Clear Secure, Inc. (NYSE:YOU) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Mark Kelley : All right. Thank you very much, and good morning. If I can just expand maybe on the last couple of points you made there Caryn on the user experience. There’s a lot that’s in your control like some of the things you just outlined some are maybe you’re more reliant on the CAT two machines and things like that rolling out. I guess what’s more important in your mind the things you can control or the things you cannot control directly? And then the second one is in terms of search staffing around the NextGen ID initiatives does that come out of the P&L starting this quarter or we can see a little bit of that do you get to 100% of folks upgrading? Thank you.

Ken Cornick: Yes. In terms of the — I’ll answer the second question first. The surge staffing we talked about in Q4 $2 million and a similar amount in Q1. And I would say that that does come out. Now of course we’re still growing our footprint right and we still have verification growth. So it’s not necessarily going to go down sequentially, but we do expect to see strong operating leverage from the direct salaries line throughout 2024.

Caryn Seidman-Becker: And in terms of your question and this comes from a control freak, you got to control what you can control. And what I would say is that there is a deep alignment across all partners and stakeholders airports, airlines, the government, most importantly passengers that they want safer and easier experiences. That technology is the solution that bringing PreCheck to as many people as possible, which is great from a physical screening perspective that biometrics are going mainstream and that public-private partnerships are powerful. And so it’s everybody working together and an alignment around that that I think does drive timing and that everybody wants this to happen, right? Again, I keep going back and I think everyone sees it.

There’s million more travelers coming through airports every single day by 2030, and we’re in 2024. So it’s just not that far away. You’ve got to be rolling out these technologies. And so, I think the alignment help ensure the outcomes.

Operator: Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of David Unger with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

Q – David Unger: Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Guys you talked about the ARPU increase. I shouldn’t say increase but you mentioned average members paying less than $10 per month. So let’s say, it’s $150 annually and we know about the pricing increases. But just wondering, how we should think about ARPU pricing increases over the next couple of years? Thanks.

Caryn Seidman-Becker: Before Ken talks about the technicals on that I will say, when you think about the value for less than $10 a month for CLEAR Plus when you think about the value for PreCheck less than $1.30 a month, these are incredible values when you think about the time to value return as well as the challenges around travel. And I think that creates a lot of opportunity to continue to drive value for customers. And when you do that, over time there’s pricing opportunities.

Ken Cornick: Yes. And so when we talk about the average obviously, our retail price point is $1.89. We have family planned for now $99 airline pricing. So there’s a wide variety of — and our credit card partners so those members. don’t pay anything. And so we’ll continue to evaluate opportunities as we see them. We think that we have very modest price elasticity in this business. But we also need to deliver a great customer experience, and that’s what we’re focused on this year. And as we deliver on that, we will evaluate opportunities to take price appropriately.

Caryn Seidman-Becker: And again, continue to add to either side of the experience from home to gate.

Q – David Unger: Okay. Thanks. And then guys just a follow-up. So Ken, maybe this is more for you. When we look at full year guide and the 3% comment in the shareholder letter on travel increase for 2024, is there a way for us to think about member growth expectations exiting 2024 versus 2023? Thank you.

Ken Cornick: So, I would say, that we manage the business for members, for bookings and for free cash flow. And so there’s a lot of levers to pull here. And so what we’re really focused on ultimately is, driving free cash flow. And obviously, we want to grow our member base, but we want to deliver a great experience. We’re going to look at pricing opportunities as I just mentioned. And so there’s a lot of ways to optimize the business, and we’re going to look at that and not going to specifically talk about what the member growth is going to be.

Caryn Seidman-Becker: We opened eight airports in 2023. We expect to launch and grow the network this year. Those airports, I would call them very immature airports maybe 2022 and 2023 openings, still have obviously incredible growth opportunities as well as new airports. And our mature airports continue to comp well. And again, when you talk about mature two, three years are not necessarily mature. Obviously 10 is more and continue to have good growth. But as Ken said, we’re focused on the overall picture.

Q – David Unger: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. And we have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I’ll now turn the call back over to Caryn Seidman-Becker for closing remarks.