Shutterstock sees 6% fourth-quarter revenue increase, launches AI platform

GaryPageau

Shutterstock, Inc. announced financial results for the fourth quarter and full year that ended Dece.31, 2022. Revenue increased 6% to $217.7 million. On a constant currency basis, revenue increased 9%, but income decreased 48% to

“For the full year 2022, we grew revenues by 7% and Adjusted EBITDA by 13% while expanding our Adjusted EBITDA margin to 26.3%,”  said Paul Hennessy, CEO, Shutterstock. “This marks the third consecutive year we have expanded our margins and in turn rewarded our shareholders with an increased dividend.

“Shutterstock has now fully integrated generative AI into our Creative Flow platform across all of our products, sales channels, geographies, and languages, and we have established major AI ecosystem partnerships leveraging our massive content library. I could not be any more excited about the rapid technological change we are experiencing in our industry and Shutterstock’s unique ability to reward our contributors for participating in this historic technology evolution around generative AI.”

Fourth Quarter 2022 highlights as compared to Fourth Quarter 2021:

Financial Highlights

  • Revenue increased 6% to $217.7 million. On a constant currency basis, revenue increased 9%.
  • Income from operations decreased 48% to $7.6 million.
  • Net income decreased 58% to $7.0 million.
  • Adjusted EBITDA increased 49% to $58.3 million.
  • Net income per diluted share decreased $0.26 to $0.19.
  • Adjusted net income per diluted share increased $0.28 to $1.05.
  • Operating cash flows increased 12% to $61.2 million.
  • Free cash flow decreased 3% to $45.2 million.

Key Operating Metrics

  • Subscribers increased to 586,000.
  • Subscriber revenue increased to $88.8 million.
  • Average revenue per customer increased to $341.
  • Paid downloads decreased to 42.5 million.
  • Revenue per download increased to $4.49.
  • Image collection expanded to 600 million images.
  • Footage collection expanded to 45 million clips.

Full Year 2022 highlights as compared to Full Year 2021:

Financial Highlights

  • Revenue increased 7% to $827.8 million. On a constant currency basis, revenue increased 11%.
  • Income from operations decreased 13% to $93.6 million.
  • Net income decreased 17% to $76.1 million.
  • Adjusted EBITDA increased 13% to $218.1 million.
  • Net income per diluted share decreased 15% to $2.08 per share.
  • Adjusted net income per diluted share increased 11% to $3.87 per share.

In other Shutterstock news, the company is getting into the AI game with the launch of its AI image generation platform, available to use by all Shutterstock customers globally in every language the site offers. The text-to-image technology converts prompts into larger-than-life, ethically created visuals ready for licensing. It is the latest addition to Creative Flow, Shutterstock’s  toolkit that has been specifically designed to power the most seamless creative experience possible.

“Shutterstock has developed strategic partnerships over the past two years with key industry players like OpenAI, Meta, and LG AI Research to fuel their generative AI research efforts, and we are now able to uniquely bring responsibly-produced generative AI capabilities to our own customers,” said Hennessy. “Our easy-to-use generative platform will transform the way people tell their stories — you no longer have to be a design expert or have access to a creative team to create exceptional work. Our tools are built on an ethical approach and on a library of assets that represents the diverse world we live in, and we ensure that the artists whose works contributed to the development of these models are recognized and rewarded.”