Sleep Cycle AB (publ) (SLEEP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hi, everyone. Unfortunately, we had some technical challenges here on the call, but we are live now, and we're ready to go. So apologies for the wait. And good morning as well, and thank you for joining us at Sleep Cycle's Quarter 3 2025 Interim Report Presentation. I'm Erik Jivmark. I'm the CEO of Sleep Cycle. I'm here together with our CFO and Head of Investor Relations, Elisabeth Hedman. And in this call, we will walk you through the key highlights from the quarter and our progress on the strategic initiatives and also an update on our financials. Together, we will also address any questions you might have in the Q&A at the end. So we're Sleep Cycle. We're the world's leading sleep technology company. We have a mission to improve global health by helping people to take control of their sleep. Everything we do aims to turn high-quality sleep into an accessible daily habitat scale. We're used and loved by millions, and we're available in more than 180 markets, in app stores and as part of many wearables. Today, we're proud to be the world's #1 sleep app. We're helping people to build healthy sleep habits, something that is more needed than ever. But what set us apart goes far beyond that. At the core of everything we do is our proprietary AI sound model. This technology not only powers the app millions of users rely on each night, it also creates one of the world's richest health data streams. With the help of this, we're entering a new phase. It's not a new strategy, it's a new execution model for that strategy. We call it powered by Sleep Cycle. During quarter 3, we presented our Sleep SDK, opening up access to this technology. Partners across wellness, health care, wearables and beyond can now integrate our capabilities directly into their own platforms. To me, this is an extension of our successful partnership strategy. We're creating new high-margin revenue opportunities, reaching an audience outside our own app. Our strategy is clear, continue growing our consumer business while expanding the value of our platform. On one hand, that means strengthening user acquisition, engagement and retention. On the other, we're building new monetization paths, especially around data, technology and med tech with sleep apnea screening. This dual focus allow us to scale both our reach and our impact. Throughout the year, we've been very transparent about the fact that the Sleep Tracking segment have headwinds in App Store. However, as you can see at the chart with data from Sensor Tower, we're performing relatively better than the entire health and fitness app segment. We're taking market shares in both downloads and revenue. Sleep apps are part of health and fitness. However, when we group together and compare with our direct competitors, our performance looks even better. We show resilience, and we do that leading with product innovation and a stronger business acumen across the organization. Speaking of product development. In quarter 3, we shipped a Liquid Glass design alongside iOS 26, making navigation clearer and highlighting premium value. We prepared the first AI sleep coach planned to be released in quarter 4 to make the app more proactive, personalized and habit forming. Smarter Alarm refinements continue to improve perceived wakeup quality and also helping our engagement. We also increased new sales price with around 10% in key markets. Because revenue is recognized over 12 months, reported ARPU lags, but the pricing supports ARPU in the long run. If we look at new sales for September isolated, ARPU was SEK 296, but adjusted for FX, it was SEK 318. We have continued to raise prices in October. So currently, in the U.S., which is our largest market, new sales ARPU is close to SEK 500 now in October. It's up 25% since July. This means that we are improving top line performance over time, and it's also helping us in pricing the product right with future partners. And when it comes to partners, things are going very well. They continue to grow, up 55% year-over-year and 13% quarter-over-quarter. Partnerships now stands for 11% of total revenue. To me, partnerships is about reaching new customers without any additional acquisition cost, but it's also about taking control of our own destiny, relying less on storefronts, creating a more diversified and resilient revenue base and a deeper presence in the wider health ecosystem. I am expecting the app partnerships to continue to grow also in quarter 4. But that's not all. During quarter 3, we also took another major leap. With our Sleep SDK, partners can integrate our world-leading AI sleep analysis into their products. It's contactless, it's real time, and it built on years of machine learning. Commercially, this opens up a new recurring licensing model, and it also accelerates how we scale our mission beyond our own app. During quarter 3, the focus was to release the SDK for us to move from theoretic discussions with partners into more tangible dialogues, where we are now in quarter 4, looking for partners that want to pilot this and enhance their core experience. We are in the beginning of our journey, but I'm very excited about the possibilities ahead. But we don't stop with the SDK for other companies to license. We are also looking to use our own technology in new ways. So as part of this, we have sleep apnea, which affects over 950 million people worldwide, yet 80% remain undiagnosed. It's exposing them to significantly higher risks of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Traditional diagnostics are costly and quite inaccessible. That's where Sleep Cycle comes in. We're using our proprietary audio-based AI, already trusted by millions nightly, to enable noninvasive smartphone-based apnea screening. No wearables, no cables, no clinic visits, AI-powered screening using only the iPhone microphone. So medical-grade precision with consumer-grade simplicity. It's such a natural extension of our platform, and it's aligned with our mission to improve global health. And importantly, it reflects the shift toward proactive personalized health care. Our sleep apnea initiative represents one of the most significant growth opportunities for Sleep Cycle. The clinical study we launched in June is now about 20% complete, which marks an important step toward medical certification. As the study progressed, we're also working in parallel on documentation audits and commercial optimization. The goal is to be ready for submission to both FDA and then the European notified body toward the end of next year 2026. Longer term, this initiative opens 2 strategic revenue paths, new consumer offerings within the app and future health tech licensing opportunities with partners in the health care ecosystem. So with that, I will hand over to Elisabeth that will walk us through the financial performance for the quarter.

Thank you, Erik. Let's move on to the financials. The number of paying subscribers ended at 832,000, down 9% from last year, reflecting the softer development of the segment. ARPU was SEK 271 or SEK 276 when adjusted for FX effects. So it's slightly lower than last year, but we have raised the prices and the price adjustments we implemented during the quarter will gradually support ARPU over time, though the reported metric lags due to recognition of revenue and most of our subscriptions are 12 months. We continue with testing new price points on different markets to improve the long-term value per customer. Net sales for the quarter amounted to SEK 62 million, which is a decrease of 6.6% year-over-year or 4.7% FX adjusted, and EBIT for the quarter was SEK 17 million, a margin of 27.3%. Let's take a look at the subscriber and revenue development. Number of paying subscribers, as I said, 832,000, mainly due to a lower intake of new customers and our focus on improving ARPU and long-term value per user rather than pure volume growth. The retention among existing users remained stable, which shows the strength of the core product and user engagement. The net sales decreased by 6.6% or 4.7% FX adjusted, and the main drivers were lower new customer sales, continued FX pressure, while reported ARPU lags the impact of the recent price increases. Importantly, partnership revenue continues to grow strongly. It's up 55% year-over-year and now accounts for 11% of our total revenue, and this confirms that our diversification efforts are working and the partner demand for our brand and technology remains strong. If we move to profitability, you'll see that margins remained solid despite the softer top line. EBIT for the quarter came in at SEK 7 million, which corresponds to 27.3% to be compared with 31.3% a year ago. There have been no nonrecurring items during this year. So despite the lower revenue top line, we do maintain the high margin for this quarter. And the decrease in EBIT compared to last year is mainly explained by lower revenue and FX impact, while costs are well controlled. Distribution costs were lower due to reduced app store commission as a result of less new sales. External costs were somewhat higher linked to continued growth-related initiatives. Staff costs were stable with a slight increase in headcount compared to last year. And the cash flow from operations was SEK 5.5 million. Liquidity remained strong at SEK 114 million at the end of the quarter, and we did capitalize SEK 2.6 million related to sleep apnea screening and Sleep SDK during the quarter. For the 9-month period, net sales was SEK 190 million, down 2.4% year-over-year or 1.3% FX adjusted and EBIT reached SEK 52 million. The number for last year was impacted by nonrecurring items related to reorganization, mainly within staff costs. So the EBIT margin for the period should be compared to 31.4% last year. And as I said, for the quarter, external costs are slightly higher, reflecting growth-related activities, while depreciation decreased as the lease for the former Stockholm office is no longer in the base. And our cash generation continues to be strong. We had an operating cash flow for the full period of SEK 42 million, and we did distribute SEK 61 million in dividends during Q2. We have capitalized SEK 9.3 million for the period, mainly related to the sleep apnea screening. Overall, this demonstrates a resilient business model with stable profitability and a healthy balance sheet. Now over to you, Erik, to summarize the quarter.

Thank you, Elisabeth. So Q3 has been a very intense quarter. We are continuing our transformation. We are taking control of our own destiny with diversifying revenue streams and also expanding our core product into new areas, such as AI coaching. We do that while actively taking steps to protect our top line with price increases in key markets. Also, the Sleep SDK is launched, meaning that we can now move discussions from PowerPoint to reality. We're looking for pilot customers in the fourth quarter for our tech licensing initiative. Secondly, the sleep apnea study is progressing towards certification. We are now at a 20% completion rate in our clinical trials. Compared to other studies, we're moving fast, and the team is doing a great job with this. And finally, earlier bets such as our focus on partnerships are paying off. We are up 55% year-over-year and partnerships are now 11% of our revenue. That's why we will continue and double down on it going forward. So together, these steps prepare the company for growth beyond the app stores. We have a clear strategy in place. We have a motivated and talented team. And together, we're building a more resilient Sleep Cycle for the future. And with that, we're opening up for any questions you might have.

So we have a question from Johan [ Borgstam ] who asks, if we will start reporting partnership revenue going forward quarterly? And yes, we do report this since Q2, and we plan to continue doing this. And we have a question here from Gustav. You say that you're still #1, which competitors do you compare with in the U.S.? If the U.S. is your largest market, you are ranked 102, but you have several sleep tracking apps yielding high ARR in the top 20 list. What is the basis for your #1 claim?

So we are, over time, the largest sleep app. So I think the number you're looking at or referring to is probably a category ranking in the App Store. As I shared, the data from Sensor Tower, which is the official data that we referred to, we can see that we take both market share and also revenue in the segment. So that is what's supporting the claim.

Another question regarding the SDK program that is an exciting one, but I'm hesitant on user adoption due to the partner app requiring the user to have the app open while sleeping since you analyze sleep through sound. How do you tackle that? How many partners have onboarded into the SDK program?

I mean the SDK was just launched, well, 20 days ago or so. And what I see in the discussions that we have is that we actually have quite a lot of partners that either today is a wearable, where sound is something that would complement their offering and allow them to do things that they cannot do today. It could be also things that are non-wearable, so it could be IoT-related stuff, where sound is a natural part of how the consumer interact with the product. But we also see interest from companies today where they would like to have the SDK as part of their app experience, where they would then need to have the customer to have the app active during the night, but they see that there is an interest in doing so given what they can give back to the customer in terms of data and experience. So I think, as I said previously, this quarter, I hope that we can sign some pilot customers and get going and moving from the discussions that we have into reality. So I hope we can talk more about that next time.

Then we have a couple of questions regarding the dynamics between price increases and subs development, what we can expect going forward? And if it could have -- the price increases could have affected the growth in subs in Q3?

I mean the segment is what the segment is when it comes to growth. So that's why we want to be transparent about that. So what we do now with price is that we're doing these changes in a very precise manner. So we're basically dividing the market in different cohorts, with different price, and then we monitor that for a while and then we pick the one that optimize revenue the most or sales. However, of course, you're also keeping an eye on how it impacts subscribers. So I think that answers that question. The other one was if the price increase could put you back to growth already in quarter 4, I would say, given how the segment is developing so far in the quarter and also the delay we have with 12 months subs that we're selling, I think it's too early to say and not something I want to speculate into.

And then we have a question regarding the sleep apnea study. If it proves successful and we move into commercialization, what would be considered a realistic scenario for its revenue contribution, both in terms of timing and how big a part of the business it could realistically become for Sleep Cycle?

It's a very interesting question. What we're doing right now in parallel, with doing the -- all the documentation and the clinical trials is that we're doing tests with the customers. And we have to remember, we have a very big advantage in that we have millions of monthly active users. And I think those users that today, for some reason, don't want to pay a premium subscription for Sleep Cycle, they will come in very handy when we have an offer for sleep apnea screening. So once we're ready, we will not go out and try to find customers in B2C. We already have millions of customers using our product. So we will be instantly in a position where we can offer that to them. And that makes it very attractive to me. Likewise, what we will start doing during the next coming quarters is to also advance our partnership focus into looking for partners that would like to utilize the SDK for sleep apnea once that is ready and approved. So we will have a dual focus here. It's hard to say what it would mean for Sleep Cycle in terms of exact money, et cetera. But I'm, of course, very excited about the opportunity. And as I said on the call, this is a huge opportunity. It's close to 1 billion people that has this. Today, it's really hard for them to get the diagnose and to get the help they need. So I believe that this could absolutely be the biggest area in the future of Sleep Cycle with us being a medtech certified for sleep apnea screening.

Then we have some questions from Jessica Grunewald at Redeye. Partnerships continue to perform strongly. Can you share insights on which partnerships are driving the most growth?

I mean we have some partners that we are growing that are existing partners, but we are also adding new partners on top of it. So I can just say that when I look at the pipeline going forward and when I look at the partners that we have, that's why I say I feel very confident, in that I expect them to continue to grow also in this quarter.

Next question. What traction are you seeing with the Sleep SDK so far? And what types of partners are most engaged?

Sorry? Okay. No, I mean, right now, we're discussing with partners with wearables. We see a lot of traction with them because it's a very obvious fit, where they today cannot offer sound and all the benefits that comes with sound. So that's a good discussions that we have. But then again, we have other IoT companies and also some apps that we're actively discussing with.

Okay. That's it.

Good. Thank you very much for your questions. And sorry for the delayed start due to technical problems, but I'm happy that you guys listened in and also for the good questions here towards the end. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.