GoDaddy Q1 2021 results: revenue up 13.8%, domains revenue up 18.8%

GoDaddy Inc. (NYSE: GDDY) reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2021. GoDaddy also announced that Mark McCaffrey will be joining the company as its new Chief Financial Officer and Michele Lau will be joining as its new Chief Legal Officer.

“We’re thrilled to report such a great start to what we believe will be a fantastic year for GoDaddy and our customers,” said GoDaddy CEO Aman Bhutani. “Our teams are moving faster than ever to deliver seamlessly intuitive products and experiences for Everyday Entrepreneurs, and we’re committed to bringing the right products, people, and strategy ensuring we continually provide more and more value to our customers.”

“We reported our first $1 billion bookings quarter on strong demand as we invest to grow and scale the business. The strategy articulated a year ago is working, driving four quarters of accelerating growth and meaningful upside to our estimates,” said GoDaddy CFO Ray Winborne. “And our focus on prudent capital allocation is unwavering, as proven by four recently announced acquisitions and repurchasing 2% of our outstanding shares at attractive prices.”

“Over the past 25 years I have worked with Mark McCaffrey in multiple CFO and board roles. He has had a stellar career at PwC, including playing a critical role in the business model transformation at Adobe. His experiences will translate well into his new role at GoDaddy,” said GoDaddy Board Director, Mark Garrett. “I’m excited to have him on the team and looking forward to working with him again.”

Consolidated First Quarter Financial Highlights

• Total revenue of $901.1 million, up 13.8% year over year, or 13.4% on a constant currency basis.
• Total bookings of $1,088.7 million, up 14.5% year over year, or 13.5% on a constant currency basis.
• Net cash provided by operating activities of $221.3 million, down 5.1% year over year.
• Unlevered free cash flow of $268.3 million, up 14.4% year over year.
• Domains revenue of $422.7 million, up 18.8% year over year.
• Hosting and presence revenue of $310.3 million, up 4.4% year over year.
• Business applications revenue of $168.1 million, up 21.0% year over year.
• International revenue of $303.1 million, up 15.5% year over year, or 14.4% on a constant currency basis.

Business Highlights

• Year-to-date through May 5, GoDaddy repurchased 3.5 million shares of its Class A common stock for an aggregate purchase price of $275.8 million for an average price per share of $78.81. These repurchases represent an approximately 2% reduction in fully diluted shares outstanding. The Board of Directors also approved an incremental $775 million share repurchase authorization, bringing the total repurchase capacity to $1 billion.
• GoDaddy launched payments within its WooCommerce plugin for WordPress, the largest content management system in the world.
• In April, GoDaddy launched Facebook Boosted Posts, empowering GoDaddy customers to create and manage simple advertising campaigns on Facebook from within Websites + Marketing.
• Websites + Marketing, GoDaddy’s suite of online presence solutions, now empowers GoDaddy customers to create, edit, post, and engage on Instagram directly within their Websites + Marketing dashboard.
• GoDaddy launched Online Appointments Social Composer, helping GoDaddy’s service-based customers market their services and drive appointment bookings on their website through social media channels.
• GoDaddy released Action Plan, embedding guidance directly in the Websites + Marketing editor which leverages data from millions of websites to provide GoDaddy customers with their next best action.
• GoDaddy launched a plugin bundle expansion for its Managed WordPress e-Commerce customers, featuring free access to a library of over 75 premium WooCommerce extensions giving web designers and developers (Pros) greater flexibility and infinite possibility to create fully featured and customized WooCommerce stores for their clients and increasing the value of GoDaddy’s plugins to the Pro community.
• GoDaddy hosted Expand 2021, its first ever conference for web designers and developers, bringing the community together to share ideas and experiences, make connections and support each other. Thousands of Pros registered and shared positive feedback from the virtual event, helping GoDaddy deliver on its commitment to unlock the power of its Pro community and help Pro customers upskill and drive their own success.
• In April 2021, GoDaddy acquired Re:amaze giving small businesses the ability to communicate with customers across email, text, online chat, social media, voice and video conversations in one shared inbox. With automated bot support and one-click access to live support, Re:amaze gives small businesses the tools to have meaningful, real-time conversations with customers, whenever and wherever they want to engage.
• GoDaddy Registry announced that it is acquiring the .club and .design domain extensions, as well as 28 domain extensions and certain other business assets owned and operated by Minds + Machines Group Limited (MMX), further enhancing GoDaddy’s strength and offerings in the domains space.
• In February 2021, GoDaddy issued $800 million unsecured senior notes in a private placement offering with the proceeds retained for general corporate purposes. The senior notes were issued at par and bear interest at 3.5%, maturing on March 1, 2029.

Balance Sheet

At March 31, 2021, total cash and cash equivalents were $1,293.1 million, total debt was $3,945.5 million and net debt was $2,652.4 million.