Etsy's conference call with analysts is at 5:30 pm EST today, here is the company's press release announcing second quarter 2015 earnings, you can view the full release with tables on Etsy's investor relations website.
Etsy, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2015 Financial Results
Etsy, Inc. (Nasdaq: ETSY), a marketplace where people around the world connect, both online and offline, to make, sell and buy unique goods, today announced financial results for its second quarter 2015, ended June 30, 2015.
"Over the past 10 years we built a platform that connects people and communities through commerce and we have made progress toward achieving our mission to reimagine commerce by continuing to execute on our long-term strategy," said Chad Dickerson, Etsy, Inc. CEO and Chairman.
"At the end of the second quarter of 2015, our loyal and engaged community included nearly 1.5 million active sellers and 21.7 million active buyers who drove more than $1 billion in GMS during the first half of the year. We succeed when our sellers succeed, and we believe our reputation as an authentic, trusted marketplace is the foundation for the long-term value we expect to create for our entire community, including our investors, for decades to come."
Second Quarter 2015 Operational Highlights
GMS was $546.2 million, up 24.6% compared with the second quarter of 2014. Growth in GMS was driven by 24.6% year-over-year growth in active sellers and 31.6% year-over-year growth in active buyers. We continued to make progress in narrowing the gap between mobile visits and mobile GMS as a result of strong year-over-year GMS growth on our mobile app platform. Etsy has rapidly become a mobile-first company; percent mobile visits was approximately 60% compared with approximately 53% in the second quarter of 2014 and percent mobile GMS was approximately 43% compared with approximately 36% in the second quarter of 2014. Mobile visits also continued to grow faster than desktop visits.
We believe our GMS growth and percent international GMS are impacted by currency exchange rates in two ways. First, approximately 9% of our GMS comes from goods that are not listed in U.S. dollars and as a result is subject to the impact of currency exchange fluctuations. On a currency-neutral basis, GMS growth in the second quarter of 2015 would have been 26.5% or approximately 1.9 percentage points higher than the as-reported 24.6% growth.
Second, we believe weaker local currencies in key international markets continued to dampen the demand for U.S. dollar-denominated goods during the second quarter of 2015. For example, during the second quarter of 2015, GMS from international buyers purchasing from U.S. sellers declined approximately 6% year-over-year, compared with approximately 43%, 23% and 0.3% year-over-year growth in the third and fourth quarters of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015, respectively.
In contrast, excluding our French subsidiary ALM, GMS from international buyers making purchases from sellers in their own country grew more than 50% year-over-year during the second quarter of 2015. We continue to believe that we can grow international GMS, over time, to represent 50% of our total GMS and that the impact of currency exchange rates contributed to the year-over-year decline in percent international GMS, which was 30.2% in the second quarter of 2015. Percent international GMS was approximately flat in the second quarter of 2015 compared with the first quarter of this year.
Second Quarter 2015 Financial Highlights
Total revenue was $61.4 million, up 44.4% year-over-year, driven by growth in both Marketplace and Seller Services revenue. Marketplace revenue grew 23.0%, primarily due to growth in transaction fee revenue and, to a lesser extent, growth in listing fee revenue. Seller Services revenue grew 79.5% year-over-year, primarily due to growth in revenue from Promoted Listings, which continued to benefit from the re-launch of the product at the end of the third quarter of 2014. Seller Services revenue also benefited from growth in revenue from Direct Checkout and Shipping Labels.
Gross profit for the second quarter was $39.5 million, up 56.8% year-over-year, and gross margin was 64.3%, up 510 bps compared with 59.2% in the second quarter of 2014. Similar to the first quarter of 2015, gross profit grew faster than revenue in the second quarter because of leverage in the cost of revenue for employee-related and hosting and bandwidth costs. In addition, growth of a higher-margin revenue stream, Promoted Listings, outpaced growth of lower-margin Direct Checkout revenue.
Total operating expenses were $43.2 million in the second quarter, up 49.3% year-over-year. The increase in operating expenses was primarily driven by increases in marketing and G&A expenses. Marketing expenses were up 77.3% year-over-year due to planned increases in spending on product listing ads, higher employee-related expenses, also as anticipated, and approximately $300,000 in IPO-related expenses that were not deductible from IPO proceeds, which were disclosed last quarter. Product development expenses grew 14.6% year-over-year, primarily due to higher employee-related expenses. G&A expenses grew 54.7% year-over-year, mostly driven by higher employee-related expenses and Etsy's one-time charitable cash contribution of $300,000 to Etsy.org.
Non-GAAP Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was $4.1 million and grew 18.3% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 6.6%, down 150 bps year-over-year. The year-over-year Adjusted EBITDA margin comparison was impacted by the previously mentioned increases in marketing and employee-related expenses.
Net loss for the second quarter of 2015 was $6.4 million, compared with a $3.2 million net loss in the second quarter of 2014 and a $36.6 million net loss in the first quarter of 2015. Etsy's net loss in the second quarter of 2015 was favorably impacted by a $5.8 million non-cash, non-operating currency exchange gain largely due to intercompany debt related to Etsy's revised global corporate structure that we implemented on January 1, 2015. Largely offsetting this non-cash, non-operating gain, we also recorded a $4.9 million tax provision, of which $2.0 million was non-cash, also related to the revised global corporate structure. Etsy's revised global corporate structure was implemented to more closely align with its global operations and future expansion plans outside the U.S.
Net cash provided by operating activities was $4.7 million in the second quarter of 2015 compared with $0.7 million in the second quarter of 2014.
Cash and marketable securities were $268.2 million as of June 30, 2015 and included $194.1 million in net proceeds from our initial public offering.
Third Quarter 2015 Outlook: Factors to Consider
We'd like to highlight a few factors that we believe will impact Etsy's third quarter 2015 results. First, as we conveyed in the first quarter of 2015, if currency exchange rates remain at current levels, currency translation will continue to negatively affect GMS growth for goods that are not listed in U.S. dollars and will also continue to dampen the demand for U.S. dollar-denominated goods from buyers outside of the U.S. Second, similar to the first and second quarters, we plan to spend more on marketing in absolute dollars in the third quarter compared with both the second quarter of 2015 and the third quarter of 2014. Third, also similar to the second quarter, we expect to increase the pace of hiring in the third quarter compared with both the second quarter of 2015 and the third quarter of 2014. Finally, we would like to remind investors that by the end of the third quarter 2015, we will anniversary the re-launch of Promoted Listings, which has been the biggest driver of Seller Services year-over-year revenue growth this year. As we approach this anniversary, we expect the revenue growth rate from this service to decelerate.
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