Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:DLB) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

I think it’s important to understand that in any environment, as it relates to Dolby is we’re building these ecosystems. It is entirely plausible that a category of revenue grows 20%, one year and goes up to 30% the next year and it’s 20% again. And the reason it can do that is because we’re building these ecosystems like we’re doing with music, where we have this increased volume of content and streaming services and a more valuable proposition to autos and other devices people use to enjoy music. The same could be said for our user-generated content ecosystem. And as those develop, we become — we gain a sense of confidence that we’re going to get on a significant percentage of devices. But as they’re developing, the timing of the revenue will have a lot to do with which partners we get first, which models they decide to do first, how quickly do they decide to go into their lineups.

And so when we give — so again, we think that we’re — we feel confident in the opportunity to double the size of those revenues over the next three to five years, and are targeting 15% to 25% per year.

Steven Frankel: Okay. Great. That’s helpful. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you, Mr. Frankel. Next question is from Paul Chung with JPMorgan. Please proceed.

Paul Chung: Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. So just a follow up on the revenue guidance for Q1 and the year next year, so should we expect some large Mobile quarter is maybe shifting into Q2. Is that the right way to kind of think about it? I mean, just some help on the shape of revenues for licensing for the year. That gets you to that kind of low single-digit growth as Q1 has typically been your strongest for the past two years — fiscal years?

Robert Park: Yes. So for Mobile and a couple of these areas, some of the Q1 declines are more pronounced in Q1 than the full year. Yes, some of the deals, some of the transactions that we talked about earlier are more pushed out beyond Q1 than they were in the prior year. So we’re more heavily weighted in Q1 of last year.

Paul Chung: Okay. And then on Dolby.io, what’s the contribution today in product sales? And is the contribution for 2023 kind of product guidance, is it included in there? And then the margin profile has rebounded quite strongly on products. Where do we go as we move through the year next year? And what’s the kind of IO contribution on margins to products?

Kevin Yeaman: Yes. So let me try to take that in turn. So yes, revenue from Dolby.io is included in our product and services line. It is contributing and growing. It’s not large enough to highlight for you as one of the major growth factors this year. But we — as I said earlier, we’re seeing greater engagement. We’re involved in a lot of conversations that we think are — where the future is going in terms of these really immersive virtual experiences. And so we’re excited about that and we can talk more about that. But let me get to the other part of your question, which is the margin improvement. There was — throughout the year, we, like many, were hit with some of the supply chain challenges as it relates to the manufacturing of our products.

Obviously, products is not a large part of our business, but nonetheless, we were affected. And so that affected our margins as it could be the parts, it could be shipping them to where they need to be all of that. And the team was immediately on top of that and has come up with solutions, which have resulted in the improvement in gross margins, which is closer to what we would target on an ongoing basis.