Good morning, and welcome to the Etsy, Inc. Annual Meeting of Stockholders. I would now like to turn the conference over to Josh Silverman, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, and welcome to Etsy's Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Josh Silverman, CEO and a member of the Board of Directors. I'm thrilled to be here.
Hi, everyone. This is Fred Wilson. I'm the Chairman of the Board. I'd also like to extend a warm welcome to our stockholders and acknowledge the other members of our Board of Directors who are here today. We have Gary Briggs, Michelle Burns, Edith Cooper, Jonathan Klein, Melissa Reif, Peggy Smith with us today.
We also have members of Etsy's management team with us today. Rachel Glaser, our Chief Financial Officer Jill Simeone, our General Counsel and Deb Wasser, our Vice President of Investor Relations. In addition, Nikki Gowen from PricewaterhouseCoopers is here today. PwC is Etsy's independent auditor. During the Q and A period, she'll be available to answer questions.
Tracey Och from Broadbridge is also participating. She's acting as our Inspector for Elections for today's meeting. Now I'll turn the meeting over to Jill, who is acting as Secretary, who will cover some formalities.
Thanks, Josh, and good morning, everyone. We will begin today's meeting with a brief management presentation, followed by a discussion of proposals described in our proxy statement and conclude with Q and A. As a reminder, our remarks in the management presentation and responses to questions today may include forward looking statements. Forward looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, which are described in our SEC filings, including our Q1 Form 10 Q, and our actual results may differ materially. Any forward looking statements that we make on this call are based on our beliefs and assumptions today, and we don't have any obligation to update them.
Also, information presented today includes adjusted EBITDA and non GAAP financial measure. A reconciliation of this non GAAP financial measure to net income or loss to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure is included in the slide presentation available in the Annual Meeting portal. As a reminder, polls are now open and you can vote online through the Annual Meeting portal anytime until I announce that the polls are closed. I've received affirmation that notice of this meeting was properly given to stockholders of record as of April 12, 2019. I've also been informed by Broadridge that a quorum is present and that this meeting is duly convened and can proceed.
The agenda and rules of conduct for the meeting are posted on the Annual Meeting portal. We ask that you follow these rules to help the meeting run smoothly. We will address appropriate questions during the Q and A portion of the meeting. If you have a question, please submit it by entering it into the text box on the Annual Meeting portal. For the rules of conduct, please include your name and affiliation, if any.
Only stockholders of record and their proxy holders may submit questions or comments. Be respectful of your fellow stockholders and meeting participants. Please limit remarks to one brief question or comment that is relevant to the Annual Meeting and or Etsy's business. We may group questions by topic if there's a repetitive question that's been read aloud and answered. And with that, I'll turn it back to Josh.
Thanks, Jill. I'll now do the management presentation. Over the course of nearly 14 years, Etsy has carved out a unique space in e commerce. We believe Etsy is the antidote to commoditized commerce, the home for special. In 2018, we continued to nurture and invest in our marketplace, delivering strong growth across all key metrics as we connected more buyers and sellers than ever before.
We also delivered strong net income and earnings per share, driving adjusted EBITDA margins to record levels, enabling us to reinvest in the business to drive growth. Our marketplace empowers creative entrepreneurs to start, manage and grow their businesses. And by the end of 2018, we built a global community of over 2,000,000 sellers and 39,000,000 buyers. At the end of the first quarter, we reported over 2,100,000 and 41,000,000 buyers and solid execution has driven many of our operating metrics. Etsy has accomplished something meaningful, rare and valuable over the past several years.
It has built a scaled 2 sided global marketplace for unique products. The Etsy marketplace has earned the trust of a large and loyal community of sellers who sell unique items often not found anywhere else. And it has earned a place in the hearts of millions of buyers, many of whom come directly to Etsy by typing our URL into a browser. We're working to leverage our scaled 2 sided marketplace to execute on our long term growth strategy of focusing on improving the Etsy marketplace globally and strategically investing in our core 6 geographies. We believe we have a sustainable competitive advantage held around 4 key elements: best in class search and discovery, human connections, a trusted brand and our collection of unique items, which together form the foundation of our rights to win.
The majority of buyers come to Etsy only once per year, whether it's for a calendar holiday like Valentine's Day or Halloween or a special occasion like an anniversary gift. We know there are many more purchase occasions that would be relevant for our buyers in a given year and we are focused on making the search for special and unique more aligned with the Etsy marketplace. To do this, we don't need to invent new purchase occasions. We just need to string together their existing purchase occasions and get our buyers to come back to Etsy more often. As we capitalize on getting existing buyers to purchase more often and bring new buyers to our sellers, we believe we can expand Etsy's market share in a large and growing addressable market.
With more and more people around the world choosing to purchase goods online, we believe we are in the early stages of our opportunity and have a long runway for sustainable growth. We had a great start to the year as we delivered solid financial performance in the Q1 of 2019. GMS on an FX neutral basis accelerated year over year, revenue grew over 40% and we delivered record adjusted EBITDA margin. In closing, I'm energized by the size of the opportunity ahead of us as well as our technology, product and marketing roadmaps. Last month was my 2 year anniversary of joining Etsy, and I couldn't be more proud of all the progress we've made in a short amount of time.
With that, I'll turn it back over to Jill, who is acting as secretary, and we'll move to the official business of the meeting.
Thanks, Josh. We'll now move to the proposals. The polls have been open for voting since the start of the meeting at 9 a. M. Am.
The first item of business today is the election of directors. Board of Directors recommends that stockholders elect the following nominees as Class Jonathan Klein, Margaret Smith. The second item of business is the ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as Etsy's independent registered public accounting firm for 2019. Board recommends that the stockholders approve the ratification. The 3rd item of business is the approval on an advisory basis of executive compensation.
Board recommends that the stockholders approve the compensation of our named executive officers. If you have already voted, there is no need to vote now unless you would like to change your vote.
If you
have not voted and you'd like to, please click the Vote Now button at the bottom of the right hand corner of your screen. You will need the control number that you use to join the meeting. We'll pause for a moment to give anyone who hasn't yet voted a chance to vote. Thank you. The polls are now closed.
Our preliminary results indicate that Jonathan Klein and Margaret Smith have been elected to the Board. The ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as our independent registered public accounting firm for 2019 has also been approved and the compensation of our named executive officers has been approved on an advisory basis. We will report the final vote results that are certified by Inspector of Elections in a filing with the SEC within 4 business days.
Now turn to the Q and A portion of the meeting. I'll turn this over to Deb.
It appears we have no questions, Josh.
Terrific. Well, it's been a great year. We look forward to another good year together. Thank you for your support. Thanks, everyone.
The meeting is now adjourned.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.