Take-Two Interactive Software Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 17, 2023

There are 13 speakers on the call.

Operator

Afternoon. Thank you for joining our conference call to discuss our results for the Q4 fiscal year 2023 as of March 31, 2023. Today's call will be led by Strauss Zelnick, Take 2's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Carl Sladoff, our President and Lainie Goldstein, our Chief Financial Officer. Will be available to answer your questions during the Q and A session following our prepared remarks. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that statements made during this Calls that are not historical facts are considered forward looking statements under federal securities laws.

Operator

Forward looking statements are based on the beliefs of our management as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to us. We have no obligation to update these forward looking statements. Actual operating results may vary significantly from forward looking statements speak on a variety of factors. These important factors are described in our filings with the SEC, including the company's most recent annual report on Form 10 ks quarterly report on Form 10 Q, including the risks summarized in the section entitled Risk Factors. I'd also like to note that unless otherwise stated, All numbers we will be discussing today are GAAP and all comparisons are year over year.

Operator

Additional details regarding our actual results and outlook are contained in our press release, including the items that our management uses internally to adjust our GAAP financial results in order to evaluate our operating performance. Our press release also contains a reconciliation of many non GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measure. In addition, we have posted to our website a slide deck that visually presents our results and financial outlook. Our press release and filings with the SEC may be obtained from our website at take2games.com. And now, I'll turn the call over to Strauss.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Nicole. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to report that we concluded fiscal 2023 by delivering strong Q4 results, including net bookings of $1,400,000,000 which were above the high end of our expectations. On behalf of our management team, I'd like to thank all of our colleagues around the world for helping us achieve these results and supporting our vision to become a more scaled, diverse, Industry leading organization, especially as we navigate an oftentimes volatile and uncertain economic landscape. With fiscal 2024 underway, our initial expectation is to deliver full year net bookings in the range of 5.45 to $5,550,000,000 We're assuming a continuation of the current challenging consumer backdrop within our forecasts.

Speaker 1

Additionally, the development timelines of some of our titles have lengthened, especially as we strive to redefine the creative standards of excellence of our industry, which affect our release slate for the year. Looking ahead, fiscal 2025 is a highly anticipated year for our company. For the last several years, we've been preparing our business to release an incredibly robust pipeline of projects that we believe will take our company to even greater levels of success. In fiscal 2025, we expect to enter this new era by launching several groundbreaking titles that we believe will set new standards in our industry and enable us to achieve over $8,000,000,000 in net bookings and over $1,000,000,000 in adjusted unrestricted operating cash flow. We expect to sustain this momentum by delivering even higher levels of operating results in fiscal 2026 and beyond.

Speaker 1

I'd now like to discuss several key highlights from fiscal 2023, which was a milestone year in the 30 year history of our organization. We delivered net bookings of $5,300,000,000 which reflects both the transformative evolution of our company through our combination with Zynga And our ability to create market and distribute the highest quality entertainment experiences. We made excellent progress integrating Zynga. The combination has been highly accretive to our business as we've embarked on new revenue driven opportunities, exceeded our anticipated cost synergies for year 1 and enhance further our mobile platform through select acquisitions. As we approach the 1 year anniversary of our combination, we're immensely proud of trajectory of our integration and the strength of our shared culture and values.

Speaker 1

Our headcount now stands at nearly 12 1,000 talented individuals, including approximately 9,000 developers in our studios throughout the world, which positions us exceedingly well to reach the full And we've maintained our focus on our core tenant of efficiency. We've taken a rigorous approach Our cost reduction program announced in February, which we believe will surpass meaningfully the $50,000,000 in annual savings that we originally anticipated. Our Q4 outperformance was led by strong results from Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Zynga's mobile portfolio. Broadly speaking, the macroeconomic environment remained relatively consistent with what we experienced throughout the 3rd quarter holiday season, while consumers continue to exercise restraint with their purchasing behaviors, they prioritize blockbuster franchises and titles that offered great value. As a result, our vast catalog of proven high quality titles achieved strong results.

Speaker 1

As part of our ongoing portfolio management measures, we made the decision to cancel several unannounced titles in development, which we believe will enable us Tighten our focus and reallocate resources to projects for which our creative teams have higher levels of conviction and expectations of success. Excluding the associated write offs, our 4th quarter and full year management earnings results were above the high end of our guidance. We manage our pipeline actively, sometimes making difficult decisions to ensure that we're meeting our creative standards and achieving financial returns that are consistent with the goals of our company. We believe that an evolving robust pipeline is an essential part of our long term strategy to expand, enhance and diversify our portfolio to grow our player base and to launch a multitude of new hit franchises across an array of platforms and business models. Turning to the performance of our titles for the period.

Speaker 1

Grand Theft Auto V exceeded our expectations and to date the title is sold in more than 180,000,000 units worldwide. As hardware supply constraints receded, Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online adoption on the latest generation of platforms continued to grow. For the 1st 3 weeks of Grand Theft Auto Online's holiday update, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S consoles grew to 14% of its audience penetration and 25% of its revenue penetration up from 11% 20% respectively versus last summer's content update for the comparable period. During the period, Rockstar Games continued to support the passionate global Grand Theft Auto Online community With an array of new content offerings, including the last dose and epic finale of the Los Santos Drug Wars update, as well as the roving gun van, taxi commissions a new 50 car garage, new vehicles, clothes, weapons, modes and much more. Los Santos Drug Wars introduced a phased approach To delivering high value content, creating a much longer tail of sustained engagement and net bookings than we've seen with previous content updates.

Speaker 1

Additionally, GTA Plus, Rockstar's premium membership program continues to perform well, driven by a positive Monthly events since the launch of Los Santos Drug Wars. Red Dead Redemption 2 outperformed our plans and to date title is sold in more than 53,000,000 units worldwide. We're also pleased with the continued engagement Players with Red Dead Online as demonstrated by its 10% year on year increase in new online players on all platforms. NBA 2K23 continues to grow its audience with the title selling in over 11,000,000 units to date, a record for the series at this stage and achieving its highest ever virtual currency sales. In addition, engagement with NBA 2K23 remained incredibly strong With approximately 2,300,000 daily active users including growth in the City, MyCareer and MyTeam users.

Speaker 1

NBA 2 ks23 Arcade Edition continues to bring the best basketball experience to mobile devices and has maintained its number one position on Apple Arcade. Building upon Visual Concepts resounding In reinvigorating our WWE franchise last year, WWE 2 ks23 enjoyed the highest Metacritic review score average in the history of the series. Engagement with the game has been outstanding. Players logging nearly 8,000,000 hours of gameplay and facing off more than 100,000,000 matches. 2 2 ks is supporting the title with a series of add on content that can be purchased individually or as part of a season pass.

Speaker 1

We value deeply our relationship with the WWE and look forward to continuing and expanding upon our successful partnership in the years to come. Private Division and Intercept Games launched Kerbal Space Program 2 in early access for PC on Steam, Epic Game Store And other storefronts. Our teams are encouraged by the incoming player feedback and we've already implemented several updates with more on the way as development continues. Last week, Private Division announced a partnership with Dimpre to publish their upcoming new action adventure IP, which is one of Private Division's most ambitious projects to date. In addition, Private Division and the Roll7 studio were recently honored with 2 prestigious industry awards, the BAFTA for Best British Game for Roller Drum And best sports game at Dice for OlliOlli World.

Speaker 1

Zynga's mobile business had a strong finish to the year. In app purchases were above our expectations. Momentum has continued and we were pleased to experience strong demand over the Easter holiday. Efforts to increase our advertising This is tracking well with ad revenue growing quarter over quarter and accounting for approximately 27% of Zynga's net bookings. Our teams are successfully increasing advertising supply in our games, investing in optimization and implementing new ad products, which are helping A much broader cohort of users.

Speaker 1

Our direct to consumer efforts are tracking well with numerous titles currently on our platforms and plans for nearly all mobile games across our labels to leverage our highly profitable proprietary distribution channel over the next few years. A few highlights of Zynga's offerings during the period include: Empires and Puzzles, Zynga's highest grossing title drove engagement through its new in game event, Season of Love. Zynga's social casino portfolio had its best quarter in nearly 2 years, driven by record performance from Game of Thrones Slots Casino and strong overall results from Zynga Poker, Hit A Rich and Wizard of Oz slots. Top Eleven had a robust quarter and launched Its Proven Ground England mini game update in February, which challenged players to recreate the greatest moments in English football history. The new race pass from CSR Racing 2 continued to drive player engagement, retention and monetization with innovative new profile banners for players to collect.

Speaker 1

We remain quite pleased with our hyper casual and mobile business. Popcor achieved strong results during its 1st full quarter under our ownership. Additionally, ROLLIC has increased its profitability and the studio celebrated several milestones during the period, including the first anniversary of its title Fill the Fridge and its social media inspired pressure washing run reaching the number one most downloaded spot in Apple's U. S. App Store.

Speaker 1

In closing, as we continue to pursue our mission to be the most creative, the most innovative and the most efficient entertainment We do so incredibly well positioned with a broader portfolio of owned intellectual property, a deeper pool of the industry's top creative talent And the sound infrastructure to capitalize on the vast opportunities on the horizon. As we execute on our strategy, We believe that we can increase meaningfully our scale and prominence within the industry, grow margins and achieve record breaking operating results for 2025 beyond. I'll now turn the call over to Tom.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Strauss.

Speaker 3

I like

Speaker 2

to thank our colleagues around the world for delivering another momentous year for Take 2. Our integration with Zynga has gone incredibly well and we continue to release many of the industry's Highest quality, most engaging entertainment experiences, thanks to the incredible passion and talent of our teams. We are extremely excited about our release pipeline, which includes approximately 52 titles through fiscal 2026. Our revised pipe our revised plan reflects several title cancellations as well as a reclassification of our mobile games to include only those titles Currently in our plans for worldwide launch. For fiscal 2024, our pipeline includes 16 planned releases.

Speaker 2

We expect to deliver 3 immersive core offerings. This includes NBA 2 ks24 and WWE 2 ks24, our genre defining sports titles developed by Visual Concepts. Additionally, we expect to release an eagerly anticipated new IP from one of our premier studios later this fiscal year. We plan to release 2 mid core arcade titles, which includes Lego 2 ks Drive, The ultimate driving adventure game from 2 ks and Visual Concepts. LEGO 2 ks Drive brings the iconic LEGO play experience into a vast open world Our players of all ages can build any vehicle, drive anywhere and become a LEGO racing legend.

Speaker 2

LEGO 2 ks Drive is the first release in a multi title partnership between 2 ks And the LEGO Group. We are confident that 2 ks's proven expertise in creating high quality and engaging interactive entertainment properties, Combined with the LEGO Group's unprecedented cultural reach, we'll evolve the iconic LEGO games experience that fans love in exciting new ways. We also plan to launch 2 new iterations of previously released titles and 3 independent titles, including Private Division's planned May 23 of After Us from Piccolo Studios. Players of After Us will navigate stunning environments in a surrealistic world to the souls of the extinct animals and restore life on earth. And lastly, we expect to release 6 mobile titles during the year, Including Zynga's Star Wars: Hunters, which offers players the opportunity to join the greatest hunters from across the Star Wars galaxy.

Speaker 2

Players will engage in thrilling third person combat in a range of competitive game modes across battlegrounds that evoke the iconic worlds of Star Wars. Throughout the year, our hypo casual studios will release a steady cadence of mobile titles focusing on games that have the potential for enhanced retention rates and a mix of in app purchases and advertising to drive higher monetization and profitability. Our labels will also continue to provide new content and experiences that drive engagement and recurring consumer spending across many of our hit franchises, including Grand Theft Auto Online, Red Dead Online, WWE 2 ks, Lego 2 ks Drive, PGA Tour 2 ks and throughout Zynga's mobile portfolio. Looking ahead, we currently expect to deliver 36 titles throughout fiscal 20252026. As always, these plans are a snapshot of our current development pipeline.

Speaker 2

It is likely that some of these titles will not be developed through completion, that launch timing may change and that we will also add new titles to our slate. Our release slate for fiscal 20252026 includes 14 immersive core releases, 6 of which are sports simulation games. 2 mid core games, 1 of which will be sports oriented. 4 new iterations of previously released titles, 4 independent titles from private division, 2 of which include our previously announced partnership We will continue to offer post launch content for nearly all of our titles, including virtual currency, DLC packs and season passes. Given the strength of our upcoming release schedule and the high degree of visibility we have into our pipeline, we believe that we'll achieve the record levels of results that Strauss mentioned, including over $8,000,000,000 in net bookings and over $1,000,000,000 in adjusted unrestricted operating cash flow in fiscal 2025, with further growth in fiscal 2026 and beyond.

Speaker 2

As we approach the significant inflection point in our business, We believe our expanding scale and margins will generate industry leading returns for our shareholders. I'll now turn the call over to Lainie.

Operator

Thanks, Carl, and good afternoon, everyone. Today, I'll discuss the key highlights from our Q4 fiscal 2023 before reviewing our financial outlook for the full year Q1 of fiscal 2024. Please note that our results include our combination with Zynga, which affects the comparability of our results relative to last year. Additional details regarding our actual results and outlook are contained in our press release. I'm so proud of our team for their strong execution and unwavering focus throughout the year.

Operator

We made fantastic progress on our integration with Zynga, delivered incredible high quality content and announced several exciting new games from our pipeline. Efficiency was also a major area of focus. We announced our cost reduction program in February and as part of our ongoing portfolio management process, We canceled several titles that we anticipated would not meet our internal hurdle rates. We are confident that all these steps will help grow our scale, enhance our long term margin and ultimately deliver sustainable returns for our stakeholders. As Strauss mentioned, we finished fiscal 2023 with momentum and delivered 4th quarter net bookings of $1,390,000,000 which was above our guidance range of $1,310,000,000 to $1,360,000,000 This reflected better than expected results from Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Zynga's mobile portfolio.

Operator

During the period, recurrent consumer spending rose 115%, which was above our outlook of 105% growth and accounted for 78% of net bookings. The outperformance is primarily driven by Zynga and Grand Theft Auto Online. Digitally delivered net bookings increased 76% above our guidance of 70% growth and accounted for 97% of the total. During the quarter, 78% of console game sales were delivered digitally, up from 75% last year. GAAP net revenue increased 56 percent to $1,450,000,000 and cost of revenue increased 207 percent to $1,220,000,000 which included impairment charges of $465,000,000 related to intangible assets acquired from Zynga reflecting forecast changes for a few titles and $54,000,000 relating to capitalized software and development costs for unreleased and canceled console and PC titles, the latter of which was included in our management results.

Operator

Operating expenses increased by 130% to $926,000,000 which primarily reflected the addition of Zynga, which is partially offset by lower marketing expenses. And GAAP net loss was $610,000,000 or $3.62 per share, which includes $302,000,000 of amortization of acquired intangibles and $45,000,000 of business acquisition costs. Excluding the $54,000,000 impairment charge, our management earnings would have been above the high end of our guidance range. Turning to our fiscal 2023 results. Total net bookings were $5,280,000,000 which was above our guidance of $5,200,000,000 to $5,250,000,000 While the challenging macroeconomic backdrop affected certain components of our portfolio, we experienced favorable performance within our catalog of industry leading intellectual properties Zynga had a strong finish to the year.

Operator

Recurrent consumer spending increased 88%, which was slightly above our outlook of 85% growth and accounted for 78% of net bookings. Digitally delivered net bookings increased 63%, which was also above our guidance of 60% growth and accounted for 95% of the total. During the year, 74% of our console game sales were delivered digitally, up from 68% last year. Non GAAP adjusted unrestricted operating cash flow was $56,000,000 as compared to our outlook of over $400,000,000 During fiscal 2023, we spent $204,000,000 on capital expenditures. At fiscal year end, we had Cash and short term investments of approximately $1,000,000,000 and debt of $3,100,000,000 Cap net revenue grew 53 percent to $5,350,000,000 and cost of revenue increased 100 percent to $3,100,000,000 which included impairment charges a $465,000,000 related to intangible assets acquired from Zynga and $79,000,000 related to capitalized software and development for unreleased and canceled titles, the latter of which was included in our management results.

Operator

Operating expenses increased by 131 percent to $3,450,000,000 which primarily reflected the addition of Zynga as well as higher personnel, stock compensation and IT expenses. And GAAP net loss was $1,120,000,000 or $7.03 per share, which includes $1,040,000,000 of amortization of acquired intangible and $270,000,000 of business acquisition costs. Today, we provided our initial outlook for fiscal 2024. We project net bookings to range from $5,450,000,000 to $5,550,000,000 The largest contributors to net bookings are expected to be NBA 2 ks, Grand Theft Auto Online and Grand Theft Auto V, our hyper cash flow mobile portfolio, Empires and Puzzles, Toon Blast, Words With Friends, Merced Dragon! Red Dead Redemption 2 and Red Dead Online and Zynga Poker.

Operator

We expect the net bookings breakdown from our labels to be roughly 53% Zynga, 31% 2 ks, 15 percent Rockstar Games and 1% Other. And we forecast our geographic net bookings size to be about 67% United States and 33% international. We expect our current consumer spending to be up approximately 5% compared to fiscal 2023 and represents 79% of net bookings. Our forecast assumes that 76% of console game sales will be delivered digitally. We expect to generate approximately $100,000,000 in non GAAP adjusted unrestricted operating cash flow And we plan to deploy approximately $180,000,000 for capital expenditures.

Operator

We expect GAAP net revenue to range from $5,370,000,000 to 5 dollars 47,000,000 and cost of revenue to range from $2,510,000,000 to $2,540,000,000 Our total operating expenses are expected to range from $3,390,000,000 to $3,410,000,000 as compared to $3,450,000,000 last year. At the midpoint, this represents a 1% reduction, reflecting lower acquisition costs, the realization of synergies from our combination with Zynga and savings from our cost reduction program, which are partly offset by a full year of Zynga, higher stock compensation and personnel expenses, driven by the annualization of new hires and the effect of inflation on other business operating primarily reflected in IT costs. We expect the GAAP net loss ranging from $477,000,000 to $518,000,000 or $2.80 to $3.05 per share, which assumes a basic share count of 170,100,000 shares. For management reporting purposes, we expect our tax rate to be 18% throughout fiscal 2024. I'd like to acknowledge that our current forecast For fiscal 2024 reflects the continuation of the challenging economic environment as well as an extension of the development time lines for several high profile and long awaited titles.

Operator

While this affects our expectations for our current fiscal year, our high degree of visibility into our pipeline gives us confidence that we are approaching a significant inflection point in our business where we will achieve new record levels of results for our business next year and beyond. Now moving on to our guidance for the fiscal Q1. We project net bookings to range from $1,150,000,000 to $1,200,000,000 which reflects the full quarter of Zynga compared to $1,000,000,000 in the Q1 last year. Largest contributors to net bookings are expected to be NBA 2 ks, Grand Theft Auto Online and Grand Theft Auto V, our Hyper Casual Mobile Portfolio, Empires and Puzzles, Tomb Glass, Merz Dragon, Words With Friends, Zinca Poker, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Red Dead Online. We project the current consumer spending to increase by 35%.

Operator

Our forecast assumes that 79% of console game sales will be delivered digitally, up from slightly from 77% in the same period last year. We expect GAAP net revenue to range from $1,210,000,000 to $1,260,000,000 and cost of revenue to range from $572,000,000 to $592,000,000 Operating expenses are expected to range from 827 dollars 837,000,000 At the midpoint, this represents an 18% increase over last year, which reflects the full quarter of Zynga and higher stock compensation, Personnel and IT expenses based on the factors I mentioned previously. And GAAP net loss is expected to range from $161,000,000 to 1 $178,000,000 or $0.95 to $1.05 per share, which assumes a basic share count of 169,400,000 shares. We believe that we are very well positioned in our industry to deliver the highest quality content, gain market share and enhance our profitability as we grow our scale and maintain our focus on efficiency. We are extremely excited about our next chapter of growth and we look forward to our label sharing more details about the many exciting projects we have underway.

Operator

Thank you. I'll now turn the call back to Strauss.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Carl and Lainie, and thank you to all of our colleagues for your dedication, your hard work And these terrific results, we will now take your questions. Operator?

Speaker 4

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer Thank you. Our first question comes from Andrew Urkowitz with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 5

Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I guess I'll just skip right to fiscal 2025 and 2026. It's Pretty rare that you guys give 2 year guide like this and we've seen quite a few delays across the industry.

Speaker 5

Could you just give a little additional color on where the confidence is coming from on being able to provide that to us today?

Speaker 1

Yes, you're right. It's very uncharacteristic of us to talk about subsequent years at this time. We're doing so because we've been investing in a pipeline for A long time. And we now have a great deal of confidence that that pipeline will be delivered in the next 3 years, twelve titles fiscal 20 24, 30 6 in the following 2 years, 44% of that is new intellectual property, the rest is New iterations of existing franchises and that's mobile console, PC and numerous business models. We couldn't be more excited.

Speaker 1

Fiscal 'twenty four's titles look good. And as I said, we're very confident in the years to come as well. And we thought it was important to convey that with transparency today.

Speaker 5

And then just with the, I think, 44% of new IP, P, when you're looking this far out, what kind of can you walk us Through a little bit like how you would how you think about modeling those, the conservatism you're thinking about in some of those or just kind of how you come up with the forecast for the new IP? Thank you.

Speaker 2

So new IP, as you know new IP is always a little bit of a wildcard and it's difficult to predict exactly how it's going to behave. Obviously, we're not completely flying blind because we do have a pretty comprehensive process of doing comps in the market. But you really just never know, Which is one of the reasons why when we model out in our product investment review process new IP, we typically actually we never model out big hits Of course, you ignore us upside. It's really I don't want to necessarily call it a conservative approach, but we are not we don't look at it as sort of outlying success. Obviously, everything that we invest in and everything that we release, we're looking to achieve that outlying success.

Speaker 2

And we know for a fact that not every single one of our titles will achieve that. But that is the game we're in and that's why we're making these investments in new IP, which ultimately is the lifeblood of our industry, and that's why we're still very much dedicated to doing that.

Speaker 5

Got it. Thank you so much. Appreciate the color.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Our next question is from Matthew Thornton with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 6

Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Maybe 2 from me. Strauss, it's been another 3 months and AI remains a hot topic. I'm sure you and team have had More time to digest and think about. I'm just kind of curious your latest thoughts on how you think it will influence the business and the industry.

Speaker 6

And then just secondly, as we think about The headcount and the infrastructure that we now have in place, are we kind of at a place where you have what you need to pursue this aggressive Pipeline or do we still need some more investment? I'm just trying to think about the OpEx leverage and how to think about that as we kind of flow through the out years. Thanks again everyone.

Speaker 1

Thanks. Yes, as you know, I'm usually a skeptic when others engage in hyperbole. In the case of AI, I'm pretty enthusiastic. First of all, despite the fact that artificial intelligence is an oxymoron, as is machine learning, This company has been involved in those activities no matter how you no matter what words you use to describe them For its entire history and we're a leader in the space. So while the most recent Developments in AI are surprising and exciting to many.

Speaker 1

They're exciting to us, but not at all surprising. Our view is that AI will allow us to do a better job and to do a more efficient job. And you're talking about tools and they are Simply better and more effective tools. I wish I could say that the advances in AI will make it easier to create hits. Obviously, it won't.

Speaker 1

Hits are created by, Genius and datasets plus compute plus large Language models does not equal genius. Genius is the domain of human beings and I believe will stay that way. However, I think jobs can be made a whole lot easier and more efficient by developments in AI and we're certainly looking forward to that. And as I said, we're already putting it in practice Every day.

Speaker 2

So your second question in terms of cost. So from an op I'm not sure exactly what you meant by operating expenses, so I'll just kind of break it down About overhead. So publishing overhead and corporate overhead, I would say generally speaking, we're kind of at scale. We have what we need. That's not to say to achieve our plan over the next few years.

Speaker 2

That's not to say that we won't still be investing in those areas and there will be cost increases associated with that. We're always looking for efficiencies, But people do get raises and we find needs as new opportunities arise. So can't stand here and say that we don't have any more in publishing and corporate overhead, but we certainly believe that we're at scale. And we also believe that that's an opportunity for us to Excuse me, to expand our margins based on the fact that we are very nearly we are at scale or very nearly at scale in that regard. On the development side, We do intend over the next few years to continue to add to our development capacity.

Speaker 2

That's something that we have been able to do successfully. About 9,000 developers in house today. That doesn't include our 3rd party relationships, which are vast and strong. And we do part of our plan is to continue investing in that area.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Our next question is from Matthew Cost with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 7

Hi, everybody. Thanks Taking the questions. The first one is just about the long term guidance. I think you mentioned growth in fiscal 'twenty six off of a base of fiscal 'twenty five, Off of the base in fiscal 2025, presumably there's quite a few units of new games that are being launched in that year. I guess When you think out into fiscal 2026, what are the moving pieces that you see driving growth year over year off of what looks to be based on the numbers you've just provided, a very, very Strong year in fiscal 2025.

Speaker 7

And then the second question is just on mobile. You announced that you're going to be launching Star Wars: Hunters This fiscal year, I think the game has been in development for some time. Are you seeing something in the mobile gaming market as sort of stabilization or improvement of marketing

Speaker 2

So in terms of our confidence in talking about what would grow fiscal 'twenty six over 'twenty five, it's the same answer of what would grow 25 or 24, which is our pipeline and it's the makeup of that pipeline. And I don't want to get into too much detail about title What title units expectations are, whether it's unit it's title units or it's the current consumer spending because the fact is it's every it's all of the above. But in the end, it's based on us delivering the pipeline that we have on plan and achieving the results that we expect. I really don't have much more to say beyond that.

Speaker 7

You want to do Hunter's?

Speaker 1

Yes. On Star Wars, Hunter's, you asked about the market backdrop. We are seeing some improvement in year Your comps mobile really was under a lot of pressure. The market is recovering a bit. It's still down year over year.

Speaker 1

In certain instances, we appear to be over And we're excited about many developments at Zynga. For example, advertising penetration That represents 27% of Zynga's net bookings, which is great. That will continue to improve. We're excited also about our direct to consumer platform, which obviously Has an effect on our margins, a beneficial effect on our margins. So I think the backdrop is stable and perhaps improving a little bit.

Speaker 1

At the end of the day, what will matter of course is the quality of the title. Mobile is a very competitive space. We feel really good about Star Wars: Hunters.

Speaker 2

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Our next question is from Colin Sebastian with Baird. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 8

Thanks and good afternoon everybody. Strauss, you talk about setting new Standards in the industry. And I know quality is a big piece of that, but would be also curious to know beyond that what specific areas of innovation Within your games, you would say keep the portfolio ahead of the competition. And then regarding the fiscal 2025 commentary, I would just be curious out of that more than $2,500,000,000 in incremental bookings next year, what portion of that Should we think of as falling into RCS versus, I guess unit sales? Thank you.

Speaker 1

Yes. Thanks for your question. In terms of, how do you define innovation? If it had one definition, I think it would stop being innovation pretty quickly. But I think our labels are known for leading in new areas, whether that's 3 d view when there wasn't one before, whether that was downloadable add on content many years ago or In game purchases, virtual currency or the like, that was the neighborhood or the city and NBA 2 ks, GTA Online, Red Dead Online, what you could do in those online environments, all of those were innovations, driven by our labels.

Speaker 1

And everyone who works in the creative capacity at this company is trying to think about how do we engage and entertain consumers in a way That's novel. That hasn't been seen before. We actually just had an internal email exchange earlier today talking about the unknowns. We know in the next 10 years, there will be extraordinary changes in this industry. This is a highly dynamic industry.

Speaker 1

And we need to be not only current, we need to be leading the charge. Sometimes historically we have, other times we've missed the boat and we want to be at the front of the line and our creative folks Work in service of their passions to make the best entertainment anyone creates On earth. And again, we don't always succeed, but often we do. Our track record is pretty great creatively and that's thanks to our 9,000 developers who work here and another 1500 who work outside of our four walls to do work that Take 2 brings to market. So I'm sort of highly optimistic on the one hand and very mindful that This is a really ambitious challenge and the ambition is it's an emotional burden for everyone who works here, but also a great benefit when we succeed.

Speaker 1

On your second point, I think you asked us to distinguish between RCS and console sale and full game sales.

Operator

Right. So for fiscal year 2025, we are really excited to talk about it. It's a highly anticipated year. And we're really happy to talk about us hitting $8,000,000,000 in net bookings, but we aren't talking about what the detail of that is at this time.

Speaker 9

Thanks guys.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Our next question is from Doug Krause with TD Cowen. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 1

Hey, thank you. I just wanted to talk about your adjusted operating cash flow margins for a minute. If I go back to Fiscal 2018 through fiscal 2021, you were pretty consistently in the low mid-twenty percent range. It slipped down below then since then, I think, is a function of you investing Against your future pipeline, your fiscal 2025 guide is over $1,000,000,000 in OCF against over 8,000,000,000 In bookings, which is still only about a 12.5% margin, if my math is correct, which seems low. Do you expect that in fiscal 2020 5%, you're still going to be investing heavily against future opportunities.

Speaker 1

Do you expect to get back to that 20% plus range in 25% or thereafter? Any kind You've given that would be great. Thank you.

Operator

Sure. It's definitely still going to be investing in the pipeline going forward. And we still have interest payments and tax payments through those years, but we definitely will see a lot of the titles that we have been building up onto the balance sheet coming out those years, so that will definitely be affecting the AUOCF in those years as well.

Speaker 6

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Our next question is from Clay Griffin with MoffettNathanson. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 10

Hey, thanks for the question. Thanks for taking the question. I guess, I think About the are the marketing strategies for some of these big highly anticipated titles different now than they were say maybe in the Red Dead 2 launch. I mean, notwithstanding the fact that a larger number of titles ought to bring a higher level of marketing support in the aggregate, I'm curious If the overall level of marketing efficiency against bookings is materially different now than maybe the prior generation, I guess, in other words, Awareness of your IP is already quite high. So just curious on that.

Speaker 2

So I would say hey Clay, I would Say that the overall marketing spend levels are different. I think we continue to spend in a consistent manner. Although the makeup of that spending and the timing of the spending is definitely different now Than it has been in the past. We don't spend a heck of a lot of money on TV really if any at this point. Outdoor, a lot of those items are not really In our media plan, we have a lot more social spending than we did before, targeted spending, performance marketing, etcetera.

Speaker 2

And it also used to be that a big portion of the marketing budget was spent prior to the release in the weeks prior to the release and certainly within the Couple of weeks following the release. We still will spend significant amount of marketing in and around the launch date, but it is much more spread Because we have the ability to monetize for a much longer period of time and there are certain opportunities for us to market additional content drops. So you would see our marketing budgets are definitely spread out longer than they would have been in the past. So those are really the two changes. But no, I don't really think there'd be a significant change in the scale of what we spend.

Speaker 10

Got it. And there was some commentary about What sounded like a one time tax cash tax issue in Q4, we just wanted to confirm that and maybe just give us a sense of And what that was, we expect that to repeat and just kind of general framework for thinking about cash taxes going forward? Thanks.

Operator

It wasn't really like a one time taxing. It was really like a time it was a timing issue. So it's not something that will repeat, but it is our tax balances for each year. So it's something that we'll have tax payments every year going forward.

Speaker 10

But the rate that you guys have been speaking to is there's no sense that that's moving one direction or the other?

Operator

Well, we have an it's like an 18% estimated tax rate is in our management rate and that's an annual rate that we use for every year.

Speaker 3

Great. Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Our next Question is from Omar Dusoky with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 9

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. So I guess I was wondering if you could maybe parse out a little bit implied in your operating income guidance, Mobile versus PC console, I think a number of your peers guided profits roughly at the same levels For calendar 2023 as was calendar 2022. And I was just wondering just for starters, whether your implied guide is up or down, if you could tell me that? And then I have a follow-up question.

Speaker 4

Can Can you

Operator

repeat the first question? I'm sorry.

Speaker 9

Yes, no problem. A number of your peers that publish only mobile games have guided Profits at similar levels in 2023 full year as 2022 full year. And I was wondering whether your profitability for Zynga and your Take2 mobile business up or down. I realize there's a number of moving pieces Such as potential revenue synergies, reducing the cost of advertising and of course cost synergies. But Are you is your implied guide for mobile up or down versus last year?

Speaker 9

Like for like including 53 days of Zynga?

Operator

Yes. So on a like to like basis for a comparable 12 months, the single mobile business is up year over year.

Speaker 9

Okay, great. And I'm also glad that you guys addressed the $500,000,000 of annual net bookings opportunities in the presentation. So I wanted to dig into that for a second. I think you have The first question is on that is can you give us any sense of the cadence of how you might get to $500,000,000 in terms Like fiscal 2024, fiscal 2025, fiscal 2020 6. The reason I ask that is because you guys did put out a cadence in the S-four.

Speaker 9

Obviously, That's a long time ago, but any update there would be great. So the cadence first and then the second the ramp to $500,000,000 And then 2nd one is you have a couple of bullet points here, establishing a more meaningful presence in key mobile first emerging markets And introducing mobile games from some of our most popular and proven intellectual properties. So does that include high fidelity mobile games? Is that what you're referring to there? And specifically for Asian markets potentially using some of your PC console IP?

Speaker 9

Lots of questions. Appreciate your responses.

Speaker 2

It's Carl. So in terms of some of the cadence around the $500,000,000 the $500,000,000 revenue synergies, obviously, we're still very committed to that, and we feel very good about those opportunities for us. I think in the near term, there are several meaningful opportunities that we believe our teams we can actually start to begin to activate this fiscal year. And those are really more around expanding our D2C efforts more meaningfully in some of our other games. And also things like implementing new bold beats, marketing beats across the company.

Speaker 2

User acquisition optimization, creating centralized library of customer data Across the company, integrating the Take 2 databases with the Zynga databases, all of those things, We're going to be able to start realizing some of that in this fiscal year and then obviously accelerate that into the next few years as well. In terms of the immediate and long term, and I think this will answer, I think, both of your questions. We are we do have a vision To introduce mobile games to some of our most popular properties on the T2 side into the mobile space. That's something that we're having conversations right now. Nothing to announce specifically, but the conversations are happening and I would characterize them as very positive and people are excited about that I'm not really sure I understood, the sort of reference to Asia and high fidelity, etcetera.

Speaker 2

But these are intellectual properties. Think about them as some of our more core type games. And by definition, you would Fact. And again, I don't have anything to announce right now because we don't have any games necessarily in development in that regard, that those games would be a little bit more upmarket. Because we do believe that there's a market for that.

Speaker 2

You've seen some success in the mobile space with other folks bringing their titles to market. Call of Duty is a perfect example We think that there is several of our titles that have that kind of opportunity. And I would expect those games, to be a little bit more towards the mid core arena. I hope that answers your question.

Speaker 9

Absolutely, it does. Thank you very much.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Our next question is from Martin Yang with Oppenheimer. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 9

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you

Speaker 1

for taking the question. First question on Zynga. Can you tell us if Zynga's developer headcount growth since it was acquired? Yes, we don't break out the headcount label by label, but we did say that we have about 9,000 internal Development people at the company. Thank you.

Speaker 1

My second question is broader, I want to get your broader view on console cycles. When do you start when do you plan to stop supporting past gen consoles And what goes into the decision stopping our for the past gen consoles for certain franchise or overall No take to release, Dean. It really varies. I mean, obviously, our labels will continue to support Platforms for which they believe there's a meaningful audience. And if and when the audience diminishes to a point where it's not economical to do so, we stop supporting the platforms.

Speaker 1

But In general, we're pretty supportive on an ongoing basis.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Our next question is from Brian Fitzgerald with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 11

Thanks. A couple of questions on consumer pricing, not with your titles, but we've seen discounting on some of your competitors' recent releases. They were anticipated AAA titles, but were being discounted within days and weeks. So do you think the gamers still Driving a little bit with coming to terms with $70 price points, maybe still macro impacted. And then the second one related to pricing is, Again, you saw strong RCS performance.

Speaker 11

Historically, the narrative has been gaming spending is resilient because even in Grow, because you get that bang for buck, relatively low cost per hour of entertainment. At the same time, the model is evolving to more life services, more RCS. Is that RCS spend Just as resilient as the historical industry consumer spend has been?

Speaker 1

Yes. We've talked about this in the past. I mean to take your second question first. We do think that live services spending is probably More affected by macroeconomic conditions because you don't need to spend, if you have the game, you can enjoy the game. There are certain titles that we don't really put ours into this category where you kind of have toll booths, if you don't pay, you really can't play, but that doesn't scribe any of our titles mobile or console.

Speaker 1

So we think spending in a live services environment as a nice to have for the consumer, not a must have. And as a result, if the consumer is feeling a pinch, that might be an area that would be more likely to be influenced negatively. In terms of the pricing point that you raised, we're not seeing a pushback on frontline price. What we're seeing is consumers are seeking To limit their spending by going either to the stuff they really, really care about blockbusters or to value. And sometimes it could be both.

Speaker 1

And the good news is like we have bunch of blockbusters and we have a wonderful catalog. The other news is we also have a robust frontline release schedule And without regard to price, there has been some pressure as a result, if a consumer sees something as interesting, but not necessarily yet a huge blockbuster. We think that will change. This is a growth business and this is a unique market and nothing that's going on now Inconsistent with the view that we outlined during the pandemic. We said at that time, we were benefiting greatly from people Being at home in an odd turn of events and we set our expectations that were post pandemic, we'd as an industry be in a better place than pre pandemic and a worse place than during A time when people were sheltering at home and that's exactly what's happened, exacerbated by a challenging mixed economy and what I believe is a recession, at least if you look at it through the lens of people who purvey digital entertainment consumed at home and e commerce suppliers, There's a lot of pressure in those markets.

Speaker 1

But the overall tailwinds of the industry will continue. This is a growth business. It will remain The fastest growing part of the entertainment business for the next 20 plus years. And we will have those tailwinds. Now we still have to deliver in that context and we intend to.

Speaker 1

But to torture the metaphor, the wins at our back.

Speaker 11

Awesome. Thanks, Strauss. Really appreciate it.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Our next question is from Mike Hickey with Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 12

Hey, Strauss, Karl, Lainie, Nicole. Thanks guys for taking my questions and Congrats on your I guess it's congrats on your $25,000,000 guidance. No pressure guys on $8,000,000,000 in revenue. Just curious, You didn't guide to profitability. I don't expect you to now.

Speaker 12

That $8,000,000,000 was a little bit above consensus view. Just curious how we should think about Profitability, I think consensus for $25 is over $8 in EPS. Don't expect to confirm that either way, Lainie. But just thoughts on we should think about profitability on 'twenty five, especially given that we have extended time lines now On development and what impact that could have? And then the second question, just another one on AI.

Speaker 12

Strauss, glad to hear you're positive on it. That's nice. Just curious on the mobile side with AI and barriers to entry, just curious

Speaker 1

if you

Speaker 12

think that will have any challenges in terms of More competitors coming to the market.

Speaker 1

Thanks, guys. Thanks, Mike. Well, we basically have indicated profitability by Talking about our operating cash flow, you're right, we haven't gotten granular because we're not providing initial specific guidance, but we do expect that Fiscal 2025, 2026 and beyond will be highly profitable years. And we've said repeatedly and in these remarks today, we expect To grow our margins, that's a big part of what our financial objectives include. With regard AI and mobile, I think the implication of your question is, does generative AI allow people who aren't in the business to make mobile hits by Sang could chat GPT.

Speaker 1

Come up with a great idea for a new mobile hit. Oh, and by the way, please code it for me too. And while you can do that now, you should give it a try and you'll see what happens because we certainly have tried it around here. And let's just say that, No, you will not be able to create hits that way. I mean, remember, what you're looking at with AI and what you will always be looking at is Our dataset compute and at least sitting here today, large language models.

Speaker 1

And in the future, you may not be looking at large language models or they will But you'll still be looking at a dataset and compute. And a dataset by definition is backward looking And hits in the entertainment business by definition are forward looking. And no matter how intelligent and I use the word In quotes, very much in quotes, maybe multiple quotes. A machine is, a machine is not going to be able to look forward, a machine can predict based on Data sets and using massive compute and using large language models. We're all super excited about what we see because we haven't seen before the possibility Doing a natural language query and getting a natural language result, that looks incredibly cool.

Speaker 1

But to confuse that result With intelligence and creativity is like confusing a magic trick with magic. It's not magic. It's still a magic trick. So, that's where I'm at on this. No, AI is not going to allow people to push a button to make a hit.

Speaker 1

However, AI is going to make Certain elements of any process that requires coding easier for everyone, for everyone, Not disproportionately for anyone, for everyone.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Our next question is from Derek Johnston with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 9

Great. Thank you. On the topic of delivering mobile games direct to consumer, What kind of share are you targeting for downloads in MTX? And then what kind of margin lift would you see on a Game by game basis as well as consolidated basis?

Speaker 2

So we're not we haven't disclosed what our target is. We do think it's a significant Opportunity for us, so it certainly is greater than 0 and less than 100%. We don't think that it makes sense in all cases to go to direct to consumer, but We do think there's a lot of room for us to grow from where we are right now. I think it's the second question. What was the

Speaker 1

second part? What was the second part of your question?

Speaker 9

Margin lift?

Speaker 2

Yes. Well, I mean, again, I don't think we've about the margins, but you can kind of back into them yourself. I mean, we're doing it ourselves and there's sort of the take rate obviously is much, much, much lower, Because you're really talking about payment clearances and things of that nature. When you go to U. S.

Speaker 2

To other rates that may be in the

Speaker 9

Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Our next question is from Benjamin Soff with Deutsche Bank, please proceed with your question.

Speaker 3

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just 1 on the slide. So, Lego Drive is listed under the mid core section, but it seems like a $70 price point with a full year of seasonal updates. And to me, that Would seem like a AAA title.

Speaker 3

So do you mind expanding a bit on the difference between immersive and mid core in your mind? And then apologies if I missed it, but are you Exacting both top line and bottom line growth in fiscal 2026? Thanks.

Speaker 2

So in terms of it's a funny question you ask. We debated this exact thing internally whether or not like a Lego title for example is a midcore title midcorearcade or is it immersive. And it really isn't a question of quality and the amount of gameplay that's involved. So the $70 price point, I would say, is a bit of a red herring. We think that the game is certainly worthwhile with that experience.

Speaker 2

But the experience itself, When you look at sort of the over if you compare that experience to a Grand Theft Auto, for example, obviously, there's a big difference. The depth of the storyline, The vastness of the world, etcetera. LEGO Drive is an open world driving experiences, but it's not Los Santos. So there's quite a bit and It's probably not even the city of NBA. So the term is probably a little bit of art in terms of how classify things, but at this particular case, just given the look and the feel of the game, we thought that midcoreandrk was the right categorization But there's no specific guideline other than a kind of in this particular case, it kind of felt that way.

Speaker 2

And I should also say sorry to Eleni was about to answer the other question. Whether it's mid core or arcade versus Core or immersive? That doesn't necessarily indicate our expectations about commercial success because you can have a commercially successful title that's mid core or casual.

Speaker 3

Okay. Got it.

Operator

And then for fiscal 2020 6, what we've said is that we expect net bookings and operational results to be higher than fiscal 2025. So that would imply that it would both would be growing.

Speaker 3

Okay, got it. Thank you, guys.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Our next question is from Stephen Ju with Credit Suisse, please proceed with your question.

Speaker 1

Okay. Thank you. So Strauss, I certainly do not want to put words in your mouth, but Your answer to one of the prior questions sounded like you were talking about incremental bar bailing of industry dollars, I guess, similar to what we were seeing during the financial crisis. And then I guess in an environment where only the AAA and the value games are going to capture dollars and the stuff in the middle, Maybe in some trouble. So what are you doing at the studio level that is different now To maybe adjust for that environment.

Speaker 1

And Carl, like what are you doing at the private division level, to adjust to what might be the new normal? Thanks. I think that's right. But at the end of the day, it just means quality, just means you have to put out great stuff and that speaks to private division as well. And that's always the case.

Speaker 1

This is less about changing strategy because our strategy is that everything that we put out should be just spectacular and more Just a reflection of where the consumer sits. And the consumer will return and this is going to be a growth business. As long as we make the highest quality Titles, we should do just fine. Private Division's approach has never been based on sort of Taking a shortcut on quality, its approach has been let's bring into the tent developers who might not otherwise bring their products to Take 2. And in certain instances, we can deliver an A plus title on a more economical level than we might be able to do in house.

Speaker 1

And That's been proven out and Private Division has generated a lot of successful titles. And in fact, virtually everything they've done, not everything, but virtually everything has been successful.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Our next question is from Matthew Thornton with Truist Securities, please proceed with your question.

Speaker 6

Hey guys, just a quick follow-up. I'm not sure if this is for Strauss or Carl. We talked about DTC on the mobile Side, you guys have DTC experience with the Rockstar launcher on the PC side. If we think out a couple of years, given the scale you're going to be at as the world perhaps Starts to take more steps towards streaming. Do you see the opportunity to perhaps partner on the back end or white label the streaming back end to go D2C On streaming, again, given the scale you'll be at a couple of years, just kind of curious if you're thinking about that yet.

Speaker 6

Thanks again.

Speaker 1

Our strategy has always been to have the broadest possible distribution. We were a leader in digital distribution in the very beginning. And one of the reasons We did so well as that we basically were willing to do business with everyone whose terms made sense to us and who were good market participants in terms of security and compliance. And to the extent that streaming is a viable business opportunity and technology for our industry, Of course, we'll avail ourselves of it. And I'm certain we'll work with 3rd parties as we have in the past.

Speaker 1

We were, I think, the first license for the Stadia, for example. Sorry, it didn't work out, We were there to support the effort and equally to the extent that it makes sense to have our own platform, we will do that too. But we're not We're very unlikely to be exclusively limited in one direction or the other. We want to be where the consumer is. So I think that's all the questions we have today.

Speaker 1

Thank you so much for joining us. We're thrilled with these results. We're more than thrilled with our outlook. I want to reiterate Our gratitude to our teams around the world who show up every day with more or less with smiles on their faces, mostly with smiles, Aiming to do their very best work in pursuing their passions, I want to thank our business teams who bring their great work to market and make sure that we run our business In a first class fashion. And of course, I want to thank our shareholders for their support and confidence in us.

Speaker 1

Have a great

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Earnings Conference Call
Take-Two Interactive Software Q4 2023
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