Wix.com Ltd. (Nasdaq: WIX), the leading SaaS website builder platform globally2, today reported financial results for the first quarter of 2024. In addition, the Company provided its outlook for the second quarter and an increased outlook for full year 2024. Please visit the Wix Investor Relations website at https://investors.wix.com/ to view the Q1’24 Shareholder Update and other materials.
“Building on the milestones achieved in 2023, we carried that momentum into the first quarter and delivered a strong start to 2024 with results demonstrating the efficacy of our product strategy, solid execution of our growth initiatives, and steadfast commitment to balanced profitable growth. As a result, Q1 results outperformed expectations across the board,” said Avishai Abrahami, Wix Co-founder and CEO. “This outperformance was underpinned by robust business fundamentals as well as strong product traction, particularly for our expansive AI product offering and Wix Studio. Notably, we saw extremely strong usage of our AI Website Builder that was launched earlier in the quarter with hundreds of thousands of sites already created using the tool over just a few months. Wix Studio also continues to perform ahead of plan, with over one million Studio accounts created since our August launch. Importantly, these accounts have resulted in more Studio premium subscriptions than anticipated as Studio users have converted at a high rate. This high conversion of Studio users is a testament to the powerful design, creation and workflow management capabilities that professionals cannot get anywhere else. We continue to expect AI and Studio to be increasingly more meaningful drivers of growth in 2024 and the years to come.”
“We kicked off 2024 with a strong start to the year with top-line growth and profitability exceeding expectations in Q1, positioning us within close reach of the Rule of 40,” added Lior Shemesh, CFO at Wix. “Of note, bookings growth accelerated to 10% y/y and revenue growth of 12% y/y exceeded expectations, driven by higher conversion and improved monetization across our user base, as well as the robust product traction Avishai mentioned. Strong top-line growth coupled with a stable cost base resulted in record FCF margin of 26% in the quarter, well ahead of our three-year plan.
Encouraged by the Q1 outperformance and strong cohort behavior across our business, we are raising bookings, revenue and FCF outlook for the year. Bookings growth is now expected to accelerate to 16% y/y in 2H, driven by accelerating growth in both of our Self Creators and Partners business. Self Creators growth acceleration is expected to be propelled by AI products driving higher conversion and product attach. Partners growth acceleration is expected to primarily come as a result of Studio ramping and contributing more meaningfully through the year than initially planned.
This improved bookings trend is expected to translate into strong y/y revenue growth acceleration in 2025. As a result of this broad-based strength and the maintenance of our stable cost structure, we are confident that we will significantly surpass the Rule of 40 in 2025.”
Q1 2024 Financial Results
- Total revenue in the first quarter of 2024 was $419.8 million, up 12% y/y
- Creative Subscriptions revenue in the first quarter of 2024 was $304.3 million, up 9% y/y
- Creative Subscriptions ARR increased to $1.24 billion as of the end of the quarter, up 10% y/y
- Business Solutions revenue in the first quarter of 2024 was $115.5 million, up 20% y/y
- Transaction revenue3 was $49.5 million, up 17% y/y
- Partners revenue4 in the first quarter of 2024 was $138.4 million, up 33% y/y
- Total bookings in the first quarter of 2024 were $457.3 million, up 10% y/y
- Creative Subscriptions bookings in the first quarter of 2024 were $334.6 million, up 7% y/y
- Business Solutions bookings in the first quarter of 2024 were $122.6 million, up 21% y/y
- Total gross margin on a GAAP basis in the first quarter of 2024 was 67%
- Creative Subscriptions gross margin on a GAAP basis was 82%
- Business Solutions gross margin on a GAAP basis was 29%
- Total non-GAAP gross margin in the first quarter of 2024 was 68%
- Creative Subscriptions gross margin on a non-GAAP basis was 83%
- Business Solutions gross margin on a non-GAAP basis was 30%
- GAAP net income in the first quarter of 2024 was $24.0 million, or $0.43 per basic share and $0.41 per diluted share
- Non-GAAP net income in the first quarter of 2024 was $77.3 million, or $1.38 per basic share and $1.29 per diluted share
- Net cash provided by operating activities for the first quarter of 2024 was $113.8 million, while capital expenditures totaled $8.1 million, leading to free cash flow of $105.7 million
- Excluding capital expenditures and other expenses associated with the build out of our new corporate headquarters free cash flow for the first quarter of 2024 would have been $111.1 million, or 26% of revenue
- As previously announced in February, we completed $300 million of share repurchases, repurchasing 2.4 million ordinary Wix shares in total at an approximate volume-weighted average price per share of $124.91
- Total employee count at the end of Q1’24 was 5,235, down 1% q/q
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Free cash flow excluding expenses associated with the buildout of our new corporate headquarters. |
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Based on the number of active live sites as reported by key competitors’ figures, independent third-party-data and internal data as of Q4 2023. |
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Transaction revenue is a portion of Business Solutions revenue, and we define transaction revenue as all revenue generated through transaction facilitation, primarily from Wix Payments as well as Wix POS, shipping solutions and multi-channel commerce and gift card solutions. |
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Partners revenue is defined as revenue generated through agencies and freelancers that build sites or applications for other users (“Agencies”) as well as revenue generated through B2B partnerships, such as LegalZoom or Vistaprint (“Resellers”). We identify Agencies using multiple criteria, including but not limited to, the number of sites built, participation in the Wix Partner Program and/or the Wix Marketplace or Wix products used (incl. Wix Studio). Partners revenue includes revenue from both the Creative Subscriptions and Business Solutions businesses. |
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In Q1 2024, the definition was slightly revised to exclude revenue generated from agreements with enterprise users that by their nature are more suitable to be categorized under revenue generated by Self Creators. Such revision had an immaterial impact on prior period amounts. |
Financial Outlook
Our outstanding Q1 results, which exceeded expectations, demonstrate the strong traction of our marquee products, efficacy of our key strategic initiatives, and robust underlying business fundamentals against a stable macro backdrop. We remain confident in our ability to significantly surpass the Rule of 40 in 2025.
Given Q1 outperformance along with continued robust cohort behavior and strong business trends, we are increasing full year bookings outlook to $1,796 – $1,826 million, or 12-14% y/y growth. The midpoint of this updated outlook is ~$13 million higher than the midpoint of our previous outlook of $1,784 – $1,813 million.
This increase reflects 2H24 y/y bookings growth acceleration in both Self Creators and Partners. Self Creators growth acceleration is expected to be propelled by AI products driving higher conversion and product attach. Partners growth acceleration is expected to be primarily driven by Studio ramping and contributing more meaningfully through the year than initially planned. This increase in outlook also reflects better than expected dynamics around the price increase we implemented this quarter as renewals prove to be stickier and retention of existing users higher than expected. We now expect total bookings in the second half of 2024 to accelerate to 16% at the high end of our guidance range, up from 15% as previously anticipated. We continue to expect Creative Subscriptions bookings to accelerate to double digit y/y growth in 2H24.
This improved bookings trend is expected to translate into y/y revenue growth acceleration in 2025.
We are also increasing our full year revenue outlook to $1,738 – $1,761 million, or 11-13% y/y growth. The midpoint of this updated outlook is ~$8 million higher than the midpoint of our previous outlook of $1,726 – $1,757 million as a result of better visibility in our business and higher bookings expectations.
We expect total revenue in Q2 2024 of $431 – $435 million, or 11-12% y/y growth.
For the full year 2024, we continue to expect non-GAAP total gross margin of 68-69% with non-GAAP Business Solutions gross margin to exceed 30% for the full year.
We now expect non-GAAP operating expenses to be 50-51% of revenue for the full year, down slightly from our previous expectation of 51-52% of revenue. This anticipated decrease is due to expected organic improvement in sales productivity and slower hiring as a result of the efficiency initiatives implemented over the past few years.
We continue to expect positive GAAP operating income in 2024 as well as a second consecutive year of GAAP net income.
We now expect to generate free cash flow, excluding headquarters costs, of $445 – $455 million, or ~26% of revenue in 2024, up from $370 – $400 million, or 21-23% of revenue. This meaningful increase in free cash flow is expected to be driven primarily by the increase in bookings expectations coupled with a more favorable gross margin mix as Creative Subscriptions growth is expected to accelerate throughout the year, the operating efficiencies mentioned above and general working capital efficiencies. This puts us an entire year ahead of our three-year plan, as we did not expect to achieve 25%+ FCF margin until 2025.
Given increased share repurchase activity as well as continued share count management, we anticipate to end 2024 with 62 – 63 million of fully diluted shares.
Expected stronger cash flow generation in conjunction with this share count forecast, translates to a higher expected FCF per share trajectory for the full year than previously anticipated.
Finally, we continue to expect stock-based compensation to be approximately 13% of revenue in 2024, in-line with our three-year plan.
About Wix.com Ltd.
Wix is the leading SaaS website builder platform globally2 to create, manage and grow a digital presence. What began as a website builder in 2006 is now a complete platform providing users with enterprise-grade performance, security and a reliable infrastructure. Offering a wide range of commerce and business solutions, advanced SEO and marketing tools, Wix enables users to take full ownership of their brand, their data and their relationships with their customers. With a focus on continuous innovation and delivery of new features and products, anyone can build a powerful digital presence to fulfill their dreams on Wix.
