Unity Software Inc. (NYSE:U) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Luis Visoso: Yeah. If you think about our multiplayer business, really we had two things. One is kind of think about the hardware component of that, and that is — that’s just not our strength. That’s not a business where we can generate a good return and that’s not a business where we have the scale to offer competitive prices to our customers. So, it’s exactly what we’re not trying to do. Having said that, what we offer a unique value is in the orchestration layer of that hosting of the game — multiplayer games. So, we’re going to continue to be in that business. That’s a software business. That’s a profitable business. That’s something that we uniquely can provide to our customers. And we’re getting out of the hardware business because, as I just said, we’re just not — that’s not unique for Unity to provide value to our customers.

Chris Kuntarich: Got it. And maybe just one follow-up on China. I know you had talked about growth ex China within the engine, but just curious. We’ve heard it across the space that the Chinese gaming ad spend has been a source of outperformance. Can you just talk a bit about how this performed in 4Q for you and just kind of the opportunity for Unity on a go-forward basis? Thanks.

Luis Visoso: Yeah. So, you have to think about China in different ways, right? The Create business is mostly our customers in China developing games in China. That business has been tough, as we know, there are some restrictions in the Chinese market and that continues to impact our growth in Create, specifically. On Grow, our growth in China, which reflects two things again. It reflects business in China, but also Chinese-based customers doing business outside of China. That has been performing well just like any other region. So, we’ve been seeing good growth there.

Chris Kuntarich: Got it. Thank you.

Daniel Amir: Great. Next question is Andrew Boone from JMP Securities.

Andrew Boone: Great. Thanks so much for taking my questions. Can you talk about the slimming down of the portfolio and whether that changes the trajectory at all for non-gaming your industries business? And then, for my second, how do we think about professional services following the Capgemini partnership? Is there any change in strategy, or anything else we should note there? Thanks so much.

Jim Whitehurst: Yeah. Maybe I’ll start there. So, look, obviously, revenue goes down because professional services is a lot of dollars. But that’s why we kind of showed the reset in the numbers. Our strategy — I come from an enterprise background. I have been blown away at how much interest there is and frankly, how much patience there has been from our customers kind of with us to get this right, because frankly, there is no other solution that’s anywhere near as compelling as what we can offer. And that goes from visualization, so how do you connect with end customers with a richer view of product to configuration through distribution, all the way back to obviously the design things. There’s a whole education and training component with AR/VR.

But one of the things you can realize as I talk through all of these things, visualization is a component of a solution, whether that is a way that you’re interacting with your customers in a richer way, or whether that is building education content, right? So, as you will often see with infrastructure software companies, you’re very much partner-led in how you go to market, because building those solutions is not our forte. And so, we’ve made a decision to be a software company and double down our roadmaps on delivering excellent software, and working with partners like Capgemini who can take that software and build solutions, and that’s their business. So, I feel highly confident that by focusing on software and building partnerships with people who frankly have more scale and expertise on delivering in-solutions, we will substantially accelerate that business.

I am super excited about it. Obviously, higher margin profile because it’s the software business. But again, if you look at infrastructure software companies, if you think about visualization and what we do as a component of infrastructure, virtually all software companies that do that are heavily partner-led. And so, what you’re seeing as a strategy for us to move in that direction, we’ll get much better distribution. I think we’ll get much better outcomes by working with people like Capgemini who are experts in delivering solutions. And we’ll just get a lot more scale. Capgemini can bring a lot more people to this than we certainly can in professional services. So, we are — I am absolutely convinced — the company is absolutely convinced that we call it industries, but selling into non-gaming enterprise customers is a tremendous opportunity for us going forward.

But again, we want to recognize we’re a software company and we’re going to build an efficient effective kind of go-to-market in a way that, that infrastructure is turning into solutions for our customers, and Capgemini is part of that. And again, talking to some of our customers, they’re really excited about it because I think they know that we’re better at building interactive 3D software, not necessarily building their industry vertical solutions out of that.

Daniel Amir: Great. Thanks. So, next question is Matthew Cost from Morgan Stanley.

Luis Visoso: Hi, Matt.

Matthew Cost: Hi. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe I’ll just start by following up on industries. I think that you said in the opening paragraph of the shareholder letter that you think it can be a bigger business than gaming. So, I guess are there specific use cases or industry verticals that you’re seeing really strong uptake in that you feel you can have that level of confidence in it, that it can get from, I think you said, 23% of the subscription business to the majority of it over time? And then I have a follow-up. Thank you.