Unity Software Q2 2025 Earnings Report

Unity Software EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$0.26
• Consensus EPS: -$0.25
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.01
• One Year Ago EPS: -$0.32

Unity Software Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $440.94 million
• Expected Revenue: $425.18 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$15.77 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: -1.90%

Unity Software Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2025
• Date: 8/6/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, August 6, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 8:30AM ET

Unity Software (NYSE:U) operates a real-time 3D development platform. Its platform provides software solutions to create, run, and monetize interactive, real-time 2D and 3D content for mobile phones, tablets, PCs, consoles, and augmented and virtual reality devices. The company offers its solutions directly through its online store and field sales operations in North America, Denmark, Finland, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, China, Singapore, and South Korea, as well as indirectly through independent distributors and resellers worldwide. The company was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Unity Software Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Strong Q2 results with revenue and adjusted EBITDA topping the high end of guidance and record free cash flow of $127 million.
• Positive Sentiment: Unity Vector drove 15% sequential revenue growth in the Unity ad network, and mid‐single‐digit sequential Grow segment growth is expected in Q3.
• Positive Sentiment: Create segment saw another quarter of double‐digit subscription growth alongside the launch of Unity 6.2’s developer data framework and new partnerships with Tencent, Scopely, and Nintendo.
• Positive Sentiment: Q3 guidance of $440–$450 million revenue and $90–$95 million adjusted EBITDA reflects continued operating leverage, cost discipline, and targeted AI investments.
• Neutral Sentiment: Unity highlights its long‐term competitive edge from consumer runtime data, with potential AI performance gains expected to accelerate starting in 2026.

Presentation

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us and welcome to the Unity Technologies Q2 Earnings Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. I will now hand the conference over to Alex Giamo, Head of Investor Relations. Alex, please go ahead.

[Alex Giaimo, Head - IR at Unity Software]

Thanks, Nicole. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Uniti's second quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. I'm joined this morning by Matt Bromberg, our CEO and Jared Yase, our CFO. Before we begin, I'd like to note this conference call includes forward looking statements, including statements about goals, business outlook, industry trends, expectations for future financial performance and similar items, which are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in these forward looking statements.

[Alex Giaimo, Head - IR at Unity Software]

We undertake no obligation to update any of our forward looking statements. For more information about factors that may cause actual results to differ, please refer to the risks described in our most recent Form 10 ks, particularly in the section entitled Risk Factors as updated by additional filings we make with the SEC from time to time. Today's call will include both GAAP and non GAAP financial measures. Non GAAP financial measures are in addition to and not substitute for or superior to GAAP results. A full reconciliation of GAAP to non GAAP financial results is available in our earnings release, which can be found on our Investor Relations website and on the sec.gov website. With that, I'll pass it over to Matt.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Thank you, Alex, and good morning, everybody. On behalf of everyone at Uniti from across the globe, I'd like to thank each of you for joining us today. It's a distinct pleasure and a privilege for me to showcase our team's progress each quarter. After a full year leading this company, my enthusiasm about the opportunity we have in front of us has never been more profound. We believe that the 2025 will be remembered as an inflection point, where accelerated product innovation and enhanced delivery of customer value came together to spark demonstrable sustainable growth, led by the full emergence of Unity Vector, which has far exceeded our expectations at this early stage of its development.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Strength in the second quarter, reported up across both grow and create, helped drive results that once again exceeded expectations, substantially beating the high end of our guidance for both revenue and adjusted EBITDA. Let's begin in the growth segment. To fully understand our enthusiasm, it helps to narrow the focus a little bit. Vector led performance inside the uni ad network sparked 15% sequential revenue growth in the second quarter, growth which we are seeing continue into the third quarter as well. You recall we anticipated some softness across our other ad products during q two, driven in part by redeployment of technical and go to market resources towards the launch of Vector.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

And that dynamic did indeed temper the impact of the Unity ad network's growth on the overall ad segment revenue in q two. However, we're anticipating that the third quarter will evidence a very different trajectory for three primary reasons. First, we're now seeing clear stabilization outside of the Unity ad network as product enhancements and greater operating discipline bring results back into line, and we begin to spread our AI driven capabilities across our broader ad portfolio. Second, the unity the unity ad network now comprises approximately half of total grow revenue, and we expect that percentage to continue to increase. As a consequence, our fastest growing product should have a greater impact on overall results in the quarters ahead.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

And finally, we're seeing continued increases in the value that Vectors bring to our customers as we continue to invest in the development of the quality of our AI. Last quarter, we talked about the 15 to 20% lift we are seeing in both the volume and quality of new users delivered through Unity Vector. In the second quarter, those results continued to climb. We now believe that the combined impact of these three factors should drive mid single digit sequential growth across the total combined growth segment in the third quarter of this year. It's worth taking a moment to understand precisely how delivering stronger results to our partners translates directly into a willingness to scale spend with Unity.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Remember that performance advertisers are not allocating budget in the traditional sense, nor are they necessarily pulling share from competitors. Performance advertisers consistently increase spend up to the limit of their return requirements all the way across the efficient frontier. We are already working with 85 of the top 100 mobile games in the world. And as we strive to deliver better returns, we expect our partners will continue to invest in growth and our business will grow alongside. We also anticipate that Vector will move from strength to strength in the years ahead as the quality and efficiency of the AI that powers our performance engine continues to improve, and we continue to extend Vector's capabilities to enhance some of the other ad products in our portfolio.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

The increasing confidence we have in the future of our business is actually partially derived from the fact that we've not yet tapped into our biggest competitive advantage, the deep consumer understanding we possess by virtue of Unity's position as the operating system for games globally. Unity is the leading provider of the software used to build, distribute, and run gaming applications used by billions of consumers worldwide. 70% of the top mobile games in the world are built on Unity. In our advertising business, this unique vantage point will provide our Vector AI engine access to new and highly differentiated behavioral data, that will provide a significant potential future catalyst for enhanced performance and growth. We anticipate seeing the impact of our work in this area beginning in 2026 and extending well into the future.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

As excited as we are today about Unity, we're equally sure that this is just the beginning. The foundation for this next generation of Unity is being launched this summer with the release of Unity six dot two, which includes the introduction of the developer data framework. The developer data framework is a unified system featuring privacy dashboards that allow developers to control how data is collected, shared, and used in the production and operation of the interactive applications they build with Unity. This launch marks a critical step to ensure transparency, safety, and privacy as we improve the quality and utility of the tools that game developers use to build and grow their audiences. Since we're discussing Unity 6.2, let's take the opportunity now to transition to discussion of our Create segment, where a transformation in the way we build and support our software is now well underway.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Our rededication to quality, stability, and improving the developer experience is catalyzing strong financial results in Create, including another quarter of double digit subscription growth in q two. We're also seeing momentum around the continued adoption of u d six, the most stable and performant version of Unity we've ever shipped, which has now registered more than 6,600,000 downloads, up 50% from last quarter. The transition we're making from Unity six from prior versions is taking place quickly and far more smoothly than at any previous point in our history. The beta feedback we received for the Unity AI in six dot two, which is still in very early stages of development, has been both positive and extraordinarily helpful. With Vector now successfully underway, you'll see us substantially ramping our ambitions for the role AI will play in the core Unity content creation experience.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Within the financial parameters we've already established, we're making significantly increased investments in talent and product in this area and expect to be talking about it much more in the quarters ahead. Just as data from applications that are distributed on the Unity runtime have the potential to provide a long term competitive advantage in our ad business, data from applications developed in Unity will enable our AI to transform the content creation experience, leveraging our awareness of each product and each project to predict the needs of each developer, transforming the way content is built, empowering the future of our create business. As Unity reconnects with its customers and community and fully embraces the role it plays as the operating system for games, the opportunities available for partnerships in Create also move into new territory. This quarter, we were proud to announce major multiyear partnerships with Tencent, one of the largest developers and publishers of games in the world, and Scopely, creator of one of the world's top grossing mobile games, Monopoly Go. With Tencent, our expanded multiyear partnership will keep Unity at the core of some of the most popular multiplatform titles in the world for many years to come.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

It also highlights the continued strength of our business in China, the largest market for games in the world. We are the only company we know of able to support development seamlessly across the entire ecosystem in China, including with Open Harmony, a rapidly growing mobile operating system in that country. With Scopely, we're embarking on a new multiyear agreement that includes a long term technical partnership across both create and grow, designed both to support the growth and operation of Scopely's games as well as improve the Uni engine for all of our customers. On the platform side, we announced an exciting multifaceted partnership with Nintendo, who's experience experiencing tremendous success with the launch of the Switch two. Our collaboration ensured that Unity six would be fully optimized on day one for the release of the Switch two so that Unity could play a foundational role in the growth and support of Nintendo's ambitions for third party game development, commerce, and live service operation on their platform.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

These new partnerships are not built around selling seats. Rather, our goal is to create new business opportunities for our partners by leveraging our platform and portfolio of products in new ways. And finally, on industry. We remain extremely excited about the momentum we are seeing outside of gaming, which once again was our fastest growing subscription business, increasing sequentially for the tenth straight quarter. In automotive this quarter, we announced a deepening of our relationship with BMW, who uses Unity Asset Manager to power its groundbreaking three d asset management platform globally.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Uni's three d technology has also been integrated into the Mercedes Benz operating system to enhance the in car experience of the new Mercedes Benz CLA. In health care, Specto Medical is redefining presurgical planning and patient communication through immersive three d visualization tools built on Unity. The use cases continue to expand and we're more confident than ever in the long term growth opportunity across a broad range of categories and applications. I'd like to thank all of our teams globally for their relentless effort as we transform Unity and earn our customers' trust each day and express our continued gratitude for the support of our partners and our community worldwide. We believe Uniti is just one of a few companies in the world poised to benefit from the incredible opportunities that abound at the intersection of AI, digital content creation, digital advertising, and interactive entertainment.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

And all of us here are dedicated to making that future a reality. Thank you again for your time and attention this morning. With that, I'll pass it over to Jared for an overview of our financial performance. Jared?

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

Thank you so much, Matt, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to report that Uniti exceeded the top end of our guidance on all measures in the second quarter. Revenue exceeded the top end of our guidance by 16,000,000 with adjusted EBITDA coming in $15,000,000 above the top end of our guidance. GROW revenue in the second quarter was $287,000,000 down 4% year over year and up 1% sequentially, with revenue upside compared to our guidance driven by strong performance from the Unity ad network where we are seeing significantly better results than expected at this early stage from Vector. As expected, the growth of the Unity ad network was partially offset by declines in other ad products.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

In Create, revenue was $154,000,000 up 2% both year over year and sequentially, reflecting strength in our subscription business, which once again delivered double digit year over year growth in the quarter. I'd also like to remind investors that we lapped $21,000,000 in non strategic create revenues as compared to the 2024. Adjusting for the non strategic revenue, create grew 16% year over year in the second quarter. Non strategic create revenue in q two twenty twenty five was minimal, and we expect it to remain so moving forward. Turning from revenue to non GAAP profitability, adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was 90,000,000, representing 21 margins.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

Adjusted EBITDA exceeded the high end of our guidance driven by continued operating leverage in the model from faster revenue growth combined with tight controls around headcount costs and cloud spend. Our aggressive stance on improving efficiency is also allowing us to simultaneously invest behind high impact initiatives such as driving an aggressive road map around Unity Vector and incorporating AI throughout the editor experience. We continue to see opportunities for further margin expansion and operating leverage over time, particularly as we scale and grow our ads business. Unity had record free cash flow in the second quarter, coming in at $127,000,000 and representing an improvement of $47,000,000 year over year, partially driven by larger restructuring payments we incurred last year. The dramatic uptick in free cash flow from the first quarter was driven by strong profitability combined with the timing of publisher payments, which were concentrated in the first quarter.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

In terms of our balance sheet, cash at the end of the quarter was $1,700,000,000 and convertible debt was 2,200,000,000.0 With our strong free cash flow profile and modest leverage, we have an extremely flexible capital structure that allows us to invest against our key initiatives to drive accelerated organic growth for shareholders. With that, I'd now like to turn to guidance for the third quarter. We're expecting total third quarter revenues of $440,000,000 to $450,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA of $90,000,000 to 95,000,000 In Grow, we expect mid single digit sequential revenue growth driven by continued performance in the Unity ad network, where the strong momentum has continued into Q3. Outside of the Unity ad network, we are seeing stabilization and expect sequentially steady revenues from q two to q three. As Matt mentioned, the Unity ad network now represents about half of total grow revenue, and we expect that percentage to grow over time.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

In Create, we are forecasting a slight sequential decline from Q2 to Q3 due to the impact of a large customer win in Q2. I would note that excluding the impact of this deal, our strategic create revenue is expected to be up in the third quarter from both Q1 and Q2 as well as up high single digits on a year over year basis. Our adjusted EBITDA guidance factors in the deliberate controls we're implementing around G and A and R and D spend, including efficiencies we're driving around cloud spend. Unity is also just starting to benefit from improved operating leverage supported by adjusted gross margins of 83%. The return to revenue growth with high adjusted gross margins combined with a lean operating structure should result in expanded operating margins over time, even taking into account aggressive investments in Unity Vector, AI and other high potential R and D investments.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

With that, I'd like to thank you for joining us on Unity's second quarter twenty twenty five conference call. Let me turn the call over to Alex so that we can take your questions.

[Alex Giaimo, Head - IR at Unity Software]

Nicole, I think we're ready for questions.

[Operator]

We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Your first question comes from the line of Matthew Cost with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Matthew Cost, Executive Director - Equity Research at Morgan Stanley]

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. Is there a potential to expand the strength that you have on the Unity ad side to the other products that grow? I guess, is there anything preventing you from taking the technology that's driving the stronger performance that that Unity ads and just, you know, deploying it across the rest of the Grow portfolio? And then I have one follow-up. Thank you.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Hey, Matt. Thanks for the question. Univector is a highly modular system, and there is nothing that prevents us from taking that, taking that modular system and using it to improve, select parts, and, in fact, maybe sometimes significant parts, of our other ad, of our ad other ad products.

[Matthew Cost, Executive Director - Equity Research at Morgan Stanley]

Great. Thank you. And then in terms of just the rate of improvement with Vector, I mean, it it's been a sort of a fast deployment over the course of the year. You know, I think it was in May that you rolled it out, you know, across Unity ads. You know, Vector was fully rolled out there.

[Matthew Cost, Executive Director - Equity Research at Morgan Stanley]

But Vector itself, what is the pace of improvement that we can expect from, you know, Vector over time? It seems like we're not even necessarily gonna see the benefits of runtime data until 2026. I mean, how much low hanging fruit is there left to drive these sequential improvements just in the performance of the model?

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Thanks, Matt. Yeah. Listen. Vector was a was a really important inflection point for our business, and we implemented what was effectively a generational upgrade of our capabilities, and we moved them to a a brand new neural network based platform. It's more powerful.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

It's more versatile. It's more scalable than our old systems, which means that it can handle more data, can handle more complex types of data, and it can respond in real time to changes in in data. So these are capabilities that will continue to grow as the model continues to learn because we can process more features, both dense and sparse, and we can find important signals in what would otherwise be a vast sea of noise for us. So, expect that this investment, which to your point is really just very much at the beginning, will continue to provide lifts for us for years. And indeed, even in the immediate term, we are already seeing lifts above the 15 to 20% improvements that we saw in installs and user value last quarter.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

But again, these are the and these are quarter to quarter moves. But to your point, this is a long term shift that we think is gonna transform our business for many years to come.

[Matthew Cost, Executive Director - Equity Research at Morgan Stanley]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Brent Thill with Jefferies. Matthew,

[Brent Thill, MD & Tech Sector Leader - Software & Internet Research at Jefferies]

on Gro, maybe if you could just characterize the next steps you're going to take in the evolution of the product. What areas are you pleased with? What areas would you like to see more improvement? How do you characterize the next the next chapter, if you will, over the next few months for for the the the rollout of the solution?

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Yeah. As we've as we've indicated and and and Matt pointed out, we are still very, very early in the process of of rolling Vector out. And we have what we think is an extraordinary team investing in improvements and aiding the learning process for for our AI. And again, very, very early for us. So what the future looks like is we continue to invest and we're gonna continue to see improvements over time in the existing in our existing capabilities.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

And then to your point, as as I I noted in in my preparatory remarks, we really believe there's also another inflection point for us that sits out in the future where some of the natural structural advantages that we have in the marketplace having to do with our position as the operating system for games globally as those as as as those insights into consumer behavior on the billions of, for billions of consumers that are using made with Unity applications, as we begin to bring that insight into the, into our AI, we're gonna see enhanced performance. And as we indicated, we we expect to see that beginning in '26 and then continuing out for many, many years to come. But in a way, this is what's so exciting for us. Very, very early on to a major transition, transition, immediately seeing enhanced performance, enhanced spend, and still at the very beginning of a of a tactical development road map and and not yet having taken advantage of some of the unique position that we have in the marketplace. So that's sort of what accounts for our for our great enthusiasm in this business.

[Brent Thill, MD & Tech Sector Leader - Software & Internet Research at Jefferies]

Okay. And just a quick follow-up maybe for Jared. Just on the $12,000,000 perpetual deal in Crete, what can you just describe what happened there? Why that's not recurring? What you saw there that maybe just doesn't, is an anomaly?

[Brent Thill, MD & Tech Sector Leader - Software & Internet Research at Jefferies]

Give us a sense of the color of that, the background.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

Sure. So, you know, we're we're excited about some of the larger partnerships that we signed during the quarter. Matt mentioned several of them, namely Tencent, Scopely. There are several others that we didn't mention by name. Those those contracts are fairly far reaching.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

They touch multiple parts of our business, and there are some elements of those contracts whereby virtue of the way that they are structured, there is an upfront recognition of the revenue component of them with the majority of that revenue being a traditional SaaS based subscription revenue that continues to benefit the business over time. We felt necessary to call out as one component of one of the contracts. It is less than the totality of the contract by far. It's a small component of it, just because it did positively benefit the second quarter and wouldn't continue on into the third quarter. As I mentioned, the create business continues to see strength on strength, double digit subscription revenue growth, 16% growth year over year of the strategic revenue in create.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

So we're feeling really good about the growth in create with and without this particular element of one of the contracts.

[Brent Thill, MD & Tech Sector Leader - Software & Internet Research at Jefferies]

Great. Thanks.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Boone with Citizens. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Andrew Boone, Managing Director at Citizens JMP]

Thanks so much for taking the questions. I wanted to go to grow guidance. You guys talked about an improvement in the non unity ads portion of the business in terms of kind of stabilization there. If I think about mid single digit growth, does that imply that vector gains or Unity ad gains are slowing as I think about three q compared to two q? Can you guys just break that apart?

[Andrew Boone, Managing Director at Citizens JMP]

And then, Matt, as I think about the data potential of you guys incorporating more data and the data framework that's coming out with 6.2, can you just help us understand how customer conversations are going in terms of including more data within your ad products? Thanks so much.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Let me take the second one first, and then, Jared, I'll will take your first question. You know, the the importance of the developer data framework, Andrew, is that is that the the interaction around what data is shared and and and how we use it and is we're we're putting that control completely in the hands of customers, and we're doing it in a highly automated fashion in a way that's deeply integrated into the product. So, you know, the the the the sort of mental model you you wanna have here is not lots and lots of conversations with folks all over the world, but rather just as with every other technology product that that customers interact within the world, there are there are toggles and menus where you could control what data you share with us and and how we use it. And and folks will have different will have different predilections about that, but conversation is not really required. And that's that's really that's really the goal here.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

It's just to completely normalize this, to put control into the hands of our customers and allow them to to to to work with us in whatever way they'd like.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

And just to the second part of your question on the GROW guidance, we've guided for mid single digit sequential revenue growth in grow comparing q two to the third quarter, and we do expect stabilization in the nonvector part of our ad business, which as we talked about is about 50% of the business. So if half the business is basically gonna be stable from q two to q three and the aggregate of that business is gonna grow mid single digits, let's call it 5%, what that implies is that there's double digit growth that we are set up for sequentially in the Unity ad network. What's exciting about that is we're seeing 10% or more sequential growth on top of the 15% sequential growth we saw the preceding quarter or at least 25% growth inside of a couple quarters. That's really exciting for us and something that we are, truly pleased about in this early stage of Vectrus development.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

And I and I just add it, you know, we're we're not expecting to break that number out every quarter as we go forward, but we thought it was important to do it this quarter just so you could understand the drivers of what we're seeing and and understand our enthusiasm about the direction of the business.

[Andrew Boone, Managing Director at Citizens JMP]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Vasily Karasyov with Cannonball. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Vasily Karasyov, Founder & Senior Analyst at Cannonball Research]

You very much. Wanted to follow-up on what you said earlier on the call here. I think you you mentioned that you see a strong growth in installs. So can you help us understand what it is that you're seeing UnityVector doing different differently? Is it finding more impressions?

[Vasily Karasyov, Founder & Senior Analyst at Cannonball Research]

Is it finding impressions that are underpriced? Are you seeing more installs per thousand impressions bought? So would appreciate you if you could help us dimensionalize this.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Yeah. So, you know, the the short answer is yes, which is to say we're seeing broad based improvement against all of the drivers that, that indicate, we're delivering more value to ad customers. And, again, the the best way to gauge that is just to gauge continued in increased enthusiasm, on spent. And it's it's really that simple. These our models will continue to improve as we continue to invest in the quality and efficiency of the models and as we continue to provide more and unique data signals over time.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

That's a that's a a kind of process that we feel really comfortable with.

[Vasily Karasyov, Founder & Senior Analyst at Cannonball Research]

Thank you. Quick follow-up. Is the take rate changing compared to Unity ads?

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

No, Vasily. We're not seeing sort of material shifts in the way we're thinking about take rate and and installs. We're seeing broad based growth in in installs and value per customer with no significant changes in in the margin profile of the business to generate net revenue.

[Vasily Karasyov, Founder & Senior Analyst at Cannonball Research]

Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Tom Champion with Piper Sandler. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Jim Callahan, VP - Internet Equity Research at Piper Sandler Companies]

Hi. This is Jim on for Tom. Thanks for taking the question. Curious on the the China piece. It looks like the revenue by geo, there was sort of a big sequential step up in China spend. Is this vector related or or something else?

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Let me take the first part of that. And, Jared, you can you can jump in on the second part. We're really excited about the opportunities we have in China, as I mentioned. And the the vast majority of that activity is is really related to improvements in our core create business, where we've expanded our relationships with some major customers in that space and where the utility of the Unity engine and its ability to work across all the platforms in China, is are really kinda starting to take root to help us grow that business.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

Yeah. And, Jim, I would just add to that that our our business in China was up about $20,000,000 sequentially, which is truly very exciting. Some component of that growth was due to growth in the create, element, and other parts of the growth was due to, growth in in in grow. And so we are seeing broad based growth in China across both the platform side of our business as well as the advertising side of our business.

[Jim Callahan, VP - Internet Equity Research at Piper Sandler Companies]

Great. That is helpful. And just a point of clarification on the 49% for Unity ads. Is this solely the DSP?

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

Not exactly sure what you mean, Jim, but this is the entire Unity ad network component of the Grow business. The other portion of the Grow business that is not related to to to to the Unity ad network, is the piece where we are later, to introduce Vector, and that comprises a number of different ad products. So I think, the Unity ad network is really the DSP side that you're that you're referring to.

[Jim Callahan, VP - Internet Equity Research at Piper Sandler Companies]

Okay. Got it. Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Alec Brondolo with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Alec Brondolo, Director - Equity Research at Wells Fargo]

Yeah. Hey, guys. Thank you so much for the question. Maybe maybe I'll say, I think the debate on the stock this morning is the extent to which the better Unity ad network growth in the second quarter was cannibalizing IronSource spend as opposed to incremental to kind of, like, Unity corporate or the business overall. And so maybe any thoughts on that concept kind of incrementality relative to cannibalization would be helpful.

[Alec Brondolo, Director - Equity Research at Wells Fargo]

And and perhaps a sense check on your level of confidence that as IronSource or the nonvector portion of Grow revenue starts to stabilize, we won't see a deceleration or deterioration in the improvement in in the rate of growth That'd be super helpful. Thank you.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Yeah. I'll take a piece of that. And, Jared, if you have anything else to add, let me know. So we're quite clear that the cannibalization that there is really no meaningful cannibalization impact at all. It's important to understand that our ad products operate in a big, broad competitive marketplace with some of the largest, most sophisticated companies competing every day.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

It is not unity against unity. So spend flows to where the return is. And we estimate that the cannibalization of, you know, of our other ad network to unity is less than 10%. So that's just demonstrably not what's happening. What's happening is that as we continue to increase the value we provide to customers, they will continue to spend and that will drive growth.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

I don't think there are any natural structural barriers to that continuing. All we need to do is continue to improve the quality of the AI we use, to deliver that value, which we'll do, and we'll, continue to grow the quality and base of the, of the data that's provided.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

Alec, I think we've done some detailed analysis around this, and it really supports the number, that Matt put out there with respect to cannibalization. I think the other proof point I would look to is, as you look to the third quarter, we're seeing ongoing continued significant growth, in the Unity ad network and stabilization in some of the nonvector ad elements. And so it's really starting to come through for us, and we're really excited about what we're seeing.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Yeah. And just just to add again, part of the reason in the in my in my prepared remarks where I what I spent a little bit of time trying to explain the dynamic with customers is because I I do think there's often this mental model that where folks thinking are thinking about share shifts and cannibalization and other things. And I I I just don't think that's the best way to understand the dynamics in our business.

[Alec Brondolo, Director - Equity Research at Wells Fargo]

Perfect. The 10% data point is really helpful. Thank you, guys.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Yep.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Dylan Becker with William Blair. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Dylan Becker, Research Analyst - Technology, Media & Communications at William Blair]

Hey, gentlemen. Appreciate it here. Maybe, Matt, since you called out kind of the content creation side of the equation, I wonder how your view on kind of, like, the strategic importance of the create platform evolves around kind of the proliferation of content, particularly in kind of managing quality and relevance and kind of reducing friction around that kind of user and publisher experience, if that makes sense.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

So are you interested mostly in sort of the role that AI is gonna play and create in terms of helping folks make games, or are you more interested in the but just maybe maybe just clarify for me.

[Dylan Becker, Research Analyst - Technology, Media & Communications at William Blair]

No. In this kind of proliferation of content, right, the strategic importance that Unity can play in that ecosystem Yeah. Of kinda helping publishers navigate and sift through that to maintain kinda optimal user experiences, if that makes sense.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Yeah. I mean, look, one of the things that we're really excited about is how much AI and how quickly AI has moved to the center of our future. You know, we've talked a lot about Vector, and and we talked a lot about how our investments in AR are driving our grow business. On the create side, the AI opportunity is also really in is really enormous. Because remember, as I've as I've said before, Unity's greatest strength is its extensibility and openness.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

We're an assembly point for folks who create interactive content. We're agnostic as to which tools they use and where three d assets come from. We're gonna be the platform, the orchestration layer for AI led interactive content creation going forward. And the fact that that we are context aware of the project, the fact that the the where the platform, where the project is being built, is gonna give us unique insights that will allow our customers both to, make games more quickly and efficiently and to be able to apply much more innovation and have much more time to to create because we're gonna take away over time some of the drudgery and complexity of content creation. And at the same time, when it comes time for customers to then reach out and grow those games and to find new customers, the fact that that, the game is being distributed on our runtime is gonna give us unique capability to power our AI to, enable folks to acquire new users more efficiently and more effectively.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

So we just we're extraordinarily excited about sort of how the world is developing around us, and we're really excited to see how having made some investments in core capabilities at the company, we're able to bring those capabilities to bear for our customers over time.

[Dylan Becker, Research Analyst - Technology, Media & Communications at William Blair]

Perfect. That's helpful. Thank you, Matt.

[Dylan Becker, Research Analyst - Technology, Media & Communications at William Blair]

And maybe, Jared, I think, yeah, the vector point has has kind of been hammered home here as well too. But as we think about kind of the performance improvements on the grow side of the business, understanding the opportunity to reinvest and really kind of double down on some of those initiatives, but how should we be kind of thinking about the incremental flow through from a margin perspective within the growth side? Thank you.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

Yeah. So we spoke about this a little bit in our prepared remarks, but the company is blessed with very high contribution margins. Our adjusted gross margin in the business is 83% with the incremental contribution margins probably higher than that. We expect fully and are beginning to see meaningful operating leverage in our business. And we've done some of the hard work of getting the cost structure to the right place to make ourselves more efficient, more effective in the way we run and operate the business to really prepare ourselves for benefiting from that operating leverage as we return to growth.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

So we're we're excited about that. We think there's a lot of potential for upside in the margin structure of the business, and I think we're doing the right things to make sure the cost structure is lean and mean to benefit from the return to revenue growth that we're starting to experience and grow.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

I think it's a great point, and I and I I would just add and amplify that part of what's what's really exciting about the way the opportunity is laying out for us is that, you know, despite making really aggressive investments in everything that we feel like we need to invest in to create future growth, we're seeing substantial and sharp improvement in margins as we go. And that's not always the case. But to Jared's point, a combination of making really tough choices and prioritizing, what is important to us as a business and some quality execution of our of our teams around the world are enabling us to have a little bit of have our cake and eat it too, and and that's really exciting.

[Dylan Becker, Research Analyst - Technology, Media & Communications at William Blair]

Great. Thank you, both.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Bernard McTurnan with Needham. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Bernie Mcternan, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Just a couple follow ups on Grow. Want to ask on bringing Vector to the other parts of the UD ad network and to simply like, when will you know it's the the right time to do so, and and what do you need to see, or what are you looking to see to and then, eventually make that change or bring it over?

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

That yeah. That's that that's gonna be a Bernard, thanks for your question. That's gonna be a a a gradual and constant process. As I said, the vector technology is highly modularized, and so we're we're gonna see opportunities to use it to improve our other businesses. We see some now.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

We're already investing and starting to see some of the impact, and that will be a process that's ongoing for, you know, for many years. The the idea of bringing AI inflected performance enhancements to data driven products, just that concept, that's gonna be a theme for us forever. So, you know, the mental model is not one where it's like, hey. We're gonna there's gonna be some day where we see this opportunity, and then we're gonna hit it, it's gonna begin and end. It's gonna be a a process of constant improvement.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

But but what is exciting for us is that as we get past the vector launch, it is providing some additional bandwidth for us to start to look at other opportunities across our business, to invest more in using AI to to to drive the creation experience on the create side, to continue to invest in other ad products, and sort of pick our heads up and start to kinda spread some of that goodness throughout the whole company. So the the the the launch of of Vector has provided some additional bandwidth there, but that's gonna be a a constant a constant thing.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

Hey, Bernie. One thing I would add is it's not just using what we've learned in Vector and the other ad products that will enable us to get those products back to growth. Each of those products has a right to win in their own individual place, and there are a series of operational improvements, go to market changes, r and d innovations where we think that those products each have great potential opportunities. So it's not just the application of machine learning and AI to those products, but there are road maps for clear returns back to growth for each of those products that we're now, as Matt mentioned, able to return our attention to to reinvigorate the growth in those areas.

[Bernie Mcternan, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Understood. Thank you. And just one more if I could. Understood the guidance on the sequential increase on UD ads. Just wanted to level set just, you know, given this is new.

[Bernie Mcternan, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Like, are we assuming no additional improvement in the in vector from here? So, basically, any continued model improvements would be would be upside to the guide potentially, or or just kinda want to understand that the guidance methodology given, this is still relatively new.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

So so, Bernie, I think, we have the benefit of having been through, the month of, August as we provide this guide, and we're, you know, partly partly there, and we're seeing the benefit that we received also in the month of July. So we're, you know, probably six weeks in and have that experience. We really like what we're seeing. We're looking at the run rates. We are continuing to make, improvements each and every day.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

And right now, we're guiding based on what we see with six weeks into the quarter. But we are consistently being surprised, and we're really thrilled with what we're seeing. But I would also note that we are early. We are early in this journey. And so, you know, we are we are appropriately waiting the risk of future opportunities, but we're also considering the fact that we're early in this journey.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

And we don't wanna get too far ahead of our skis in terms of the way we're thinking about the future quarterly growth of the vector in the Unity ad network.

[Bernie Mcternan, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Understood. Thanks, Jared. Thanks, Matt.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Kintarek with UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Chris Kuntarich, Internet Equity Research at UBS Group]

Great. Thanks for taking the question. Can you talk a bit about the scalability of ad spend on Vector? We've heard in our checks about the strong performance improvement, but we've also heard a bit of pushback on Vector on the scalability side of things. So is there an opportunity to invest in product to improve ease of spend? Thanks.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Yeah. Listen. Just to echo the point that Jared just made, it's important to remember that we are just a very few short weeks into having rolled out this system. And the answer the short answer to your question is yes. While we're and and and let's be clear.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

While we're really pleased with the results we're seeing, we also see nothing but work ahead of us. I mean, we are just scratching the surface here. So, yes, many customers are seeing lifts, and, yes, those lifts are being seen across genres and across geographies, but there are also some customers that have not yet seen those lifts or where those lifts have of, have hit a point of diminishing returns where they can't get the scale they want. Every advertiser wants infinite scale at their return requirements, and we wanna deliver those, but that's work that needs to be done, both in the quality of our systems and the fine tuning that we'll we do with each customer in terms of how we manage those accounts. And that's the day to day work of our of our lives.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

And, you know, the and so and that's part of what these channel checks that you guys are all doing don't really capture. It's you know, each customer has a we have a team on each customer. We're working with each customer, and each customer has its own story. We deliver better capabilities across our systems, and then we work with each customer and each genre and each geography to try to optimize those returns. But that is a and by the way, the macro environment is changing every day as well.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Right? So this is just what it is to be in this business, and we're feeling really good about it. But there's, yeah, there's nothing but opportunity.

[Chris Kuntarich, Internet Equity Research at UBS Group]

Got it. Very helpful. And maybe just one follow-up. Can you just talk a bit about the pacing throughout 2Q? I just wanna make sure I understand the 15 sequential growth in in 2Q, and now you're trending to double digit growth quarter to date in, in 3Q.

[Chris Kuntarich, Internet Equity Research at UBS Group]

Were you, through the months of April, May, and June, trending to that 15% sequential growth, or was there accelerating spend dynamics as as you move throughout the quarter? Thanks.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

You know, let me just say at at a high level again. We it was our goal in sort of getting a little bit granular this quarter and talking about this is what we want to provide as much transparency as we could about, you know, what we're seeing so you guys would understand the the overall trajectory of the business. What what what I don't think would be helpful would be to, like, to break this down any further. And as I said, we're not gonna be delivering this level of detail going forward because I I don't think it's particularly helpful. Like, the most important thing to understand is that, yes, we're very early in this.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

We're seeing very good early returns. We're seeing those returns build, and we expect that we have effectively unlimited runway to continue to build on those returns. And beyond that, I think just our our general guidance is is what we would we'd lean back on.

[Chris Kuntarich, Internet Equity Research at UBS Group]

That's helpful. Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Parker Lane with Stifel. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Parker Lane, Director at Stifel Financial Corp]

Yes. Hi. Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question here. Jared, nice to see dollar based net expansion get back to 100.

[Parker Lane, Director at Stifel Financial Corp]

The changes in the composition of the create revenue base and the new vector models, just wondering how you could characterize DB and E across the two businesses. And when we look at the upside potential, are you thinking something in line with what we saw towards the 2022 in the data sheet? Or is it potentially a higher upside at steady state?

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

Yeah. So we are pleased with what we're seeing in terms of net revenue retention, which is disclosure we've made. We've seen it go up quarter on quarter for the last several quarters. That's really a function of the underlying business health being there both in create and grow because that metric is ultimately an output that comes from improvements in ARPU for our existing create customers as well as improvements in spend for our grow revenue business. As you think about the future potential for upside, the scale of our grow business is such that improvements in that metric is really gonna come from customer spend increases in grow.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

The pace of price improvements in create is going to be modest and stable. We expect to be able to give our customers predictability and stability. And so you would expect that the improvements in that metric will largely be driven by meaningful improvements in our grow business and meaningful improvements in customer spend through our platform.

[Parker Lane, Director at Stifel Financial Corp]

Understood. Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Richard Kramer with Arete. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Richard Kramer, Founder & Senior Analyst at Arete Research]

Thank you very much. Matt, one of the big questions or debates with investors seems to be over the strategic importance of mediation in collecting signal on ad pricing and inventory. Can you talk about that as part of your Unity Grow offering and whether you see deeper integration of mediation with other Grow features like the DSP is unlocking more potential in inventory and sales?

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Yeah. Hi, Richard. Thank you for the question. We believe that we are uniquely positioned in this marketplace as I've as I've described by virtue of being providing the operating systems for games globally. So it's not our contention that, you know, mediation isn't helpful.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

It's just that or it's our contention that that we don't need to win a mediation in order to, in order to prosper and grow the business. We have first party relationships with billions of customers already, and I'm sorry. Billions of of players, of end users already, as well as with the creators of those games. And and by the way, I'm I'm not at all sure that the that the future of that of mediation ought to be a system which locks customers in to mediation by virtue of their use of user acquisition. You know, we'll have to see how that plays out over time.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

But, what we're focused on now mostly is continuing to deliver value and user acquisition. Providing more value and user acquisition is sort of the path through which all goodness takes place. And we're gonna continue to build out the value and usefulness of our platform, and and and we'll take it from there.

[Richard Kramer, Founder & Senior Analyst at Arete Research]

Okay. And then maybe just a very quick follow-up, you know, mentioning partnerships with the likes of Tencent and Scopely. They're obviously huge names in in mobile gaming and gaming generally for Tencent. Can you give us a sense of the time line when these sort of partnerships are likely to yield actual, deeper integrations or or games which which build in all of your SDK elements and and how you see those progressing? Because they're obviously both of them are are really leading lights in the industry.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

Yeah. I won't I won't, I won't comment specifically about those customers and the titles related to those customers, but let me back and just speak slight a little bit more general. What the what the announcements there and as well as the conversation we're having around Nintendo is is really meant to to to point out is that for the first time, I think, maybe in our in our history, we've been able to begin to package the full value of our platform for customers and have really high level strategic conversations about how we can partner to both help them grow out to help them grow their their user base as well as build games more effectively, more efficiently. And there are deep connections between those two things as we've talked about this morning and we've talked about many times before. So our ability to bring those to bear with customers and these broad relationships marks a change in our strategy and our ability to execute, which will enable us to take advantage increasingly of our of our position as a platform, as a meaningful platform in this ecosystem.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

And that's the piece I think that over the years is, you know, it has it's the promise that Unity has always had, but we haven't been able to access. Because each customer is different, again, I won't go so much into the details there, but generally, these are you know, it the process is is not an incredibly lengthy one. It's it's a process of optimization. So as I as I referred to in a question that we we had a couple of questions ago, when you work with customers at an individual level every day to enhance returns, and the the more connected you are at the, at the level of information and data exchange, the more opportunity there is to optimize. But that is something that takes place over time, and you work on it every day.

[Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President at Unity Software]

All it needs to do is get better and better every day, and you're gonna be in really good shape.

[Richard Kramer, Founder & Senior Analyst at Arete Research]

Okay. Thanks.

[Operator]

Your final question comes from the line of Martin Yang with Oppenheimer. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Martin Yang, Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.]

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. First on Grow, can you talk about maybe intra quarter trajectory of Vectors benefit for Unity app and network? Do you see pretty consistent sequential run rate increase for Unity ads in the second quarter? And has that trend continued in July and August to date?

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

Sure, Martin. This is Jared. Let me take that. You know, we are extremely pleased with the 15 sequential growth we experienced in the second quarter. I would remind investors that we did not have all components of Unity Vector fully rolled out over the course of the second quarter, so that's really exciting.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

We saw strength on strength. So I think each month was better than the last over the course of the second quarter. That strength has continued in the month of July and into August, which really what gives us the confidence to talk about mid single digit sequential growth in our overall grow business, in the third quarter. We're really pleased with what we're seeing. We're pleased with the ongoing momentum.

[Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO at Unity Software]

And more importantly, we understand that we have a really robust product road map and enhancement road map ahead of us. There's a lot of investments and improvements yet to come, followed by the introduction of some of the unique data that we have and data assets that we expect to avail of that should positively impact our business in 2026. So we're really pleased with where we are, pleased with the investment road map in front of us, and pleased with what we're setting ourselves up for for next year.

[Martin Yang, Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.]

Got it. Thank you. That's it for me.

[Operator]

This concludes the question and answer session. I will now turn the call back to Alex for closing remarks.

[Alex Giaimo, Head - IR at Unity Software]

Yeah. We wanna thank everyone for joining this morning. We look forward to, to catching up with everyone throughout the quarter. Have a great day.

Participants

Executives

• Alex Giaimo, Head - IR
• Matthew Bromberg, CEO & President
• Jarrod Yahes, Senior VP & CFO

Analysts

• Matthew Cost, Executive Director - Equity Research at Morgan Stanley
• Brent Thill, MD & Tech Sector Leader - Software & Internet Research at Jefferies
• Andrew Boone, Managing Director at Citizens JMP
• Vasily Karasyov, Founder & Senior Analyst at Cannonball Research
• Jim Callahan, VP - Internet Equity Research at Piper Sandler Companies
• Alec Brondolo, Director - Equity Research at Wells Fargo
• Dylan Becker, Research Analyst - Technology, Media & Communications at William Blair
• Bernie Mcternan, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company
• Chris Kuntarich, Internet Equity Research at UBS Group
• Parker Lane, Director at Stifel Financial Corp
• Richard Kramer, Founder & Senior Analyst at Arete Research
• Martin Yang, Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.