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Fox Corporation (FOX)

Q2 2013 Earnings Call· Fri, Aug 16, 2013

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Transcript

Lars Boilesen

Management

Good morning. Welcome to Opera Software's Second Quarter 2013 Presentation. The results. Revenue came in at $73.1 million, up from $52.1 million same quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA, $21.7 million, up from $14.5 million equal to 48% year-on-year growth. EBIT, $15.2 million, up from $11 million same quarter last year, a growth of 38%. So a very strong record -- a very strong revenue in the quarter, equal to 40%. Record revenue, record profit in the quarter, we're very, very pleased with the quarter. And we like to divide our business into 3 very connected business units; Consumer Browsing, Mobile Operator solutions and Mobile Publisher and Advertising, and all 3 business unit contribute with strong profit and revenue in the quarter. Erik, please give an update, go a little bit deeper into the details.

Erik Harrell

Management

So good morning. So I'm going to go through the financial results for the second quarter 2013. And before I do that, just point you to a standard note from our lawyers with regard to forward-looking statements. So we feel very good about the quarter, record revenues and record profits. On the key financial metrics, as Lars said, we had a very good quarter across all of our key metrics with revenues of $73.1 million, up 40%; adjusted EBITDA, up 49%; $15.2 million on the EBIT line, up 38%. We had, of course, solid cash flow at $11.1 million and solid free cash flow at $10.1 million. Now let's look at how things developed in the quarter versus the guidance that we gave in the April 30 presentation. So revenues came in at $73.1 million. Our midpoint was $72 million, midpoint guidance. Our range was $70 million to $74 million, so the revenues came in on the higher end of our range. Adjusted EBITDA of $21.7 million versus our midpoint of $18.5 million. Our range was $17 million to $20 million, so our actuals came in above the range on adjusted EBITDA. On EBIT, the $15.2 million. Our midpoint guidance with $13 million, our range was $11.5 million to $14.5 million, so we came above the range on EBIT as well. The primary reason for coming above the range on profit is primarily because we delivered higher margins in our advertising business in the quarter than we expected. That was the main reason for the over-performance on the profit side. Just moving on to kind of the details. I'm going to go through all the details here on -- in my presentation. I just like to point out a couple of things here. The first is net income. Our net…

Lars Boilesen

Management

Thank you, Erik, for your financial review. I'd like to give you an update on the operational update in the quarter. And by the way, this is from our new headquarter in Oslo, in Nydalen, and a good illustration of how the sun is always shining on Opera these days. Because we are very pleased with the strong growth we saw in the quarter, we continue to bring in opportunities in all of our 3 business units and we take care of those. Some highlights. In the Consumer Browser business unit, we launched new desktop product, we launched a new Android product. And we have also our iOS products coming out in a few months both for smartphones and tablets, including a complete new concept for tablet browsing. We signed some new important agreements in the TV space. We saw really, really strong growth in a very, very strong growing mobile advertising market. Our Opera Mini co-branded business continues to perform really well. We have now 78 million paid -- paying Opera users every month and we signed some new deals in the quarter. And then we got our first global sky rocket -- Skyfire Rocket Optimizer win in the quarter. But let's start with the Consumer Browser business. So we launched a complete new built-from-scratch desktop product a month ago. And it's really built from scratch, it's built in record time. And it has brand new design, complete native experience, and with a lot of new features. And if we look a little bit our initial statistic from this product, we see that the retention rate is better on the new product, probably around 2, 3 times better. And this, I think, is also the reason for why we can see that some -- we have some new markets…

Unknown Analyst

Management

Just a few quick questions. First, in terms of what Skyfire did in the quarter, could you comment on revenues, EBIT, et cetera?

Erik Harrell

Management

Yes. So on Skyfire was about $5 million of revenue in the quarter. Most of that was Rocket Optimizer, but a very good contribution associated with the acceptance from this Tier 1 U.S. operator, and there's also some -- a nice of bit of Horizon -- Skyfire Horizon revenue in the quarter as well.

Unknown Analyst

Management

And you suggest that the Mobile Consumer business is going down in Q3 in terms of license revenues, could you please explain why that is?

Erik Harrell

Management

Yes. So as I said from the standpoint of looking we're seeing search revenue go up. In the quarter itself, the license revenue that we got is associated with our joint venture in China. As you know, when we went into the debenture, we've also, as part of the transaction, we're licensing -- the joint venture, our technology which is really the base for their Chinese product in the marketplace. So there's some license revenue in the quarter from the JV as well, which has been also historically too.

Unknown Analyst

Management

Yes, but there's a major change with respect to the associated income coming from China now. It seems it's gone from negative to a positive 2.1 in the quarter so...

Erik Harrell

Management

Yes, it's associated with some license revenue in particular for this quarter. What we've done is as part of -- we've done obviously, as Lars has been talking about, we've been doing a lot of technology development, a lot of R&D over the last 9, 10, 12 months and that's reflected in the license revenue that we have with the JV because they're now able to tap into all the innovation that we've been able to deliver from our teams at Opera during that period.

Unknown Analyst

Management

And on the desktop side, are you seeing that the users are performing fewer search queries or you're getting paid less for a free search query given the fact that the revenues are coming down more than the average number of users?

Lars Boilesen

Management

I mean, it's primarily from the commercial terms.

Unknown Analyst

Management

And looking at the Google extension, it seems like the ARPU per desktop user is now fixed. So it's suggesting that you'll grow revenues on desktop if users grow. Is that the right way to understand it?

Lars Boilesen

Management

No. It's not dramatic changes but short term, it's -- it's more reflecting a higher upside on the mobile side where we really are delivering billions of queries every month. It will take some time before Google will really start monetizing some other markets where we have a lot of queries. On desktop, it's not super dramatic but there's a switch towards mobile so it's not like it's changed thing or anything like that, but there is a little bit of step down. However, if we start actually increasing our number of desktop which has been flat for several years, then certainly, we will start seeing very interesting growth on desktop as well. So it scales on desktop as well.

Unknown Analyst

Management

And you're talking about a mobile manufacturer which was entering an agreement similar to the one that you have with Yandex and you aren't able to provide any more information on that now. Could you say something about how Yandex performed in the quarter, how much revenues they gave or at least sort of relative expectation as to how much revenues Yandex will yield over the next few quarters as well?

Lars Boilesen

Management

You want to say something, Erik? But it was a normal quarter for Yandex so...

Erik Harrell

Management

Yes, I mean, it's a normal quarter for Yandex. I mean, we have a -- as you know, we have a strategic partnership with Yandex, working with them not just on search, but obviously we have -- we've had some -- a technology partnership with them as well. So that's something that goes over when we announced the deal so it extends over an extended period.

Lars Boilesen

Management

But I think the question was more related to the performance on search queries and that was a good quarter.

Unknown Analyst

Management

And with respect to sort of the monetization opportunity on the mobile manufacturer, is that the same scale as well as Yandex or significantly larger?

Lars Boilesen

Management

I -- it's early days. I think what's important about this is more that we experienced a lot of attention and interest from partners on what we're doing on the browser side now, not only are we innovating more new features, but also we are doing this on a platform which is more relevant for them because they are on this platform already. So we see more interest and we see an opportunity to become a very relevant partner technology-wise, but also commercial-wise going forward. So of course, we had expectations to revenue on this new partnership, but we also have expectations to further partnership and it's too early to say what will be the commercial impact of this new agreement. It has to be done through performance and we have to prove that we are very important technology partner for them going forward. So early days.

Unknown Analyst

Management

And for Skyfire now running about $4 million ahead of expectations. Is that to assume that those $4 million is roughly from that Tier 1 U.S. operator? And secondly, how should we now regard Skyfire expectations for the full year?

Erik Harrell

Management

Yes. I was, actually in fact, I was just about to kind of jump on that. No, I mean, obviously, of the $5 million, the U.S. Tier 1 operator is a meaningful part of that. In terms of the outlook for the year, the outlook to the year is we feel we're on track on the $12 million to $14 million for the year. That continues to be our guidance for the year and we feel like we're on track to hit that just on Skyfire revenue.

Unknown Analyst

Management

Yes. And then last question I have for finale. In terms of the pipeline on Skyfire and Rocket Optimizer, I mean, I would expect that you're trialing this product with quite a few major operators at the moment. When do you foresee that the next major contracts are going to come through? Are they now going to sort of be testing until first half of next year or we're still seeing opportunities in the second half? And sorry, the one question I forgot, you've previously mentioned an Opera Boost release in Q3. Is that now pushed into Q4?

Lars Boilesen

Management

So it's still scheduled for Q3, Boost. When it comes to the pipeline on the Rocket Optimizer, it -- to work with operators, you have to adjust to their internal schedule so it's very hard for us to predict when they can make a decision. We do have a number of trials, we are pleased with that. But to see when trials move into contracts, it's hard for us to -- it's all about adjusting to their schedule and being the right partner for them. So in the first announcement we had, it went really fast. In the announcement we have today, it took a longer time. It's hard to say but we'll be very focused on the pipeline. Okay. Thank you very much.

Erik Harrell

Management

Thank you.