Pearl Abyss Corp. (A263750) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and good evening. Thank you all for joining the conference call for the earnings results of Pearl Abyss. This conference will start with a presentation followed by a Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] This conference will start with a presentation followed by a Q&A session. Now we will begin the presentation on Pearl Abyss's fourth quarter and annual earnings results for the fiscal year 2024.

[Interpreted] Greetings. I am Kim Jaehun from the Pearl Abyss IR team. First of all, I express my deepest gratitude to the analysts and investors in and out of Korea for taking part in the 2024 Q4 and full-year Pearl Abyss earnings presentation despite your busy schedules.    Before elaborating on today's business results, I would like to ask for your understanding regarding the following: The financial and business results contained in today's earnings release have been prepared for the convenience of investors and are subject to change depending on the final closing of our books. In addition, the accuracy and completeness of the financial and business results in the earnings results material are not guaranteed, and the company is not obliged to give updates on the accounts given after this date. So please take these factors into consideration.    We have here with us at the earnings presentation today, Pearl Abyss CEO, Heo Jin-young; CBO, Kim Gyeong; and CFO, Cho Seok Woo. We will first share business performance presentation highlights from CFO, Cho Seok Woo and then engage in a Q&A session.

[Interpreted] Greetings. I am Cho Seok Woo, the newly appointed CFO of Pearl Abyss. Thank you once again for taking part in our company's earnings conference call despite your busy schedule. I would like to touch upon 2024 Q4 and full-year major business activities and performance. Black Desert celebrated 10 years of service in 2024. While providing more fun content through rich user events, we express our gratitude to the users who have been here with the game for a long time.    In particular, in June, we hosted a banket in Vega, France, which is the actual hidle city in the real world. In December, we expanded our existing Ka bandwidth in December to Black Desert Festa and held the biggest-ever festival and provided a venue for celebration where all users can get together and enjoy. In addition, for Black Desert, we improved the game through system and convenience updates provided content based on user opinions, and made preparations for the next 10 years. In particular, in 2023, the final part of the Land of Morning Light content store was released and completed the Fantasy World, which encompasses West and East. Also, we launched the Black Desert China which we have been preparing for a long time and achieved regional expansion.    On the other hand, in December, Black Desert introduced the Deady Class, the first in its world to use guns and provided freshness to the game. For the console, we launched the new Quest Puna, which we first introduced on PC and implemented consistent updates. For mobile, we have the New Quest Deady and updated Atoraxxion content where party members can cooperate and enjoy together and work to add more fun to the game. In the case of EVE Online, we featured 2 expansion packs in EVE Vanguard in 2024 and worked hard to strengthen the EVE life cycle.    In particular, we launched the Reant expansion pack in Q4 and provided a rich variety of things to enjoy to our users. Apart from this, we thoroughly prepared for new services to increase revenue. First of all, for Crimson Desert, we provided a B2C hands-on demo at G-STAR in November. And in December at TGA, we disclosed a new gameplay video showcasing a vast open world and announced our launching schedule. In the case of blockchain-based eFrontier, we launched the founder access pack where users can experience the game in advance. Based on user feedback, we are continuously upgrading the game.    Next, I will cover the company's 2024 full-year and Q4 performance. 2024 operating revenue posted KRW 342.4 billion and grew 2.7% Y-o-Y and operating loss posted KRW 12.1 billion and the deficit decreased Y-o-Y. Net profit posted KRW 61 billion and increased 301.3% Y-o-Y. Q4 operating revenue posted KRW 95.7 billion and increased 20.4% Q-o-Q. Operating profit posted KRW 2.4 billion and net profit posted KRW 46.8 billion and turned into a surplus.    I will explain in more detail regarding operating revenue. In this quarter, the operating revenue from game posted KRW 91.1 billion and increased 22.3% Q-o-Q. Other revenue posted KRW 4.6 billion and decreased 8% Q-o-Q. To break down operating revenue into different regions, it posted 18% in Korea, 30% in Asia and 52% in NA in Europe. For the platform breakdown, it was 76% for PC, 20% for mobile and 4% for console.      Next, I would like to walk you through operating expenses. Q4 operating expenses posted KRW 93.4 billion, a 5.3% Q-o-Q increase. In case of labor expenses, it posted KRW 46.9 billion and increased 6.2% Q-o-Q. For your reference, we have 1,306 employees as of end Q4 and there are 739 developers among them and takes up 57% of total employees. For commissions expenses, it posted KRW 18.4 billion, a 8.3% increase Q-o-Q. In case of advertising, due to Crimson better marketing for events, including G-STAR and PGA, it increased 32.3% Q-o-Q and posted KRW 11.8 billion.      Lastly, I will go over 2025 Q1 and 2025 full year major highlights. 2025 Black Desert will showcase the new Adana region, which will connect the last 10 years and the next 10 years together and continue to make diverse attempts to strengthen PVP content. In addition, we will provide not only new content but also provide more convenience-related updates in the game and work hard to continue stable and consistent service. We plan to also strengthen communication with users. In March, we will celebrate the 9 years of NA in Europe service and communicate and directly meet with users in the U.S. and provide diverse things for our users to enjoy. In addition, for Black Desert, we showcased the new Dream Horse Voltarian, which uses Lightning and plan to add Ozaquia, the last story to the co-op Dungeon Atoraxxion in Q1 as well.      For Black Desert console, we will launch PlayStation 5 and Xbox XS version in the first half of the year and provide a better experience to users. In addition, we will have a user event, which will celebrate 5 years of console cross-play and strengthen communication with console users. In the Q1 update, we gave the Dream Horse to everyone in January and opened the season server Dream and plan to help character growth. In case of mobile, we plan to feature new content, nightmare Trishira, which combines PDP and PVE and update the LAA skill, which can enable stronger attacks compared to existing skills. EVE plans to feature expansion pack and diverse content in 2025 as well.      In addition, at the EVE Fan Fest in May, we plan to have diverse events and showcase our 2025 road map as well. We're also smoothly preparing for a new title to secure our new growth engine. First, EVE IP-based sandbox game EFrontier is receiving user feedback and we are refining and polishing the game. Since the game is in its last stages of completion, we will do our best so that we can have great results. We plan to launch Crimson Desert in Q4 of this year and we are planning diverse marketing events throughout the year. Starting with GDC slated for March, we will participate in many game events in the year and promote our game. In addition, we will disclose the launching dates in this process and strictly manage our schedule so that the Q4 launch will not have any issues.      It has been a long time since we first showcased Crimson Desert to the market in 2019. It was our first attempt at a high-quality open world console market and it took more time than we had expected in the beginning but we are confident that Crimson Desert will bring about high performance. As many people have been waiting, we will do our best until the end to achieve results that can repay your anticipation. We will look forward to your continued interest and support. Thank you very much.    With this, we will conclude the 2024 Q4 and full-year Pearl Abyss business results presentation and start the Q&A session.

[Interpreted] [Operator Instructions] The first question will be provided by Jin-Gu Kim from Kiwoom Securities.

[Interpreted] I am Kim from Kiwoom Securities and I have about 2 large questions. First question is that in Q4, can you give us your take on the China Black Desert online contribution to revenues? And can you give us your current figures for revenues and traffic as well? I also saw that in this earnings presentation, there was no breakdown for different IPs. So can you give us a breakdown for Black Desert and Eve? And my next question is simple is about the financial profit and loss and it seems that it's KRW 53 billion. So can you give us the more detailed account for that?

[Interpreted] Thank you for your question. And I think you asked about the revenues for Black Desert China. Black Desert China started official service in October of last year and we are actually seeing the performance that we had predicted internally. However, for Black Desert, it has been already 11 years since it was first started. So it has been a game that was in the market for a long time. So we can see that for the performance in China, it is not easy to have as high performance as new titles. Despite that fact, since Black Desert has been seeing great results in the global market for a long time, we are going to make sure that it takes part and settles in the China market very stably so that we can service for a long time and do our best with the publisher.    Regarding our outlook for Black Desert for 2025, because Black Desert has had our know-how for more than 10 years, we will continue our stable and consistent service. What we have felt for the last 10 years when servicing Black Desert was that based on user communication, what was most important is to show consistent content. For the next 10 years of service as well, we will listen carefully to the opinions of users and showcase high-quality content so that we can maintain our current revenue levels. You also asked a question about the revenue breakdown for different IPs.  Regarding the revenue breakdown for Black Desert and EVE IP, the breakdown is quite similar to our last presentation numbers.

[Interpreted] You asked about our financial P&L. And regarding our Q4 financial P&L, according to the FX rate increase, we had some profits related to FX and we also had the reflection of the valuation gains for investment company. So it recorded KRW 53.3 billion. For your reference, the equity evaluation for investment company is being done late each year.

[Interpreted] Let me add a little bit more color to our performance and the background behind that. Regarding our performance for Q4, we saw an increase in Black Desert Online revenues, and we had very good results. Including our performance in China, we had a performance increase for all regions. And after the Avesta in December, we had a very strong rebound in our existing regions, including North America and Europe, which drove our sales or revenue increase. And we are in the middle of Q1, I believe, right now. And regarding our performance that has been reported so far, it is maintaining very good results. So we believe that Q1 performance also will be solid.

[Interpreted] The answers were given by our CBO, Gyeong Kim; CFO Cho, and CEO, Heo Jin Young. The following question will be presented by Kim Junhyun from HSBC.

[Interpreted] I am Kim Junhyun from HSBC. And I have some questions related to Crimson Desert. You mentioned that you are going to work hard to launch your game in Q4 without any issues and engage in full-fledged marketing. So I'm a little bit curious about whether you're going to enjoy or you're going to participate in more diverse events apart from what you had participated in for 2023 and 2024 for different global game shows around the world. So will that be more or less similar for this year? Or will you participate in more types of game shows or more marketing effort? And my second question is about your anticipated package price for Crimson Desert. We are seeing prices for AAA global games actually go up. So can you give us your position on what you think your pricing will be?

[Interpreted] Thank you very much for your questions. And regarding Crimson Desert, we are currently ongoing with the last stage of development, which is QA and making our last preparations for launching. In addition, for successful launching for this year, we are planning more aggressive marketing. Starting off with the GDC in March this year, we are going to participate in a variety of game events and we're going to promote our game to users around the world. And this year, we're also going to showcase a new demo build as well. And we are going to utilize efficiently our marketing expenses and cooperate with our partners and participate in more events so that we can promote our game to more users.    Regarding your question about the anticipated package price, we believe that Crimson Desert will actually exceed the expectations of the market and provide a game which is a game that is very applicable to the vast open world and come up with excellent results. Regarding many years of development based on our proprietary engine, Crimson Desert has succeeded in accomplishing very high levels of action with high levels of freedom, a very dynamic combat system and an open world that has a very high degree of completeness.    In addition, during the last 2 years, we had demos for our partners, various media outlets and users, and we could find out firsthand the high level of satisfaction. So we believe that since our game actually befits the AAA level of quality of other similar games, we are considering a price point that is similar to the games that we believe that we are as good at or even better at.

[Interpreted] The answer was given by our CEO, Heo Jin Young. We will take the next question. The following question will be presented by Kim from CGSI.

[Interpreted] I'm curious about the titles you're going to launch after Crimson Desert. So can you tell us more about that? And how many of your developers or employees are working for other titles that will come after Crimson Desert?

[Interpreted] As we had mentioned, we are actually focusing all of our resources on the launching of Crimson Desert now. However, we are still smoothly developing DokeV with the accumulated assets that we had accumulated so far. And we are considering actually disclosing our development status in an appropriate time within this year. And we are actually doing our best so that after we launch Crimson Desert, we can actually inject as many development manpower as possible to actually have a fast release of DokeV afterwards. So we are making those preparations. And for PLAN 8 as well, since we are focusing on Crimson Desert and DokeV, the actually showing of PLAN 8 is becoming a little bit belated. However, we are going to do our best so that consecutively, we can share with you our development process for PLAN 8 as well.    And regarding the numbers of developers or development personnel, it's very flexible according to the degree of development of the project. So we can't give you an exact number on how many developers are working on an exact project. And in the case of Crimson Desert, since the development is nearing its completion, we have more developing personnel that are moving to DokeV.

[Interpreted] The answer was given by our CEO, Heo Jin Young. It seems that there are no other questions in the queue. So with this, we will complete our business results presentation session for 2024 Q4 and full year. Thank you very much for your participation.   [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]