MicrostockGroup

Agency Based Discussion => Shutterstock.com => Topic started by: Jo Ann Snover on August 02, 2018, 01:13

Title: SS Q2 2018 earnings call transcript
Post by: Jo Ann Snover on August 02, 2018, 01:13
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4193034-shutterstock-sstk-q2-2018-results-earnings-call-transcript

Motley Fool commentary on yahoo finance

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apos-made-shutterstock-lose-money-010100808.html

In Oringer's statement, he mentioned custom pricing pages, something I don't remember hearing about before:

"In addition, in our continued efforts on localization, we launched customized pricing pages, landing pages and Express Checkout experiences tailored to different customer segments. We also invested in a number of global marketing initiatives to drive additional traffic and further accelerate top line growth. We plan to continue to invest in these marketing activities and expect them to pay out over time."

The enterprise business grew 34.9% in the quarter and represents 41% of total revenue. As I see much lower volume of "Single & other" sales that I used to, I wonder if there's a subset of contributor content that's offered in the enterprise segment. If that's the case, all that growth doesn't help me (or any contributor whose content isn't offered in that segment).

The e-commerce segment grew 11.6% in the quarter (I think that's the subscription sales, and possibly the "On Demand" ones too). Customer base grew 7.5%, paid downloads by 6% - which must mean that each customer is downloading less than before, on average - and the image collection by a whopping 41%. Given that some (possibly large) portion of the new content is unsaleable stuff that should never have been approved, that doesn't have as big an impact as it appears, but they're still pursuing policies that will drive down incomes for lots of established contributors. Talking about total payouts to all contributors is just a meaningless smokescreen, IMO.

The growth in revenue per download (10% in real terms, excluding currency fluctuations) suggests SS is selling more video - cause they're only cutting prices on images (at least for the portion of sales where we have a clue what the prices are).

67% of their revenue came from outside the US, about half of that from Europe.

Royalties to us were 26.8% which they describe as essentially unchanged.

They said product development costs were up 38% - "Product development costs increased 38% versus the second quarter last year, primarily due to higher personnel and consulting costs related to building a more expansive customer platform." Elsewhere they talked about moving to AWS

SilverHub Media apparently went into administration and SS had invested $4.8m in them - I don't know anything about this other than it was started by a couple of ex Getty people. The SS report talks about "impairment" of their investment and elsewhere that they've written off $4.8m. A google search mentioned the company being in administration

https://photoarchivenews.com/news/silverhub-media-hits-administration/

Although they said that Custom was important for the future, the response to a question on actual revenue was "Custom was not a material driver overall to the business on a year-to-date basis or in the second quarter but it has contributed some relatively minor amounts compared to the overall enterprise business"

They also mentioned that moving to AWS wouldn't hurt costs over the long haul and that they'd implemented things such that they could move to other cloud suppliers if necessary (who knows if that's a goal or currently real)

"And once again, as a reminder, we've done this in a manner that gives us flexibility, so while we're very confident in the folks at AWS and the pricing that we're getting from them, we have done this in a way that gives us the flexibility to utilize other cloud providers in the future because we've done this with the technology that allows us to containerize it and move it around if necessary."
Title: Re: SS Q2 2018 earnings call transcript
Post by: Pauws99 on August 02, 2018, 02:15
"The enterprise business grew 34.9% in the quarter and represents 41% of total revenue." This is where SS see their future...there's not much profit in the cheap subs market which can be easily replicated and they are doing it pretty successfully it seems.
Title: Re: SS Q2 2018 earnings call transcript
Post by: derek on August 02, 2018, 07:56
Just about as interesting as watching paint dry!!...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Title: Re: SS Q2 2018 earnings call transcript
Post by: Justanotherphotographer on August 02, 2018, 09:21
Thanks for the breakdown Jo Ann, always interesting to hear your take.
Title: Re: SS Q2 2018 earnings call transcript
Post by: SpaceStockFootage on August 02, 2018, 10:14
Nothing better than a bit of containerizing!
Title: Re: SS Q2 2018 earnings call transcript
Post by: cthoman on August 02, 2018, 11:54
Interesting to see them branch out. I wonder if there is some preparation just in case the bottom falls out of the more traditional micro. The market still seems strong, but weak for contributors which makes it seem like somebody could step in and shake things up.
Title: Re: SS Q2 2018 earnings call transcript
Post by: pancaketom on August 02, 2018, 12:13
Thanks for the report. It seems most of their gains are in areas where most of us are not represented. I wonder how different it would have been if instead of kicking the people that got them there they had pulled images from regular submitters to fill their upper level offerings.

They contacted me in a roundabout way asking for a $2 EL recently. If that is how they are operating maybe I'm not missing out on so much (unless they are charging full price and offering peanuts to us little people).
Title: Re: SS Q2 2018 earnings call transcript
Post by: angelawaye on August 02, 2018, 17:15
Yeah they contacted me about a $2 EL. I'm opted out of EL's there. FT is great because I can set it at $100
Title: Re: SS Q2 2018 earnings call transcript
Post by: Uncle Pete on August 03, 2018, 17:24
Thanks for the breakdown Jo Ann, always interesting to hear your take.

Ditto

If I remember right from long ago, Jon used to say, contributor earnings were 22%? Anyone have notes or remember. 26% would mean overall, contributor earnings are up? Really?
Title: Re: SS Q2 2018 earnings call transcript
Post by: obj owl on August 03, 2018, 18:21
Thanks for the breakdown Jo Ann, always interesting to hear your take.

Ditto

If I remember right from long ago, Jon used to say, contributor earnings were 22%? Anyone have notes or remember. 26% would mean overall, contributor earnings are up? Really?

Contributor numbers are also up so that would negate any benefit to most of us.

Part of the reason for an increase in percentage to contributors maybe because the Enterprise part of the business is continuing to take a larger share of the pie and they feed the high earners (and therefore higher percentage earners) first.