GoDaddy Q4 profit dips 54% but beats estimates

GoDaddy Inc. (GDDY) reported a 54% dip in earnings for the fourth quarter due to lower tax receivable agreements liability adjustment. However, the results exceeded analysts’ expectations. The company issued full-year 2019 revenue outlook above consensus estimates while guiding Q1 revenue below market expectations.

Net income plunged 54% to $42.5 million and earnings dropped by 55.6% to $0.24 per share.

Revenue grew by 15.5% to $695.8 million helped by an 11.3% jump in total bookings. Customers increased by 6.8% and the average revenue per user rose by 6.6%.

Looking ahead into the full year 2019, the company expects total revenues in the range of $2.97 billion to $3 billion, representing growth of 12-13% versus the $2.66 billion in revenue generated in 2018. For the first quarter, GoDaddy expects total revenue in the range of $705 million to $715 million.

For the full year 2019, GoDaddy expects unlevered free cash flow in a range of $730 million to $745 million, representing growth of 18-20% versus the $620 million in unlevered free cash generated in 2018. GoDaddy expects full-year cash interest payments of about $90 million to $95 million.

For the fourth quarter, domains revenue rose by 11.6% year-over-year, hosting and presence revenue increased by 18%, business applications revenue jumped by 21.5% and international revenue grew by 15.9%.

GoCentral, GoDaddy’s website builder, saw robust subscription growth in 2018, driven by improvements in conversion, retention, and awareness. Engagement with features such as appointments, online store, and integrations with third-party platforms rose dramatically throughout 2018. GoDaddy continues to invest in the WordPress ecosystem through its products and contributions to the open source WordPress framework.

At December 31, 2018, total cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments were $951.3 million, total debt was $2.46 billion and net debt was $1.51 billion.

Shares of GoDaddy ended Wednesday’s regular session down 0.41% at $72.39 on the NYSE. Following the earnings release, the stock inched down over 2% in the after-market session.

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