Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Operator: Your next question will come from the line of Brad Sills with Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

Brad Sills: Just a question on the reiterated operating income guide. You lowered top line by, it looks like, about $700 million, yet you’re able to sustain your operating income guidance, which is impressive and it speaks to the flexibility in your model. Michelle, you alluded to some adjustments that were made, if you could just provide a little bit of color as to where those adjustments were made in the business?

Michelle Clatterbuck: Yes. Brad…

Sasan Goodarzi: Sorry, Michelle, go ahead. I was going to ask who the question was for. But Michelle, please go ahead.

Michelle Clatterbuck: No worries. No worries. Thank you, Brad. Yes, it is one of the things that we feel very good about. As I talked about on a previous call, when we were going through our planning for this year, we were really looking at making sure we had identified areas that we could take action on, the levers we could pull if we did see the macro environment get worse. Those things look like marketing expenses, things that we just don’t think are going to pay off in the near term; other areas like travel, discretionary spend. But we are protecting R&D and our innovation. And we are continuing to invest. Our investments and our head count continue to go up across the Company. And yes, Credit Karma, we have taken the revenue down with a revenue hit there.

But when we look at really being able to manage our expenses, it is looking across the Company holistically and really focusing on the areas where we think we’re not going to see as much return in the short term so that we can continue to focus longer term and drive the innovation.

Brad Sills: Excellent. And this — Sasan, one for you, if I may, please. Last year, we saw a little bit of moderation in TurboTax ASP growth. You talked a little bit about that at the Analyst Day. I think it was 4% on paid ARPU versus, I think, 8% in prior years. If you could elaborate a bit on what went on there. And should we see some acceleration here? Now that you’re getting into more experience with TT Live and full service, might we actually see some acceleration in TurboTax ARPU?

Sasan Goodarzi: Sure. Absolutely. I think the way to think about it is in the long term and from a trajectory perspective, we should see ARPU go up. And now every year, strategically, we make decisions in terms of where we may expand our free offering or where we may increase price based on the leverage that we see in the marketplace, which is primarily in our assisted offerings. And those were some of the adjustments that we made last year. And as we look into this year, we actually feel very good about our do-it-yourself platform lineup. And really, our biggest leverage is going to come from accelerating what we’re seeing across the TurboTax Live platform, which is really where the growth is coming from. It’s really where the ARPU comes from, and it’s where our biggest opportunity is with a $20 billion TAM in front of us.

And of course, overtime, opening up an additional $10 billion TAM with business taxes. So that was really the intent and the logic behind why ARPU was probably a little bit slower growth last year versus prior years. And I think the way to think about it is we’re going to continue to see ARPU growth into the future, and a lot of it will come from the assisted segment. And that’s really part of our plan that we’re executing against this coming year.

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