Kevin Yeaman
Analyst · Goldman Sachs
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon and welcome to Dolby Laboratories' third quarter fiscal 2008 earnings conference call. Joining me today is Bill Jasper, Dolby Laboratories' President and CEO. In addition, Tim Partridge, Executive Vice President of Products and Technologies and Ramzi Haidamus, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing are here to participate in today's Q&A. On this conference call, we will be making forward-looking statements that include projections of future operating results for our fiscal year ending September 26th, 2008, market trends for the industries in which we compete, and our expectations concerning how those trends will affect our operating results, the capabilities and market acceptance of our products and technologies, and our strategic and operational plans. Important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These factors are detailed under the section captioned "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in our most recent and any subsequently filed Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q available at www.sec.gov or on our website at www.dolby.com under the Investor Relations section. Dolby disclaims any obligation to update information contained in these forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. As for the structure of this call, Bill will begin with an overview of the business and I will follow with a run-down of Dolby's financial results. So, with that introduction behind us, I'll now turn the call over to Bill.
N.W. (Bill) Jasper, Jr.: Thank you, Kevin. Good afternoon everybody. Thanks for joining us today. I'm pleased to report solid results for Dolby's fiscal third quarter with year-over-year revenue and net income growing 29% and 56% respectively. During the quarter, we benefited from strong licensing growth in many of our markets and we believe that we continue to make progress on our long-term initiatives. On today's call, I would like to highlight the progress we are making in our markets and discuss the near-term and long-term opportunities we are focused on in an effort to drive additional growth. Starting with our PC market, we continue to make progress with our work PC Entertainment Experience Initiative, while seeing solid year-over-year growth in licensing from Vista and third-party ISVs. Through our PC Entertainment Experience program, we are enabling PC makers to integrate the same audio features, performance and flexibility found in many of the most popular consumer electronics devices, while offering a user-friendly graphic interface that makes it easier to configure and control the listening experience. A number of notebook and motherboard manufacturers are incorporating PCEE into new notebook models, including Lenovo, Acer, Toshiba, and MSI. In addition, HP announced that its new line of high-performance notebooks, the Voodoo Envy 133 will incorporate PCEE. We continue to build on this relationship and look forward to working more closely with HP. In addition to making progress in PCEE, we continued to benefit from strong global demand for consumer notebooks. Many of these notebooks contained DVD playback software through the inclusion of Microsoft Home Premium or Ultimate editions and/or third-party ISV software, all of which contained Dolby technologies. Turning to our broadcast market, we continued to benefit from the transition to digital television. In North America, Dolby Digital is the mandated audio standard for digital terrestrial broadcast and the de facto standard for U.S. cable and satellite providers. In February 2009, over-the-air broadcast in the U.S. as required by federal laws is switched to a digital signal. This means TVs will need to either have or be connected to an ATSC digital tuner, which contains our technologies in order to receive the signal. The government estimates that 15% of U.S. households still rely upon over-the-air broadcast. Currently, the government is subsidizing the cost of digital converter boxes, which contain our technology and are aimed at televisions relying on over-the-air broadcast. This quarter we began seeing initial revenue from sales of digital converter boxes and expect this market to continue to ramp into and beyond the February 2009 switch over date, as consumers adopt this technology. In South America, HE-AAC is the audio standard for digital terrestrial and mobile television broadcast in Brazil. In EMEA region, we believe we are well positioned to grow the adoption of Dolby technologies in digital televisions and set-top boxes. Currently, Dolby Digital is a recommended standard for multi-channel audio and European HD broadcast and many providers are including Dolby Digital in their HD set-top boxes. In addition, with the growing amount of on-air contest being broadcast in Dolby Digital, many television manufacturers are now incorporating Dolby Digital in their mid and high-end European television shipments. In the Asia-Pacific region, we are benefiting from activities in a number of countries. South Korea has adopted the ATSC standard and as a result Dolby Digital is included in South Korean TV shipments containing a digital tuner. Japan has adopted AAC as its audio formant for digital televisions and as one of the license holders of AAC, Dolby receives a portion of the AAC royalties. And we are excited that CCTV in China will broadcast the 2008 Olympic Games in 5.1. Finally, the addition of HE-AAC to our technology portfolio enables us to provide broadcasters worldwide, as well as digital radio on IPTV providers with a broader range of multi-channel solutions that meet their specific requirements. Given HE-AAC's efficient compression, we believe it is well suited for these providers looking to improve bandwidth efficiency. Turning to next generation DVD and gaming, we remain well positioned for potential upgrade cycles in each. In the DVD category, Dolby Digital is mandated in the Blu-ray format. We are beginning to see certain Blu-ray models offered by different retailers for below $300 and recently Wal-Mart offered a $100 rebate for an in-store purchase bringing the price below $200. In addition, as new manufacturers enter the Blu-ray market, prices may come down over time. Similarly in gaming, Microsoft reduced the price of the Xbox 360 to $299. With Dolby technologies incorporated in the Xbox 360, as well as the PS3 gaming consoles, we are well positioned if price cuts lead to volume growth. Turning to our near-term and long-term initiatives, we are making progress with Dolby Mobile, Dolby volume, and Dolby in digital cinema. In the third quarter, we continued to make progress in our Dolby Mobile initiative. Earlier this week, LG announced that it plans to introduce high-end multimedia handsets with Dolby Mobile to ship worldwide by the end of this calendar year. We have decided to build on a relationship with LG, which is a global technology and design leader in mobile communication. In addition, our relationship with NTDoCoMo and Sharp is progressing well. In May, Sharp announced that it plans to expand to four the number of handset models shipping in Japan with Dolby Mobile. We are pleased with the reception Dolby Mobile is receiving at various carriers and handset manufacturers, and we'll keep you posted on our progress, as we remain focused on this market. In our Dolby Volume initiative, we continue to work actively with manufacturers in the consumer electronic and broadcast markets. In June, Toshiba started shipping two HD television models in Japan with Dolby Volume. Dolby Volume allows consumer electronics products to deliver consistent volume levels from various audio sources, while enhancing dialogue and intelligibility and improving overall clarity of the audio content at lower volume levels. Turning to our Cinema initiative, we continue to believe the transition to digital cinema will be an opportunity for digital cinema and digital 3D products. Exhibitors are still committed to digital cinema, especially with complementary digital 3D technology helping to increase traffic and ticket prices. Yet some industry challenges still remain, including the ongoing negotiations between integrators and studios and the potential difficulty for system integrators to obtain financing in the current financial environment. It's still unclear how this will play out, but as the industry works through these challenges we believe we are well positioned to participate in the transition to digital cinema. In addition to our Digital Cinema server, we offer a 3D solution based on reusable glasses. We believe our 3D technology provides exhibitors a higher-quality 3D experience, lower average operating cost, and a more environmentally friendly design. While we have faced significant competition in the U.S. from alternative 3D technology solutions based on a disposable glasses model, we believe the value proposition of our 3D solution is well received by a number of exhibitors worldwide. Outside North America, many exhibitors have embraced Dolby Digital 3D. We remain focused on this market and look forward to keeping you abreast of our progress. In summary, we continue to benefit from many of our traditional markets and are investing in near-term and long-term opportunities to drive additional growth. With our established presence in global brands, we believe we are well positioned to capitalize on many of these opportunities. With that I'll turn it over to Kevin.