NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements about us and our industry that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including statements regarding our strategy, future financial condition, future operations, projected costs, prospects, plans, objectives of management, and expected market growth, are forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as “may,” “will,” “shall,” “should,” “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “could,” “intends,” “target,” “projects,” “contemplates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential,” “goal,” “objective,” “seeks,” or “continue,” or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions that concern our expectations, strategy, plans, or intentions. Forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K include, but are not limited to, statements about:
•our strategies to increase awareness of Reddit, including through search engine optimization, partnerships, and investment in full-funnel marketing;
•our strategies to increase user growth and engagement;
•our expectations regarding the growth and availability of valuable and appealing user-generated content on our platform;
•our ability to develop new products and services and bring them to market in a timely manner and make enhancements to our platform;
•our ability to implement artificial intelligence and machine learning to increase user growth and engagement and support advertising growth;
•user and advertiser growth strategies in geographies outside of the United States and in languages besides English;
•strategies to increase revenue from new and existing advertisers, including by (i) evolving our service model to more types of advertisers and building deeper advertiser relationships, (ii) providing product opportunities and offerings that deliver value to our advertisers, and (iii) developing measurements solutions to increase the effectiveness of our advertisers’ return on investment;
•strategies to expand revenue sources from non-advertising sources, including content licensing and our user economy;
•strategies to empower Redditors, including monetization tools for creators and communities;
•our content moderation model relative to complex content ranking algorithms;
•our ability to attract and retain Redditors and their level of engagement;
•the impact of the macroeconomic environment, including as a result of the ongoing conflicts between Russia and Ukraine and in the Middle East, on our business and other uncertainties in the global economy generally;
•our ability to maintain and enhance our brand and reputation;
•our history of losses and ability to maintain profitability in the foreseeable future;
•our ability to maintain the security and availability of our platform and protect against data breaches and other security incidents;
•our ability to manage risks associated with our business, in particular, risks related to content on our platform, and our content moderation approach, which depends on users who volunteer to be moderators of their communities;
•potential harm caused by changes in internet search engines’ methodologies, particularly search engine optimization methodologies and policies;
•our ability to attract and retain advertisers and scale our revenue model;
•our ability to develop effective products and tools for advertisers, including measurement tools;
•our ability to compete effectively in our industry;
•our ability to expand and monetize our platform internationally;
•fluctuations in our operating results and seasonality of our business;
•our ability to comply with modified or new laws and regulations applying to our business, and potential harm to our business as a result of those laws and regulations;
•changes in technology or methodology that impact our calculation of DAUq, including our ability to identify automated agents on our platform;
•real or perceived inaccuracies in current or historical metrics related to our business;
•the increased expenses associated with being a public company;
•our ability to effectively manage our growth and expand our infrastructure and maintain our corporate culture;
•expectation of increased losses and decline in operating margins as we invest in product improvements and innovations and our international growth;
•challenges in increasing ARPU on an absolute basis outside of the United States;
•potential need to absorb the costs related to investments in product improvements and innovations without generating sufficient revenue to offset these costs;
•our opportunity to continue to grow our DAUq in the United States and around the world and our focus on growing our platform globally, including through entering new geographic markets and investing in under-penetrated ones;
•our aim to increase DAUq by scaling internationally, developing products that are more compelling for our users, and improving the quality of our products across all platforms;
•our expectation of an increase in our costs and expenses from the launch of new ad formats, products, and features, primarily as additional hosting costs although most of these areas of focus will not initially generate revenue;
•potential decline in users due to a reduction in third-party applications;
•potential near-term volatility in Redditor and revenue growth rates;
•sufficiency of our existing cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities and amounts available under our revolving credit facility to meet our working capital and capital expenditure needs over at least the next 12 months; and
•other risks and uncertainties described in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including those described in “Risk Factors.”
We caution you that the foregoing list does not contain all of the forward-looking statements made in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
We have based the forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K primarily on our current expectations, estimates, forecasts, and projections about future events and trends that we believe may affect our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects. Although we believe that we have a reasonable basis for each forward-looking statement contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we cannot guarantee that the future results, levels of activity, performance, or events and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements will be achieved or occur at all. The outcome of the events described in these forward-looking statements is subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors described in “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Moreover, we operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks and uncertainties emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all risks and uncertainties that could have an impact on the forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The results, events, and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements may not be achieved or occur, and actual results, events, or circumstances could differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements.
The forward-looking statements made in this Annual Report on Form 10-K relate only to events as of the date on which the statements are made. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made in this Annual Report on Form 10-K to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K or to reflect new information or the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law. We may not actually achieve the plans, intentions, or expectations disclosed in our forward-looking statements, and you should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements. Our forward-looking statements do not reflect the potential impact of any future acquisitions, mergers, dispositions, joint ventures, or investments we may make.
NOTE REGARDING USER METRICS AND OTHER DATA
We define a daily active unique (“DAUq”) as a user whom we can identify with a unique identifier who has visited a page on the Reddit website, www.reddit.com, or opened a Reddit application at least once during a 24-hour period. We calculate average DAUq for a particular period by adding the number of DAUq on each day of that period and dividing that sum by the number of days in that period. We define a weekly active unique (“WAUq”) as a user whom we can identify with a unique identifier who has visited a page on the Reddit website, www.reddit.com, or opened a Reddit application at least once during a trailing seven-day period. We calculate average quarterly WAUq for a particular period by adding the number of WAUq on each day of that period and dividing that sum by the number of days in that period. We define average revenue per unique (“ARPU”) as quarterly revenue in a given geography divided by the average DAUq in that geography. For the purposes of calculating ARPU, advertising revenue in a given geography is based on the geographic location in which advertising impressions are delivered, as this approximates revenue based on user activity, while other revenue in a given geography is based on the billing address of the customer.
We regularly review and continually seek to improve the accuracy of, and our ability to track, such metrics. While these metrics are based on what we believe to be reasonable calculations for the applicable period of measurement, there are inherent challenges given the complexity of the systems involved and the rapidly changing nature of mobile devices and systems.
Our Mission
Our mission is to empower communities and make their knowledge accessible to all.
We built Reddit with the belief that communities unlock the power of human creativity and create a sense of belonging and empowerment for their members. Our over 100,000 active communities have channeled the power of human creativity to grow Reddit since our founding. We believe the world needs community more than ever, and that this represents our greatest opportunity to further enrich the lives of everyone in the world.
Overview: The Power of Reddit’s Communities
Reddit is a global, digital city where anyone in the world can join a community to learn from one another, engage in authentic conversations, explore passions, research new hobbies, exchange goods and services, create new communities and experiences, share a few laughs, and find belonging. People are diverse and have multiple interests. Just like in a city, where citizens are part of multiple subcommunities, on Reddit, users often belong to multiple communities. At Reddit, users can dive into anything, and if a community does not already exist around a particular topic, they can create one. In the three months ended December 31, 2024, an average of 101.7 million daily active uniques (“DAUq”) around the world came together on Reddit – continuously adding to our longstanding and constantly evolving human archive of information. They come together to share the rhythm of their daily discoveries, ask questions and receive advice, research before making a purchase decision, hear reactions to recent events, and thrive as a community. Built on shared interests, passion, and trust, Reddit has a community for everyone.
Communities on Reddit are organized based on specific interests and are called subreddits. Within subreddits, Redditors engage in active and in-depth conversations by sharing experiences, submitting links, uploading images and videos, and replying to one another in comment threads on any topic. Subreddits are denoted by an “r/” before their names: r/ explainlikeimfive helps people learn anything with child-friendly explanations; r/ lgbt helps people find their identity; and r/ BeyondTheBump helps people transition from pregnancy to parenthood. Redditors invest time to shape their communities, share their experiences, send support and supplies when someone is down on their luck, and even code scripts and develop tools to advance their communities.