Nir Zohar
Analyst · RBC. Your line is open
Thank you Avishai. As Avishai mentioned, we had a very strong first quarter that exceeded expectations. We added nearly 4.6 million registered users during Q1. This is the largest increase in the number of users we have ever experienced in a quarter and brings our total to over 62.5 million, a 35% increase over where we finished Q1 last year. We also added over 138,000 net premium subscriptions, our largest increase ever, bringing our total to 1.37 million at the end of the quarter. This figure represents annual growth of our premium subscriptions of 51%, which is much higher than our user growth rate. This tells us that our freemium model is working as we continue to see conversion from users who joined Wix in the past periods and for which we already invested marketing dollars. Our recent performance is illustrated in the positive trends we continue to see in our user cohorts. In the slides we have posted on our IR site we have updated our cohort data from our last six Q1’s, including Q1 2015. As can be seen in the chart, our older cohorts continue to generate new premium subscriptions and collections, several quarters after we spent marketing dollars to acquire the users. Our cohorts also show that we are retaining premium subscriptions at a consistent rate as we have in the past. This strong performance of our cohorts is providing leverage on our marketing and R&D spend and bringing us closer to profitability. The trend of a high amount of annual subscriptions versus monthly continues, allowing us to re-invest marketing dollars faster. During the first quarter 74% of our new subscriptions were annual, and as of the end of the first quarter, 77% of our total subscriptions were annual. We target a time to return on marketing investment, or TROI, of seven to nine months for our direct acquisition spending. We have begun this year to accompany our acquisition spending with more branding efforts. While we expect branding to take longer to return collections, we have already seen a benefit across all of our marketing channels from this investment. As Avishai discussed, we have continued to introduce applications that address the online needs of specific industries. Last year, we introduced WixHotels and WixStores, both of which are performing well and are increasing the value of our platform for these types of businesses. Last month, we introduced our third vertical application, WixMusic. With WixMusic, we are providing a differentiated product for musicians, allowing them to create a great website and seamlessly integrate a music player and tools that provide digital asset management and analytics. WixMusic also allows musicians to sell their music directly through their website without paying a commission to a third party. All aspects of this offering are completely mobile-optimized. With the integration of WixShoutOut and our contacts database, it’s easy to see how an artist or band can use the power of our platform to attract listeners, increase engagement, and market and sell music, all from their own site. This vision is what we want to provide through all of our vertical offerings, and we plan to launch more this year. I will now hand it over to Lior to walk you through our financials. Lior Shemesh, Chief Financial Officer Thanks Nir and thanks everyone for joining today. I will walk through our Q1 results, introduce our outlook for Q2 and also discuss an update to our full year outlook. Please note that figures are non-GAAP and exclude stock-based compensation expense and one-time items, unless I note otherwise. I’ll begin with our KPIs for the quarter: Registered users as of the end of the first quarter totaled 62.5 million, a sequential increase of 4.6 million. We ended the first quarter with over 1.37 million premium subscriptions, adding over 138,000 on a net basis during the period. Q1 collections were $55.9 million, a 49% increase over the prior year period. Had foreign exchange rates remained constant from Q1 2014 through Q1, 2015, our collections in the first quarter of 2015 would have been $3.7 million higher, or $59.6 million, a 59% increase over the prior year. We saw continued weakening of foreign currencies that we collect, especially in Q1. Had FX rates remained constant from Q4 2014 through Q1 2015, our collections would have been $1.8 million higher, or 17% quarter-over-quarter growth. In the quarter, approximately 70% of our collections were paid in US dollars, and roughly 20% was comprised of euros and British Pounds. Other currencies we collect comprise less than 10% of our total collections. As a reminder we continue to benefit from hedges we’ve put in place for our collections in euros and British Pounds. Because our hedges are not designated for hedge accounting, the benefits of our hedges are recorded below the line and included in our adjusted EBITDA instead of in collections and revenue. We’ve provided an updated slide in our earnings presentation on our IR site to show how FX impacted the quarter. As expected, currency as well as the higher percentage of annual subscriptions did impact our average revenue per subscription in the quarter, which was roughly flat with Q4. We expect both of these factors to continue to impact ARPU throughout the year. Moving onto our financial results, we have also included a slide that details each line item of our P&L for Q1 along with comparisons to prior periods. I will not mention each line item and the changes here, so please refer to this slide for the detail. GAAP revenue was $44.5 million, which is 54% year-over-year growth. R&D expense in Q1 was $15.4 million or 28% of collections, an improvement over last quarter as we continue to gain operating leverage. Sales and marketing expense in Q1 were $31.4 million, which includes the remainder of our expenses incurred for our Super Bowl campaign. Marketing was 56% of collections, in line with our updated outlook. Adjusted EBITDA, which includes changes in deferred revenue and changes in prepaid domain registration costs, was nearly breakeven, exceeding our updated guidance. It is clear we are gaining leverage on our expenses, even during a quarter in which we saw a significant increase in our marketing budget. CapEx in the quarter was approximately $2.1 million. Our liquidity remains strong with over $85 million in cash on our balance sheet and no debt. Our employee count at the end of the quarter was 965. Our share count at end of Q1 was 38.6 million. Let’s now turn to our outlook for Q2 and an update to the full year 2015. The strong performance in Q1 has accelerated our time to EBITDA profitability, which we had originally projected to come in the second half of 2015. However, we are now forecasting that we will be profitable in Q2. For Q2 we expect: Collections of $57 to $58 million. If exchange rates remained constant from Q2 2014, our collections guidance for Q2, ‘15 would be roughly $3.5 million higher; Revenue in the range of $48 to $49 million, and adjusted EBITDA of $1 to $2 million. Our out-performance is also reflected in our full year 2015 outlook. We are re-iterating the increased guidance we provided in March, when we raised our Q1 outlook. We are increasing our guidance for adjusted EBITDA for the second time since February, despite the negative impact of the currencies that continued during the first quarter. For 2015, we expect collections in the range of $240 million to $246 million. Assuming FX rates remains constant from 2014, our collections guidance would be approximately $13 million higher, or $253 million to $259 million for the year. We expect revenue in the range of $200 million to $204 million, and adjusted EBITDA for the full year is expected to be $7 million to $9 million. In summary, I’m encouraged by the strong performance this quarter and the path that we are on toward achieving profitability while still maintaining strong top line growth. With that, I will now hand it back to Avishai for some closing remarks.