Chris Kuntarich: Just maybe one on the ’24 revenue guide for at least low teens. Can you just help us think about kind of the cadence of that throughout the year? I think you kind of guided to about 14% year-over-year growth at the midpoint for 4Q. Should we be thinking about this as a deceleration from that sort of low end of mid-teens down to low double digits? Or is this going to be a relatively stable level of growth throughout the full year and kind of what you’re seeing right now that gives you confidence in that cadence?
Anu Subramanian: Yes, sure. So again, I think it’s a little bit too early to be providing sort of very specific quarterly guidance numbers of how we think the cadence is. I think at a high level, if you look at the growth rate that we are seeing today, the way we are thinking about it is we’re looking at the growth rate that we are seeing today. We are looking at the product road map that we have. We are looking at the things that we know we are either already in testing or have already launched and then will start to become bigger next year. And we see a range of outcomes. So again, more to come on exactly what the quarterly cadence will be, but we feel good about the overall number for the year.
Operator: Our next question comes from Zach Morrissey with Wolfe Research.
Zach Morrissey: I just wanted to, I guess, ask about the kind of macro effects on the consumer book business. You talked about kind of the lower kind of income users being affected with — seeing that through the kind of premium being more stable. But I guess, what are you seeing on the consumable side of the business? And then secondly, just curious, you’ve called out increased kind of competition from Tinder increasing their marketing spend and especially in certain markets in Europe. Can you just provide an update kind of what you’re seeing in some of those kind of key markets in terms of competition on the marketing side?
Anu Subramanian: Sure. So on the consumables side, as you know, most of our paying users are also subscribers to our products. So we over-index on the subscription side of the business if you think about the composition of revenue. Consumables is a smaller portion of it. Within consumables, I think we are seeing numbers largely hold steady. So we are not really seeing any sort of big impact in what we are looking at across age groups. I think it’s largely been steady. So nothing really to call out yet as something that stands out for us. And then, Whitney, do you want to talk about marketing in general and competition and just what we are seeing?
Whitney Wolfe Herd: Yes. So I — you know what, this is such a big piece of my excitement going into this step forward into the Executive Chair role. I am — in my heart and in my skill set, I’m a marketer. I’m a brander. This is such a super power of ours and the unique brand that we have built up over the years. And so we’ve said this once, we’ll say it again. We have such a durable moat. And we really have loyalty with customers, with women that have never been seen before in any dating-related category. You don’t really see dating app hats walking around the street. And so the fact that we have a beloved community that want our merchandise, they want to integrate us into their wedding, they are proud of us, this is where we shine.
And I’m going to put so much love, attention and care into this in 2024, take our brand to the next level, take our mission to the next level, create that evangelized beloved fandom around Bumble and Bumble for Friends. Another thing that’s worth calling out, the connection, the emotional connection that women, in particular, have to Bumble for Friends is so special. Our brand symbolizes trust, respect, safety. When you think about our opportunity to consistently scale that message unique to — candidly, just unique to ourselves, this is really where I get so excited. So that paired with innovation and product, all the horizon of AI, we’re ripe for a very exciting next chapter. And I’m personally not irked, moved, concerned about any competitive threat from a brand and marketing standpoint.
We’ve got this.
Operator: Our next question comes from Nate Feather with Morgan Stanley.
Nate Feather: This is Nathan Feather on for Lauren Schenk. I guess thinking about the product road map, what are the kind of the 1 or 2 key features that you’re expecting will drive revenue growth in ’24? And then given the increased buyback authorization, how should we think the cadence of share buybacks and maybe capital allocation more broadly going forward?
Whitney Wolfe Herd: Thanks. So I’ll talk about the product road map for a moment. So we’re super excited about the entire ecosystem that is going to be built inside and around Premium Plus. We see this as our opportunity to build a more premium brand within the brand that exists today. This is going to extend beyond just a couple of features bundled into a subscription. This is going to be an all-inclusive experience. We also feel that there is a huge opportunity to leverage this for the go online to off-line opportunity. So people are consistently saying, “I want to meet people in the real world, but I can’t. It’s too hard.” You literally have to be at the right place at the right time. It’s nearly impossible to meet that special someone in real life.
So leveraging Premium Plus is this all-inclusive gateway to meeting incredible people via Bumble but also getting you off-line. So we’re incredibly excited about Premium Plus. It’s not just a revenue driver but a real growth driver, a loyalty driver, recapturing share from these folks that are looking for something more serious. So Premium Plus is really exciting. The other thing I would say is leaning into this theme of confidence, you will see that translate in its own way back to Bumble app as well and using generative AI to really be this best friend in your pocket inside of Bumble to help you date, to build confidence, to feel good about it so that you never delete this app because it didn’t make you feel good about yourself. So I think we are really overhauling the entire interface and experience in 2024.
And Bumble 2.0 is going to be a product that goes much higher in terms of these offerings, but leaning into the other end of the barbell to really capture that college age audience as well, new discovery mechanisms and really engaging people for the next decade.
Anu Subramanian: Yes. And just quickly to touch on capital allocation, Nate. Nothing has changed in terms of our overall philosophy of how we think about capital allocation. We’ve already said this before. Our goal is to invest in our business, first and foremost. We have a ton of organic growth ahead of us, and we want to make sure we do that and — within the envelope of margins that we have set out for ourselves. We will be opportunistic to the extent there is something from an M&A perspective that makes sense. Again, the bar for that is high, as we’ve said before. But if there’s something interesting for us, we’ll definitely take a look at that. And then we’ve always said the buyback gives us another tool to return capital back to shareholders.
And that’s what you see reflected in the increase in the repurchase authorization from the $150 million that we had a couple of quarters ago to now $300 million. We want to be opportunistic about how we buy back shares. So nothing specific to call out in terms of cadence of how we intend to do it. But this is definitely something that we are very, very focused on doing. And you’ll see us be opportunistic in terms of buying back shares.
