GoDaddy Inc.
Q4 2015 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 18 Feb 2016

[Operator:]

Good afternoon. My name is Connor and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the GoDaddy fourth quarter earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you. Marta Nichols, Vice President of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

[Marta Nichols:]

Thank you, Connor. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us for GoDaddy's fourth quarter 2015 earnings call. With me today are Blake Irving, Chief Executive Officer and Scott Wagner, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Blake and Scott have some prepared remarks, which will follow with a question-and-answer session. On today's call, we will be referencing both GAAP and non-GAAP financial results, such as total bookings, adjusted EBITDA, unlevered free cash flow, net debt, ARPU and constant currency. A discussion of why we use non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations of our non-GAAP financial measures to their nearest GAAP equivalents maybe found in today's press release, presentation posted to our IR website at investors.godaddy.net or on our Form 8-K filed with the SEC with today's earnings release. The matters we will be discussing today include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that are discussed in detail in our documents filed with the SEC. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, February 17, 2016 and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. I will now turn the call over to Blake.

[Blake Irving:]

Thanks Marta and thanks to all of you for joining us today. GoDaddy's fourth quarter was a good one with contributions from all of our major product lines driving strong topline growth and exceptional cash flow. The strength of our execution and our financial results have remained just as consistent as the vision we shared with you on our roadshow last year

[Scott Wagner:]

Thanks Blake. There's three key financial points that I would like to cover with everyone today

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions]

[Scott Wagner:]

And hey everybody, while the operator gets the queue going, we understand that the phone line was cutting out a bit that during Blake's remarks. We apologize for that. Let us know if there was any elements that people need us to come back to during the Q&A. We are certainly happy to.

[Operator:]

Your first question comes from the line of Ron Josey with JMP Securities. Your line is open.

[Ron Josey:]

Great. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to spend a little more time on international expansion and the plans around Asia specifically. On international, I think Blake you said that more users have come from international this year than the U.S. So I just wanted to see if you can remind us, I think you said there are about four million international users as of 3Q, so maybe an update there. And then given Asia has just launched, to the Scott's point, where do you think these users would be coming from in 2016 going forward? I guess obviously your more established markets, but any specifics would be helpful. And then lastly on marketing, just any more details on how you plan to the grow that brand awareness in those 11 Asian countries throughout 2016 would be helpful. Thank you.

[Blake Irving:]

So we will try to knock those off at this point in order. So yes, roughly about four million customers internationally today. This year will be the first time that we will take on the more international customers than domestic customers, as we cross that last, more new customers, I should say, internationally. So very good for us. Which markets do the new customers come from? We see that coming primarily big Tier 1 markets, whether it's Brazil, the U.K., Canada, India and then we have got Tier 2 and Tier 3. But the majority are coming from those large Tier 1 markets. And honestly, we do brand spend in those big Tier 1 markets. That is something where we have feet on the street with top-of-the-funnel advertising. In Tier 2, we do things that are more search engine marketing and direct in-display. Brand spend in the U.S., U.K., Australia, India, Brazil and Mexico for the most part. And we have seen good uplift and good uplift of brand when we spend and when we do localize markets, when we globalize and make sure we are managing payment types and currencies and languages. As we spend into those markets, we see an immediate win. So we are pretty happy with what have been doing so for over the last few years internationally and think that Asia is going to follow that pattern, follow that same pattern that we have seen in both Latin America, Europe, India and the other English-speaking markets we cover. That cover it, Ron?

[Ron Josey:]

Thank you. Yes. That's great. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Jason Helfstein with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

[Jason Helfstein:]

Great. Thanks. Maybe just two things. Products are becoming more important. Maybe talk about the mix and what you are offering is impacting the bundled packages? And then can you give us a sense of perhaps some product pipeline coming over the next 12 to 18 months? Thank you.

[Blake Irving:]

Yes. So Jason, I would characterize us as being a product portfolio of companies. So we actually have a number of products, both domains, presence and ecommerce and hosting and productivity. We have seen a slightly faster growth in our productivity area. We talked about 50% growth in that area. And the pipeline of offering that will come into the next in 12 and 18 months will be in the area of what we believe our customers are looking for. So you have seen our business shift from primarily being a domain businesses to being a much more of a portfolio of digital presence products that help people get found online, be able to transact with our customers, acquire customers, retain them and then help them run their back-office as well. And we are seeing good growth in business, both on digital presence and on productivity.

[Jason Helfstein:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Deepak Mathivanan with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

[Deepak Mathivanan:]

Great. Thanks. This is somewhat related to the prior question. Business applications revenue growth accelerated nicely for a few quarters since you launched email marketing. You call that bundling as one of the reasons for that due to the dollar shift. But can you perhaps qualitatively touch upon what the penetration rate currently is there, in terms of the total customer base and then how you are driving trade for that product? And can you also give some color on the adoption curve of the product? The email marketing product, which is Office 365 and professional email that you saw in the past?

[Scott Wagner:]

Hi, Deepak, it's Scott. So from a business applications standpoint, I think we have said cause whether we passed few million customers that are using one of our business applications products and so we continue to see nice increases in attach and as our products, both within productivity and email marketing, again continue to get more, let's call it robust, we are also seeing some nice movement and migration into high value packages within those SKUs. So as I have described and talked to you about before, look, we continue to use bundling as ways that allow our customers to easily acquire and activate these business application products because we found and our customers certainly find once they start using them, there is huge value and they renew for a long, long time. And so look, we are just going to continue to drive both attachment and activation of these. And over time, that [indiscernible] to these categories.

[Deepak Mathivanan:]

Got it. That's helpful. And another one for you, Scott. So refund rates, if I look at it as a percentage of bookings, it was creeping up slightly for the past few quarters, but seem to our stabilized in 4Q. Will you call out anything specific this quarter or is it just due to the mix shift in the business?

[Scott Wagner:]

We just keep running the business, Deepak. I think that stability is part of it, is a way to think about it.

[Deepak Mathivanan:]

Okay. Great. Thanks, Scott.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Mitch Bartlett with Craig-Hallum. Your line is open.

[Mitch Bartlett:]

Sure. Maybe a question for Blake. Just could you describe what it is like to enter a new market? You just entered 10 Asian markets in early January. What are the assets and people that need to be in place? And maybe the initial product strategies? Or just what does it look like to start in a new market? And what will it look like over a number of years? I get that you are saying very little revenues from these Asian markets, but what does the trajectory look like for a normal market like, perhaps, Thailand or something like that?

[Blake Irving:]

Yes. So let me just talk quickly about how we approach international markets. First, our international markets for us is primarily mostly a software problem. So it's making sure that the code we have written is globalized and localizable, which means we are separating the function of the code away from language, away from market. And then in market you have both currency, you have payment type and you have imagery. We separate those things out that allows us, from a platform perspective, to have very small nuances in the products and to be able to enter markets with literally no personnel in five of those markets, with the exception of a singular care facility that can be in-region that manages the languages, the individual languages of those different markets. What we have found over the last couple of years when we have entered markets with that strategy, we have seen an immediate lift just because we were actually look a lot like a very local company who knows the market well. The India example, we entered in 2012. We ramped up products. We added a local care organization. We added marketing on top of that. And we have seen those 3X growth rate in India over time. So from a cost perspective, I will hand it over to Scott and let him talk about it.

[Scott Wagner:]

Thanks, Mitch. Let me just pickup on the India example that Blake just gave which is, you have got scaled engineering in a market ramping barren marketing which India drove a 3X-plus growth and has for the last three years. And so think about these markets that we are entering, first on their size, growth and competitive potential. So we are looking at these geographies and thinking okay, well where is their embedded growth, particularly in naming and the local competitive context, mostly which is just local people. And then we are purposefully in year one, for a couple of markets that are big and large and we think we got a way to really meaningfully accelerate growth, spending year one marketing dollars to activate customers. And based on the customer growth rate plus their spending profile, we are measuring the lifetime value relative to our cost of acquisition over time. And then frankly, we are spending marketing dollars into that market based on that attractiveness. And so what I am describing is a very clear formula for growth that frankly has been at work the last three years on our international markets. And I would encourage you and everybody to think about these Asian markets as just another play in the international playbook that we have been running for three years.

[Mitch Bartlett:]

All right. That's great. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Vogel with Barclays. Your line is open.

[Paul Vogel:]

Great. Thanks. I just have two questions. The first, just in terms of big picture macro, any impact at all that you guys are seeing right now on the business? And is there anything you are guiding that would imply any change to the macro? And then I guess to a more modeling question, just when we look at margins for the business, how much of a mismatch is there between where you recognize your revenue and where you recognize your cost? So obviously you talked about FX neutral revenue growth, but is there a negative impact to margins based on a mismatch between revenue and cost?

[Scott Wagner:]

Hi Paul, it's Scott. I will take both. Look, on guidance, certainly one of the appeals of our business and financial model is that we do have quite a bit of predictability and visibility into growth. Look I think the biggest macro factor is, just what we are experiencing in currency. And if you think about the range that we just provided, I think movements in these dollar amounts which should have been pretty unpredictable is, more than anything else pushes towards one side of the range or the other. And again, relative to constant currency versus reported, we have got 200 to 300 basis points of impact happening now and that are going to show up in 2016. And so that's the macro factor. Frankly, the fundamentals of business of our market performance of our attachment, they are all doing great. So I think that's question number one. On two, bookings and EBITDA, we don't have a lot of costs that are actually sitting outside the United States. Again as Blake described, as we talked about international, we are in a scaled expansion model. And so we don't have a lot of cost that actually sit outside the U.S. and so our EBITDA performance and growth is actually reflective of a cost structure that largely, in terms of people, sits here in the United States.

[Paul Vogel:]

Okay. Great. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Sterling Auty with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

[Sterling Auty:]

Thanks. Hi guys. So I have got one question and one follow-up. The first question is, the comments that you made on seasonality, I am really interested, is it that you think that just changing the marketing programs is going to help smooth out because to your point, March has been the seasonally strongest quarter for the naming business, since in fact for 15-year plus. I am wondering, is that going to be enough to smooth things out? Or is there anything else that you think will help change the seasonality?

[Scott Wagner:]

Sterling, it's Scott. So first, it's a slight change. Again, we are a subscription business. We have a big amount of renewal business plus new business from existing customers. So from a quantum standpoint in the quarter, it's a relatively small amount, but it is a bit of a smoothing from Q1 into the quarters throughout the rest of the year. So truly it is not a huge change. It's a very moderate shift from Q1 into the other quarters. Does that make sense?

[Sterling Auty:]

It does.

[Scott Wagner:]

And to be clear, that's affecting bookings, right. Because bookings is the in-quarter billing. And so that slight taper and shift for 2016 is going to just be more reflected in bookings than GAAP revenue.

[Sterling Auty:]

And then just as a follow-up. The commentary about, I think you said renewal rates actually improved. I am kind of curios, are you seeing that across the board? Or is it a pickup in renewal rates, other customers that have more than just domain names? Just maybe a little bit more either qualitative or quantitative color on the improving renewal side?

[Scott Wagner:]

It's positive across frankly, our product categories. And again, I think it's slight change in improvements, not dramatic ones but again in a subscription business, renewal rates that are consistent and steady, particularly at our size and scale and what we are doing from expansion standpoints is fantastic within certainly even domains, but then around products and categories like productivity, we are seeing just nice metrics in renewal rates. But again I think if you are sitting there and thinking about models, put it into the category of light shift comfort in the business as we expand, but not a huge dramatic change that's going to show up next quarter.

[Sterling Auty:]

Got it. Thank you.

[Blake Irving:]

Sterling, this is Blake, real quickly. I would like to expand on Scott's comments. Well, what we have found is, as we improve the product and we start seeing better activation and usage and folks really enjoying the products and using them, we see folks renew at a much greater rate.

[Sterling Auty:]

That makes sense.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Brian Essex with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

[Brian Essex:]

Great. Thank you. Thank you for taking the question. Either Blake or Scott, I was wondering if you could maybe talk a little bit about, I know it's early days, but some of the dynamics of what you are seeing in the new Asian markets and maybe relate that to India and what you have seen there, both from a pricing mix and attach rate perspective? Are you seeing a similar profile of customer? I have to imagine that in some ways it's different but maybe a little bit of color in terms of your initial take on penetration in those markets?

[Blake Irving:]

Sure, Brian. We have been in Asia, we have got customers in Asia for quite some time. So we have been doing analysis and modeling, the way that they look. The dynamics in Asia are quite similar to what we what we see in India. The mix of product is quite similar. Pricing in local currency is quite similar. And the customer profile generally is pretty homogenous in what they are trying to accomplish is the same. They are trying to get a digital presence, starting with the name and trying to attach a website to it and many a times an email address as well. So the dynamics for Asia are quite similar to other markets that we have entered in the last few years.

[Brian Essex:]

Okay. And is there anything about the experience that you have built penetrating other geographies that might make you do this more efficiently? What are some of the major things that you have learned whether it's India or Brazil or other geos that have been stumbling blocks upfront that maybe you solved that equation going into Asia?

[Blake Irving:]

Look, we certainly have gotten better. I think at entering just helps we have the experience in other countries. We have certainly learned about product deployment and product performance and how we do regional data centers that serve up speed and availability in the local markets. And then also how we spend into those markets in the top-of-funnel and mid-funnel. So we have spent time learning quite a bit on conversions and on how to really build products that our customers feel are local. They feel local.

[Scott Wagner:]

Brian, it's Scott. I would add two things. One is, the marketing spend and the activation into a market is similar. So we have done this now in a half-dozen plus big Tier 1 markets plus later and more direct spend in others and we are dilating our formula for how much and the tactics around how we enter the market and then grow it over time. And so that's been a big learning over the last three years and frankly it's just giving us confidence in our ability to enter additional markets and grow share and do so in a really scalable way.

[Brian Essex:]

Okay. Anything you would highlight as the biggest risk for you? What are the key things that you would have to get right as you penetrate that market?

[Blake Irving:]

This is Blake. The approach that we have taken in doing primarily software driven and spending into the market is very low risk for us. We learned quite a bit. We grew our way into that over time. And you will see us take the same approach. As Scott had said earlier, there is not a whole lot of dollars at work that are outside of the country. The engineering team that actually builds these capabilities are here in the U.S. and we see good leverage from the work that we have done in the U.S. and these markets truly take a lot of the risk out of the equation.

[Scott Wagner:]

And what really helps has been frankly just a very clear name centered offering translation and doing that with the local ccTLDs and price points and payments that allows people to get the name and start to build their online presence, which has been the foundation of the business has been the key to entering these geographies. So frankly more than anything else that's a thing I think has given us confidence in entering these categories because it's really anchored name and then connecting that name to a digital identity on a long-term approach.

[Brian Essex:]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of James Cakmak with Monness, Crespi, Hardt. Your line is open.

[James Cakmak:]

Hi. Thanks. Just too please. So the first one on the gross margin. Obviously you guys been able to expand that every quarter now with the growth in high-margin categories. But no with the bundling that we saw last quarter, perhaps you should have expected somewhat of a slowdown in the rate of the gross margin expansion because of that bundling, but it was par with 3Q. So just how should we think about the potential of slowing of the leverage there as we look into 2016? And then secondly on the macro comments that you made, largely ForEx related. What we are seeing is a weakening SMB environment, at least domestically. Can you just talk a little bit about what you are seeing from small businesses in general at a high level? Thank you.

[Scott Wagner:]

James, it's Scott. I will take the gross margin one and then Blake can talk about the SMB environment. So on gross margin, you said it well and it's right, which is we have put up large gross margin expansion over the last six to seven quarters and we expect that to pretty much flatten .You have seen it taper at flattening out both as we bundle and merchandise and frankly think about some of the new categories that we are going to add and what that might mean from just a gross margin percentage profile. But again, the incremental products that we are adding and the merchandising approach, from a dollar basis and a gross margin dollar basis, are really attractive. So to your point on tapered gross margin as we look into 2016 is exactly right and that's the way to think about it. Blake, if you want to talk about the SMB macro environment.

[Blake Irving:]

James, this is Blake. Our business isn't cyclical but we see pretty meaningful resilience from small businesses. And if you look back in time of the company between 2006 and 2010 had double-digit growth. And it think what it speaks to is that it's not just an established small business. It's people that have new ideas, trying to take that idea online. And frankly, that optimism, that folks rely on themselves. when time get tough, they get a new idea and they are going to do something with it, it usually starts with a name and a digital presence after that and we see pretty resilience market compared to some of the reports on the SMB environment. But it's a positive trend.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Brent Thill with UBS. Your line is open.

[Brent Thill:]

Thank you. Blake, just on international. Was the business application uptake, I just wanted to be clear that you are seeing similar uptake that you had seen in international as you are seeing in the U.S.? Or is there any differences as you see the first-time customers coming in as they look at maybe just going with one product or they starting with bundles is similar to what you are seeing in U.S.?

[Blake Irving:]

Hi Brent, this is Blake. So look, we see the subscription business, so it starts out with the first purchase and then builds over time. And as we enter a market, we see attach rates that start to model the other countries that we entered into. So as O365 was rolled out, as email applications rolled out, we see those things been attached similar to the markets that are more mature internationally today which start to look a lot like the U.S. over time. So we will see, I think, increasing penetration of O365, as an example. And we offer that, frankly, in every language and markets that we entered next 53 markets and 26 languages. So we expect to see a good penetration there.

[Brent Thill:]

Okay. Great. And Scott just on ARPU, you have been running double-digit for last couple of quarters. It's been mid single-digits and I think you have been clear to not expect a double-digit pace. Can you remind us going forward your expectations for ARPU? Is it mid single-digit number? A number that we should think about it for modeling purposes?

[Blake Irving:]

Yes. And Brent, ARPU over the last several quarters has been mid single digits. So just the pacing from the fourth quarter has actually been pretty consistent with how we have been running our product and honestly that's the way to think about it going forward too. I think we are running the business with a nice balance between customer adds and ARPU growth and frankly what we have seeing in the fourth quarter is a good way to think about it going forward.

[Brent Thill:]

Great. Thanks.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Mark Mahaney with RBC. Your line is open.

[Mark Mahaney:]

Great. Thanks. I think most of my questions have been asked and I hope this isn't a repeat. Can you comment on the net adds? They came in a little light versus what we expected this quarters? Did those come in largely in line with your expectations? And any color around them with the net adds? Is the source geographically vertically similar to what you have seen in the past? Any trends in terms of retention or in terms of the gross adds, the churn?. Thank you very much.

[Scott Wagner:]

Hi Mark, it's Scott. In terms of the quarter on net adds, the total customer won is the right way to think about it, just given the size of the base and the dynamics across markets and the total customer growth was 9%. It's steady as she goes. Frankly, I wouldn't look too much about the immediate quarter-over-quarter like just the translation of both year-over-year and what happens in the market as it might make a quarter-to-quarter comparison a little lumpy. But look, if you take a look at the customer adds, you are looking at million plus net new ads every single year and that's the way to think about the business going forward. And we are positioned in a trajectory to absolutely deliver that.

[Mark Mahaney:]

Thank you, Scott.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Gene Munster with Piper Jaffray. Your line is open.

[Gene Munster:]

Great. Thanks guys and congrats on a solid quarter. First on GoDaddy Pro. Can you give a quick update on what the progress on that initiative is? And then second, can you talk more broadly about India? How has the investments from VCs and big tech firms impacted the Internet adoption in that country? Thanks.

[Blake Irving:]

Sure. Hi Gene, it's Blake. Look, we continue to thousand of pros through that program. A lot of pros are entering the GoDaddy franchises which is great. When you think that 50%of websites are not built by individuals, they are built by professionals for small businesses or large businesses for that matter. We have added the ability for our pros to start including showcase in their portfolio work and previous. We have added the ability for customers to actually find a pro in our system and in our program and I think that we are frankly quite optimistic about it. Half the pros that are entering the program today are coming from outside of United States which is, if you take India as an example, many and most websites of India are developed by a web professional, not by an individual. So we think internationally, the Web Pro program will have a pretty big impact for us. On India, Internet adoption correlates with market growth and we are seeing very fast Internet adoption in India and it's helping fuel the market there. So we are seeing a very nice growth profile there and we see similar things in other countries as they start to model that same type of penetration growth. So it's a positive thing.

[Gene Munster:]

Great. Thanks guys.

[Operator:]

There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to the company for closing remarks.

[Blake Irving:]

Hi. This is Blake everyone. I want to thank all of you for joining us today and most importantly, I want to you take a lesson from Jeb Bush and jebbush.com and go buy your name and own your identity before somebody else does. I think I will end it on a cheery note like that. Anyway, have a good day and we will talk to you next quarter. Bye now.

[Operator:]

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.