more you can share, you're moving prices up or down as part of that?

Steven Berns

Analyst

It's really just when we think about our various products and when we think about portfolio product, customers may want a mix of products rather than just a single product. So we -- rather than just purchasing images, we have a situation where they might purchase images, editorial, footage, music as a package. We do that often times with enterprise customers who have a variety of either video or production capabilities and businesses and we're able and we adapted to the, either the sector of the economy that they participate in or their specific needs. And so that's what we're talking about where we're able to be more nimble than we had previously operated at.

Lloyd Walmsley

Analyst

Okay. And then just last one. It look like gross margins came in a little bit lower. And if our math is right, at least royalty has ticked up a hair as a percent of revenue, anything you need to call out there. Is it mix? Is it, Yeah, anything, anything worth explaining there?

Steven Berns

Analyst

Yeah. There was an increase in the amortization of capitalized labor that flows through cost of revenue as a result of the prior period's expenditures that went into cap-labor.

Lloyd Walmsley

Analyst

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And I'm sure, no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back to Mr. Steven Berns, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer for any closing remarks.

Steven Berns

Analyst

Thank you very much. We appreciate your time today and look forward to speaking with you soon. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes today's program. You may all disconnect. Everyone have a great day.