• Revenue Growth: 8% increase to $4.6 billion for the full year 2024.
• Bookings Growth: 9% increase, reaching $5 billion in annual bookings.
• Normalized EBITDA Margin: Expanded to 31% for the full year, with a 400 basis points improvement.
• Free Cash Flow: Increased by 25% to $1.4 billion for the year.
• Applications & Commerce Revenue: Grew 16% to $1.7 billion.
• Core Platform Revenue: Increased by 3% to $2.9 billion.
• Annualized Gross Payment Volume: Increased by 55% to $2.6 billion.
• Q4 Revenue: 8% growth to $1.2 billion.
• Q4 Normalized EBITDA Margin: Expanded to 32%, up nearly 300 basis points.
• Q4 Free Cash Flow: Grew 12% to $342 million.
• Customer Base: Declined to 20.5 million, with a focus on high-value customers.
• Average Order Size: Increased by 16%.
• ARPU (Average Revenue Per User): Increased by 8% to $220.
• Cash and Liquidity: $1.1 billion in cash and total liquidity of $2.1 billion.
• Net Debt: $2.8 billion, with a net leverage of 1.7 times.
• Share Buyback: 5.2 million shares repurchased, totaling $668 million.
• Q1 2025 Revenue Outlook: Targeting $1.175 billion, representing 7% growth.
• 2025 Free Cash Flow Target: At least $1.5 billion, representing over 11% growth.

• Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Signs with RARE.

Release Date: February 13, 2025

For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.

Positive Points

• GoDaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY) achieved over 9% growth in top-line bookings and expanded its normalized EBITDA margin to 31% for the full year 2024.
• The company crossed a significant milestone by delivering its first $5 billion in annual bookings.
• The Applications & Commerce segment saw a 21% growth in bookings, contributing to a 25% increase in free cash flow for the year.
• GoDaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY) launched new innovations such as GoDaddy Capital, which aids customers in accessing working capital.
• The Airo initiative has shown promising results, with 50% of paid subscriptions originating from the Airo experience, indicating strong customer engagement and potential for future growth.

Negative Points

• Despite overall growth, GoDaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY) experienced a slight dip in its overall company retention rate to 84%.
• The company faced challenges with customer count due to divestitures, ending deep discounting, and migrations, which created a drag on certain customer segments.
• Revenue growth in the core platform segment was tempered by strategic initiatives like divestitures and product end-of-life efforts in the hosting business.
• The financial benefits from the Airo initiative are expected to be modest in the near term as monetization begins to take hold.
• GoDaddy Inc (NYSE:GDDY) anticipates currency headwinds to impact international revenue growth, particularly in the first half of 2025.

Q & A Highlights

Q: Can you elaborate on the strategy for pricing and bundling, particularly focusing on presence products and specific customer populations within the hosting business? How impactful do you think this could be compared to last year's productivity efforts? A: Amanpal Bhutani, CEO: The pricing and bundling program exceeded expectations in 2024, and we have significant targets for 2025. We are evolving from a product-centric to a customer cohort-based approach, starting with the hosting business. This involves continuous experimentation to find the best bundles and pricing strategies that benefit both customers and shareholders.

Q: What are the drivers for returning to customer growth in 2025, and what is the timeline for this growth? A: Mark McCaffrey, CFO: Our focus is on acquiring high-quality customers with intent, which impacts metrics like average order size and retention rates. We faced headwinds from divestitures and ended deep discounting, but these are abating. We see solid traffic at the top of the funnel and positive signs from our Airo strategy, which supports our confidence in returning to customer growth.

Q: How do you view the monetization phase of Airo and Airo Plus, and what triggered the earlier-than-planned entry into this phase? A: Amanpal Bhutani, CEO: Discovery and engagement with Airo have gone very well, leading us to pull forward monetization. Airo has become a significant path for website starts, and we are seeing positive metrics like improved retention rates and product attach. Airo Plus, launched in Q4, will include innovative products, enhancing customer value.

Q: Can you provide insights into the revenue growth for 2025 and any headwinds, such as FX impacts? A: Mark McCaffrey, CFO: Bookings momentum continues, but FX had a small impact in the second half of 2024, which will roll into 2025. We expect bookings to outpace revenue, with FX impacts being relatively small overall.

Q: What are the expectations for GPV growth, and is there still significant potential for penetration into the customer base? A: Amanpal Bhutani, CEO: We aim to continue GPV growth at a fast pace, focusing on profitable growth. The largest contributor to GPV growth is our existing customer base, which we have only begun to penetrate. There is significant potential for further growth.

For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.