CyberAgent, Inc. (4751) Earnings Call Transcript

It is time. So we would like to begin CyberAgent's FY 2022 Full Year Results Briefing. This results briefing is conducted via live streaming. Please refer to the disclaimer included in the briefings material with respect to the information we will share with you today. Our CEO, Fujita, will introduce the financial year results.

This is the President, Fujita. Today, we would like to introduce our full year results for FY 2022. Our fiscal year ends in September each year. First of all, this is the overall performance. Last year, Uma Musume was a significant hit, and that is why our performance increased significantly. However -- drastically, however, despite the decline in the Game Business, Advertising and Media Business was strong, and sales has been growing for 25 consecutive fiscal years. The sales was JPY 710.5 billion, and OP was JPY 69.1 billion. And Media business is doing well, ABEMA and related businesses especially, so we are seeing increase in those profits. In the Ad Business as well, we have continued to maintain high growth rate and expanded our market share. With respect to the Game Business, as I mentioned before, despite the slowdown after the major game title released last year, we still maintained a high level of sales. This is the full year results. Over the last year, we had to overcome the performance of last year at the major hit, but we managed to surpass our performance last year with JPY 710.5 billion. So this marks our 25th consecutive fiscal year of sales growth. With respect to the OP, as you can see from this graph, the last year was significantly higher. But despite that, we have secured JPY 69.1 billion in OP. And we, the management, are planning to ensure a soft landing, so based on our plan, we are making headway. This is the SG&A and number of employees this fiscal year. Outside of Games, we spent advertising costs in each division, so the advertising cost has gone up overall. And the number of employees as well, Advertising as well as Games, we hired around 300 each for each division. So we have significantly increased the number of employees. This is the P&L and the balance sheet. No major changes here either. Moving on to the FY 2023 forecast. This fiscal year, we want to achieve sales of JPY 720 billion and OP of JPY 40 billion to JPY 50 billion. We are presenting this as a range. So we believe that we will be able to make a soft landing within the range. So FY 2023 -- after FY 2023, we should see our growth rate go back to its normal trajectory. We might have another major hit game or economic recession -- global economic recession. But unless those extraordinary events happen, we hope to get back to our normal growth trajectory. That's the forecast and DOE. 5%, there is no change there. We would like to take you through Internet, Game and Media businesses. Starting with the Internet business, this is the full year sales. The Internet Ad Business is -- has continued to grow and expand. But amid the situation, we continue to maintain top share and outpaced the market growth of 10% and grew by 17.3%. So we have been growing quite strongly. The OP, it might seem like its OP margin is coming down a little bit, the red line graph, but this is due to the investments and resources that we have committed to the DX division as well as increase in sales staff as well. So we are making investments just within the Internet Ad business as well. And if we break that down by quarter, there are some seasonal factors. But on quarter-on-quarter, we tend to grow in double digit. So we have continued to grow significantly compared to the same quarter the previous year. This is the OP. As I mentioned before, OPM has slightly come down due to the fact that we have made up our investments by increasing the number of staff that we have. Of course, we are expanding our sales team, but the DX business team as well, as you can see in this slide, we are working with major Japanese corporations to design services. And DX is -- we mean advertising DX. So it's not really apparent in sales, but in the near future, we hope that this division will start to contribute to the sales in a more significant way going forward. And we are working with different partner companies. And we have on our IR channel, IR page, you also find a video introducing our initiatives, so please take a look. And once again, this business, our competitive edge is the know-how because we have been doing this for a very long time and technology capability utilizing AI. And we can maximize advertising effectiveness. So this page summarizes our competitive edge. Moving on to the Game Business. Full year sales, as you can see here, you see that it has grown significantly the previous year. Having said that, despite that, we have grown strongly in the OP as well. We maintain high levels, and this is by quarter. So quarter-on-quarter, we have grown. We've seen positive growth, so this is a great sign, positive sign. And the same goes for the OP as well. Uma Musume, we want to make sure that we nurture it to become an IP that will last a long time. And so we've been helping to improve the awareness, and we want people to fall in love with the IP. So we're starting to see that coming to life. And in terms of the upcoming games that will be released, FINAL FANTASY, Jujutsu Kaisen and Tokyo Revengers. We have 3 popular IP titles which will be released soon, so we hope that you will stay tuned to these new titles. Our Game Business, Game team, we have continued to release hit titles. The operational know-how we already have internally. And also, we can create high-quality games. We have the technological prowess and experience and the staffing and the stamina as well, so we are confident that we can continue to release great hits and to help nurture them over the long term. Moving on to the Media Business. First of all, this is the full year sales. ABEMA and related businesses has been doing well. And the -- so the Media Business has surpassed JPY 100 billion, so it's currently JPY 112.1 billion. So it has been growing strongly. And the full year OP as well, the operation loss has started to improve. This is quarterly sales and quarterly OP. As you can see, quarterly sales has continued to grow beautifully. And this will continue to grow. The number of downloads will continue to grow as we offer new content, but this has been growing steadily as well. And for ABEMA KPI, WAU is the most important. And most recently, we have released Takeru versus Tenshin match, The Match. The martial arts program was doing very well. And Mayweather and Asakura Mikuru, The Match as well, we did very well with WAU of 18.96 million. And we haven't released or streamed the World Cup yet -- FIFA World Cup yet, but the Media is doing very well. So we create dating reality shows for young people, variety shows as well and also popular idol group, Japan's Got Talent as well. And also with respect to anime, comedy program, we just started this year. Our mahjong league -- sorry about that. It has -- the broadcasting has grown by 1.5x. So through ABEMA, we have been able to nurture good content and develop good relationships with various media as well. And Major League Baseball is going to be wrapping up quite soon. But starting this year as well, we've started to air Premier League Football as well as different major martial arts programs. But we will further strengthen our sports content portfolio going forward. And so finally, in November, on November 20, the World Cup will begin. And we have been preparing -- the entire ABEMA team has been preparing to start airing the matches. So we are well prepared for the kickoff match. And we've acquired this broadcasting right, and we want people to -- it will serve as opportunity to experience ABEMA and its convenience as well. So people will be able to watch the match on a large screen, the same level of resolution as you would find in terms to a TV or a VES. And regardless of which device, you can watch from various device whenever you want with unique functions as well. So we hope -- we believe that many users will find that it offers greater convenience than before. And so in addition to content that we are airing, we want to utilize technology and Internet to create new TV of the future. So that's our concept under which we are operating the ABEMA business. And this is our seventh year. We've been running the business for 6 years now, but we have continued to grow the Ad as well as related businesses. And we have been booking losses of about JPY 20 billion before, but we have entered a loss-reduction phase now. This is by quarter. Pay-Per-View has grown significantly. Of course, there are -- it's volatile, but you can still see that we're steadily growing. In the related business, WINTICKET is included, and this is growing dramatically. And we were the latecomers in this market. And we started from scratch as when we launched ABEMA. But even when we started for scratch in the 5, 6 years, we have gained 36% of the market share, so the biggest share. So we have the content and high-quality services, and we offer them. We have the ability to offer these services as well, so we have proven that we have the ample skills and expertise to launch and provide new services. So ABEMA, we wanted to monetize through advertising, subscription and also related businesses. So that -- this was the vision that we had in the beginning, and we wanted to achieve this in 10 years. But we've already went through 6 years and we're entering our seventh year, but we're doing well in terms of the initial vision that we had. And this is what I mentioned every single time. But we have made significant up-front investments for ABEMA, and we wanted to continue to grow ABEMA and find ways to monetize it. And we also wanted to run Ad and Game key businesses as well to make sure that they also grow. So this has not changed. Right now especially, we have been making a lot of revenue through Games, but we want to utilize the funds to invest for the future so that we can continue to grow our business. So that's where we are at the moment. So that's it for me today. Thank you very much.

That concludes CyberAgent's FY 2022 Full Year Results Briefing. If you should have any questions, please reach out to your IR contact. Thank you for watching the live streaming today. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]