The market is reacting very favorably to TTD’s earnings call, with the stock up 19% after hours. The catalyst appears to be the revenue growth and the strong guidance for next quarter.
Revenue of $606M grew 23% YoY and beat estimates by 4%
Adjusted EBITDA of ~$130M beat by about 4%
EPS of $0.41 missed $0.43 estimate by $0.02
GUIDANCE:
Q1 2024 revenue $478M vs $420.5M Est
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TTD tends to benefit from election-year ad spending, and connected TV keeps growing.
“Once again The Trade Desk outpaced nearly all areas of digital advertising in 2023, with $1.95 billion of revenue representing 23% growth year over year and a record $9.6 billion of spend on our platform. At the same time, we continue to generate significant profitability and cash flow, which allows us to remain at the bleeding edge of our industry, with innovations such as Kokai. Our results are testament to the growing value that advertisers are placing on the open internet versus the limitations of walled gardens,” said Jeff Green, founder and CEO of The Trade Desk. “More and more of the world’s leading advertisers are gravitating to channels and partnerships that offer precision and premium value at scale, such as Connected TV (CTV) and retail media. More companies across the advertising ecosystem are leveraging new tools, such as UID2, OpenPath and OpenPass, which allow them to build the new identity and authentication fabric of the open internet. And with the launch of Kokai, we are bringing more value to advertisers with the industry’s most advanced, intuitive media buying platform.”
Continued Collaboration and Support for Unified ID 2.0: The Trade Desk is building support for Unified ID 2.0 (UID2), an industry-wide approach to identity that preserves the value of relevant advertising, while putting user control and privacy at the forefront. UID2 is an upgrade and alternative to third-party cookies. Recent partnerships and pledges of integration and support include:
In January, DISH Media announced adoption of UID2 across its suite of traditional TV and OTT services including DISH TV and Sling TV.
With its integration of UID2, device and software company HP has seen improved targeting on CTV, and as a result, the company has reduced wasted advertising spend.
In September, Philo adopted UID2 across its roster of premium streaming TV channels.
Warner Bros. Discovery announced integration with UID2 across its premium entertainment, sports, news and lifestyle brands with its digital platforms, including Max and Discovery+.
Walmart Connect announced it is testing the integration of UID2 to inform decisioning across the open internet within the Walmart DSP.
EUID, the European counterpart to UID2 specifically developed for the European market, is gaining support across Europe from brands, publishers, and retailers. Initial industry engagement includes Bacardi, Kimberly-Clark, Aller Media, Future, OneFootball, Prisma Media, Tesco and others.
On stage at Forward ’23: Always On, NBCUniversal announced it is implementing UID2 on Peacock across all devices and consumer touchpoints, including on CTV, the web, apps and devices.
I want to thank Saul for introducing me to this company in 2018. I’ve held it ever since, with some trims along the way. My earliest shares are now up over 450%.
They grew revenue +23% in Q4 of 2023 that did not have election spending compared to Q4 of 2022 last year when they claim that the midterm election ad spending was higher than any previous election year (including presidential cycles).
and the guidance for Q1 2024 is +25%, which would be higher growth rate than any of the four quarters of 2023. Assuming a decent beat of that guidance, they could be close to +30%. Anything close to that would be a nice acceleration at the beginnig of the year that we already expect will get a nice boost in Q3/Q4 when the election spend kicks in. They did not give full year guidance, only Q1.
In Q4, they grew GAAP income by +37% from $71m to $97m. During the analyst call Jeff stated that they expect to grow headcount at a lower rate than expected revenue growth in 2024, so we could continue to see income and cash generation growing at faster rates than revenue going forward. They have been consistently profitable for quite a few years already, so this would not be a huge surprise.
Over the course of the full year 2023, they repurchased $647 million of stock at an average price of $63.87. With the after hours stock price over $90/share, this looks to have been good opportunistic timing.
Nothing too much stood out to me from the call, usual questions about streaming platforms, including Amazon Prime now moving to ad supported subscribers, and lots of talk about Google’s deprecation of cookies, which Jeff still says will ultimately be a net positive for TTD.
Jeff was his usual upbeat self and sounds as positive and optimistic about 2024, as he always has in past years.
Congrats to the longs. This is a great company that I continue to believe has years of strong growth ahead
Valuation does not make sense to buy or hold at this new price. You have got maybe 30% revenue growth and net income maybe 40% CAGR. PS is pushing 20 and PE is pushing 100 in rough numbers. What am I missing?
Yes TTD is a well oiled service with nice recurring revenue and an distinct edge in ad placement. But is it really worth the price with slowing growth? I guess if it is a long term hold for folks.
I agree it’s expensive and I don’t own it, but your numbers are a bit too rough. PE is about 70 trailing and 60 fwd.
Also, please show me where a solid recurring business like this can be found cheaper than that, because that’s what I’m looking for. CRWD’s PE is over 120 (trailing), and even Axon is around 70. ELF looks like a bargain at just over 55, but it’s not quite as recurring as a subscription product.
This is why I keep lamenting that there’s nothing out there to buy. I’ll try not to whine about it too much more!
@PaulWBryant Have you looked into EOLS? I planned to present the stock to the board, but haven’t found the time yet, to do the write up. Did a lot DD on Evolus and from my perspective, it looks promising.
Revenue Growth in the 30s with an increasing TAM, 200m revenue, goal of reaching at least 700m FY 2027, Gross Profit Margins high 60s/ low 70s, not yet FCF, but fully funded for reaching that goal in 2025. They have a consumer loyalty program with increasing numbers and a second product out into the markets by the end of this year.
But it’s still tiny with +700m market cap. I have a 10% long position.