Storytel AB (publ) (STORYB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to Storytel Q4 Report 2024. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Bodil EricssonTorp; and CFO, Peter Messner.

We have achieved several key milestones that demonstrate the strength of our business and our position as a leader in the audiobook streaming and publishing industry. It is a strong accomplishment, and it's a direct result of the team's dedication and commitment to delivering the best storytelling experience to our customers, combined with a prudent way of working for increased cost efficiency. We have achieved outstanding results, exceeding SEK 1 billion in revenue for the first time in a single quarter, and we are very pleased to share a strong operational and financial performance for the fourth quarter 2024. This confirms that we successfully executed and delivered on our profitable growth strategy. Our increased cost efficiencies, prudent marketing investments in selected markets and constantly sharpening our attractive offerings has gained results. Our total paid subscriber base grew 11% year-on-year, reaching over 2.4 million average paying subscribers. It's a new record. And not only are we attracting new listeners, but we're also keeping them engaged as evidenced by our all-time low paid churn rate. Our ARPU remained at a high level even if we saw a decrease of 4.5% due to changes in both the geographical and the customer mix versus last year, which was fully expected. We are proud over our own content that continues to engage consumers. Strong consumption from our own publishers drive this success, which is also reflected in the strong financial performance of the entire publishing segment. And we are excited to build an even stronger IP universes in different formats with our acquisitions of the full rights to the beloved Swedish children's characters, Sune and Bert. Let's take a look at our group financial highlights for the fourth quarter 2024. Group revenue were up 9% and exceeded SEK 1 billion, the highest level of revenue for a single quarter so far, which, of course, is a key milestone. This was driven by a solid development in both streaming and especially in publishing. Our publishing segment had a strong quarter, driven by Christmas sales of both printed books as well as increased sales of digital books. We have also made significant progress in improving our profitability. Our gross profit margin for the entire group reached an all-time high of 46.4%, also here with a remarkable improvement in our publishing segment. Our adjusted EBITDA margin increased to 18.6% for the quarter and 15.8% for the full year, reflecting our disciplined approach to cost management and prudent investments. For the full year, our adjusted EBITDA more than doubled to SEK 602 million. This demonstrates our commitment to operating efficiently and maximizing the value we create in our offerings. Overall, we are pleased with our Q4 and the full year's results, and we have a strong financial position as reflected by being almost debt-free due to the strong cash flow generation in the business. We will wisely use this improved financial position in relation to the fast-evolving audiobooks landscape, where we need to be dedicated to move fast and continue to be relevant and deliver the best offering to our customers in all aspects, both in streaming and publishing. With that said, I will hand over to Peter, who will provide more details on our financial performance.

Looking at the operational performance in streaming, which is our largest segment, we are again very pleased with the strong results. The total paid subscriber base grew by 11% year-on-year or 240,000 subscribers to an average number of subscribers of 2.44 million during the fourth quarter. A strong 40% of that subscriber growth came from our Nordic markets, which showed an 8% growth, while our non-Nordics core region grew by 17% year-on-year and contributed 137,000 new subscribers. As Bodil mentioned, the ARPU remains at a high level and organically decreased by 4.5% year-on-year as a result of the expected stronger subscriber intake in our lower-priced tiers and the changes in the geographical mix due to the stronger growth outside the higher ARPU Nordic region. The way we manage both ARPU and subscriber growth is through a balanced way with having the overall health and therefore, profitability of the subscriber base in mind. The key ratio here is customer lifetime value to subscriber acquisition costs, and our success is evidenced by the development of paid churn, which continuously is and remains at an all-time low. When taking a closer look at the streaming segment's financials, we see that the total net sales were SEK 879 million, up 7% year-on-year or 6% at constant exchange rates. Revenue in the Nordics region increased by 3% based on a subscriber increase of 8% and an ARPU decrease of 5% year-over-year. Revenue in the non-Nordics core region increased by 13% based on a subscriber increase of 17% and an ARPU decrease of 3% year-on-year. The gross profit for the streaming segment increased by 11% to SEK 377 million, reflecting a margin of 42.9%, which is 1.5 percentage points higher than the fourth quarter last year. Total operational expenses significantly decreased such as the general and administrative expenses, which decreased by 31% year-over-year as a result of the cost efficiency measures executed since last year. As a result, the adjusted EBITDA contribution from the streaming segment increased by 73% to SEK 129 million, which reflects a margin of 14.7%. And the adjusted operating profit contribution from the streaming segment has increased by 102% to SEK 93 million. Let's then turn to the publishing segment. And as a reminder, our publishing segment reflects the financials of all the publishing houses within the Storytel Group. That is Norstedts Publishing Group, Lind & Company, Gummerus and People's as well as our global digital-only audio publisher StorySide. The total net sales in the publishing segment increased by 15% to SEK 332 million, of which the external sales represented 61% of total sales and increased by 17% to SEK 201 million. While the group internal sales that represented 46% of total sales during the fourth quarter increased by 13% to SEK 131 million. As is shown on the bottom left chart, internal sales show a more stable development over time, which is driven by our streaming segment performance, while the increase in external sales over time is subject to certain seasonality patterns, in particular in relation to print sales. The fourth quarter is historically the strongest quarter with Christmas sales positively impacting the total numbers here. The adjusted gross profit increased by 132% to SEK 112 million, reflecting a gross profit margin of 33.8%. As a result, the adjusted EBITDA contribution from the publishing segment was up 98% to SEK 99 million, which reflects a margin of 29.9% and the operating profit contribution from the publishing segment was SEK 51 million. Both the gross profit and the EBITDA margins follow overall certain seasonality patterns due to the different gross profit margins in print sales as compared to digital sales, but also effects from inventory write-downs over time. Overall, the increase in margins is not only the result of higher sales, but also due to the many operational improvements that have been implemented across our publishing houses since 2023. Let's turn to the group's cash flow statement then. The cash flow statement reflects the results of the disciplined strategy execution and the past cost efficiency measures and led to a record high cash flow in the fourth quarter 2024. The cash flow from operating activities before changes in working capital was SEK 228 million, while the change in working capital was SEK 44 million and is mainly due to seasonality in accrued expenses where the comparable period the year before was impacted by changes in the overall business. Cash flow from operating activities after changes in working capital was there for SEK 272 million in the fourth quarter, which is more than during the entire previous year 2023, where it was SEK 248 million. Cash flow from investing activities comprises our operational investments into content, product and technology and was minus SEK 99 million, including the initial purchase price consideration for the IP acquisition of the Sune and Bert characters in Sweden that Bodil mentioned before. Cash flow from financing activities was minus SEK 9 million. And all in all, total group cash flow for the period was positive SEK 164 million. With that record high cash flow generation, let's move on to the group's balance sheet. The balance sheet reflects a stable yet improved financial position with total assets at around SEK 3.4 billion, which reflects an equity-to-asset ratio of 45.8%. Cash and cash equivalents were SEK 623 million at the end of the period as a result of the aforementioned strong cash flow generation. The only remaining financial debt is a revolving credit facility. During the fourth quarter, we have extended the maturity of that facility until early April 2026. The related liabilities are classified as noncurrent in the balance sheet, and they were previously classified as current in the previous 2 quarters due to the extension effect and the maturity. The new facility is SEK 700 million, of which SEK 650 million are currently utilized. So how does this debt translate then into the group's leverage ratio? Well, firstly, our operational cash flow, which we define as EBITDA, excluding any items affecting comparability, less any operational investments and CapEx was on a record high level with SEK 153 million or almost 15% of revenues. The net interest-bearing debt was only SEK 27 million at the end of the period and represents a leverage ratio to the last 12 months of adjusted EBITDA of 0.05. As Bodil mentioned earlier, this means that Storytel Group essentially is debt-free as of now, which is a massive achievement from the transformation of the past 3 years. With that, I hand back to Bodil.

All in all, we are very pleased to report that Storytel Group beat the full year guidance for 2024. An organic revenue growth of 9% with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.8% and an operational cash flow of 12.1% for 2024 are definitely strong numbers. The performance reflects our disciplined execution of our profitable growth strategy, and we have already reached our midterm targets for 2026 for both adjusted EBITDA margin and also operational cash flow. So let's look forward. The strong momentum out of 2024 is a robust foundation for this year 2025. We have been working with AI as a toolbox in several teams for quite a long time now, and we will continue to focus on the possibilities of AI that can deliver value for our customers, but also for our increased efficiency. We are using AI to create a more magical experience for our listeners. One example is our voice switcher. When you as a listener, don't prefer the narrator, you switch to an alternative AI voice. We're rolling out this feature in more languages and countries in this year, all to increase user satisfaction and engagement. We are also exploring the potential of AI in content creation. For a couple of weeks, we launched an AI written book called New Horizon. This was a test to find out the relevance of a fully written AI book or on the other side, the importance of human factor in combination with AI. We are here, we are dedicated to exploring the full potential of AI. We will continue to invest in original content to expand our audiobook library. We have also acquired the full rights to the popular children's characters, Sune and Bert in 2024 and the majority stake in the Swedish publisher, Okla Bulten. We have delivered a strong cash flow during 2024 that creates financial flexibility and headroom for us now. At this time, we are reviewing our strategy and together with the Board, we will set the direction for 2028 with an updated strategy and updated business plans. And we will share our new midterm financial targets for 2028 during the spring. For this year, 2025 and subject to our strategic review, we expect continued organic growth with improved profitability. I will work closely with our team to review our business plans and evaluate the different possibilities that we foresee. And with that, we conclude this presentation and open up for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Joachim Gunell from DNB Markets.

Can you just help us unpack here why you did not commit to a firm 2025 guidance at this stage? I fully understand the strategic review that's ongoing here, but just help us understand the comment of continued organic growth, whether that should be seen as in line with 2024 growth levels or lower?

I almost expected actually your question here. Well, I mean, the reason why we are not firmer on that is simply because what we stated. We are in the process of a strategic review, and that may change how much we, for instance, want to invest now in certain markets and push even further so. What I can indicate is that we already committed internally to use more marketing investments where we see the benefit of doing that during this year. How this will ultimately then translate into the overall growth rate for the year, that is to be seen and that we will answer during the spring time when we are talking about the outcome of our strategic review and the new midterm targets for 2028.

On the gross margin, so once again, a stellar progress here. Could you dig in a bit to the drivers of this progress just in light of what the different buckets is driving this, whether it's still internal share of content that's the main bucket and then ultimately understand the trajectory of further gross margin gains for 2025.

Yes. I also take that, Joachim. It's not very different or it's not at all different to what we said in previous quarters. The massive improvement in the gross profit margin, I would say, over the last 2 years was, of course a combined effort of several initiatives that we have taken. It's on the one hand side, of course, the result of our strength in our markets and that puts us into a certain position where we can, of course, work differently with content cost. And then, as you also asked, it is the internal share of content. We are in that very favorable position, I would say, that we have strong publishing houses creating strong content that is really captivating users' interest and therefore, engagement is increasing in relation to that content. And that has a huge impact on the overall gross profit margin. I believe I mentioned in last quarter's call as well, how much more potential is there? Well, we have done a lot now in the last 2 years. So if you compare the 2 low-hanging fruits, I think we have picked all the low-hanging fruit. If we want to do more on gross profit margin, that is a very strategic question because ultimately, somebody has to pay for that. Either it is on the side of consumers having to pay a higher price that will ultimately increase our profit or you would have to do things that ultimately will hurt publishing houses and on the other end and their royalties. So it's a very strategic question, but you shouldn't expect massive movements on the gross profit for this year going forward.

Could you also just expand a bit on the competitive dynamics here, both in the Nordics and your top 5 non-Nordic markets here, where subscriber growth was evidently very strong. So are you seeing any signs of competitors being more or less aggressive, say, than 3 years ago? I noted that the gross margin in Nordic streaming was actually slightly down year-over-year, but I would assume that relates to peers mix shift.

Yes, it is actually more related to your last question in relation to the consumption patterns and how different markets have evolved. Which was a very strong growth in the Nordics now during the fourth quarter, again on the subscriber intake. There was a great share that came from Finland, which is in line with what we said in the third quarter as well. We had very good momentum since the summer in terms of overall subscriber intake in Finland. But Finland is a little bit different when it comes to the publisher setup and therefore, from a content cost perspective, impacting the margins. So it has to be seen in the broader scheme of things. Other than that, I cannot comment too much on the situation as compared to 3 years ago in terms of competition, but audiobooks is a growing market. There is strong competition, and that has not changed. I wouldn't say that it has particularly intensified, definitely not particularly intensified during the fourth quarter. It's in line with what we expected and what we have been prepared for. And as you see, we have tackled that in a pretty good way with these strong financial results in the fourth quarter.

Just finally, 5 years ago, there was some preparations for a main market list with regards to the whole accounting shift toward IFRS. Can you say anything whether that is within your plan here to move to the main market?

It is not a plan as of now, but it is an item that, of course, every now and then is discussed together with our Board of Directors when there would be a right time or if there would be a right time to do that. So it's definitely not off the table, but there is no plan as of now that we would do that within a very short period of time. But it is always a topic that we will review, of course.

The next question comes from Derek Laliberte from ABG Sundal Collier.

I wondered you mentioned here Bulgaria and Poland as particularly strong markets in the non-Nordics geographical area. So what's driving the strong performance here, if you could share some color on that?

It's our great work that drives the great performance in these markets. To be clear, in the non-Nordic core markets in Europe, so not only Bulgaria and Poland, but also Turkey and Netherlands, we are very pleased with the overall development during the fourth quarter. We have highlighted these 2 markets, in particular, because of their growth rate and the traction that we had and there's nothing in particular now that I would pinpoint also from a competitive point of view that I would like to say rather than that we had extremely good traction operationally with what we did in terms of marketing campaigns and the overall business development. So these markets, you need to keep in mind that overall audiobook penetration in these markets is still comparably low as compared to the more mature markets that we have here in the Nordics. Poland, in particular, I always highlight in terms of think of the entire population of Poland, which is more than the entire 5 countries of the Nordics. And then if you think of Turkey, which is more than double the size of Poland. So there is a great momentum in these markets and in particularly, Poland from an economic perspective. And of course, we are monetizing on that.

And finally, from my side, as things are moving quite rapidly, I'm wondering if you could provide an update on what you're experiencing in your markets where Spotify has launched its audiobooks offering in the Netherlands and the U.S.

We have not seen anything that we would be as the question usually relates to that we would be concerned or anything else. It's rather the opposite. What is always healthy is, of course, to have big players that are also promoting and by that lifting the overall audiobook category. I think I mentioned it before in the U.S. when Spotify launched in the final quarter of 2023, market growth essentially doubled by them having managed to convert their own listeners to also start listening to audiobooks. And that is great news because the more listeners or readers, if you want, can be creative through engagement or the more everybody, in particular, the publishers will benefit in that market. And it's rather Storytel than Spotify that will serve as the platform for those we love to read or listen to many books. And that's the same in the Netherlands as well. It is probably a little bit too early to really conclude on many things given the start only during the fourth quarter. But we haven't seen anything that we would not have expected or that we would be concerned at this point in time. So it's a very positive development. And again, all the core markets that we are talking about, we are very pleased with the strong performance in all of them.

The next question comes from Stefan Ward.

I would also like to elaborate a little bit on what to expect. It would have been helpful with some sort of guidance for '25. If you could help, you say that the gross margin expansion and the EBITDA margin expansion for the second half, would you say that, that is sustainable for 2025? Or should we expect that you pull back some if you are going to be more aggressive on the top line? Or any sort of input on these 2 parameters would be helpful.

I could repeat, Stefan, what I said before, but we don't want to hypothesize now at this point before we really go out with our updated strategy or the results of the strategy review. It's not going to be a totally new strategy. It will be an update. And in that update, we will answer these questions. We will take a look at the core markets independently, which we started now in January already and see do we have opportunities to invest more in particularly in marketing where we see it. But that's the normal business, how we have developed this anyway. What we stated in the report is exactly what you referred to in terms of, well, we expect that we will have a healthy organic growth during this year. And dependent on the outcome of that strategy review, we will adjust this. Overall, our profitability will increase. That is quite clear because that's on the back of all the cost efficiency measures and the overall measures that we have been taking during the year. But I ask for a little bit more patience. It's not too far away during the spring time when we will update on the outcome of that review and updated targets for 2028 and implicitly then, of course, for 2025 as well.

It's a little bit difficult to find the seasonality patterns. Way back, we usually talked about a strong third quarter due to holiday season and so forth. But over the past few years, it seems like seasonality has diminished somewhat. But then again, there's been a lot of impact of one-offs in certain quarters, especially the historical Q4. It seems like this Q4 is pretty free of at least any negative one-offs in this quarter. If you could confirm that? And if you could describe a little bit on how to think about seasonality issues, at least for the first half of 2025.

And infer from a question that you're primarily now relating to the seasonality on the bottom line. I can confirm, as we mentioned in the report, there are no major one-offs that affected the adjusted numbers. There are other one-offs that affected the overall operating profit in a very positive way, which are the items affecting comparability that are described in the report. The seasonality on revenues has, however, a certain impact on the bottom line as well. And in particular, in the fourth quarter, if you think of the strong publishing segment, the fourth quarter is the strongest quarter, historically has been always the strongest quarter in our publishing houses simply to the Christmas sale, but then also because there are certain campaigns happening. If you think of the summer, what you mentioned in terms of summer campaigns on streaming, you also have winter campaigns happening on the streaming side there. But in particular, print sales have a different positive margin impact on the overall business as compared to the digital sales, if you think of the unit economics here. So that goes all the way down through gross profit and to the bottom line. When it comes to 2025, yes, we had certain changes in the business that, of course, were implemented in the beginning of last year. So Q1 was not fully a run rate perspective, if you recall that, and it was not fully a run rate perspective with all cost efficiency measures last year either. So that will be factored in now in this year in the first half. Other than that, we will likewise update during the springtime or during our Q1 call, of course, how that development has looked like.

Is that a correct perception? Is there room for price improvements on the Continental side in Europe, would you say?

Its a very difficult connection. Are you referring to price increases? Did I understand that correctly, Stefan?

Room for price increases outside the Nordics.

Well, I mean, price increases or overall, the ARPU, if you want to refer that to a higher level and to a bigger topic. That is always something that any business, I think, needs to look into. I'm not making here any promises or disclosing any plans that we would do that, but we are adjusting and reviewing our prices every now and then from a pure operational point of view anyway. So that is nothing strange. That's just part of the normal operational business and the business development. Then as you see in our non-Nordics core market, yes, ARPU has changed a little bit more so than in the Nordics, but that is totally expected based on the development of new subscriber intake and the overall situation there when it comes to for instance, also the introduction of new pricing tiers that we did in the Netherlands as compared to the unlimited-only pricing tier that we had prior to the third quarter last year. So it's always the dynamics and how we see, and particularly on the competitive side, the market to evolve when we would then make decisions about is there any need to change anything in the pricing and in the packaging. But that's normal operational business.

I'd also like 2 more questions, if possible. One is on the churn data, which is very good that you show in this graph. How should I interpret it? Have you decreased the churn by roughly 25%? Or how should we view it for Q4 last year compared to early 2022? Seems like a very big move.

I mean churn has decreased for a long time, yes, from an index perspective, where it was at index 100 in the beginning of Q1 in the chart that you referred to, to where we landed now at roughly a level of 75% in relation to that index. So that is indeed that. You need to keep in mind that from Q1 2022, there also has been an impact during 2022 because of the discontinuation of the former expansion markets, which had a positive impact on the churn development during that period of time. However, then in 2023 and 2024, that is a non-impact because we didn't make any major changes and left these former expansion markets essentially rest in their situation where we are. There are very small investments in these markets. There are positive developments in some of these markets more than in others when it comes to subscriber contribution, and you see it in the streaming KPIs, the overall development in that rest of world region as well. But overall, it is the loyal customer base, the high engagement in the product that we are very actively, of course, work with, with our product offering that makes the churn rate slow down over time. You have seen that the curve has been flattening out a little bit during 2024. It has remained and kept decreasing. So it is at an all-time low, but it's not going down so massively any longer and that you also should not expect. We are very happy with that churn where we are right now.

And then just a final question on content investments. Is this a normal rate that you are spending right now? And how are you sort of accounting for it in terms of CapEx and what's taken on the gross margin? Will there be any changes basically to how you invest in content going forward?

Yes. It's an excellent question because it also relates, of course, to our strategy review and our forward-looking investments in several markets. But for the time being and subject to our update during the springtime, you should think of that as a good indication for a run rate. The majority of the CapEx, 80-plus percent is in relation to content. It's our investment into audiobook productions, and it is, therefore, the key item in terms of the catalog that we offer to our consumers. The other 15% to 20% is in relation to product and technology developments on the platform. So a huge focus is on content. That will not disappear because content is the key thing that we are offering to our consumers. And whether we will change this and do a different level of investment, that is subject to the strategic review, which we will talk about during the spring time.

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

So thank you for being with us today. We are dedicated now with the team here at Storytel and our Board of Directors to drive this forces to continue our success. And I'm looking forward to the next chapter. So thanks for joining us today, and we look forward to meeting you soon again.