KRAFTON, Inc. (A259960) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon. I'm [ Sophie Lee ] from KRAFTON's IR team. I would like to extend my appreciation to everyone, including analysts and investors from both home and abroad for joining the company's third quarter 2024 earnings call. With me today our CFO, Dong-geun Bae; and Kang-wook Lee, Head of Deep Learning Division. For the benefit of investors presentation will be made through simultaneous interpretation, followed by consecutive translation for the Q&A. As a reminder, today's earnings presentation is based on K-IFRS consolidated estimates, which are subject to change upon the independent auditor's review. With that said, let me invite CFO, Dong-geun Bae to present on the business highlights in the mid- to longer-term growth strategy of the company.

[Interpreted] Hello. I'm Dong-geun Bae, CFO of KRAFTON. KRAFTON on in Q3 of 2024 has seen meaningful traffic and monetization across all of its core PUBG IP product offerings, which drove KRW 719.3 billion of record high quarterly revenue. Operating profit in Q3 was KRW 324.4 billion, reaching KRW 967 billion of cumulative operating profit as of the end of Q3, outperforming the annual profit of fiscal year 2023. One point that I wish to highlight today is that not only are we delivering unmatched financial performance, but also have been continuously making investments to prepare for the future under a longer-term perspective. We are grateful for your interest in our stellar quarterly results, but though it may not be apparent as of today, we are also endeavoring on various different fronts to drive growth for the future. We continue to explore new IPs, realign publishing structure, invest into new and emerging markets like India, strengthen gameplay with the use of AI and enhanced efficiency of production and servicing. We will come back to you with our future growth plan, notched up and scale during the first earnings presentation of the upcoming year. Today, we also invited Kang-wook Lee, who is the Head of Deep Learning to explain our AI capabilities, which so far has shown meaningful progress. Since 2021, KRAFTON invested more than KRW 100 billion on into AI talent and research and development of Foundation Technologies. In addition to KRAFTON's research papers on deep learning technologies accepted at global academic conferences, we have also actively utilized AI in our games more so than others and are rigorously studying ways to apply AI to live servicing and prove AI use case through the development of inZOI. I hope this introduction to KRAFTON's capabilities in AI application will allow everyone to understand our distinctive competitive edge. Next, I will present on key business performance, new pipeline update and mid- to longer-term strategy. First, on PUBG IP franchise. PUBG PC console and mobile sustained solid traffic and revenue growth underpinned by strong live services and updates as it continues to grow as a global IP franchise, supported by high global traffic PUBG PC console scaled up its live services as we continue to explore new content offerings. In July, Lamborghini collaboration ranked in highest sales as a single product. While TAEGO World update and new mode addition drove peak traffic since free-to-play conversion, with 890,000 concurrent users in September. We will continue to feature highly appealing in-game and outgame content and will deliver new gameplay experience through strong live service that has been evolving every year. PUBG Mobile also actively incorporates new gameplay through updates mostly around new theme modes and is driving revenue efficiency through elaborate business models. PUBG PC console and mobile have gone through multiple updates offering new game experience underpinned by traffic power, content edge and live servicing capabilities. And these are the main levers that will grow and sustain PUBG as a beloved global IP for years to come. Next is new game lineup. Under the scale of the creative, which is KRAFTON's strategic direction for new IPs, we will relentlessly explore and attempt at scaling up the creative gameplay. We believe that one can only acquire new IP after constantly trying big and small challenging attempts as it is difficult to predict the success of a game due to the nature of the business. InZOI and Subnautica currently in our pipeline all began from small teams with new attempts with focus on offering distinct gameplay. At the Gamescom, inZOI was met with rating response and great level of anticipation from Western user base. Cumulative YouTube views recorded 230 million, while the character studio released in time for the gamescom generated more than 200,000 user creations in inZOI's Canvas platform and secured 730,000 subscribers. Following next week's showcase at the G-STAR event in Korea, we will brush up and refine the game before its release on March 28, 2025. Subnautica 2 is a sequel of unknown world studios Mega IP Subnautica, whose early access is scheduled to be in 2025 as announced on October 17. It will be released on Xbox and PC platform supporting collaborative multiplay featuring new Alien planets targeting to broaden the strong fan base. We also plan on unveiling Project ARC at this year's G-STAR events, a top-down five versus five shooting game developed by the ARC team of adrenaline rush lab under PUBG Studios. We will take the creative discovered by KRAFTON and continue to scale up to broader markets in many different platforms. Dinkum is a survival live simulation indie game known for depth and details of its gameplay, developed by the Australian developer, James Bendon. We are currently having positive discussions with James on publishing arrangement with KRAFTON, to scale up and do things that could not have been attempted as a solo project. Dinkum Together is a spin-off that maintains a link to the original work and incorporates the universe and characteristics of [indiscernible] lab. The game seeks to gain popularity by expanding into various platforms underpinned by new universe, graphic and multiplay elements as a means to scale up the original creative. KRAFTON, as you can see, will expand the number of creative discoveries and through a rigorous validation will successfully secure games with unmatched gameplay. We are also actively exploring outside of KRAFTON for creatives that have scale up potentials. In Q3, we made five total investments, including licensing agreements, second-party publishing rights and minority investment into Studios. Palworld Mobile is a mobile scale-up project, taking the globally popular Palworld IP under a mobile licensing agreement and adding PUBG Studio's interpretation of the original games core fun. There were four other investments into minority stake and rights to 2PP, one of which is Wolfhouse Games, a studio established by developers with backgrounds and film and gaming industries who are currently working on a unique action simulation genre game. Day 4 Night is a studio setup by developers known for making games like Mario + Rabbids and Red Dead Redemption series. They're working on their first project in which they use their exceptional creative capabilities in making riveting gameplay. New and exceptional gameplay will continue to form the basis of KRAFTON ethos, and we will keep expanding investment into game studios and making creative discoveries. Next is India. Battlegrounds Mobile India has successfully broadened new user base and through localized content, the traffic is up trending. We've added more languages aside from Hindi and held large eSport events in new regions as we focus on broadening the access for new users. In order to expand KRAFTON's user base inside India, we are also tapping into other third-party publishing opportunities aside from BGMI. We plan to release local version of Cookie run before the end of the year and its casual game play will serve as an impetus in winning new users in India. Next, Kang-wook Lee, Head of Deep Learning Division, will present on the company's AI technology. [Presentation]

Next will be the financial highlights of KRAFTON, Q3 revenue was KRW 719.3 billion, once again, a new quarterly record as it maintains its growth trajectory for three consecutive quarters. underpinned by PUBG IP's top line growth, Q3 operating profit reported KRW 324.4 billion. In terms of the revenue breakdown, Q3 PC revenue was KRW 274.3 billion, posting a record high quarterly revenue since PUBG PC release. Lamborghini collaboration Third, such collaboration on the PUBG PC platform offered wide-ranging options for exterior and interior customization and was met with great user traction, which drove sizable growth of PUBG PC revenue by 126% year-on-year and 43% quarter-on-quarter. Also, through TAEGO World Update and reservicing of SLB mode following last year, a variety of in-game contents were served driving concurrent user count to 890,000 in September, which supported healthy traffic. Q3 mobile revenue was down 15% quarter-on-quarter but up 38% year-on-year to KRW 425.4 billion. PUBG Mobile introduced a variety of concept modes like the Atlantis Theme, driving good user feedback while high-end costume skin in collaboration with car brands supported mobile revenue growth. BGMI rewrote quarterly revenue record, underpinned by regional expansion strategy and localized content. Console revenue in Q3 was KRW 11.8 billion, up 35% quarter-on-quarter but down 2% year-on-year. All in all, revenue in Q3 once again hit quarterly record, posting KRW 2 trillion on a cumulative basis, which is more than the previous year's annual revenue. Next is breakdown of operating expense and operating profit. On the back of continuing new hires and new game development and following the integration of Tango Studios development team, Labor cost was up 3% quarter-on-quarter and 30% year-on-year, reaching KRW 133.1 billion. Platform fee and cost of revenue was impacted by record high quarterly revenue of PUBG PC and BGMI, which are serviced directly by KRAFTON, increasing 30% quarter-on-quarter and 6% to 9% year-on-year to KRW 101.1 billion. Commissions paid saw an increase of 5% quarter-on-quarter and 24% year-on-year to KRW 80.4 billion on the back of growing outsourcing costs for new game development and live servicing. Marketing expense was up 41% quarter-on-quarter and 66% year-on-year, reporting KRW 29.9 billion, an increase in marketing spend following gamescom and campaigns for BGMI's regional expansion. Despite rising share price, changes in standards for cost recognition drove stock-based compensation down 59% quarter-on-quarter to KRW 14.5 billion. All in all, Q3 operating profit reported KRW 324.4 billion, up 71% year-on-year. Adjusted EBITDA for third quarter after SBC increased 85% year-on-year. reporting KRW 365.4 billion. In terms of nonoperating accounts, weak dollar drove foreign exchange-related loss leading to nonoperating loss of KRW 127.7 billion in Q3. Thus, Q3 net profit was down 65% year-on-year to KRW 121.4 billion, while cumulative basis net profit for fiscal year 2024 was up 34% year-on-year coming in at KRW 811.4 billion. This brings me to the end of the presentation. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] [Interpreted] Now we will begin the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] We will take the first question from Eric Cha of Goldman Sachs.

[Interpreted] I have two questions I would like to ask. I think everyone can all agree the strong IP power that PUBG yields. And thanks to that, you've been able to post good earnings result, and the growth has been very stellar. So I would like to ask whether you think that the earnings that you're getting from PUBG is actually structural or we may also ask the question whether it could just be cyclical. I would like to understand, therefore, the management's view. And if you consider the growth of PUBG something being structural. What are the levers that's going to continuously drive the growth of this game title as we move into the next year. Second question is, during the presentation, you've mentioned that you are resorting to the use of small language models as opposed to LLM, would like to understand as to the reason why you have opted to use SLM rather than LLM and also is these initiatives? Is it just your in-house effort? Or do you also have plans to expand your partnership with any outside parties? And previously, you also in other earnings calls, you've talked about virtual friend. We'd like to understand as to how that is different from CPC, which you introduced today.

[Interpreted] This is the CFO. I will respond to your first two questions today questions about PUBG, and then I will toss it over to Kang-wook Lee, Heading our Deep Learning and he will talk about the SLM versus LLM, the virtual friend and CPC. After we adopted free-to-play, as you know, PUBG has been around the market for about 7 years. And over the years, we've seen significant increase in the user traffic. And this very steep growth in user traffic has been continuing and maintained for more than 1 year. We have not been focusing on trying to spur a temporary revenue boost or top line boost. Nor is there any secret sauce that's going to help us trigger that significant traffic growth. We adopted a free-to-play model in the beginning of '22. The free-to-pay conversion. And at the time, basically, what we did was we gave up a very stable source of revenue that is based off of selling the packages. We at that time, intentionally made the decision to trigger long-term growth for PUBG IP by -- and the overall IP franchise. And then the focus that hence we placed upon was to significantly expand the user traffic and basically also to enhance the level of customer experience and the quality of such the user experience. And I think the performance that we were able to drive over the past year is a very testament to the fact that there were the structural levers behind the growth. So regarding the performance outlook for PUBG IP next year, we are, at this point, maintaining this traffic growth or up trend or at a little elevated level. And as we have mentioned previously, Basically, on a rolling basis, we have a full year annual service plan in place. And based upon that plan and in light of the content pipeline that is upcoming, for instance, different modes, map updates and collaborations, we also believe that we will be able to continue to trigger going forward. And in so doing, we will also be able to further scale up PUBG IP franchise. And we believe that this will form the basis for us to continuously generate good performance.

[Interpreted] I'm Kang-wook Lee. I will respond to the second question. The first one actually related to why we are developing SLM as opposed to LLM, Basically, we are designing SLM and the size is small enough so that it could actually installed and the gamers client. It could be integrated to the gamers client and it could operate base off of that client device, which means that there's going to be significant cost savings that we can gain from using SLM as opposed to LLM. If you're running on LLM, that means that it has to run in a server and the user would have to make use of this language model through the API, which then means that whilst the gamer is playing the game, there's going to be continuous cost that's going to be incurred. But if you're using SLM on the client device itself, then there's a significant amount of costs that can be saved. And also because you don't have to go through the network and because the SLM sits on the client device itself, basically, the response time is going to be extremely fast and also because it is not running under the server, even if there is a failure in the equipment or the network. The players are well protected in terms of the security aspect. And also because it's not running off of a server, you could also play the game off-line. You also asked about possible partnerships. There are two aspects that we can think of when it comes to partnership with outside entities. First is R&D effort in actually developing the game SLM. Second is the actual application of the developed SLM. With regard to the first point, the research and development aspect, although I cannot disclose the details at this point, we are considering partnering up with a global top-tier company in researching and developing the SLM model. The second aspect, which is application of the SLM, the use of the small language models. From a short-term perspective, we were first applied to the game IPs within KRAFTON the games that KRAFTON is either servicing, developing or publishing. We will first apply it there. But from a longer-term perspective, because we believe that we have ample amount of competitive edge, we will also be to open sourcing, this technology or entering into a licensing arrangement. You also asked about the difference between virtual friend and CPC. CPC basically is the definition, it's much narrower compared to virtual friend. I talked about two use cases regarding CPC, One of that is inZOI using the inZOI simulation. Unlike NPC, which is quite rigid and unpredictable, inZOI that is supported by or powered by CPC is more human-like, and it is much more lively. And also under PUBG games compared to the traditional bot, the CPCs can engage in more interactive communication with the gamer, and it is a character that is one step more evolved than what you would normally see. So basically, CPC enables the in-game characters to further evolve and further evolve. So that's the difference between CPC and virtual friend. And also, there are cases where there are virtual friends that are not CPCs. What I mean by that is, when there's a game, you see like YouTube streamers and broadcasters. This is usually done by individual human beings. But it's AI that can actually do that role and replace that role. So basically, in this case, it's not the game character that -- it's not a game character that is being replaced. It actually is people who used to stream the game sessions that's going to be replaced. So in that case, this will not be CPC, but it will be a virtual friend. Going forward, we are going to focus on CPCs and further evolving the characters, the in-game characters. Next question, please.

[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Hee-Seok Lim with Mirae Asset Securities.

[Interpreted] This is [indiscernible] from Mirae Asset Securities. I have two questions. First one is on your Subnautica 2. I understand that you have a partnership with Xbox and there was a release of a trailer as well. Is this relationship exclusive? That's the first question. And the second question is regarding a little more detail on the time line for your new title lineup?

[Interpreted] Responding to your question as of Subnautica 2, we are, at this point, planning on early access release in year 2025 for both PC and console platform as well. And for console, we are initially going to partner up with Xbox in distributing this game title, but it is not an exclusive arrangement. The reason why we chose Xbox early access is because our goal is to complete the level of this game title together with the Game Pass users. And because we are in a state where we want to expand the games genre as well as the platform we serve these games, we've decided to go with early access PC platform as well as Xbox early access. Regarding more details on the time line for a new game titles. Basically, we are planning to release inZOI as of March 28 of 2025. This release is going to be followed by Dark and Darker Mobile, Subnautica 2 and Project ARC. And for the Dinkum, we will focus on scaling up the original title and of servicing it through the new platform. Next question, please?

[Interpreted] Our next question comes from Incheol Yu with Citi Securities.

[Interpreted] I have two questions on my end. My first question is regarding the recent earnings release. And the next question is regarding your India business. Just wondering whether you have any one-off revenue that you have booked? That's the first part of the first question. And in Q3, it seems you have control, you were successfully, you have successfully controlled your expense items, but since there are multiple number of new games that are upcoming, I'd like to gain your insight on what your projections are for marketing and labor costs going forward. Second question relates to the launch of Cookie Run game in India? And also what is your release schedule like the marketing-related planning. Also, if you could talk about your long-term publishing strategy that you have for the Indian market, that would be helpful.

[Interpreted] Regarding this revenue, the so-called bonus-like revenue, as a CFO, I would be very happy if somebody gave me a bonus-like revenue. I can tell you that this quarter, there was no revenue incurred based on off of a certain contractual arrangement, all of the growth that we have recorded is came all from our organic business, and we have outperformed the growth that we've seen in the second quarter. And I think that goes to show the very strong capability and the competitiveness of PUBG IP. Responding to your question about our marketing and labor cost for the Q4, we will continuously carry out marketing activities regarding the gains that we are servicing live. And also next week, we are going to the G-STAR event. So I think that will fourth quarter, the marketing expense is going to be quite similar to the level that we've seen for the third quarter. In terms of labor costs, when we first announced our long-term vision of scale of the creative at the beginning of the year, we shared with you our objective of powering mid- to longer-term growth. And in order for us to drive that growth, it's very important that we invest into talent, the development talent that is so that we can continuously create explore and develop the creative that we require. So we will continuously make talent-related investment. So I believe that with respect to the labor spending, the trajectory will be quite similar to what we have seen recently. You also asked about Cookie Run for the Indian market. We are at this point. Developing characters as well as the game content that would work well against the Indian user base, preorder will open mid-November, and our objective is to release it before the end of the year. So Cookie Run, you know is not a very difficult game to play. It is very intuitive. And this game can be supported even with a very low-end device. So we are looking forward to positive responses from the India user base. In India, as you know, we have a significant base of BGMI user base, but now on top of that, by bringing in Cookie Run and in the genre of Battle Royale, we are looking forward to building up a new base of gamer base. Since during this quarter's earnings presentation, we included KRAFTON's AI-related various different endeavors and initiatives. So we are actually looking forward to a lot of questions on the topic of AI, but there aren't that many questions on AI. So if I may just also emphasize the position that we are taking as a company is that if you look back 3 years ago when Play-To-Earn was a big hype at the time, you would all remember that the strategic decision that KRAFTON had made at that point in time. We are not going to be swayed by hypes that emerge in the market or in the industry. And also, we take all the same approach for AI as well. As if you look at the games that are out in the market or either in the pipeline of all the players in the game industry, KRAFTON is the only company that actually is bringing the AI use case and incorporating that into the development of its game inZOI. So Although, yes, we have a very stellar short-term business performance and achievements that we have made, but we are not going to be complacent at that level. And we're not going to fall under the pitfall of making a wrong decision from a longer-term perspective so that we could eventually achieve a stepwise growth in the future. And last message that I want to share with you before ending is that you may remember for the first earnings presentation of 2024, the presentation, the voice that you've heard for -- when the CEO was making the presentation was actually KRAFTON's TTS. And yes, of course, it was CEO, Kim, who responded to a question during the Q&A about the opening presentation. The voice was generated by a TTS technology within KRAFTON, and same for today as well the presentation that you heard today for KRAFTON's earnings presentation was actually rendered by the TTS technology. As you can see, we are making yourself AI technology in the way that we do our business. We conduct our business. So we ask for your continued interest in our company.

Well, that brings us to the end of KRAFTON's earnings presentation for third quarter of 2024. I'd like to extend my deep gratitude to everyone, the investors, the analysts for your continued support. Thank you.