Bumble Inc. Price & Performance (BMBL)

Descriptions of factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward looking statements are discussed in more detail in today's earnings press release and our periodic filings with the SEC. During the call, we also refer to certain non GAAP financial measures These non GAAP financial measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or in isolation from our GAAP results, Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are available in our earnings press release is available on the Investor Relations section of our website [indiscernible] With that, I will turn the call over to Lidiani.

Thank you, Will, and good afternoon, everyone. Today, I'll share a recap of the year and offer some detail on Bumble's momentum entering 2025. We also have Whitney with us.

To share her thoughts on the path ahead upon her official return in a few weeks. Now turning to the fourth quarter. Our results were broadly consistent with our outlook. Total revenue and adjusted EBITDA came in at the high end of the And Bumble Bumble revenue outperformed our guidance. The modest decline in Bumble App's net adds for Q4 also came in slightly ahead of our expectations. Continue to operate with strong financial discipline allowing us to generate free cash flow of $114,000,000 for the year. Most importantly, we achieved solid progress on our product roadmap a leaner, more agile team. Come a long way over the last twelve months. 2024 was an important year in rebuilding Bumble's Bumble. Which prepares the company to boldly reimagine the future of online dating. We've reshaped our workforce, and put in place a high performance culture We aligned around a clear plan for moving Bumble Bumble forward for the next generation of consumers. Taking fresh experiences, and new ways to find love and connection. That plan is guided by the three pillars we have shared with you.

Strengthening our ecosystem, driving innovation in our customer experiences and enhancing our revenue strategy.

When we talk about a healthy ecosystem, we're talking about creating a safe and relevant platform for customers who want to find great matches. Continue to focus in ecosystem health in a few key ways. One is continuing the effort of removing unhealthy and bad actor accounts. Is critical to providing a safe and quality experience for our customers. A second being more intentional about the users we attract to our platform. We have increased our focus on organic marketing strategies drive more of our targeted customers into Bumble App, We began testing on this initiative in the and have been rolling it out more broadly into the New Year with [indiscernible] We are very encouraged with the progress but it's important to emphasize that our ecosystem health initiatives will continue to create headwinds to paying users growth in the coming quarters. As we continue to execute on these pillars, we're also making good progress on our product roadmap. Which is set to deliver increasingly bold innovations for our customers. Last quarter, which focused on dating on your terms. The release delivered significant updates to our matching algorithm leveraging the power of AI. And new interest filters and powerful tools to enrich opening new interactions.

Since its launch, we have seen notable improvements in user adoption. Interest filters have quickly become one of our most popular filters and opening moves are now being used by approximately half of our members. Our upcoming winter release slated for mid March we'll focus on confidence, [indiscernible] engagement and discovery.

We are introducing a brand new Discovery tab to deliver a more curated and updated matching experience based on shared interest. We're also introducing a new AI assisted to improve confidence among our members. Making it easier to create a profile that truly stands out. To advance our leadership in trust and safety, especially for women, we're introducing ID verification [indiscernible] and Review Before Send.

All features aimed at safe and healthy connections on our platform. And to provide more flexibility to our members, we will launch Instant Match, which allows members to share their profiles with one another in real life. Importantly, many of these features are free to our customers. Engagement and generate increased yes vote rates. A metric fundamental to our customer success. This in turn drives positive word-of-mouth and ultimately new users We have undertaken a rigorous approach to the launch our testing of all of these features have shown promising results. The team is poised to ramp innovation this year that will align with key customer needs. The work we're undertaking will take some time to react accelerate growth in Bumble App paying users and revenue. But we're confident that all of these improvements will put Bumble on a path to renewed strength in the years ahead. As we prioritize the execution of the important work we're undertaking to reposition Bumble Apps, we have taken a hard look at how we're allocating our resources across our portfolio. And after careful consideration, we have decided to sunset fruits and official. These are difficult decisions but we are confident that honing our collective focus and attention on our core business the prudent thing to do at this time.

With our strong foundation, talented team and focus on executing I'll be returning the reins [indiscernible] Whitney is a true visionary and will be exciting to watch her bring her energy and passion to build on what the Bumble team has put in place. This changes catalyzes a pivotal moment for Bumble Bumble. Online dating has enormous potential and Bumble's iconic brand is the one to move the category in the next generation. I'll continue to partner with Whitney through the coming months make sure that we're not missing a beat since we have so much to do in Deliveron. Wrapping up, I want to acknowledge the extraordinary progress the team has made over the past year in service of Bumble's mission. I have every confidence in the team's ability to deliver exceptional results for our been an honor to lead Bumble Bumble this period of transformation. I'm tremendously proud of the important work we accomplished as a team over the past year. I'll be cheering team Bumble on and I'm confident that the company's voice captured the opportunity ahead. Now I'll turn it over to Whitney to share more about what's in store. Thank you, Lidiani, and hello, everyone.

First, I want to recognize Lidiani for her leadership over the past year in strengthening Bumble's foundation. She reshaped our workforce, rebuilt legacy systems and instilled strong operational all critical building blocks that set us up for a bright future. I'm grateful for her contributions. Thank you, Lidiani. I am deeply honored to be back and I'm ready to lead with fresh energy and a renewed sense of purpose. I have never been more confident in what's ahead for Bumble Bumble, and in my vision for what we can achieve together in the future. Bumble is a much more mature company today. We with a dedicated lean and talented team. We have a lot of work to do, As we execute this transition, my focus is on the following key things. The deep love and understanding for our product that only a founder can bring re inspiring the unique magic of the Bubble brand and operating with purpose, efficiency and excellence across the entire company with a particular focus on technology. I look forward to sharing more about our plans after I'm fully back into the role. Over the past year, I have worked at a high level with Lidiani and the team and we are all aligned around where Bumble is going.

Our goal is Bumble, to make people fall back in love with the process of finding love. Our early work is rooted in a precise under and what this category needs. More to come. Before I hand it over to Anew, want to acknowledge her incredible impact over the past four point five years. She has played a key role in taking Bumble Bumble, driving international expansion, and strengthening our financial position. Under her leadership, we achieved our first billion dollars revenue year giving us the foundation to capture the opportunities ahead. And finally, to our investors and our team, thank you. Change is not always easy, but the team's commitment to each other, our mission, and the millions who rely on us has never wavered. Together, we are shaping the future of love, and this category. We have the team, the plan, the passion and the renewed energy to make it happen. Thank you, Whitney, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll walk through our fourth quarter and full year results and then share more details around that outlook. Unless stated otherwise, all comparisons are on a year over year basis. In Q4, total Bumble Inc. Revenue was $262,000,000 coming in at the high end of our outlook.

Total revenue included an unfavorable impact from FX of approximately 3,000,000 Total paying users grew 5% in the quarter to 4,200,000 And our people declined 9% to $20.58 Bumble Bumble revenue was $212,000,000 above the high end of our outlook and down 4% on a year over year basis. Revenue was impacted by unfavorable FX of approximately $2,000,000 which negatively impacted growth by one percentage point. Bumble app paying users grew 5% year over year to 2,800,000.0 and the increase in payers was offset by an 8% decline in RPPU to $25.17 primarily driven by geographic mix shift. Payers declined 57,000 on a sequential basis. PDUFA and other revenue was $49,000,000 representing a decline of 7%. FX was a $1,000,000 headwind during the quarter and negatively impacted growth by two percentage points. Wudu app and other paying users grew 7% to $1,400,000 but declined $20,000 sequentially. Pudu app and other RPPU declined 12% to $11 Turning now to expenses. Total Q4 GAAP operating costs and expenses $225,000,000 On a non GAAP basis, which excludes stock based compensation and other non cash or non recurring items, total costs and expenses declined 5% to $189,000,000 The year over year decline was primarily driven by lower headcount as a result of the restructuring plan we announced in Feb twenty twenty four.

Cost of revenue was $78,000,000 and declined 2%. As a percentage of revenue, cost of revenue was 30% versus 29% in the year ago period. Sales and marketing expenses declined 7% to $65,000,000 This represents 25% of revenue versus 26% last year. G and A expenses were $27,000,000 or 10% of revenue compared to $30,000,000 11% of revenue last year. Product development expenses were $20,000,000 or 7% of revenue versus $21,000,000 or 8% of revenue in the year ago period. Adjusted EBITDA for Q4 was $73,000,000 at the high end of our outlook. Representing 28% margin. For full year 2024, total Bumble Inc revenue increased 2% to 1,072,000,000.000 in line with the high end of our outlook. Revenue from 3% to Bumble and we grew paying users by 290,000 Adjusted EBITDA was three zero four million representing 28% margin up two twenty basis points. We reported strong free cash flow of $114,000,000 in 2024 and we ended the year with $2.00 $4,000,000 in cash and cash equivalents. During the fourth quarter, we repurchased $40,000,000 worth of shares under our current stock repurchase authorization. In aggregate for 2024, we repurchased $214,000,000 worth of shares. At the end of 2024, we had $79,000,000 left in our buyback program and as of today's call, we have $65,000,000 remaining.

Now moving on to our outlook. As we look to the year ahead, the company has an exciting product roadmap planned. Combined with our ecosystem and marketing efforts, we believe that innovation is the key to attracting more users increasing engagement and serving as the foundation for our monetization efforts. However, as Lilliani and Whitney have shared, we are still in the early stages of our work. For example, the ecosystem work we highlighted will result in paying user declines near term as we focus on optimizing for the type of users we want on the platform and our product roadmap will take time to execute. Therefore, we are moving to providing guidance on a quarterly basis and we will provide updates on our product releases and marketing efforts throughout the year. For Q1 twenty twenty five, we expect total Bumbleink revenue between $242,000,000 and $248,000,000 representing a decrease of 7% to 10%. Excluding FX, this translates to a decrease between 47%. We expect Bumble Bumble revenue be between $198,000,000 and $2.00 $2,000,000 representing a decrease between 68%. Excluding FX headwinds and the loss of one day due to leap year in 2024, translates to a decrease between 35%. Q1 Bumble Bumble revenue outlook assumes a sequential decline in paying users in the range of 100,000 to 120,000 as we prioritize our ongoing work to strengthen our ecosystem.

While we continue to operate with discipline to deliver solid cash the expected deleverage impact of lower revenue, and our investments in product technology will result in margin contraction in Q1. We estimate adjusted EBITDA will be between $60,000,000 and $3,000,000 representing a margin of 25% at the midpoint of the range. While we are not providing specific guidance for full year 2025, I wanted to provide some high level context on our planning assumptions for the year. For the year, we expect unfavorable FX headwinds of approximately percentage points. For Bumble App, rebuilding product momentum through the execution of our roadmap will take at least a few quarters. The work we are doing is designed to improve top of funnel and engagement metrics with conversion to follow as our product initiatives the rearchitecture of our monetization model begins to deliver improvement. As Vidianni noted, we have made the strategic decision to discontinue Fruits and Official. We expect the closure of these apps to result in an approximately $12,000,000 revenue headwind for the year. We expect adjusted EBITDA margins for the year to contract as we navigate revenue headwinds and invest in product and technology to reignite usage and engagement.

We remain confident that we will return to As always and especially in this year of rebuilding, we plan to operate with financial discipline to ensure healthy cash flows. In closing, over the past year, Bumble has established a strong foundation to build upon the years ahead. We have set a bold product strategy accelerated innovation and honed operations and execution. Our commitment to our three strategic pillars strengthening our ecosystem, driving innovation and customer experience, and enhancing our revenue strategy. But not only advance our mission of empowering individuals to build healthy and equitable relationships but also help us to deliver profitable long term growth for our shareholders. And finally, as I wrap up my time at Bumble Bumble, I wanted to say that it has been an absolute honor to serve our team our members and our shareholders over these past four point five years. I'm grateful for the partnership with Whitney and Lidlianni and I'm very confident in the bright and exciting future that Whitney and the team have planned for Bumble Bumble. And with that, I'll turn it over to the operator for Q and A. Thank you.

First question comes from Eric Sheridan with Goldman Sachs. Thank you so much for taking the question. Maybe two if I could. Whitney, would love to get your perspective as you return to the company in an operating role as CEO, what your take is on the broader online dating industry landscape as we get deeper into 2025, how you see some of the opportunities and challenges facing the industry more broadly? And then maybe a backward looking question, but as you've put in place some of the measures as a management team to address lower quality or bad actors in terms of profile and user growth. What are some of the key learnings you've had over the last couple of months and how do those inform some of the continuation of those strategic priorities looking deeper into twenty twenty five? Thanks so much.

Thank you so much. This is Whitney. I will take your first question. Great to be back with all of you. So when we look at industry trends, I think it's really important to reinforce that the demand for love right now is stronger than it arguably has ever been in modern time. People need to meet each other. People want to meet each other. We are a society that needs relationships We need connection. We need love. What has happened in my opinion and just for those of you that are not familiar with me, I've been on the front line of dating apps since 2012. This has been my entire life. I have lived breathed and essentially, been so sick in this since I was 22 years old. I'm now 35. So this is my whole adult life.

People want love, they need love, they want to use technology to find love because it's easier and it's more efficient and it helps them bypass being at the right place at the right time. But what my opinion is, is that while we have been leaning on algorithms and product to find love, we maybe haven't paused to really say what are these products doing to people? How are they making them feel? Dating was meant to be a fun and viral and easy way to connect.

And as time has gone on, that low friction environment has led to people feeling judged, feeling insecure, feeling rejected. And when I started Bumble, a big part of our success was that it was about removing rejection and feeling confidence but we are in a new dawn. We need to make sure that that is being initiated in every touchpoint of our product. So this is exactly what we're focused on is bringing confidence, curiosity, joy back to this experience while enhancing the what we said earlier in the script, the building blocks of the way this technology works. So this is everything we are focused on right now, which is making sure that the entire experience delivers you the most relevant matches, people that you want to meet, people that you don't just want to swipe right on, but you will actually end up meeting in real life. You'll have a great date. We want you to have the safest, most trusted experience possible and we really do believe that the future of dating is about helping people fall back in love with falling in love again. That's why I'm back. That's exactly what we're going to be focused on in this next chapter.

And Letyani has already done exceptional groundwork here by reinforcing and rebuilding a lot of the underlying tech [indiscernible] I will now turn the second question to Lidliani. Thank you, Whitney. [indiscernible] emphasize the point Whitney made earlier, we have been partnering really closely together this past year. And one of the points that we've been always extremely aligned on is the importance of making sure that Bumble is incredibly safe and a trustworthy platform for all of our members. So a big part of our investments this this past year has been strengthening our security systems, our safety guidelines, our policies and our technology to ensure that we are providing a really clean and powerful environment for our users. As we look forward, it's an investment that we want to continue to put a lot of energy in. And I'll say to you, the release coming up now in March, the winter release, has a lot of capabilities and features that are geared towards continuing to make sure Bumble is a leader in trust and safe for our customers, including rolling out ID verification, rolling out share my date that gives users more confidence of their location to trusted sources along with review before send.

That's really about ensuring customers understand our policies about what it means to be a safe member of our platform. So we're extremely bullish about continuing to invest in trust and safety. And I'm excited to pass the baton to to Whitney as she takes on the team. Our next question comes from Shweta Kajuria with Wolfe Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking my questions. Let me try two please. Could you please provide an update on where you are with the CFO search? What your priorities are as you look for a new CFO given you may be at a different stage as a company than you were back pre IPO? And then same similar question for Whitney is it fair to assume you're in it for the long haul given the recent change in terms of your investment as an operating CEO with the company? Thanks a lot. Thanks so much. This is Whitney. Thanks for the questions.

So here's a quick update on the CFO search. The CFO hire is going to be an incredibly important one.

This is certainly a very high priority and we are actively interviewing candidates, and we will update you when we've made an appointment. I just want to reinforce that this is top priority and we are looking for a leader that suits the needs of the business in this current environment and for our goals in the future. So more to come there. Yes, let's talk about my tenure. So I I really appreciate this question. And I want to start by saying, this is my passion. I love Bumble. And while I had no intention of stepping back into the CEO role, I had the intention of remaining the Executive Chair. When this opportunity did arise, There is no doubt in my mind that there is no one else on earth that can go and really bring love back to this category. Then the founder of or the co founder of Tinder, I founded Bumble as a 25 year old woman. I know this category. I love this category. I live for this. And so to answer your question, this is not an obligation. For me. This is a true honor This is something that I'm excited to dive back into and I have no plans of making this a short lived or interim focus.

I am in this to win this and I am in this to bring love back to the category and to people's lives around the world. And so you can expect me to be fully, fully, fully committed And there is no expiration date on that. We now turn to Cory Carpenter with JPMorgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Great. Thanks for the questions. I had two Maybe for Lidiany, could you just expand on the discover tab feature? I think this is the first time you mentioned that as being part of the winter release. So we'd be curious to hear more about that and what you're seeing in testing? And then secondly, just any update you can provide on what you are seeing on top of the final trends following the fall product release?

Thank you. Let's talk a little bit about Discover. We're really excited about introducing the [indiscernible] tab on the Bumble app that's really focused on helping users to cover one another through shared interest. And for us, there's been a couple of key focuses, if you recall, what I've been been talking about these last few quarters around our transformation, customer experience, ecosystem and reimagining our strategy for revenue growth. And so Discover is in the two major things. It's adding customer experiences that's focused on relevance. So customers come to Bumble to find relevant people and Discover really helps accelerate that Discover. But it also is a feature that is free for our users everywhere around the world. And it's both to help us reenergize the top of funnel for us especially with younger users and to give that path to freemium. So we're really excited about the early signs of [indiscernible] rigorously tested this feature in various markets seeing great engagement, users that are already using Discover today are getting more mattress. We know it's providing the value that we want. And we're excited to continue to evolve it over the year. And with [indiscernible] engagement and success as well.

And what we have seen from it is high interest in these filters interest filters, which has become founding foundation for the Discover capabilities, really incredible rapid adoption there. And increased in success of our users as well. What that has helped us is really focused on near term engagement which we in turn know will drive longer term revenue REX acceleration. So we're optimistic based on what we've seen so far. And are seeing exactly the right signs for what we know will be the right direction for the company.

Our next question comes from Andrew Marroch with Raymond James. Thanks for taking my question.

We've seen some kind of anecdotal data kind of floating around that young people, especially hesitant [indiscernible] as you're thinking about that, how does that kind of impact your plans for monetizing these users as you start to get them in and you start to see to your point the engagement from the fall release and the winter release like you were talking about? Thank you.

Yes, we're aiming to be really deliberate here. One, we want to make sure that users across all age groups, but certainly younger users engaged that we're reigniting top of funnel especially in our mature markets. And we aren't seeing a delay. What we want what we have seen from our research in the testing that we have done for fall and now winter is that users are looking for two big things.

Relevant users, so the work both innovation and ecosystem that we have been doing are incredibly full on exactly that in safety. And that's so much of the work that we have done across this release. People want to know that they're going to be safe in our platform and that they're going to find users that is relevant to them. Those are the key indicators for younger users And again, I'm really confident that we're in the right path given the data that we have Our next question comes from Nathan Feffer with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, everyone. Thanks for the question. I want to dig a little bit more onto the guidance At the midpoint, the 1Q guide implies a 25% or so EBITDA margin. A pretty big step down compared to 4Q. Are you seeing a little bit more color what's driving the contraction? What are the areas of investment? That are pushing that? And given you talked about further investments to the year, how should we think about the slope of margin over 2025? Sure. I can take that. Hey, Nate.

So as we said in our prepared remarks, we do expect that adjusted EBITDA margins for the year will contract for the year. Now we are not providing specific guidance for what this looks like for the full year, but we've given you the numbers for Q1, which as you said represents a margin of 25% of the midpoint of the range. I think a big one of the big reasons for the step down is, obviously, as we are navigating revenue headwinds, that flows through to EBITDA. So that's Obviously, one thing that impacts margins. We are also making some deliberate investments this year, specifically in product and technology to reignite usage and engagement. So all the things that you've heard from us today around what does our product vision look like, what is the work that we're doing around safety, what is the that we're doing to sort of drive the ecosystem. We are investing in [indiscernible] people resources as well as in platform resources to accelerate the work that we are doing. So that is the biggest investment that we are making in the company for 2025. And that's what's reflected in the guidance that you're seeing.

Obviously, we will continue to be very disciplined all other areas of spend including marketing. Marketing, as you know, an area of spend that includes both sort of always on approach as well as spend that we do that coincides with big product moments. So we'll continue to be very diligent in terms of how we think about efficiency and ROI on marketing and that's definitely an area that we've historically been very good at in terms of cost efficiency and discipline. And across every other part of the business, the as possible. So we are very confident that we will return to expanding margins as revenue growth resumes. We do expect that in 2025, we will see a contraction.

Our next question comes from Ygal Arounian with Your line is open. Please go ahead. [indiscernible] Maybe Whitney, just as you step back in and there's been a lot of changes on strategy front. And any changes to how you think about the strategy going forward? And maybe you can also talk about that in the context of there's been a number of kind of executive level changes over the course of the last year or so.

Is everything in place the way you think it should be at this point? Or is there more work to do? And then I have a follow-up.

Thanks so much for the question. So I think shareholders should have peace of mind in the fact that Lidiani and I have been super aligned from day one. When she stepped into the role, we made a commitment to each other that we were going to be a customer first company. That is the most important thing that we can be. And our members candidly deserve better than what this category has been giving them over the last several years. So we have been on a joint and dual quest the last year together under her leadership to make sure that we are solving customer pain points. That is the strategy. There's not some off the beaten path strategy. It's quite simple. It is getting back to basics and solving the problems are getting in the way of our members finding love and love that is actually fruitful, that brings them joy, that makes them feel good, It's not about just getting people matches and then leaving dead end conversation Like that's not what matters to us. And so moving back to strict customer centricity is the roadmap. That is the plan. And so so much of what you've just heard, Lidiani, talk about as far as the winter release this is all about what the customer needs and wants, getting back to being the most safe trusted platform for people come and meet new people.

So I think the long and the short of it is the strategy is not changing making sure that we deliver the most value, the most confident curious, joyful experience that we possibly can to our members And that is the number one priority. And so that is not a departure or a pivot. We are super aligned there and that's a continuum. So moving to the team. Another exciting update that I think you've all kind of been following along is that Lidiani has really upped the talent at the company. Over the last few quarters, there have been layoffs and making sure that we've moved to a very strict performance model. So it is the best players. People come, do great work, they stay. And we are really diligent about this.

And so I feel really proud and excited by the folks that Lidiani has org So obviously, this is a process. It's not a one stop ride, but we are definitely in the best place we've ever been from a talent standpoint. In the history of Bumble, very sophisticated, experienced folks that are really deeply passionate and believe in the opportunity. Does that mean I won't be adding more strategic hires that are experts in their field? Of course, I will. There's always going to be an opportunity to introduce experts in their field and make sure that we always have the best team players across the org. But I think it's important for everybody here to know that I'm coming back as a real operating CEO with my focus on excellence, efficiency, a lean path [indiscernible] all on the same page. We are one team rowing in the same direction on one roadmap and I'm really, really excited about the opportunity ahead. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't. So I really look forward to sharing more next quarter when I'm back in the Okay, great. That's really helpful. Thanks. And then just one on the third strategic priority on enhancing the revenue strategy.

And I know that's a little bit further down the line and we're focused more on engagement right now. But maybe just any help thinking about that path from engagement to monetization thinking about it today, or if it's really just get the engagement down and then focus on the monetization later.

Thank you. You. As you've been hearing from me, there's three pillars to our transformation. The health of our ecosystem, innovation, Those first two pillars are very much about strengthening the foundation and getting engaged Right. That's the reason why you've been hearing so much emphasis on that over the last few quarters. But in parallel to that has been our revenue strategy effort, which is really about ensuring that we have a very thoughtful balancing of our revenue across each tier of our subscription. And that is ensuring that we have a great free experience that our paid paywalls are in the right places that we're driving conversions at the right moment for our users, so that not only do they come to the app, they pay and they feel valued and valuable returns for being a subscriber in our platform. So that work is ongoing already. And it is really important for us to get the foundation of engagement right, because we know then our conversion and revenue growth is a next step as part of this process. But we are testing quite a few different frameworks in terms of that rebalancing And I'm excited for what Whitney is bringing in and envisioning the value that she wants to add across the board in the platform.

So lots of focus on revenue strategy for the company moving forward for sure. Hi there. It's Logan on for John. Could you talk us through puts and takes on the 1Q Bumble App guidance in terms of how you're thinking about payer conversion, namely as you focus on the user ecosystem? And could you discuss any short term negative impacts from new safety features, if any? Thanks. Sorry. Hey, Logan, I can take that. So just to maybe reiterate, what we are expecting for Q1. For total revenue, we are guiding on an ex FX basis to be declining between 47%. And for BumbleApp Bumble, excluding FX and also the impact of the loss of one day, last year being a leap year, we are providing an outlook of revenue declining between 35%. And if you look at our Q4 twenty twenty four numbers, for Bumble App, we declined at 4%. So we are effectively saying we are declining at sort of similar levels as where we were in Q4. In terms of the puts and takes for payers, we are also guiding to a sequential decline in paying users in the range of about 100,000 to 120,000. And this sequential decline encompasses all of the work that we are doing around strengthening our ecosystem.

So it includes the work that we're doing around safety, includes the work that we're doing around marketing in terms of how do we think about what kind of users we bring on to our platform. If you remember, for the last two quarters, we've been talking a lot about what's strengthening our ecosystem means. And it's not just about weeding out bad actors. It's also about how do we get the right people on the ecosystem that can match with other relevant people. And there's a lot of work that we're doing from a marketing perspective that also impacts that sort of reinforce what Liliani said earlier, our focus is very much on ensuring that we strengthen our top of the funnel strengthen our engagement metrics and then that will lead into strengthening conversion and then the arc of the work that we are doing. A lot of these are in in parallel. So like Liliani mentioned about our revenue strategy, we are also looking at ways to strengthen our revenue strategy. But the focus in the short term is very much on making sure that we get the top of the funnel back to growth. I'll just mention, if you look at third party data numbers between Q4 and Q3, Q1, we've seen green shoots, right?

We've seen some stabilization of metrics. We've seen green shoots in terms of the things that we are testing. Obviously, it's still very early days, but it's it's very encouraging to see the progress because we absolutely believe that we are in the right direction in terms of our overall strategy. Our next question comes from Robert Colbriff with Evercore ISI.

Your line is open. Please go ahead.

I wanted to follow-up on an earlier question. It seems like there's been a reset or there's reset ongoing at Bumble Bumble maybe more broadly across the category to maybe enhance consumer surplus or the user value proposition. Do you think that's a temporary change maybe the Gen Z generational shift? Or do you think it's perhaps more [indiscernible] micro adjustment or optimization of things like paywalls, swipe limits and things like that?

Yes, I'm happy to jump in here. This is Whitney. Thanks for the question. So I think here's what happened. Online dating [indiscernible] took off for the millennial audience in 2012. And it just was explosive because the demand is there. And I stand by this, the demand is still there. What happened was, there was never really a moment and you kind of alluded to this, There was never really a moment for and I'll speak just for ourselves for us to pause and reset and say, are we still delivering the most value to the customer? What are they here looking for? Okay. They're here to be matched with someone great. Are we doing that at the best of our ability? What are the struggles our members are running into? And you kind of said this by saying, it was this game of cat and mouse of okay, a new feature here or a new filter there or a new paywall here. And the time has come to say, you know what, we have a great business. We serve one of the most important needs on planet Earth. We help people find love. I mean, truly, this is why I'm here.

What is more important than that? I cannot think of something. I'd be off doing it if I could. This is the most important thing I could get my time to. And I think that this is the moment and Lidliani has already been deep in the in the throes of this of spearheading this to reset and say, let's look at this House of Love. And understand the foundational work that needs to be reset. So when people come in here, they feel loved, they feel home, they feel safe, they see who they want to see. It's a reset. It's bringing back the right people, to the right environment and really giving people the opportunity to meet in a way that is both fulfilling and current I actually don't think this is so generational. Everyone all over the Internet, you know, speculates about this. Love is universal. It doesn't really matter how old you are or where you come from or what you're looking for. We all just want to get to that special person. But, you know, this is our opportunity to really say how. What's the best way to get you there. And this is where we're really just working back towards from customer pain points.

And so I'm super, super confident that the work ahead of us, which is what I'm stepping back in to carry on and to do, it's all about saying, how do we fulfill the demand of helping people find love in the safest, most compatible, most joyful way And so that's really what we're setting out to do. And I think it's going to be a huge reset. And I don't think it's a forever reset. I think that this is hard work. It's foundational. It's a remodel. It's not a rebuild. It's a redesign. It's not not a start from scratch. We don't need to knock this thing down and build. Again, that is certainly not what's going on. This still serves a lot of value. I mean, the countless babies and love stories across the board. So I think watch this space and I'm really excited to share more in detail when I'm back in the seat in a few weeks and you'll hear from me the next earnings. So thank you so much. We now turn to Eli Winter with Deutsche Bank. Hi. Thanks for the question. This is Eli on for Ben. With the exit of Official and Fruit and your [indiscernible] I'm curious also to hear about your thoughts on products beyond dating.

So how is the adoption of Bumble BFF trended? What learnings have you been able to leverage from Geneva that could help with Bumble BFF scale? Thank you, Eli. I can get started on this one.

One of the most exciting things about Bumble is that Bumble has always been a brand that stands for more than romantic love. And to Whitney's point, the love is the most important thing and we'll Bumble has learned over the years with BFF is that friendship love is so important in people's lives. So we're really excited about continuing to focus our energy not only in reimagining dating the dating category of our core businesses, this decision around Fruits and Official, which is always an extremely hard decision to make, is about putting our resources and our focus on reimagining dating for our core businesses, which Bumble and Badoo, Bumble also putting resources in the opportunity that we see for BFF and Geneva with community. So truly excited about that. And as you know, Whitney has been the the founder and originator of BFF so passionate about that. So really excited to see her carry the torch moving forward. Thanks, Ladionne. I might just add a couple of quick points there. So what's really fascinating about BFF in particular and friend finding is this is actually the most relevant entry point for the broader category of love. Let's get away from the label dating app for a moment.

When you look at the post grad audience, which is Gen Z, they are eager and I hate to use this word, but quite literally desperate to find friends. They've left this super dense environment where they're surrounded by friends. They've gone out into the real world. They're young, they're social, they want to meet people, and they're looking for community and friends. And so what's really exciting about the extensibility and stretchiness, if you will, of our brand is it is not associated with merely a dating app. Bumble really lends itself to a much broader lifestyle brand. So women particular have no issue joining our product even when they're in a romantic relationship so that they can find community in France So the on ramp opportunity here is quite exclusive to us. Other category players don't really have this opportunity because they don't have the same brand from a lifestyle standpoint. And so what we're really looking at is how can we go after these audiences of Postgres and there's a lot of different audiences that are more interested in starting as friends first how can we do that to also be a ramp back into love? Because as we all know, most folks in their 20s the first relationship they have is not generally their forever relationship.

And so because of the nature of romantic relationships, when someone is in your product as a you're looking for friends, then they go through a breakup, now they're much more likely to on ramp into the love category. From a romantic standpoint. So there is a flywheel here and we are really excited about how we can leverage BFF both with women here in America, but it's also a great on ramp for new markets that are a bit more hesitant to adopting to a dating app right away. So more to come here and watch this. Next question comes from Curtis Nagel with Bank of America.

Your line is open. Please go ahead. Great.

Thanks for for taking the question. Just one for me.

Your largest competitor has noted, I think in their last call, they've seen a pickup in peak season dating trends. Did you observe anything similar? And I guess if so, have they faded?

Yes. The question was a bit fuzzy at the beginning for us for some reason.

Yes. Sorry about that Whitney, it might be my headset. But the question was, your largest competitor had noted they'd seen a pickup in peak season dating trends. And just asking if you'd seen something Bumble? And if so, had they faded or Well, as I stated, that's the question.

Littie, I mean, why do you take that since you're in the seat as CEO?

Thank you.

What we are seeing, as Whitney just called out, a general interest especially for younger users, to start more casual first, to start with friendship find an on ramp that is less intimidating, which is why we're very excited about having a broader set of products that can serve that user base But we are continuing to see important trends in finding connections that are relevant and ensuring that safety is top of mind for platforms like ours For us, what we're seeing as well is how relevant it is to have a women's first focus and that has always been such an important important priority and focus and mission for Bumble it continues to be incredibly relevant in this category. So all in all, we're seeing great opportunity for the company moving forward. And as Whitney called out at the start of this Q and A, Love has not been as relevant as we see it today, and I'm excited to see the company capture the opportunity ahead.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our Q and A and today's conference call. We'd like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.