Kevin Yeaman
Analyst · Dougherty
Thank you Lewis and good afternoon to everyone, who’s joining us today. Now that Lewis has taken us through the numbers, I’d like to talk about the progress we are making on our plan to return to double-digit growth. We have two major areas of focus. First, expanding our leadership role in audio solutions for entertainment content. Second, bringing auto visual experiences to markets that are new for us. It was an exciting quarter for Dolby. Dolby technologies were our great display at CES and we have new partner announcements for each of our three new offering: Dolby Voice, Dolby Vision and Dolby Cinema. Now, I’ll get to that in just a minute. First, let me start with our core audio business and the work we are doing to expand our leadership position. Dolby Technologies are included broadly across all of the ways in which consumers receive and enjoy their entertainment content. We continue to see growth opportunities in emerging markets in broadcast as well as in newer use cases like online and mobile. We have a strong position in markets that are in the process of adopting digital broadcast, particularly in Asia and Africa and we continue to bolster our value proposition for mobile experiences. For example, Netflix is streaming Dolby Digital Plus to mobile devices, providing a loud and clear audio experience on the go. At the same time, we continue to raise the bar in audio experiences in new and existing markets. Dolby Atmos, which delivers an immersive audio experience starts in the cinema where there are over 1,600 screens installed or committed and nearly 400 Dolby Atmos theoretical titles announced or released. Dolby Atmos is also available in the home, supported by all leading AVR providers with more than 60 SKUs announced or released. In addition, 29 Dolby Atmos enabled speaker products from 17 partnering companies have been announced or released. These allow for a virtualized overhead experience through up-firing speakers. We are also seeing Dolby Atmos adopted in a wide range of form factors. The Yamaha Dolby Atmos soundbar is available today, and three additional Dolby Admos soundbar were announced at CES from Samsung, Creative Labs, and Phillips. In the mobile ecosystem, Dolby Atmos has been adopted in handsets from Lenovo and Amazon enabling immersive audio experiences on the go. Furthermore, we have our first adopters of Dolby Atmos in gaming and in emerging use cases, such as virtual reality. From a content perspective, we continue to see great momentum. Joining Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures recently announced that they will be releasing Blu-ray titles in Dolby Atmos. VUDU is currently streaming in Dolby Atmos and we will see the first immersive audio broadcast experience in 2016, as the Comcast X1 service will support Dolby Atmos. With broad market adoption at a strong reception to our next generation of audio technologies, our audio business is well positioned for longevity and growth. It was a big quarter for the new audiovisual experiences that we brought to market last year. Let me start with Dolby Vision. LG, the second largest TV manufacturer in the world, announced at CES that they will be featuring Dolby Vision throughout their 2016 OLED and Super UHD LCD televisions. Also at CES, TCL announced the specifics of its first Dolby Vision TV, which will be available in China and in North America. Visio began shipping its first Dolby Vision televisions in December. Additionally, Skyworth has announced support for Dolby Vision televisions, and we will keep you updated on the specifics around that as well. With these announcements, we see a broad base of TV is coming to market this year at a variety of price points and they have been getting spectacular reviews across the board and we’ve seen increasing momentum on the content side. MGM and Universal have now joined Warner Brothers and Sony in delivering Dolby Vision content for home distribution. Netflix is creating original content in Dolby Vision that will be available to their 75 million global subscribers. VUDU is currently streaming Dolby Vision content at its CES earlier this month, we were pleased to see that there were movies available in their library as we were demonstrating Dolby Vision to our partners and customers. In addition to the great momentum we have with TV OEMs, content creators and providers, we've made great progress in other parts of the ecosystem as well. System-on-a-chip providers M Starr, MediaTek, Sigma Designs, Realtek, and HiSilicon are all supporting Dolby Vision on televisions. This is significant, as these partners currently provide chipsets for about 80% of the television market. Additionally, Roku has announced that their next 4K UHD TV reference design will include Dolby Vision. Dolby Vision is widely supported technology for offering a high dynamic range experience. We have built an ecosystem of partners, including creatives, postproduction, delivery, and display partners. I'm very excited about the progress made with Dolby Vision this quarter, and this really is just the beginning. Let me turn to Dolby Cinema. Dolby Cinema combines the most powerful imaging and audio technologies to deliver the ultimate cinema experience. This morning, we announced that Wanda Cinema line, one of the largest movie exhibitors in Asia, will be launching 100 Dolby cinema locations across China, with the first location scheduled to be open this spring. We are excited to partner with Wanda and to expand Dolby Cinema into China, the fastest growing cinema market in the world. In the meantime, after opening the first U.S. Dolby Cinema location in May, there are now 16 around the world. AMC continues to execute on its plan to roll out 50 Dolby Cinema at AMC prime locations by the end of calendar-year 2016. Our Dolby Cinema line-up now includes four exhibitor partners so far: Wanda in China, AMC in the United States, Cineplex in Austria, and JT Bioscopen in the Netherlands. Combined, they are planning to roll out over 200 Dolby Cinema locations around the world. Now, of course, every great cinematic experience needs great content and every major studio has released theatrical content optimized for Dolby Cinema. This quarter, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, premiered in a Dolby Theatre in Hollywood in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Other Dolby Vision theatrical titles include Oscar nominees such as The Revenant, The Martian, and Inside Out. We are hard at work with our partners to expand the availability of the Dolby Cinema experience. In addition to its long-term revenue potential, we are excited about the opportunity to provide an awe-inspiring Dolby experience to millions of consumers around the world. Finally, let's talk about Dolby Voice. With Dolby Voice, we are enhancing the audio conferencing experience and providing differentiation to this $4 billion market. This quarter we added a second major partner, PGi, which is one of the largest providers of audio conferencing software and services. We look forward to working with PGi to significantly expand the potential customer base for our best-in-class audio conferencing experience. We also continue to gain momentum with BT, and rolling out BT MeetMe with Dolby Voice. There are now over 120 customers signed up for the service. There are a number of large multinational companies that have recently implemented the service or are in the process of implementation. And once the companies are live with the service, we have the opportunity to generate revenue from the use of the service including the sale of the Dolby conference phone. So let me wrap up where I started. We are focused on returning to revenue and earnings growth in 2016, and beyond that to returning to double-digit growth. During the quarter, we continue to strengthen our leadership position in audio entertainment, and we added major new partners across all three of our new offerings with LG in Dolby Vision, Wanda in Dolby Cinema, and PGi in Dolby Voice. This creates opportunities for revenue growth and it broadens the number of people that will enjoy Dolby branded audiovisual experiences. I look forward to keeping you up-to-date with our progress throughout the year. And with that, I will turn it over to Q&A.