Getty Images Holdings, Inc. Q4 FY2025 earnings call

• 2025 was Getty Images' 30th anniversary, a strong year with record revenue across creative and editorial, strengthened recurring revenue base, and expanded long-term partnerships. • Secured two significant multi-year licensing agreements in Q4, including with a major social platform and a large AI company, with accelerated revenue and downstream recurring streams. • Renewed key partnerships like AFP, NASCAR, and the NHL. • Increased total annual subscription revenues to over 54%, grew Unsplash Plus by over 30% to over 50,000 subscribers, grew custom content by over 20%, and tapped into video and custom AI training sets. • Showcased unique capabilities at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games with 120 photographers, editors, etc. capturing over 6 million images. • Invested in machine learning for natural language search across creative and editorial libraries to improve customer experience and competitive advantage.

Full year 2025 revenue was $981.3 million, a record, with year-on-year growth of 4.5% and 3.8% on a currency-neutral basis. Adjusted EBITDA was $320.9 million with a margin of 32.7%. Q4 2025 revenue was $282.3 million, up 14.1% and 12.7% currency-neutral, with adjusted EBITDA at $104.1 million and a margin of 36.9%. Creative revenue in Q4 was $149 million, up 4.6% year-on-year and 3.1% currency-neutral; full year creative revenue was $556.9 million, up 0.7% currency-neutral. Editorial revenue in Q4 was $109.4 million, up 21.4% year-on-year and 19.9% currency-neutral; full year editorial revenue was $369.6 million, up 6.9% currency-neutral. Other revenue in Q4 was $23.9 million, up from Q4 2024; full year other revenue was $54.8 million, up 35.2% both reported and currency-neutral. Q4 SG&A expense was $111.6 million, with expense rate decreasing to 39.5% of revenue; full year SG&A increased to 42.4% of revenue. Q4 adjusted EBITDA margin was 36.9%, full year adjusted EBITDA margin was 32.7%. CapEx in Q4 was $13 million, down year-over-year; full year CapEx was $59.5 million, 6.1% of revenue. Adjusted EBITDA less CapEx in Q4 was $91.1 million, up currency-neutral; full year adjusted EBITDA less CapEx was $261.3 million, up currency-neutral. Free cash flow in Q4 was $7.7 million, down from Q4 2024; full year free cash flow was $5.7 million, down from 2024.

• Anticipates 2026 revenue of $948 million to $988 million, down 3.4% to up 0.6% year over year, and down 4.5% to 0.5% currency neutral. • Excluding impact of accelerated revenue from Q4 deals, 2026 revenue outlook would reflect expected growth up 0.7% to 4.9% year over year, or down 0.5% to up 3.7% currency neutral. • Expect adjusted EBITDA of $279 million to $295 million, down 12.9% to 8.1% year over year, and down 13.9% to 9.1% currency neutral. • Guidance includes approximately $5.6 million in one-off increases in SG&A for continued SOX compliance acceleration efforts. • Anticipated decline in revenue and adjusted EBITDA attributable to timing of revenue recognition from Q4 2025 deals, offsetting tailwind from editorial calendar.

• Ongoing regulatory review process, specifically in the UK regarding the merger with Shutterstock, with CMA extending timeline to deliver final report by an additional eight weeks, now expecting decision in June. • Potential broader impacts from global macroeconomic conditions not fully reflected in guidance. • Impact of exit of free trial client acquisition program on active annual subscribers and revenue retention rate.

Q: Talk to us a little bit more about the licensing deals, business applicability, and if more are expected, and on subscription side, why active annual subs declined and retention rates.

A: On deals, confidentiality prevents detailed info, but relevance of content on social media and via large language models is key, with more opportunity expected in those spaces. On subs, active annual subs decline almost entirely due to ending free trial client acquisition program in June 2025. Revenue retention rate decrease due to differences in editorial event revenue, one-off events, and lower revenue retention rates of smaller e-commerce subscriptions; rate expected to come back to low to mid-90s once fully cycling through one-year anniversary of free trial exit.

Q: For 2026 revenue guidance, qualify mix of data licensing for training vs display for LLMs and if new deals in pipeline are baked into guide.

A: The two large deals from Q4 aren't pure data licensing deals. Can't quantify mix going forward; other revenue from data licensing expected to be low single digits of total revenue. There'll be ~$10 million of recurring revenue from the two large Q4 deals and carry forward from other deals.

Q: Roughly what percent of exclusive editorial content remains untouched by LLMs for training purposes.

A: Can't give specific percentage as editorial content isn't licensed for AI training; editorial content is not licensed out in that way, but content is scraped by AI entities and sits everywhere on the Internet.