Opera Ltd Q1 FY2024 Earnings Call

Thank you for joining us. As usual, I have with me today our Co-CEO, Song Lin; and CFO, Frode Jacobsen. Before I hand the call over to Song, I'd like to remind everyone that in the conference call today, the company will be making statements about its future results and expectations which constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Such statements are based on current expectations and how we perceive the current economic environment and are inherently subject to economic, competitive and other uncertainties and contingencies beyond the control of management. You should be cautioned that these statements are not guarantees of future performance. You may refer to the Safe Harbor statement in the company's earnings release for details. Our commentary today will also include non-IFRS financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, which are different from our consolidated financial statements that are prepared and presented based on IFRS. We believe that the use of our non-IFRS financial measures provides an additional tool for investors to use in evaluating ongoing operating results and trends. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for financial information prepared in accordance with IFRS. We have also posted an unaudited quarterly historic financial results of Opera on our Investor Relations website. With that, let me turn the conference call over to our Co-CEO, Song Lin, who will cover our first quarter operational highlights and strategy, and then Frode Jacobsen will discuss our financials and expectations going forward. Song?

Thank you, Matt, and thanks to everyone for joining us this morning to discuss our fourth quarter results. The beginning of 2024 is strong, with revenue reaching $102 million, largely due to organic growth and effective cost management, leading to an adjusted EBITDA of $25 million, which equates to a margin of 24%. Both revenue and EBITDA surpassed the guidance we provided in our previous quarterly call. Our strategy for user growth emphasizes quality over quantity. We continue to grow our user base in various markets, particularly among GX users and other high-value users globally, even as we see a decline in low monetization mobile users in emerging markets. For the fourth quarter, our annualized ARPU stood at $1.34, marking a 24% increase year-over-year. This growth comes primarily from users in high ARPU markets and the continual expansion of Opera GX, which attracts highly monetizable users across different regions. Our search revenue was $43 million, increasing by 14%. This sector has consistently grown in the mid-teens, outperforming the wider search market due to our focus on attracting high-value users. Recently, Google chose to extend our existing search revenue partnership, highlighting the mutual value in our relationship. Our advertising revenue reached $59 million, representing year-over-year growth of 21% and accounting for 58% of total revenue. This revenue benefits from both our owned platforms and the Opera Ads business. The digital advertising industry is increasingly focusing on high user intent events, like quick user journeys or payment activities related to travel bookings. As a browser, we are ideally positioned to capture these interactions, providing relevant results, suggestions, and recommendations when needed. This approach has led to the fastest growth in advertising revenue within the browser since the recovery from the pandemic that began in early 2021, demonstrating how our focus on high-value users directly translates to financial success. As an independent browser, we continue to innovate and deliver exciting new features. Our launch of Opera One, along with the introduction of our browser AI, Aria, was a significant success. Enhancements such as Tab Islands and start page animations leverage a robust engine, ensuring an elegant browsing experience by separating UI processes from background operations. Such features, coupled with our strong brand, help drive adoption. When users contemplate switching browsers, we are increasingly considered and selected. We are optimistic about the impact of the recently implemented Digital Markets Act in the EU, which mandates Apple to display a browser choice linked to iOS results across EU countries. Following its implementation, we observed a 63% increase in new iOS users in the EU from February to March, starting from a small base, with much work still to fully capitalize on the opportunity. We are excited about this progress and will be enhancing our iOS investments now that the competitive landscape is more level, which may create further opportunities in key markets. We believe there's substantial growth potential starting from our modest base owing to earlier platform limitations. This aligns with the broader trend of users moving away from default browsers towards distinct offerings that cater to specific needs. We anticipate this trend will persist and perhaps accelerate. Regarding our gaming browser, Opera GX, we’ve discussed its success many times, and it's a prime example of delivering something unique that users appreciate. In under five years, Opera GX has attracted 29.5 million users, a 6.1% increase in just the last quarter. Our GX user base continues to monetize effectively, with ARPU reaching $3.49 in the first quarter, up 10% year-over-year, even as we expand into non-listed markets. GX stands out as our highest monetizing browser in both developed and emerging markets where monetization differences are less pronounced. A notable new feature is GX Mods, which allows users to customize many aspects of the browser. These Mods are highly creative and can be inspired by popular AAA gaming franchises, like Cyberpunk 2077. Additionally, users can create their own Mods, such as background music that responds to their actions in real-time. The possibilities are endless. Users can also upload their Mods to the GX Store, sharing with fellow gamers. Since the launch of Mods a year ago, over 6,000 have been created and shared, with over 150 million installations, showcasing how much this feature resonates with the gaming audience and highlighting the untapped potential in the browser market. Lastly, I'm excited to discuss our ongoing advancements in AI. We continue to introduce new AI features within the Opera browser. In the fourth quarter, we announced our AI features drop project, which allows users of our Opera One developer build to access the latest AI innovations. We release new features as frequently as every few weeks, positioning us among the quickest movers in this area. A key highlight is our experimental support for a variety of local large language model variants, which users can run locally within the browser. Just last week, we integrated support for the latest Llama 3 model one day post-release. This represents a first for local large language models being easily accessible through a major browser feature. These local AI models complement Opera's own Aria AI service, further enhanced by our green energy-powered AI cloud store in Iceland, which we launched in February and is now fully operational. It's an exciting era for a browser with a significant user base and a reputation for innovation. We look forward to exploring the future ahead. Now, I'll hand over the call to Frode to discuss our financial performance and guidance for the upcoming quarter and 2024 in greater detail. Frode?

Thank you, Song. 2024 is off to a solid start with Q1 exceeding the guidance ranges we set just 2 months ago. Revenue grew 17% year-over-year, nicely ahead of the 15% midpoint growth we had guided. Net of continued FX headwinds, we saw an even stronger underlying constant currency revenue growth of 23% or 6 percentage points higher. Advertising remains our strongest growth driver, though search has also been performing ahead of the underlying market growth, clearly showing the benefit of our high ARPU user focus. In terms of costs, marketing costs came in slightly below expectations as did the other OpEx category. Salary costs came in as expected, while an investment in scaling new advertising revenue streams in our browsers drove up cost of revenue for the quarter. In total, we managed costs to stay on budget, resulting in the revenue overperformance translating to adjusted EBITDA overperformance as well. Tax cost of $4.6 million was 19% of adjusted EBITDA, which was somewhat elevated, mainly due to our tax assets which reduced in USD value when local currencies weakened. Our cash generation was particularly strong in the quarter with operating cash flow reaching as much as $31 million or 125% of adjusted EBITDA. This quarter, we made an all-cash investment to establish our new AI data center, representing an unusual amount of CapEx for us, while we were still able to generate free cash flow from operations of $8 million or 33% of adjusted EBITDA. Cash generation fluctuates more than EBITDA from one quarter to the next, and as the year progresses, our year-to-date cash conversion rates will stabilize, similar to what we saw last year. We paid our semi-annual dividend in January, $0.40 per ADS or $35 million total. Of the total, $25 million was offset against our Star X receivable and $10 million was paid in cash. The final $8 million of our Star X receivable will be cleared as part of our next recurring dividend payment, which we continue to expect for July, same as last year. We remain committed to our dividend program, viewing it as the best way to return cash to shareholders without impacting our free float or trading volumes. Having said that, as we've also demonstrated several times in the past, we continuously monitor for opportunities to generate ROI for our shareholders through buybacks when conditions favor that. Yesterday, we issued our 20-F for 2023, and I just want to highlight the one estimate update as part of the annual report relating to the fair value of our 9.4% ownership stake in OPay. We ultimately set the year-end 2023 valuation to $253 million as opposed to $269 million initially estimated, which led to an updated Q4 valuation gain of $90 million as opposed to a gain of $106 million. This is an estimate of an unrealized gain, and you'll see that the ownership stake is carried at the new value on our balance sheet, but it had no impact on our revenue, cash or other operating metrics. In keeping with our well-established tradition to guide cautiously, we translate the overperformance of Q1 to a $4 million lift of the low end of our full-year revenue guidance, while leaving the high end as is. Our new revenue guidance becomes $454 million to $465 million, which results in the midpoint increasing from 15% to 16% full-year growth. In terms of adjusted EBITDA, our guided range was already quite narrow at $106 million to $110 million, and we retain it based on the same logic. This maintains a 24% adjusted EBITDA margin expectation for the year as a whole. Overall, as only 2 months have passed since we issued our original guidance for the year, we prefer to progress further into the year before we fully extrapolate our trajectory. For the second quarter, we guide revenue of $107 million to $109 million or 14% to 16% year-over-year growth. We guide adjusted EBITDA of $22 million to $25 million or a 22% margin at the midpoint. That translates to OpEx pre-adjusted EBITDA of $84.5 million at the midpoint, which includes a steady increase in marketing spend, annual salary adjustments effective in April, and adding just over a percentage point of cost of revenue items relative to revenue. Other OpEx items are expected at about the quarterly average of 2023. Our cost expectations for the year as a whole remain in line with our prior directional commentary with marketing costs and cost of revenue ticking a bit up as a percentage of revenue, while compensation costs and other OpEx items ticking down, overall offsetting one another. All in all, we are off to a solid start of 2024 and excited to continue executing on our strategy. We'll also participate at a number of upcoming investor conferences in May, which gives Matt and I a chance to meet up with many of you in person soon as well. With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator for questions.

Congratulations on the quarter. There is a lot to discuss, but let's start with the DMA in Europe, which I find very exciting. You mentioned a 63% increase in new iOS users from February to March. I know that's from a small base, but can you elaborate on the opportunity there? How many iOS users are currently in Europe, and what is Opera's market penetration like today? Where do you think that could realistically go in the next 3 to 5 years? Additionally, what are the chances of seeing a similar DMA framework in other markets? You mentioned that there is potential for other markets to adopt this framework. What are your thoughts on this for the U.S. in the future?

Yes, it's Song. I want to share a few thoughts. This is a significant issue, and we are excited about the current trend. Europe is a crucial market and is taking a leading role in ensuring a fair playing field. We appreciate the EU's approach and are pleased with the positive outcomes, especially since many government initiatives don't lead to tangible results. We're also pleased with Apple's response, which has been more favorable than expected, and that’s encouraging. Additionally, we observe similar trends emerging in other markets. Recently, the DOJ in the U.S. initiated a case against Apple for similar reasons, indicating that some of the circumstances are comparable. If Apple is willing to open up in one market, they may be more inclined to do so globally, creating a significant impact. Operating solely within the EU has its limitations, despite its strong start. In terms of opportunity, particularly in the mobile market, Apple controls a substantial portion, close to 70% in the premium smartphone segment. Other browser players face considerable barriers due to Apple's restrictions. This situation may now present new opportunities, giving us and other browser vendors access to around 70% of high-performance smartphones in the U.S. and about 50-60% elsewhere. We have successfully captured significant market share on Android, and we are optimistic about replicating that success on iOS. Currently, we have millions of iOS users, but in relation to our total user base of 300 million, there's considerable room for growth. While we are experiencing significant growth now, there are many opportunities ahead that could significantly affect our revenue in the coming years. This is our overall perspective, and we are eager to see how things progress in the coming months.

You mentioned that there would be an increase, which is understandable. I hope to see an increase in your iOS investment spend. I just wanted to confirm with Frode that this was already somewhat expected. In terms of the guidance you discussed regarding budgeting and marketing expenditure for the remainder of the year, should we assume there won't be any additional upside to the guidance?

In terms of marketing spend, I would say we already reflect the Western markets. Europe, North America, that is where we spend the majority of our marketing spend. It correlates with the revenue and where our revenue growth is really coming from as well. So even though it still represents only 17% of our total user base, that is where we continue to invest in as part of the strategy that we've been following for the past years.

Okay. Regarding the GX browser, you mentioned some dilution in monetization as GX grows in non-Western markets. I see that as a positive development, but I'm curious if you have an estimate of the year-on-year growth in monetization when adjusting for geography. I believe it was 10% overall, but I'm wondering about the market-by-market breakdown, particularly in emerging markets.

Yes. We typically don't go into that level of detail. But overall, I think for the company as a whole, I think we'd see an ARPU growth at about twice that. So I think that's a good indication.

And just again, just directionally, is the growth kind of comparable in each market? Or are you seeing monetization growth now greater or lesser in one market or the other?

I think we see across the regions that we are doing well on monetization growth. And for GX in particular, I think we continue to advance on greater ad revenue drivers as it has historically been very search-driven in isolation. It's still not, let's say, caught up to our other products in terms of mix between advertising and search, but we are progressing on that.

Okay. Last question for me. Iceland, we talked about the economics quite a bit back in February I think it was. And it seems like the pace of incremental CapEx investments is pretty well contained. Then we saw Meta announce another big increase in its CapEx budget. And so I'm just wondering, what are the chances that we start to see these big data center investments pop up more frequently quarter-to-quarter, year-to-year, et cetera?

I don't think we should anticipate any cash flow surprises there because even if we wanted to expand it over time, there was a significant lead time involved.

Congrats on a nice quarter. Just a couple of quick ones here. Anything to read into the kind of more accelerated timetable on the Google renewal? I know you guys had mentioned that they had triggered that. And then I just want to touch on what's outstanding right now on the buyback.

Frode here. I can begin. In terms of the buyback, we have fully consumed our most recent $50 million buyback plan. So I think now it's a bit watch and see as we have historically always done, and sticking with the tradition when we announce something, then we execute pretty quickly thereafter. In terms of the Google renewal, it was of course a nice gesture of them to renew it this early in the year as they had the whole year. At least from my point of view, I think it's just a nice recognition of the joint potentials that we also have with Google.

That's helpful. Quickly returning to the browser, it seems that GX is continuing to perform well in North America. Regarding the uptake on mobile or desktop, particularly with the rollout of more AI products and technology, how do you view the non-GX browser as a potential growth driver?

Yes, it's Song here. I'd like to share a few thoughts. First of all, Opera One is now primarily an AI-focused browser, and they are launching their latest AI features. Opera One and the developer build are consistently incorporating these features. I believe it is becoming one of the leading browsers that offers fast access to various AI technologies, and we are very proud of that. This recognition has already been established among key opinion leaders and is definitely beneficial for growth in non-GX browsers. Additionally, I want to highlight that on iOS, one of the major officials has mentioned their support for AI, which is a significant achievement for us. We see this as a great opportunity for growth, particularly if we can tap into the iOS segment, which is increasingly becoming a premium market. iOS users are often very discerning about the features we offer, especially regarding AI. This presents a promising environment for us. Furthermore, I’d like to note that GX also has a mobile version that is performing well on iOS, and we are pleased to see more opportunities opening up, allowing us to do even more. Overall, we feel quite positive about the outlook.

That's helpful. Good luck the rest of the way.

This is Alex on for Eric. Just a quick one on marketing spend. There's been a lot of discussion broadly around the industry on elevated ad prices in developed markets and sort of competitive ad auctions. Obviously that's where you're focused on adding users. Can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing in the market and ad auctions? Which digital ad channels are working well for you? How has ROAS trended in recent months? That would be really helpful.

Yes, it's Song here. I will comment on it and Frode might also add to it. Overall, I feel confident that we are quite competitive in marketing, which contributes to our higher adjusted EBITDA. The difference lies in our approach compared to traditional advertisers who focus solely on search or native ads, where they face limitations and stiff competition. For us, especially as a digital browser, we don't heavily rely on those traditional methods since we cannot compete in that arena. Instead, we emphasize working with influencers and leveraging features that allow us to acquire users more effectively, minimizing the impact of fluctuations in traditional ad spending. This marks a significant differentiation for us. From a monetization perspective, I want to highlight an interesting trend we're observing. Many advertisers are shifting their focus from basic social media buys to high user intent events, which indicate when users are ready to take action. For example, when someone visits a webpage with the intent to make a purchase, they want relevant ads to appear. This trend is beneficial for us in advertising because we've seen increased interest from various parties looking to collaborate with us. We are engaging with organizations on how to effectively display ads at optimal moments when user intent is high, taking advantage of our understanding of user behavior. This represents a notable development in the digital advertising landscape, and we are quite excited about it.

That's helpful.

So maybe just on the DMA implementation and the trends you saw. Maybe you can provide some color on the existing base if you were able to retain that? And then what are you seeing in terms of usage after people who kind of set Opera as a default versus previously maybe not being a default? Let's talk about that a little bit.

Yes, it's Song here. I previously mentioned that we don't need to disclose the separation of our iOS results. It’s significant but within a certain range, and overall it's still small. However, when considering the incremental users, we notice considerable growth in our existing active user base, which we are very pleased about. We see a significant increase in users setting our browser as the default, which is common across other platforms. A larger proportion of our users have made the browser their default, and we're happy about it because it has a positive impact, allowing us to reach more end-users. Overall, this is very encouraging. However, we do recognize that this is just the beginning since it's currently limited to the EU and somewhat fragmented across various countries. We view this as a pioneer stage leading to larger markets like the U.S., which we are eagerly looking forward to. We expect growth as we move forward, given the incentives involved.

Okay. And then maybe a quick follow-up for Frode. Maybe just talk about the opportunity you're seeing for marketing spend. It came in a little bit lighter, I think, in the first quarter. How should we kind of think about that going out? And do you see some new channels you can deploy ad dollars into?

So we had expected Q1 marketing spend to be very similar to Q4. It came in 2% below. So I think it was quite on expectation. And for the rest of the year, we continue to expect like $1 million to $2 million of incremental spend quarter-by-quarter. So keep ticking up as the year progresses. I think in terms of the channel mix, we expect to continue what we do today, which is to work with influencers and to turn, keep turning more of the spend into Western markets and other high-value populations, and then in particular for Opera GX and its global growth.

Understood. For Opera GX specifically, is the growth you're observing in some of these emerging markets mainly due to word of mouth, or what portion can be attributed to advertising? How does the monetization evolve over time? Do you believe it's still early days and has the potential to improve as your presence in certain regions grows? Please share your thoughts on this.

Sure. In terms of word of mouth and distribution mix, we benefit from a strong brand once we begin to establish a presence. We also include a chart in our investor presentation to illustrate the size of the organic inflow of users. However, it does require investment to build that presence and increase awareness of the GX product. We are definitely focused on that. Regarding monetization opportunities, we are in the process of expanding the monetization of Opera GX. The ARPU from Q4 to Q1 was nearly flat, only down a couple of percentage points, which is quite strong given the seasonally strong fourth quarter. The product benefits from attracting users outside Western markets who tend to be more affluent than the average user in those regions. If ARPU remains constant and our international growth continues, that could pose a challenge. Fortunately, we have been able to grow the underlying ARPU faster than the impact of the geographical mix.

Understood. Thanks a lot, guys.

Congrats on the solid quarter. I've got one question. Since the announcement of adding experimental support for 150 local LM driven from 50 families to Opera One browser in developer stream, any color you could share which are the top 5 favorite models from the users you see on your Opera One? Any indication how some of these usages of models could help on future financial growth? Or will this be more enhancement tools with limited monetization?

Yes, this is Song. I want to share my thoughts. Firstly, I believe this vision reflects not only our perspective but also that of many industry leaders regarding the direction of AI. It will always involve a combination of powerful large language models hosted by companies like OpenAI, alongside local models such as Llama and others. The reason for this combination is that there's a consistent need for quick assistance while also considering privacy and cost factors that make uploading data to the cloud undesirable. This blend caters to various actions, some of which need to occur locally. We are excited to be leaders in this approach, as our independence sets us apart from other players who often rely on cloud services. We focus solely on user needs, which is crucial for us. In terms of models, Llama remains highly popular due to its power, and Google has introduced Gamma while Microsoft has also announced local models. We're pleased to see this trend develop and we invite users to try Llama 3, our latest model that just launched last week. It's easy to use on the Opera browser without requiring extensive development. We're proud of our approach, which enables us to operate smartly without significant costs. This strategy enhances our product differentiation and boosts user retention. If we successfully engage user loyalty, we believe they will remain with us for a longer time. This benefits everyone since the main resources being used are the users' own CPU and electricity on their laptops, which they are happy to utilize without adding costs for us. Overall, we see this as a positive development, and we aim to maintain our leadership in this area within the browser market.

I can maybe chime in from the monetization point. I think being able to take these types of AI features mainstream, that can attract to us exactly the type of user profile that we monetize the best, right? And that we expect that these offline models will exist in combination with the online models like Aria because of the needs that require essentially updated information, access to product, access to other live things that won't be captured in an offline version. So slightly different use cases.

Okay. So if there's no other questions, I'll just say that thank you all for joining us today. We have been looking forward to sharing this quarterly update with you. It is ultimately exciting times. And as you see, we innovate and evolve quickly to seize the opportunities ahead. There will be lots to talk about as the year progresses, so stay tuned, and thank you for your time.

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