Yelp yesterday announced Q4 and full-year 2024 earnings, including record net revenue and healthy income growth. Specifically, 2024 net revenue reached a record high of $1.41 billion. 2024 Net Income grew 34 percent to $133 million 2024, while adjusted EBITDA increased 8% to a record $358 million

Much of this was driven by 11 percent growth in services, CEO Jeremy Stoppleman said during the earnings call. This includes ad revenue in categories like home services and professional services, which came at the right time, given challenging times for core categories like restaurants and retail.

Furthermore, Q4 marked the 15th consecutive quarter of double-digit year-over-year growth in services revenue. This was also tied to Yelp’s push for product-led growth, including more freemium offers to its business advertisers. And a greater reliance on AI improved its operational efficiency and margins.

AI didn’t just materialize within Yelp’s operations but also in its product. In other words, there are several user-facing and business-facing AI features meant to better connect those two sides of its marketplace, as we examined last week. Yelp also launched more than 80 new features and updates in 2024.

Yelp’s Trust & Safety Report Brings New Meaning in the Age of AI

Highlight Reel

To summarize the above and the rest of the earnings takeaways, we’ll leave you with the highlight reel we’ve boiled down for Localogy Insider readers.

• Net revenue was $362 million, up 6% from the fourth quarter of 2023 and $10 million above the high end of Yelp’s outlook range.
• In Services, advertising revenue increased 11% year over year to a record $879 million.
• Advertising revenue from Restaurants, Retail & Other (RR&O) businesses decreased by 3% year over year to $470 million.
• In RR&O, paying advertising locations for the year decreased by 5%, while average revenue per location reached an annual record.
• Ad clicks for the year increased by 6%, while average cost-per-click was flat, in each case driven by improvements to advertising technology and, to a lesser extent, acquisition of Services projects through paid search.
• On the consumer side, Yelp users contributed 21 million new reviews in 2024, resulting in 308 million cumulative reviews, up 7% from the prior year.
• Net income was $42 million, or $0.62 per diluted share, compared to net income of $27 million, or $0.37 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2023.
• Net income margin increased four percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2023 to 12%.
• Adjusted EBITDA was $101 million, an increase of $5 million, or 5%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2023 and $12 million above the high end of Yelp’s outlook range.
• Adjusted EBITDA margin remained flat at 28% compared to the fourth quarter of 2023.
• Cash provided by operating activities was $71 million during the fourth quarter, and Yelp ended the quarter with cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities of $318 million.
• In the fourth quarter, Yelp repurchased approximately 1.7 million shares at an aggregate cost of $62.5 million.
• In 2025, Yelp expects net revenue to be in the range of $1.470 billion and $1.485 billion and adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $345 million to $360 million.

_____

Header image credit: appshunter.io on Unsplash