Unity Software Inc. Q2 FY2021 Earnings Call

Hello, and thank you for your patience, and welcome to the ironSource Limited Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. My name is Emily, and I will be coordinating the call today. I would now like to hand the call over to our host, Daniel Amir, VP of Investor Relations at ironSource, to begin. Daniel, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to ironSource's second quarter fiscal 2021 earnings conference call. My name is Daniel Amir, VP of Investor Relations. With me today, we have Tomer Bar-Zeev, Chief Executive Officer; Assaf Ben-Ami, Chief Financial Officer; Arnon Harish, President; and Omer Kaplan, Chief Revenue Officer. Before handing the call over to Tomer, let me remind you that this call is being recorded. A replay of this recording will be made available on our website shortly after the call. We have posted the earnings release and the accompanying slide presentation on our Investor Relations web page at investors.is.com. Elements of this presentation as well as statements we may make on this call are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and these statements are based on current expectations and assumptions. Please consider the risk factors included in our public filings with the SEC that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. For more detailed information, please see disclaimers in the earnings materials relating to forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. For a discussion of some of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, please refer to ironSource's SEC reports. Other than as required by law, we assume no obligation and do not intend to update any such forward-looking statements. We also note that the financial information discussed on this call reflects estimates based on information available now and could differ materially from the amounts ultimately reported in ironSource's other SEC filings. During this webcast, unless otherwise specifically noted, all comparisons are year-over-year comparisons with the corresponding prior year period. For financial information that has been expressed on a non-GAAP basis, we've included reconciliations to the comparable GAAP information other than with respect to adjusted EBITDA guidance for which we have not provided a reconciliation because certain items that impact adjusted EBITDA are out of the company's control and/or cannot be reasonably predicted. And accordingly, a reconciliation is not available without unreasonable effort. Please refer to the tables and slide presentation accompanying today's earnings release for those reconciliations. The presentation of this financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for or superior to the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. We use these non-GAAP financial measures for financial and operational decision-making and as a means to evaluate period-to-period comparisons. We believe that these measures provide useful information about operating results, enhance the overall understanding of past financial performance and future prospects and allow for greater transparency with respect to key metrics used by management in its financial and operational decision-making. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Tomer.

Thank you, Daniel. Hi, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our Q2 earnings call, which is our first as a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. As some of you may know, we began this new chapter after successfully completing our business combination with Thoma Bravo Advantage on June 28 of this year, a partnership which we believe will be important to our growth as a public company moving forward. As part of the merger, we raised a total of $2.15 billion in cash profit, including an oversubscribed PIPE of $1.3 billion. With the money raised, we are well positioned to continue solidifying our market leadership as the most comprehensive business platform for the two core constituents of the App Economy. Without this platform, app developers focus on creating great apps and sell to operators while OEMs focus on offering competing user experiences. In the second quarter, we achieved record results with total revenues of $135 million, up 83% year-over-year. This was primarily driven by enhancements made to our platform and an increase in the use of our platform by both existing and new customers. For the second quarter, adjusted EBITDA was $46 million, up from $21 million in the same quarter last year, consistent with our long history of providing profitable revenue growth while benefiting from operating leverage. I'm also happy to report that our dollar-based net expansion rate for the quarter was a record 181%. We see this as a testament to the comprehensiveness of our platform and the value it provides to our customer businesses. Since this is our first call as a public company, before diving into the results, I would like to spend a few minutes providing an overview of ironSource, the platform we built and the market we operate in, the App Economy. If you think about your day-to-day life, chances are you've spent a good amount of time on your phone. The average is over four hours per day. On average, 83% of that time is spent on apps that provide entertainment, productivity, and connectivity. In 2020, there were 6.7 billion mobile devices, and we downloaded 140 billion apps on those devices. Yes, what is apparent is that every single app on your phone is someone's business. IronSource is a software company. Our platform is designed to serve the two core constituents of the App Economy, app developers and telecom operators, allowing them to grow and prosper. First, the app developer. While it has become easier than ever to create an app, it has also become harder than ever to commercialize an app. That's where our Sonic solution suite comes in. It is built to help developers launch, grow, and sell their apps into successful businesses. The second core constituent is the telecom operator who provides the vehicle for that content. Tapping into the App Economy can be a huge challenge for them, but also a huge opportunity. Telecom operators use our platform to connect with customers and provide a better user experience throughout the device lifecycle. So ironSource Sonic is our solution suite for app developers, and ironSource Aura is our solution suite for telecom operators and OEMs. Together, these solutions create one comprehensive platform that serves our customers at scale with a focus on creating the best total solution for the App Economy. To give a bit more color, it provides developers with what they need to grow their business, from expanding a valuable growth base cost-effectively to monetizing their app and generating revenue, to analyzing their business and optimizing it for profitable future growth. Put simply, our platform allows developers to focus on creating great apps and content while we provide the infrastructure for their business expansion. This approach is one of the key market differentiators as we are only focused on providing business solutions to our customers and not creating content. Within apps, games are the most popular category, and we have built our market leadership within the gaming industry. Today, we power the business growth of thousands of apps, including many Tier 1 game developers. We also provide support for indie game developers. Without this platform, indie game developers can top the charts and turn their games into worldwide hits in an incredibly crowded and competitive market. Our strategy has resulted in us powering a significant portion of the top 100 mobile games. Additionally, regarding ironSource Aura, it enables telecom operators to enrich the device experience by creating new engagement touchpoints that deliver relevant content to their users. These touchpoints occur across the entire lifecycle of a device, from the time a user first sets up the new device until they trade it in. Aura provides an on-device distribution channel for app developers as well as the platform to expand the adoption of content and services for telecom operators. At the core of our operational philosophy is a focus on creating a shared vision of success with our customers. As a result, our business model is primarily revenue share, meaning that our growth is highly aligned with that of our customers. The more our platform empowers them to grow their businesses, the more we grow ours. Now I'd like to share some business highlights from the recent quarter. This quarter saw the launch of several products designed to drive more efficient business growth for our customers across different solutions on our platform. In our Sonic monetization solution, we completed the shift to in-app bidding technology. This technology enables our customers to maximize revenue by creating a real-time option that allows different demand sources to compete for each available ad impression. This technology is designed to increase competition for ad space, raise efficiency, and decrease customer opening, delivering real value for our customers. Our in-app bidding technology is already widely used by our customers and has shown significant impact, giving us a competitive advantage. In our Sonic creative management solutions, we announced the launch of Luna Elements as part of our recent acquisition of Luna Labs. We acquired Luna Labs in the first quarter of this year to add automation tools to our ad creative production and management to our platform. Luna Elements extends Luna's creative management offering, allowing game studios to build interactive, playable experiences in a matter of minutes without requiring any development experience or resources. Offering tools to automate and optimize interactive ads at speed and scale is an important addition to our platform, which further establishes our advantage in the market of creative management. In our Sonic publishing solutions, we announced our LiveGames product. We launched Sonic publishing in February 2020, aiming to provide indie developers, who have limited access to capital or business know-how, with the infrastructure, technology, and expertise to launch and scale their mobile games. LiveGames gives developers self-serve access to game management tools with visibility and transparency into a multitude of in-game metrics. This enables them to better understand the performance of their apps and manage and grow their games independently. LiveGames is another important enhancement in our automated publishing solution and is a crucial addition in the disruption we have led to fully productize the publishing process. Finally, we're excited that Bridge Race, a game published using our Sonic publishing solution, was the most downloaded game worldwide in Q2 with over 100 million installs. This success follows Join Clash, another game we published using our Sonic publishing solution, which was the most downloaded mobile game worldwide in Q1. This achievement reflects the power of our platform and is also a testament to the amazing growth and the business opportunities available to developers, large and small, in the App Economy. Partnerships form a core part of our General & Administrative strategy, and we continue to invest, grow, and expand our partnerships with key customers this quarter. We announced the extension of our growing partnership with Samsung with the integration of ironSource Aura solutions for telecom operators and OEMs on Samsung devices in Germany. This follows our existing integration with Samsung in Russia, India, Southeast Asia, and other European countries. This partnership began with our first integration on Samsung devices in 2018. With the launch of new products and the expansion of our partnership, our platform continues to provide additional value to customers while helping to further differentiate our offering. Our goal is to continue building out our platform offering through technological innovation and strategic mergers and acquisitions in order to increase the use of our platform by existing customers and gain market share with new clients. We are also uniquely positioned to further expand into new categories beyond gaming and devices beyond mobile. This has been a great quarter, which is particularly gratifying since this is our first as a public company. We look forward to continuing on our journey to delivering the most comprehensive social platform for the App Economy. With that, I will turn the call over to Assaf to provide details on our financial performance and guidance for the quarter.

Thank you, Tomer. We delivered record results for the second quarter with strong top-line growth and high profitability, consistent with our robust financial profile. Before sharing detailed results, I want to give a quick overview of our business model. Our business model is aligned with the success of our customers. This is a very important element of our strategy. When we think about new products and solutions, we always try to find the correlation between our success and that of our customers. Today, our revenue consists of three main drivers: revenue share, usage-based, and in-app monetization. A majority of our revenue is currently generated under the revenue share model, where we retain a share of the revenue our customers generate using our platform. The remainder consists of usage-based fees and in-app monetization revenue. Our ability to increase our revenue is highly aligned with our customers' success. As our customers see greater benefit from our platform, they increase their usage and adopt additional solutions that, in turn, further accelerate growth. In many cases, customers adopt our solutions at an early stage of their business development and scale their usage as they grow. Our customers range from large global enterprises to small indie developers. As of the end of the second quarter, we had over 4,000 customers using our platform. As Tomer mentioned, Q2 2021 was a record quarter, both in terms of top- and bottom-line. We generated $135 million in revenue compared to $74 million in Q2 2020, representing year-over-year growth of 83%. This growth was fueled primarily by the expansion of Sonic and our solutions within our platform. Our revenue is driven mainly by our large customers. We define large as those who generate over $100,000 in the last trailing 12 months. This group grew to 309 customers in Q2 2021, up from 246 in Q2 2020, representing year-over-year growth of 26%. These numbers were achieved while maintaining a very high gross retention rate of 99% in Q2, consistent with Q1 2021. These large customers represent 94% of our total revenue in the trailing 12 months of Q2 2021. Due to the increasing usage of our solutions, we can cross-sell and up-sell a greater portion of our solutions to them as well as general growth in the number of new customers that contributed more than $100,000 of revenue. These large customers are a crucial source of stability and predictability in our financial model. Our dollar-based net expansion rate for Q2 remains exceptionally high at 181% after achieving 176% in the first quarter at an average of 154% in the last 10 quarters. This increase was driven by new products and solutions launched over the course of 2020 that drove significant growth. Although we expect our dollar-based net expansion rate to remain very healthy, we anticipate that it will rise from quarter to quarter and ultimately normalize at our historical levels over the course of 2021. ironSource has been profitable for many years with prioritized growth and investment, but we believe in profitability and healthy margins. We generated adjusted EBITDA of $46 million in Q2 2021, representing year-over-year growth of 124% from our adjusted EBITDA of $21 million in Q2 2020. This growth was driven primarily by revenue growth across all of our solutions. Our non-GAAP diluted EPS for the quarter was $0.04 and our net cash position was $710 million. Before moving to our guidance, I wanted to spend a minute on IDFA. I also have invested extensive resources in preparing for Apple's changes, which require apps to ask users for permission to track them across applications. We believe our investment and preparation will help our platform and technology adapt to Apple's changes. While we have not yet seen any material impact from Apple's changes, it is still too early to accurately determine the full impact. Our guidance takes into account some potential short-term uncertainties related to the change while still reflecting the ongoing success and momentum of the platform. In the long term, we believe that our technology gives us a competitive advantage and positions us to provide additional value to our customers in the context of these industry changes. Now let me turn to guidance. Our guidance considers the following factors: the strength of our H1 results, the momentum across our platform, and the near-term potential impact of IDFA. For the third quarter of 2021, total revenue is expected to be in the range of $125 million to $130 million, representing 45% growth on a yearly basis at the midpoint. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $43 million to $45 million, representing 47% growth on a yearly basis at the midpoint. We expect our fully diluted share count to be approximately 1.1 billion shares. For the full year 2021, total revenue is expected to be in the range of $510 million to $520 million compared to $480 million to $490 million previously, representing 55% growth at the midpoint. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $173 million to $178 million compared to $150 million to $155 million previously, representing 69% growth at the midpoint. We will now open the call to questions. Operator, please go ahead.

Our first question comes from Colin Sebastian from Robert Baird. Colin, your line is now open.

Congratulations on the merger, the IPO, and the nice quarter. First off, Tomer, you talked about expanding the platform outside of gaming and onto devices beyond mobile. So maybe from a high level, if you could expand a bit on those opportunities and the go-to-market strategy. And then secondly, maybe for Assaf. With respect to IDFA, you mentioned the competitive advantages that ironSource has in this environment. Could you maybe go through that in more detail as both Apple and Google are making privacy a de facto standard now?

Colin, this is Tomer. It's great to speak with you again. We developed the ironSource platform to serve the App Economy, catering to app developers and telecom operators. While we are primarily recognized for our solutions for game developers within our Sonic suite, approximately 10% of our revenue currently comes from non-game developers. Most of our work with Aura is focused on non-game developers, and we anticipate growth in both Sonic and Aura. We are committed to enhancing the platform for the App Economy, serving various developers and telecom operators. We are also expanding Aura beyond mobile devices; we already have solutions for smart TVs and look forward to sharing new developments in the coming quarters. Colin, could you remind us what the second question was?

Yes. With respect to the IDFA impact, I think Assaf mentioned the competitive advantage that ironSource has in this environment. So just given that Apple and Google are moving in this direction with privacy across both operating systems, what about the ironSource platform makes you competitively advantaged in that environment?

Certainly. A lot has been discussed regarding IDFA recently. After a few months of the IDFA rollout, we have a clearer understanding of its current impact and a reasonable expectation of its future effects. Previously, we indicated that the ironSource platform is well-positioned to handle the changes brought on by IDFA, primarily because it was developed to analyze contextual data while considering privacy concerns. We anticipated that we could potentially benefit from these IDFA changes. While there may be some short-term effects in the near future, we are optimistic that, in the long run, IDFA will be beneficial for ironSource due to our approach to contextual data and the platform's foundational design.

Our next question comes from Bernie McTernan from Needham & Co. Bernie, your line is now open.

Great. Just wanted to drill down on margins a little bit. I know investments in publishing had been weighing on margins and then seeing the increase of the guide. So are you spending less investment necessary on publishing going forward? Are revenues just coming in better? Just trying to think through the substantial increase to EBITDA margins guide this year versus the prior guide. And then is the 33% to 35%, the right way to think about a baseline going forward to grow on top of if we're thinking about '22 and beyond? And I have a follow-up as well.

Thank you, Bernie. So I think that, first of all, our EBITDA margins are better than we expected at the beginning, first of all, because we beat our revenue guidance. In general, it's important to understand that we prioritize growth and investment, but we believe in profitability and healthy margins. From time to time, we will make investments at the expense of margins in order to strengthen our position in the market and drive growth. In 2020, we did exactly this by lowering our margins from 41% in 2019 to 31% in 2020. For '21, as you mentioned, we expect our EBITDA margins to be around 34% at the midpoint. Over the long run, we anticipate reaching over 40% EBITDA margins. To summarize, we're not trying to maximize EBITDA at this point; we prioritize growth. But still, our G&A from day one was to be a profitable company with healthy margins.

Understood. I wanted to check if you could provide insights on the performance of Sonic versus Aura for the quarter, as I didn't see a breakdown between the two.

Yes. Bernie, this is Tomer. So Arnon, you can, of course, say a few words about Aura. Both Sonic and Aura have been growing very fast. Aura is around 12% to 13% of the total revenues. Aura has been growing at around 90% year-over-year and Sonic at around 81%. Arnon, do you want to say a few words about Aura?

Sure. I'm one of the founders, and I lead the Aura part of our platform. Yes, like Tomer said, the growth has been 90%, 91%. Again, the growth in Aura is really only capped by how fast telcos can adopt our various solutions. As you know, telcos move a bit slower than developers. We foresee significant growth for Aura in the coming quarters. It's important to note that Aura is a really unique value proposition for telcos. I believe we’re the only platform that provides an end-to-end solution for telcos to engage with their users throughout the life cycle of the device, from the moment the user opens that device until the moment that user is ready to trade that device in. So we're really helping telcos promote content, promote services, and effectively participate in the App Economy. We are also helping telcos with digital transformation and doing more outside of the store and on-device, whether it's trade-in or device protection and other services that we provide them. Of course, more is in development, which we will expose in future quarters. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Bhavan Suri from William Blair. Your line is now open.

This is Dylan on for Bhavan. Congrats on an excellent quarter here. I guess, first, I wanted to kind of touch on the data set around kind of the, I think, the maybe most recent number, kind of 2.5 billion monthly active users. And as we think about kind of maybe traction with apps and gaming, but also kind of outside of gaming, which is maybe historically not a market that's leveraged kind of in-app advertising in the past. But as we think about kind of the momentum here, you mentioned 10% of revenues. What are kind of the key drivers of this opportunity? And is there anything that could limit the value from a targeting perspective here as you look to drive further adoption across kind of both the gaming and non-gaming opportunity?

Sure. So I'll start. And Omer, please add if needed. So again, Dylan, as I previously said, the platform is built for the App Economy. We've built a solution to serve both game developers and other types of app developers along with telcos and other OEM providers. What we've shown is that if you use the full range of solutions within our platform, the complete solution suite, what you will see is a flywheel that will help you increase your business because we will assist you with everything, starting from user acquisition to monetization, to analytics, creative management, and more. These are all elements that every app developer needs. I think the case study was proven with game developers. Now we see other app developers and other verticals adopting some of the know-how, some of the techniques, some of what made game developers become so strong, and that segment is growing quickly. We are adapting the platform to also understand the needs of other app developers. Already today, a substantial revenue number is being generated by these activities, and we expect them to grow. We have taken all the know-how, all the knowledge, all the technology that we initially built to serve those game developers, and now it's being extended to other verticals. We see great initial results, and we plan to go very strongly after those verticals within the total business that ironSource is creating in the App Economy. The initial reactions from our customers have been very positive, so I'm very proud and feel great about the current results. I very much look forward to expanding and growing those verticals within the total business.

Yes. My name is Omer, one of the founders and the Chief Revenue Officer. As Tomer mentioned, our platform currently provides significant value for web developers, similar to what it offers game developers, helping them transform their applications into successful businesses. The growth we have observed, which constitutes about 10% of our revenues in Sonic, is largely driven by market education and sales, showcasing the high value of our existing platform. While we plan to introduce additional offerings in the future, there is already an exciting opportunity ahead.

And then maybe just kind of dig in as well. Could you kind of give us a sense of what the typical kind of customer adoption path looks like, seeing kind of strength in that enterprise customer cohort, but giving a sense of kind of where the initial land is, what's the path for expansion, clearly generating a lot of value for these app developers? Any kind of additional color you could provide us on the broader adoption path across the platform?

Sure. Tomer, shall I start?

Sure, sure.

Yes. It really depends on the type of customer. In the mobile games ecosystem, we have a strong brand, and most game developers approach us, whether independently or seeking our support. They primarily come to us, and while there are companies that rely on marketing and brand awareness, they require less day-to-day sales activity. For larger enterprise customers, the process involves a combination, mainly focused on onboarding. Consequently, our customer growth teams are much larger than our sales teams due to our strong market positioning. Being a preferred platform for game developers means they need to collaborate with us to fully realize their potential. For newer initiatives like EPS, which is one of our significant growth areas, we are utilizing more active sales and market education. Typically, our customers begin using our platform with one or two of our solutions. The specifics may vary based on their needs, and as our data shows, they really expand to utilize more of our products once they grasp the platform's capabilities. This drives our growth expansion rate and the metrics we've discussed.

Our next question comes from Mike Ng from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Great. Congratulations on the first quarter as a public company. I just have two. First, can you talk a little bit more about the strong dollar-based net expansion rate in the quarter? I know you mentioned some new products and solutions that helped drive that number. Are you seeing anything in terms of share gains because of IDFA, or any improved win rates that are helping that number? I have a good follow up.

Thank you, Mike. Tomer, I will start and maybe you can add, if needed. In the past two quarters, our dollar-based net expansion has been exceptionally high with 176% in Q1 and 181% in Q2. This increase was driven by new products and solutions launched over the course of 2020 that drove significant growth. We achieved 95% growth in revenue in the last 12 months. View to H1 of this year, in the past eight quarters, we averaged 149% within dollar-based net expansion. We expect our dollar-based net expansion to remain very healthy going forward, though it may derive from quarter to quarter. We expect it to normalize at our historical levels over the course of 2021. Our platform approach and land and expand model, together with our business model that's aligned with our customers and our very high gross retention rates of 99% in Q2 (also in Q1 this year) are the drivers for the strong dollar-based net expansion rates.

And I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about Sonic publishing. Obviously, Bridge Race and Join Clash, as you mentioned, are doing phenomenally well. Is there anything on the horizon in the Sonic publishing pipeline for the rest of the year that you're particularly excited about?

Sure, Mike. Omer, I’ll take this and please add again, if needed. So we launched Supersonic, our publishing solution within the Sonic solutions suite, with the aim to address the long tail of the category and serve smaller or very small indie developers. We fundamentally thought that if you, as a game developer, focus on creating great content, a great app, or a great game, you can rely on our platform. By doing so, you can win the charts. Again, Join Clash and Bridge Race are clear testaments to that narrative. But the Supersonic publishing solution is just one aspect of what we do on our platform. Again, we are focusing on providing a full platform for developers. They usually start working with us with one solution and expand as a subset. They land and expand with our platform, hence the very high net dollar-based expansion rate, which is a testament to that. They start, expand, and as they do so, they grow their business. As a result, we grow ours. We feel very strong about our platform going forward. We see a solid pipeline on both Supersonic and across the rest of the platform, which we believe will continue to grow, as evidenced by our current results and our capability to increase guidance for the next quarter and the rest of the year.

Our next question comes from Brent Thill from Jefferies. Brent, please go ahead.

Maybe anything you could call out from an international perspective. Was there any particular customers that came into the platform that were interesting to note? Or was this pretty balanced from a geographic perspective in terms of where you saw the business flow?

Sure. Putting aside for a second Samsung, which we announced our strategic partnership with them in Europe, I will let Arnon address that separately. Overall, our platform is very global. The nature of the App Economy is global. You can be a Tier 1 gaming company in the U.S., and our platform will serve you. We also will serve very small indie developers that can be located globally, and the platform will help them. By nature, it is very global. I would say the majority of the revenues are still coming from the U.S., but the number of customers and the companies and developers we serve is pretty global. With that, Arnon, if you want to say a few words about the strategic partnership with Samsung in Europe.

Sure, so yes, we have a strategic exclusive partnership with Samsung in Europe, again, on open-market devices and separating that from devices sold by telcos. We’re the exclusive provider for on-device engagement and monetization. This is the partnership we’re going to see growing and continuing hopefully in the years to come. We also have some very interesting Tier 1 telcos we’ve partnered with in Europe. Hopefully, I can announce them in the next quarter or two, which will drive significant growth for our European activity.

And maybe if you could provide just a little more color about what's been the most surprising thing to you from where you guys stand, that we can't see through the numbers. Are there one or two higher-level themes or interesting customer behavior data points that you would point to that we can all see through your financials?

I don't believe we can identify any surprises. The results, as you've seen, are the Q2 results and our increased guidance for Q3 and the remainder of the year, which follow our strong results in Q1 and the revised guidance for Q2 and the rest of the year. This aligns with our expectations and our view of the business. We are very mindful of how to best prepare for and adjust our model in light of potential IDFA changes. Initially, we and others in the industry thought these changes would have a significant impact in Q1, which did not materialize, and again in Q2, which also did not occur. However, we remain vigilant and are monitoring any potential short-term effects that have already been factored into our guidance for Q3 and the rest of the year. Overall, we are pleased to report that there have been no surprises thus far.

Our next question comes from Martin Yang from Oppenheimer & Co. Martin, please go ahead.

First one, can you maybe highlight the particular new products that really contributed to the near-term momentum in the net expansion rate?

So Martin, it's not necessarily one product or two products that were new that drove the increase in the net dollar-based expansion rate. It's across the platform. And that's the point of how we win, gain market share, and grow. All the products are connected. When one of our customers uses one of our products, they typically expand to other products because we help them improve their business. I cannot point to one product. But Omer, maybe you want to speak to in-app bidding and how we've completed that and how it impacts our growth going forward.

Yes, sure. So like Tomer said at the beginning, we have completed the shift of our Sonic monetization solution to working almost entirely through in-app bidding, which gives our customers a lot of advantages both regarding the revenue that can be generated. This is significant since our business model is revenue share. We are aligned with our partners. Also, it improves usability for them, as they can effectively manage all their monetization and automate what has been manual in the past, improving their overall operational effectiveness. These additions, the launch of new products in 2020, and the growth of our customers with us also contribute significantly to our net dollar-based expansion rate. Thus, all these factors have combined to drive the great success we are seeing with our customers.

My next question is about Sonic publishing. I'm just curious, if you have the ability to bring an indie game to the global top charts, wouldn't other, more established developers want the same thing for themselves? Maybe not moving their establishment to your publishing platform, but perhaps choosing to work with you for any new game they develop.

Tomer, shall I start?

Omer, please.

Yes. One of the core capabilities of our publishing product is the ability to predict based on a prototype, meaning based on a game before it's ready to complete, assessing its business viability or marketability potential. The way this works is that primarily in the developers’ submissions of their prototypes through our platform, which is all automated. Our platform evaluates the potential for that prototype to become a big business. Once we identify that this prototype has potential, it then moves into all our growth and monetization parts, and we maximize the scale. This really democratizes the ecosystem. The examples of success we showcase illustrate how small developer companies can create huge games and the advantages of leveraging the system to achieve success. When you connect to our platform, you're able to reach such scale levels. The difference for enterprise game companies is the automation. Our publishing product is the entire suite of our solutions but automated, which helps indie developers who often lack in-house expertise. The big customers, however, typically manage their own systems when working with us because they have the teams to do so. That provides the main distinction.

Got it. The predictability of the tool seems quite interesting. Is there any way to productize that in the future and make it available for the enterprise users, essentially for them to evaluate their own in-house production for potential success?

Yes, you're right; the value proposition is very high. It’s primarily used today for indie developers, but it can also be beneficial for larger game customers who want to evaluate the potential of their games being built in-house.

We only have time for one more question today. And so our final question comes from Bhavin Shah from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Congrats on the strong performance in the quarter. Very impressive 181% net retention rates. Maybe can you just help us understand how much of that is driven by stronger engagement with your current customers' properties versus some of your customers adopting more solutions such as creative management, analytics and publishing?

Most of the growth in ironSource comes from existing customers who constantly add. A typical customer will start engaging with our platform across one or two solutions and will then expand to adding more solutions, leading to very strong dollar-based retention rates. This, combined with the very high 99% gross retention, drives the excellent results. Our platform is characterized by this flywheel effect where when customers use multiple products and add more, it increases their total usage of the platform, making their business better while also growing ours through our revenue share model.

And just a quick follow-up. On the Aura side of things, I know you talked about Samsung in Germany and India. How should we think about the timelines of those kind of flowing through the financial model?

Yes, this is Arnon. We announced specifically the partnership with Samsung in Germany. However, we are working with Samsung exclusively across all of Europe, again on open-market devices, separating that from devices sold by telcos. Our exclusivity allows us to engage in monetization and on-device engagement effectively. This partnership will grow and continue hopefully over the coming years. More interestingly, we also have some Tier 1 telcos that we have partnered with in Europe, and we hope to announce them in the next quarter or two, which will drive significant growth for our European activity.

Great. Thank you all for dialing in today. I want to thank everyone for joining the call. We look forward to connecting with you over the coming weeks and hope everyone is continuing to stay safe and healthy during these times. Thank you.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. This now concludes today's conference call, and you may now all disconnect your lines.