Warby Parker - Q4 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello, and welcome to the Warby Parker Inc. Q4 2025 earnings conference call. My name is Harry, and I will be coordinating your call today. All lines will remain in listen-only mode during the presentation portion of the call, and there will be an opportunity for Q and A after management's prepared remarks. You can enter the queue for questions by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two to exit the queue. Please note that in the interest of taking as many of your questions as possible, the company respectfully asks that you limit yourself to one question and then one follow-up if needed. I will now hand the call over to Jaclyn Berkley, Head of Investor Relations, to begin. Please go ahead.

Jaclyn Berkley (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Here with me today are Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa, our co-founders and co-CEOs, alongside Adrian Mitchell, Chief Financial Officer, and Josh Truppo, Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis. Before we begin, we have a couple of reminders. Our earnings release and slide presentation are available on our website at investors.warbyparker.com. During this call and in our presentation, we will be making comments of a forward-looking nature. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied as a result of the various risks and uncertainties. For more information about some of these risks, please review the company's SEC filings, including the section titled "Risk Factors" in the company's latest annual report on Form 10-K.

These forward-looking statements are based on information as of February 26, 2026, except as required by law, we assume no obligation to publicly update or revise our forward-looking statements. Additionally, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures are in addition to, and not a substitute for, measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with the U.S. GAAP. A reconciliation of our non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP measures can be found in this morning's press release and our slide deck, available on our IR website. With that, I'll pass it over to Dave to kick us off.

Dave Gilboa (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)

Thanks, Jaclyn, good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our fourth quarter and fiscal 2025 results and our outlook for 2026. 2025 was an eventful year and one that we're proud of. We took decisive actions that enabled us to continue delighting customers, to invest in innovation, and position Warby Parker for long-term success, all while delivering sustainable growth. We drove double-digit revenue growth each quarter, meaningfully expanded, adjusted EBITDA, and reported our first full year of positive net income, even as we navigated tariffs in a dynamic consumer backdrop. Looking ahead, 2026 will be an exciting year for Warby Parker. We continue to see tremendous runway in scaling our existing growth initiatives, from opening more stores, to driving progressive growth, to increasing insurance penetration. We'll speak to these and other core business drivers shortly.

This year, we also plan to introduce our first AI glasses in partnership with Google and Samsung, which we expect will unlock significant new TAM and enable us to take advantage of the biggest technology shift in our lifetime. These devices will bring the world's most advanced AI to glasses designed for all-day wear. Over the last 16 years, we have reimagined how people shop for eyewear, bringing together great design, exceptional value, and an unparalleled customer experience underpinned by technology, innovation, and customer obsession. Over time, we've seen how this powerful combination has drawn consumers to our brand and helped us capture market share. Today, we believe the optical industry is in a period of transition.

While the core eyewear category remains large and more stable than most consumer sectors, we have seen more volatility in demand and transient softness than usual in the post-pandemic era, including during some periods over the last year. Our confidence remains in the long-term durability and attractiveness of the category, given the increasing health need that it serves, but we are planning conservatively for the near term, given recent trends. At the same time, enthusiasm for smart glasses is accelerating, with clear proof points of consumer eagerness to embrace these new devices, serving as a demand catalyst independent of trends in the broader eyewear category.

We believe we're well positioned to continue taking market share regardless of macro conditions, and given our inherent advantages as a tech-enabled brand, believe we are better positioned than the rest of our category to successfully navigate and capitalize on the transition from traditional eyewear to intelligent eyewear. This gives us a great deal of confidence in our 2026 plan and as we enter Warby Parker's third act. Acts one and two were about pioneering the direct-to-consumer brand, then evolving into a holistic eye care provider and omni-channel retailer. Act three is all about AI. We plan to introduce new products like AI glasses, while also leveraging AI across the organization to drive productivity and enhance the customer experience. With that, let's turn to results.

In fiscal 2025, we delivered 13% revenue growth, driven by 47 new store openings, the most ever in a single year, high single-digit customer growth, and mid-single digit average revenue per customer growth. We believe this performance reflects continued market share gains. We drove healthy unit volumes, average selling price, and customer growth, while prescription glasses units declined 6% industry-wide, according to The Vision Council. While much of the category relied on significant price increases, we mitigated the impact of tariffs while preserving our unmatched value proposition and maintaining prices on the vast majority of our offerings, including our $95 prescription glasses. We believe our innovative designs, value proposition, and seamless omni-channel experience position us well to continue gaining share in any market condition. We also expanded profitability.

Full-year adjusted EBITDA was $95 million, up 30% year-over-year, driven by leverage in non-marketing SG&A expense. We also achieved our first full year of net income profitability and generated $44 million in free cash flow. We delivered these results while continuing to invest in our long-term strategic initiatives and strengthen the foundation of our operations. We implemented changes that mitigated the impact of tariffs, demonstrating the flexibility of our supply chain and the resilience of our team. In addition, we streamlined our operations by sunsetting our Home Try-On program and completed several infrastructure upgrades in our labs and across our tech stack to support future growth and prepare us for our AI glasses launch. Turning to the fourth quarter. In the quarter, revenue grew 11%, and adjusted EBITDA margin was 7.2%, roughly in line with last year.

As we shared on our last call, our guidance assumed that the trends we saw in September and October would continue through the end of the year. However, in December, we saw a slowdown in our one-year and two-year growth trends, with softness concentrated in our 25 to 34-year-old consumer cohort, while our older progressive customer remained more resilient. We experienced softer retail traffic and contact lens growth slowed, which pressured our e-commerce channel. As a result of this, fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA came in below our expectations. While we are not satisfied with that outcome, we responded quickly and incorporated learnings directly into our 2026 plan. Trends improved early in the first quarter before being impacted by historic winter weather.

Looking ahead, we remain as excited as ever about the opportunity in our core business and the role we expect AI glasses to play in expanding our addressable market and growth potential beyond traditional eyewear. Today, we represent approximately 1.3% share of the $70 billion U.S. eyewear market, and that does not include any future spend in AI glasses. While the market is large, we believe many customers remain underserved by a category that has not prioritized innovation, customer experience, and transparency. While the category has relied largely on price increases, our team has proven that our brand, product assortment, omni-channel offering, and value proposition resonate well with consumers across market conditions. As we look to 2026, our strategy emphasizes scaling the drivers of our core business to accelerate growth while preparing the organization for the launch of AI glasses.

We're prioritizing expanding access across our omni-channel platform, increasing insurance penetration, and continuing to elevate the customer experience as we scale. We believe these investments position Warby Parker for sustained market share gains and long-term profitable growth. In 2026, we're also taking a disciplined and measured approach to our guidance, given the macroeconomic trends that remain outside of our control, while staying focused on the initiatives we can control. The Vision Council projects the total eyewear market to be down this year, we are committed to delivering low double-digit revenue growth and 130 basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion. This guidance does not include any potential revenue from AI glasses. It does include the operating expenses and capital investments required for launch. We are investing thoughtfully and from a position of strength.

We look forward to sharing more about our launch plans in the months ahead. Before I turn it over to Neil, let me take a moment to talk about Q1. As many of you know, the country has faced historic winter storms and cold weather to start the year, and we are not immune to those impacts. Our high concentration of stores on the East Coast, which are among our highest volume stores, has presented a challenge early in the year, resulting in store closures and lower traffic. Adrian will provide further details later in the call when reviewing guidance. With that, I will turn it over to Neil to walk through our 2026 plan.

Neil Blumenthal (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)

Thank you, Dave. Let me begin by highlighting our three strategic priorities for 2026. Our first priority in 2026 is to further invest in scaling our industry-leading omni-channel model while delivering exceptional customer experiences. We're focused on this in three primary ways. One, expanding our retail footprint. Two, increasing revenue within our existing fleet through eye exams and product mix. Three, continuing to enhance our online experience. First, we will continue to thoughtfully expand our store base. We ended 2025 with 323 stores, just a fraction of the almost 45,000 optical shops in the U.S., and well below our long-term potential of at least 900 stores. When we survey consumers who have not yet shopped with us, one of the top reasons is that there isn't a store nearby.

That's why we will continue to scale points of distribution while driving convenience and awareness in those markets where we already operate. In 2026, we plan to open 50 new stores. A large portion of those new stores will be located in existing markets. We're also seeing clear benefits from our infill strategy, in that markets with the highest number of stores frequently have the highest e-commerce growth, driven by greater brand awareness and customer engagement across channels. Our approach to retail expansion is deliberate, with a rigorous site selection process designed to shorten ramp time and support sustained revenue and margin growth over time. Our stores continue to generate attractive unit economics, including strong four-wall margins and healthy payback periods, reinforcing our confidence in our ability to expand retail locations thoughtfully as we scale.

Second, we see significant opportunities to drive additional growth within our existing fleet, particularly through eye care and higher value products. Eye exams are an important driver of stores' revenue growth, given that industry-wide, 3/4 of glasses are purchased in connection with an eye exam. In 2025, eye exams grew 37% to approximately 6% of our business, supported by rolling out features like digital retinal imaging. We now have exam capabilities in almost 90% of our stores and find that stores offering eye exams deliver higher revenue, sales conversion, and gross profit while delivering a more seamless experience for our customers and patients. In 2025, eye exams accounted for $11 billion in industry spend. Over time, we believe eye exams within our business can scale to levels comparable to the broader industry.

In 2026, we'll continue scaling eye exams as a core lever of store growth by increasing awareness of our offering, expanding coverage in high-demand markets, and optimizing scheduling capacity to serve more customers and patients. Dave and I would like to extend a special thank you to the approximately 550 full-time and part-time optometrists that are part of the Warby Parker family for their exceptional commitment to patient care. In addition to eye care, broadening our product assortment and increasing customer choice remains central to how we drive engagement and experience. Style and newness are core to that strategy. In 2025, we launched 15 new collections, and we plan to maintain a steady cadence going forward across both optical and sun.

In 2026, we will also enter new categories with the launch of our first sport collection, featuring performance lenses, one of the most requested categories from our customers. We believe expanding into this category will attract new customers while fueling incremental purchases from our existing base. At the same time, we plan to drive higher average revenue per customer by expanding our offering of complex lenses, tints, coatings, and other enhancements. Progressives are a key component of that opportunity. In 2025, progressives for us represented approximately 22% of prescription units, compared to an industry average of roughly 40% across progressives, bifocals, and multifocals. Third, we will continue to invest in e-commerce and an increasingly personalized online experience.

This channel is a core part of how customers discover and engage with Warby Parker, and it plays an important role both in the initial purchase journey and in driving retention over time. In 2025, e-commerce grew low single digits, as the channel continued to face a high single-digit headwind from the decision to sunset our Home Try-On program. Excluding Home Try-On, direct online glasses and contacts purchases grew in the mid-teens, giving us confidence that this channel can return to higher growth levels year-over-year with our investments in personalization and customer experience as we lap the phasing out of Home Try-On later this year and next year.

We're also driving e-commerce growth through tools like Advisor, our proprietary AI-powered recommendations engine that launched in 2025, which, paired with our award-winning virtual try-on tool, is driving higher conversion by simplifying the shopping journey and enhancing the customer experience. We will continue to leverage these assets to drive growth in 2026. Our second priority this year is preparing for the launch of AI glasses. As we look ahead, we believe the opportunity in front of Warby Parker is larger than ever as we enter Act III. While our core mission remains unchanged, this next act is about expanding our reach and integrating groundbreaking technology into a product people already love and wear every day. With the integration of powerful AI models like Gemini, we are building glasses that deliver real-time, personalized assistance, allowing you to keep your phone in your pocket and stay present in the moment.

This is a powerful personal assistant that is there when you need it and invisible when you don't, embedded in beautifully designed eyewear made for everyday, all-day use that you'd expect from Warby Parker. In 2026, we will continue building capabilities across several areas to support this next phase of innovation. First, we are prioritizing production and supply chain readiness to address the added complexity of the consumer electronic space. We are expanding manufacturing capacity, strengthening systems and quality control processes, and building the operational infrastructure necessary to support and scale a new category. Second, we are readying our stores and store teams for the launch of AI glasses. This includes adding dedicated fixtures, investing in training, and designing a best-in-class shopping experience across channels. We are equipping our teams to support product education, demonstrations, servicing, and ongoing customer support from day one.

Third, on the technology side, we are advancing a multiyear product roadmap supported by continued investment in research and development, with additional products and features already in the pipeline. These initiatives involve targeted operating and capital investments aligned with our expected launch timeline later this year. We are working closely with our strategic partner, Google, who is offsetting a large portion of pre-launch investments. At the same time, we continue to use AI across the organization to drive productivity and efficiency. We are already seeing impact across teams from creative and design to engineering, where AI is now generating more than 50% of our code base. Finally, our third priority in 2026 is to make additional strides to increase insurance penetration while continuing to invest in brand awareness and customer acquisition.

A significant opportunity in the business today is expanding access to both in-network and out-of-network insurance customers. From the beginning, our pricing philosophy has been to offer fair, transparent pricing, whether a customer pays out of pocket or uses insurance benefits. Customers using in-network benefits at traditional optical retailers still pay approximately $200 out of pocket, whereas at Warby Parker, they can purchase a complete pair of prescription glasses starting at $95. Our goal has always been to deliver compelling value, regardless of how a customer chooses to pay. At the same time, we recognize that many customers have vision insurance benefits, and we have worked diligently to make it easier for them to apply those benefits when shopping with us. In 2025, our in-network insurance penetration was approximately 8%, up from 7% the prior year. This represents approximately 40% year-over-year dollar growth.

Insured customers continue to be among our most valuable, spending more on their initial purchase, selecting progressive lenses at higher rates, and returning more frequently over time. In 2026, our plan assumes incremental progress across three dimensions. First, we are expanding covered lives by strengthening relationships with existing carriers and scaling pilots with additional carriers. Second, we are focused on scaling utilization by increasing awareness and simplifying how customers access their benefits. That includes making it easy to verify coverage across both in-network and out-of-network plans, clearly communicating eligibility, and ensuring Warby Parker is visible when customers are actively searching for covered providers. Third, we are improving the experience for out-of-network customers. Last year, we piloted a new capability designed to simplify reimbursement, reducing friction and making it easier for customers to use their benefits with us.

We are encouraged by the early results and plan to scale this to all stores this quarter. We are working diligently to increase insurance penetration. While competitive dynamics make this challenging, we remain relentless in our pursuit, as we believe this is a key driver of revenue growth and market share gains for our business over time. In parallel, we continue to invest in marketing to drive awareness and acquire customers in ways that complement our retail and insurance strategies. In 2025, we increased investments in top-of-funnel marketing, including launching a three-year partnership with Arch Manning, a glasses wearer since age three and a Warby Parker customer since middle school. This partnership has allowed us to participate in a national linear media campaign and connect with a younger demographic, particularly in key markets across the Southeast.

To further expand awareness in 2026, we plan to pursue differentiated partnerships, collaborations, and brand initiatives designed to reach a broader audience. In 2025, we leveraged more advanced measurement tools and analytics to inform our media mix decisions in the midst of rising media costs. In 2026, we remain committed to marketing spend in the low teens as a % of revenue, while continuing to improve productivity across a broader set of both established and emerging channels. We are actively optimizing and reallocating spend towards higher return marketing channels, including reinvesting savings from the sunset of the Home Try-On program into brand awareness initiatives and customer acquisition.

Taken together, these three priorities are designed to strengthen the core eyewear business, expand into new categories, and establish the capabilities necessary for us to drive higher levels of revenue growth over time, positioning the company to accelerate as these investments scale. As we grow the business, we remain guided by the belief that scale and impact go hand in hand. In 2025, we surpassed 20 million pairs of glasses distributed globally through our Buy a Pair, Give a Pair program and expanded Pupils Project to reach more students across the U.S., committing to distribute an additional 40,000 pairs of glasses over the next two years in Baltimore, Boston, Newark, and Washington, D.C. I'm thrilled to welcome Adrian Mitchell to Warby Parker. Adrian brings deep operating and financial leadership and experience across some of the world's most recognized consumer brands.

He joins us at an important moment in Warby Parker's evolution. I also want to take a moment to recognize Josh Truppo, our VP of FP&A, for his meaningful contributions during this critical transition period and for his steady leadership and partnership. We're grateful for the roles he's played. With that, I'd like to welcome Adrian Mitchell, our new Chief Financial Officer, to share some additional detail on our results for the quarter and our outlook for the balance of this fiscal year.

Adrian Mitchell (CFO)

Thank you, Neil, and thank you, Josh. I've always been impressed by Warby Parker's innovative brand leadership, relentless focus on customer experience, and its history of innovation. I'm excited to join the team at this important moment and to work alongside you, Dave, and the broader team to support long-term sustainable growth while making vision care more accessible for all. Today, I'll review our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results in more detail, and then provide guidance for the full year and the first quarter of 2026. Let's start with the fourth quarter. Fourth quarter revenue was $212 million, up 11.2% to last year. Retail revenue increased 15.2% year-over-year, driven by contributions from both new and existing stores. E-commerce revenue was $56.8 million, up 1.6% year-over-year.

Turning to gross margin. Our gross margin accounts for a range of costs, including frames, lenses, optical labs, customer shipping, optometrist salaries, store rent, and the depreciation of store buildouts. Our gross margin also includes stock-based compensation expenses for our optometrists and optical lab employees. For comparability, I will speak to gross margin excluding stock-based compensation. Fourth quarter adjusted gross margin was 52.5%, 170 basis points below last year. The decrease in adjusted gross margin was primarily driven by tariff-related headwinds in glasses and deleverage in the fixed portion of gross margin, which included increased doctor headcount as we staffed up in advance for our busiest period. We also experienced increased penetration of lower margin contact lenses and an increase in expedited customer shipping costs.

These impacts were partially offset by selective price increases taken earlier this year in glasses and increased penetration of higher margin progressive lenses and other lens enhancements. Shifting to SG&A. Adjusted SG&A excludes non-cash costs like stock-based compensation expenses. Fourth quarter adjusted SG&A expenses were $110.3 million or 52% of revenue, 200 basis points lower than last year, reflecting revenue growth outpacing expense growth. Marketing as a percent of revenue was 12.9% flat to last year. As expected, the majority of the leverage was driven by adjusted non-marketing SG&A, which was 200 basis points below last year. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was $15.2 million. As a percent of total revenue, it was 7.2% or 10 basis points below last year. Now I'll turn to the full year 2025.

Full year 2025 revenue was $871.9 million, up 13% year-over-year. Retail revenue increased 17.3% year-over-year, driven by contributions from both new and existing stores. E-commerce revenue was $241 million, up 3.1% year-over-year. We finished 2025 with 2.7 million active customers, representing growth of 7% year-over-year on a trailing twelve-month basis. Average revenue per customer increased 5.7% year-over-year to $324 in 2025.

This was driven by several factors, including our selective price increases for lenses and lens enhancements at the end of April, a higher mix of premium lenses like progressives, and continued growth in both contact lenses and eye exam sales, partially offset by the mix shift into lower price point frames. Full year adjusted gross margin was 54.4%, down 110 basis points. The decrease in adjusted gross margin was driven by tariff-related headwinds in glasses, higher contacts mix, increased doctor headcount, and customer shipping costs. These impacts are partially offset by selective price increases in glasses and increased penetration of progressive lenses and other lens enhancements. Full year adjusted SG&A expenses were $433.3 million. As a percent of total revenue, adjusted SG&A was 49.7%, 280 basis points lower than last year.

Marketing as a percent of revenue was 12.6%, 20 basis points higher than last year. As expected, the majority of the leverage was driven by adjusted non-marketing SG&A, which was 300 basis points below last year. Shifting to capital allocation. We ended the year in a strong cash position of $286 million, up $32 million from the prior year. We generated approximately $44 million in free cash flow in 2025, up from $35 million in 2024. As anticipated, 2025 marked our third consecutive year of positive and accelerating free cash flow. In addition, we have a $120 million credit facility, expandable to $175 million, which remains undrawn other than $4 million outstanding for letters of credit, providing us with additional liquidity and flexibility.

The growth in our cash balance is a result of increased profitability and disciplined capital management. Notably, our balance sheet is a meaningful strategic asset. It gives us the flexibility to self-fund the strategic initiatives underway in 2026, support the launch of AI glasses, and position the business for accelerated growth. As it relates to capital allocation, we will continue to deploy capital deliberately to support growth while maintaining financial flexibility. We evaluate capital allocation holistically, balancing investments in the business with returns to shareholders. Earlier this week, our board of directors authorized up to $100 million in share repurchases. We intended to use this authorization opportunistically, primarily to offset dilution over time and in a manner consistent with our capital allocation priorities. Equally as important, our primary focus remains investing in high return initiatives within the business to support long-term, profitable growth and healthy value creation.

We are pleased that our cash flow generation allows us to self-fund our priorities, while also providing the flexibility to return excess capital to shareholders through this share buyback program. Let's turn to our outlook for 2026. Based on recent trends and core eyewear industry headwinds, we believe that it is prudent to adopt a measured approach. Spending in the broader optical industry is expected to decline low single digits this year on both a unit volume and dollar basis. While we have conviction in our strategic initiatives and the underlying health of our business, we're planning with discipline, given the current backdrop. We are focused on executing across our omni-channel model, continuing to elevate the customer experience, and successfully launching AI glasses, all of which we believe will create a durable platform for long-term, profitable growth.

Before getting into the specifics, we want to also share that we are assessing what metrics we disclose to ensure that our stakeholders can better track the drivers of value creation within our business. It is also important to note that our 2026 outlook excludes any revenue contribution from AI glasses, but it does include the operating expenses required to support the launch. We believe this approach reflects an appropriate balance of transparency and conservatism as we enter this new category. For the full year 2026, we're guiding to revenue of $959 million-$976 million, representing approximately 10%-12% year-over-year growth.

We expect e-commerce to grow in the low single digits range for the full year, with the impact of sunsetting the Home Try-On program more concentrated in the first half and moderating in the second half of the year. We expect gross margin to be in line with the full year 2025, reflecting mixed dynamics across glasses, contacts, and eye exams, as well as ongoing supply chain efficiencies, partially offset by non-product related investment costs, including store rent and doctor salaries. We are guiding to adjusted EBITDA of $117 million-$119 million, which equates to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 12.2% across our revenue range and 130 basis points of expansion year-over-year. We expect marketing to remain in the low teens as a percent of revenue. Turning to the first quarter.

Since we sunset the Home Try-On program, retail is expected to represent approximately 75% of our revenue in the first quarter. Encouragingly, retail delivered high teens year-over-year growth in early January of this year, reflecting an acceleration from December. Starting in mid-January and extending through this week, we experienced significant snow and prolonged cold weather conditions that materially impacted store traffic and sales in areas that generated over 70% of total retail sales for Warby Parker. When we look at the Q1 performance for stores in these areas, which include many of our highest volume locations, we have seen high teens year-over-year retail growth during periods of normal weather, but deteriorated performance to low single digit declines year-over-year growth during periods of inclement weather.

In these weather impacted areas, performance returned to high teens growth year-over-year after snow and cold weather conditions passed, and these stores returned to normal operations. In non-weather impacted markets, retail growth has been low double digits, which is consistent with new store growth in these markets. For e-commerce, growth trends have been muted, with low single digit year-over-year declines quarter to date, largely unaffected by weather patterns while absorbing the impact of the sunsetting of our Home Try-On program in the fourth quarter. For e-commerce quarter to date, our direct glasses and contacts purchases have been growing in the low double digits range, reinforcing the fact that the forward-looking parts of our e-commerce business remain healthy despite the headwind from sunsetting the Home Try-On program late last year.

Taking all this into account, including inclement weather conditions, our quarter-to-date top-line growth for the full business as of earlier this week, is in the mid-single-digit range. As a result, for the first quarter of 2026, we're guiding to revenue growth of 6.5%-7.5% year-over-year, or approximately $238 million-$240 million, assuming no further significant weather-related disruptions for the remainder of the quarter. We expect an adjusted EBITDA of $27 million-$28 million, approximately 11.5% EBITDA margin at the midpoint of our range. As expected, first quarter adjusted EBITDA is impacted by lower revenue resulting from the impact of inclement weather, and we expect to drive year-over-year leverage in the remainder of the year as top-line growth normalizes.

2026 is a year we are intentionally investing in building the capabilities necessary to support accelerated revenue growth over time. We are focused on scaling the core business, expanding access across our omni-channel platform, and executing the launch of AI glasses. There are external factors beyond our control, we're planning our business with discipline, staying focused on what we can control, and continuing to make progress on the initiatives that matter most. I'll share a few observations from my first few weeks here. Our powerful brand proposition, positioned at the intersection of exceptional style, superior quality, and outstanding value, creates a meaningful runway for our core business to demonstrate sustained mid-teens to high teens growth and continued gains in market share.

We also see a significant opportunity to deepen relationships with holistic vision care customers, those who engage with us across exams, glasses, and contacts, and who consistently become our most valuable customers over time. Second, our culture and proven track record of innovation positions us incredibly well as a leading player in the smart glasses category, which complements our core business. Finally, our healthy balance sheet and strong free cash flow allows us to self-fund strategic growth initiatives as we scale our business in future years, while also maintaining the flexibility to return capital to shareholders through our share repurchase program. All this is possible because of an impressive team. I'm energized to be a part of this team and really excited about the long-term opportunities ahead. With that, I'll now pass it back to Dave for closing comments.

Dave Gilboa (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)

Thank you, Adrian. 2026 is an important year for us, and we believe we remain uniquely positioned to continue delivering strong growth and market share gains while we expand the profitability of our business over time. At the same time, we are excited about the launch of AI glasses later this year and have a clear plan to drive growth in 2026 and beyond. I also want to recognize our team. Neil and I are inspired by the talent and dedication of our team members across Warby Parker right now, who are enabling us to embark on our next ambitious phase of growth. We're excited about the road ahead and confident in what this team continues to accomplish. With that, operator, please open the line for Q and A.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. To ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two to exit the queue. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure that your device is unmuted locally. Finally, please note that in the interest of taking as many questions as possible, the company respectfully asks that you limit yourselves to one question and one follow-up if needed. Our first question today will be from the line of Brooke Roach with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Brooke Roach (VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning. Thank you for taking our question. Can you elaborate on the softness that you're seeing with your younger customer? Are you losing share with that age cohort, or is that simply a function of the broader industry pressure? What actions are you taking to shore up this part of the business in 2026?

Dave Gilboa (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)

Yeah, thanks, Brooke. You know, we believe this is reflective of pressure that, you know, the category is seeing overall. You know, if you look at some of the industry sources, like Vision Council, they indicate that, you know, both prescription glasses units and contacts units were down in the mid-single digits on a units basis year-over-year, and that those trends deteriorated in the back half of the year in Q4. On a relative basis, we believe we're continuing to outperform the category, but there's no question that younger and lower-income consumers are feeling pressure and that's impacting some of their purchasing behavior in the category. Now we are taking actions to engage with that demographic.

We're adding incremental media dollars and new campaigns on channels where younger consumers are spending time, including TikTok, Reddit, YouTube Shorts and others. We also recognize that people are being conscious around the dollars that they're spending and are looking to take advantage of their vision insurance benefits. We've been spending a lot of time in investing in efforts to make their dollars go further, both by educating folks around their new in-network benefits that they where Warby may be an option for the first time for them and then also making it easier for people to have visibility into their out-of-network benefits.

We ran a pilot in Q4 that was quite successful, where regardless of insurance carrier, customers can get a precise indication of the reimbursement that they'll receive from their out-of-network benefits, and our teams can help them submit those forms. Given the success of that pilot, we're rolling that out more broadly and anticipate that will, you know, help drive conversion for all demographics, but, you know, in particular, younger and lower-income cohorts.

Brooke Roach (VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Then as a follow-up, Neil, you spoke in the prepared remarks about supply chain readiness for the upcoming launch of the AI glasses. Can you speak to the unit capacity that you're preparing for in launch year and how quickly you might be able to scale the supply chain, should demand follow a similar cadence of growth as the broader industry?

Josh Truppo (VP of Financial Planning and Analysis)

Sure. Thanks, Brooke. You know, one of our advantages from day one, was building a vertically integrated brand, that way we could be responsive to customer demands as well as customer needs and changing interests. Our team, which is based right in New York, but has presence globally to ensure that we have a robust and resilient supply chain, one of which has only gotten stronger, given some of the tariff crises of recent years.

We'll continue to invest in our optical labs, to ensure that we have the capacity, that we need and the new capabilities to ensure that this product, which we believe is the first one that's really designed for all-day, everyday wear, and really coming from an eyewear first, and in particular, a prescription eyewear first, perspective, puts us in a unique position. Sort of similarly, as we think about our store fleet of 300 + stores, staffed, with long-tenured, incredibly passionate, but tech-forward, team members, also puts us in a position, ahead of, eventual competitors on how to properly sell and market and serve, customers of AI glasses.

Brooke Roach (VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks so much. I'll pass it on.

Operator (participant)

The next question today will be from the line of Dana Telsey with Telsey Group. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Dana Telsey (CEO and Chief Research Officer)

Hi, good morning, everyone, and welcome. As you think about the cadence of this year, and obviously, we have the weather, we have the weather impacts, and hopefully the snow will be ending, but who knows what? How are you thinking about growth rates going forward? I noticed you're opening 50 stores this year. Clue the five Target, how are those Target shop and shops doing? What is the learnings, and how are you thinking about tariffs, given the volatility that's currently going on and what pricing looks like for 2026? Thank you.

Josh Truppo (VP of Financial Planning and Analysis)

Thanks, Dana. I'll take the Target question first. You know, we opened five shop, and shops last year, and are anticipating opening a similar number this year. This is part of our strategy to test and learn, just as we grew our own store fleet in a very deliberate way, starting with a showroom in our office to doing shop and shops in, you know, marquee stores across the U.S., including like, Imogene + Willie in Nashville, to doing activations in hotels and at one point, buying an old yellow school bus and driving that cross-country and converting it into a mobile store as part of the Warby Parker Class Trip. This is something where we're testing and learning. I had a chance to visit our brick location in Brick, New Jersey.

The store looks beautiful. It's the first thing that you see as soon as you walk into the Target. Our team there is fantastic. We're seeing slightly older demographics, so we are seeing higher progressive penetration than in our existing fleet. We're also seeing a higher percentage of new customers. Again, we're in the test and learn phase, and we'll be able to sort of share more after this pilot.

Adrian Mitchell (CFO)

Dana, good morning. It's great to be with you. With regards to our outlook, we talked a little bit on the call with regards to the headwinds that we saw with weather in the first quarter. Yet, we're still committed to low double-digit growth as we think about the balance of the year. The one thing that I would share is that our growth is actually quite healthy. If you compare to what we saw last year in the industry, which was up about 4%, we grew at actually 3x the rate of the industry, but not just on compounding price, which is what we saw in the industry, given the decline in units that Dave spoke about earlier, but we had a healthy balance of unit growth, ASP growth, and customer growth. That's an important dimension in terms of the health.

The other thing that we continue to believe, given the strength of the proposition, is that we'll continue to be a market share gainer, not a market share donor. Even though we expect a softer Q1, just given the weather impacts and what we spoke about on the call, we do expect to see acceleration and return to more normalized trends as we look ahead. The one thing I'll just point out from my opening remarks as it relates to what we experienced in Q1, is the big takeaway is that the fundamentals of the business remain healthy. In those periods where weather was not an impact, we talked about the high teens growth of our retail business, and also when you think about the normalization of the headwinds with e-commerce, very healthy, low double-digit growth in terms of web glasses and contacts.

We're very encouraged about what's ahead, but we also want to be consistent in delivering what we say we're going to deliver. Josh, would you like to talk about tariffs?

Josh Truppo (VP of Financial Planning and Analysis)

Hi, Dana. as it relates to tariffs, you're absolutely right, certainly volatile. The Supreme Court ruling from last week is pretty recent, so we're still analyzing those impacts. When you think about that ruling, or you break it down to two pieces, first, there's the refunds on what we already paid for, the Supreme Court didn't really say anything specific regarding that, so we're continuing to monitor that. We'll obviously take the necessary steps to preserve our rights as it relates to those refunds. We have not assumed anything in either our margins or our cash flow, plan for the year as it relates to collection of those refunds. In terms of the go-forward piece of tariffs, the ruling removed the emergency, tariffs.

Pretty quickly, the administration responded with a new global surcharge of 10%, and they've indicated they're likely going to move that up to 15%. Given all of that, we have not incorporated any sort of benefit into our 2026 guidance tied to that ruling. We do think that any benefit will largely be offset by these statutory changes to tariffs that the administration is currently exploring.

With that being said, we are in a position to continue to be flexible and nimble, navigate the tariffs as we have in 2025.

Dana Telsey (CEO and Chief Research Officer)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question will be from the line of Mark Altschwager with Baird. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Mark Altschwager (Senior Research Analyst)

Good morning. Thank you, and welcome, Adrian. Following up on the revenue guidance and the acceleration after Q1, you were clear that you're not incorporating any revenue from the smart glasses, but curious if you're making any assumptions regarding how the launch may impact, traffic and conversion for the core business?

Josh Truppo (VP of Financial Planning and Analysis)

Thanks, Mark. We have not factored in a halo effect from the launch of AI glasses in our guidance.

Adrian Mitchell (CFO)

Thank you for the welcome, Mark.

Mark Altschwager (Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you. Separately, more on the margin front, can you help us reconcile the acceleration in store openings with the dip you're seeing in active customers and the average retail productivity? Specifically, what are the other components that are enabling you to sustain the target four-wall profitability? Thank you.

Josh Truppo (VP of Financial Planning and Analysis)

Within margin, in Q4, you know, one of the things that we've talked about all year is when you kind of look at our store fleet and you look at our gross margin as well as our non-marketing SG&A, one of the areas that we continue to experience leverage in is non-marketing SG&A. In Q4, non-marketing SG&A was up 200 basis points, a piece of that obviously impacts our store fleet and our four-wall margins. Within Q4, we did experience a little bit of pressure around gross margins, very specifically related to certain impacts in Q4.

Dave talked a little bit about the revenue cadence throughout the quarter that ultimately decelerated in the month of December, which allowed us little time to kind of make some adjustments, especially as it relates to doctor salaries, which, you know, is embedded in our gross margin, and we had staffed ahead of the holiday season. Those are very specific to kind of Q4 impacts, and we expect kind of a normalized gross margin. As Adrian talked about, we expect gross margin in 2026 to be very much in line with 2025.

Adrian Mitchell (CFO)

Mark, if I could just also briefly build on Josh's point, we have pretty clear standards for our new store opening results. We look at payback period and four-wall margins, as you mentioned, the reality is like any retail company, there's gonna be a variety of performance as you look at individual stores. What we are very pleased with is the performance across the portfolio, as a lot of these new stores that are opening continue to mature.

Dave Gilboa (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)

I'd also just call out, some of the channel dynamics, where, you know, e-com, you know, continues to be an evolving part of our business, in particular with the sunsetting of our Home Try-On program. This is our first quarter without that offering. We are seeing, you know, Home Try-On historically, we've seen, the strongest volumes in Q1.

In this period, where we anticipated that we would be able to drive, you know, a significant portion of those Home Try-On customers to our stores, that have been impacted by weather, you know, we're seeing, you know, some speed bumps to that plan, but remain confident that we'll be able to serve those customers effectively. If kind of you isolate the performance of our retail stores, we continue to see very healthy dynamics in terms of customer generation, you know, overall growth and profitability, as we would expect, and that gives us the confidence to continue to invest and accelerate our store rollout plans.

Mark Altschwager (Senior Research Analyst)

Very helpful color. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question today will be from the line of Oliver Chen with TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Oliver Chen (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, thanks a lot. Hi, Neil, David, and Adrian. Neil and David, as you know from our Wharton days on the AI models, a lot of the large language models rely on unsupervised and supervised training models. A question about the LLM training and what might be proprietary to Gemini and Google versus how you're thinking about what's unique to Warby Parker? Also on the AI frontier with glasses, what are your views on personalization and some unlocks that will set you apart? Adrian, as we look at guidance going forward, what are your thoughts on units relative to traffic and other comp levers? What's incorporated in your guidance view? Thanks, gentlemen.

Josh Truppo (VP of Financial Planning and Analysis)

Thanks, Oliver. We're very excited about the transformation that will be happening within the optical industry, over the next decades, particularly as we transition, right, from traditional, eyewear to intelligent eyewear. We believe that Google is the best partner for us for a variety of reasons, including their AI leadership overall, and, you know.

... basically writing the research papers that all LLMs are based off of, how they continue to innovate and, you know, lead with a product like Gemini. It's not just their work in AI that makes them a great partner for us, it's their suite of products that billions of people use every day, from Google Maps to Calendar, to Chrome, to Gmail, to YouTube, and more. We don't plan to develop any of our own models, where we'll continue to develop IP, is around the eyewear itself, around fixing prescription lenses and fulfilling those. We'll ensure that, you know, the market and customer feedback that we get from being a vertically integrated brand, we're able to act on faster than everybody else.

That's been a key part to our success, you know, over the last 16 years, is to always be customer first, because we're engaging directly with our customers and patients every single day, and have the shortest feedback loop to our product development team, our design team, our supply chain teams, and more.

Adrian Mitchell (CFO)

Good morning, Oliver. It's great to be with you. I would say that as we look at the outlook for 2026, it starts with an important premise, that we have a very healthy brand proposition that will allow us to continue to outperform the market. The market this year is projected to be down low single digits, but again, we're committing ourselves to being up low double digits. Just to put in a little bit of perspective, we do expect to continue to see healthy levels of traffic, as well as conversion, both in stores and online. When I look at this business and we talk about driving success in 2026, one is clearly the number of points of distribution.

You know, we believe that we have at least 900 stores on the horizon in a industry with over 45,000, but we're opening 50 stores this year to reach more markets, more customers, and more communities. The second thing is, when you look at the composition of our business in terms of spend in exams, contacts, and glasses relative to the industry, there are opportunities for us to more mirror the industry penetration, which actually provides real growth for us. We've continued to see very healthy growth in exams. We've continued to see healthy growth in progressives. When you think about how the industry spends, we think there's a lot of opportunity to begin to mirror those penetration levels. The innovation of this company is actually quite compelling. You think about new categories and new collections, we have a very healthy cadence of that innovation.

As you know, we spoke about a bit earlier, sports and athletic is a new category for us or a new collection for us that's in demand for customers that we've already spoken to. Obviously, AI glasses has had a very healthy level of adoption. The last thing I would say is really around price. We just have a healthy mix of balancing units, ASP, and growing our customer base, which is unlike what we see in the industry, which has really been driven by compounding price increases on a like-for-like basis. When you think about the way that we drive price, we're very encouraged by what that can do for us as well as we think about the outlook for this year and beyond.

Oliver Chen (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. Helpful. There's one follow-up. We're getting questions from clients around parameters on timing. It's probably very dynamic regarding the AI glasses launch, Any thoughts you have on what you're testing in relation to a framework for timing. Thanks a lot. Best regards.

Dave Gilboa (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)

Yes, we can't share specifics at this moment, but we are very excited by the progress that we're making on the product. We were out in the Bay Area earlier this week, meeting with some of the senior leaders at Google and Samsung, and are just, yeah, really excited about the progress that we're making together and look forward to sharing more later this year. Yeah, for now, all we can say is that we're excited to introduce these to customers later in 2026.

Oliver Chen (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

The last question we have time for today is from the line of Paul Lejuez with Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Paul Lejuez (Managing Director)

Hey, thanks, guys. Welcome, everyone. The active customer count grew at the slowest pace all year in the fourth quarter. Curious if you think that, you know, customers are putting off purchases because of higher prices in the assortment? You think it's just more of a higher price issue across the retail environment, you know, maybe specific to the categories you called out some weaker industry trends? I guess along those lines, maybe frame for us how you're thinking about that revenue growth for next year, for 2026. When we think about that increase in active customer accounts versus revenue per customer, if you can frame that for us, sort of what underpins your revenue guidance? Then just second, I just want to clarity on what you're saying about the revenue assumed from the Google partnership.

Are you assuming that there's no incremental revenue? That any revenue that you receive would not be incremental to the business this year? Are you saying at this point, you're kind of pretending like those glasses don't even hit the assortment, and so there will be zero revenue from Google Glasses?

Josh Truppo (VP of Financial Planning and Analysis)

Thanks for your question. To answer your last question first, just to clarify, we have not included any incremental revenue through the sale of AI glasses in our guidance. We have included the expenses that we'll incur to prepare and launch this new category for us. We plan to share more around timing and projections sort of later in the year. We do anticipate, right, with the launch, that there would be incremental revenue, but we're not baking it into our guidance.

Dave Gilboa (Co-Founder and Co-CEO)

We're also not, you know, including any halo effect or, you know, anticipation of additional traffic, and, you know, sales drivers for the existing products, in our business. We view that all as upside, you know, once we do launch that product and believe that, yeah, these will generate quite a bit of excitement, and drive people to our stores and our digital properties that will, you know, generate additional benefits. Again, right now we're just projecting the core business as it stands today.

Josh Truppo (VP of Financial Planning and Analysis)

To tackle your first question, I'll start and then kick it over to Adrian. We are seeing, based on the category data, that some customers are putting off their purchases. Now, we are outperforming the market and gaining share, and that's both from a customer perspective, from a unit perspective, from a revenue perspective as well. One of our strengths has always been our pricing model, and our $95 opening price point, including anti-reflective prescription lenses, is more competitive than ever because it's been that price now for 16 years, as we've seen our competitors continue to take price.

We think that this is one of the reasons why, you know, in this category that historically has been resilient, that is experiencing some volatility, that we continue to outperform our competitors in acquiring customers and driving units. We'll continue to be competitive there. We are seeing as well as we're hearing from other folks within our category, but also people across the consumer and retail landscape, that the younger consumer in their 20s is behaving more cautiously and is under financial stress. We're not surprised that, you know, the category is seeing this particular customer sort of pull back a bit.

We, again, think we're best positioned, and we're going to continue to acquire customers, whether they're younger or whether they're older. One of the things that we see with our older customers is that drives progressive penetration, which helps drive ASP and gross margin and contribution margin overall.

Adrian Mitchell (CFO)

Hi, Paul. I think Dave and Neil actually captured it quite well. Just to amplify the point, the way we think about it is units, ASP, and new customers. When you think about the expansion of 50 points of distribution, that's clearly a way to really reach out to more customers, where we know from our data that one of the biggest drivers of opportunity is to actually have a physical location nearby. What I love about this brand is the healthy view on ASP, which is heavily driven by mix. When you think about the sport and athletic introductions that we plan to have later this spring, what's really exciting about that is it's at a healthier price point, but in terms of its price point, it's at great value. Those dimensions on mix really help us quite a bit.

As we think about units, we're thinking about our existing comp stores that exist within the business and getting more and more customers from the neighborhood into those stores, but also in terms of units, getting units through the new stores that we're opening, as well as it actually progresses through its maturity curve. Just to kind of amplify what Dave and Neil spoke about, we're focused on a number of initiatives for units. We have a healthy way to think about ASP, and we also have avenues for us in our omni-channel platform to get new customers, particularly with physical openings and point of distribution.

Paul Lejuez (Managing Director)

Thank you, guys. Good luck.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. With that, we will conclude the Warby Parker Inc. Q4 2025 earnings conference call. Thank you to everyone who was able to join us on the call today. You may now disconnect your lines.