Earnings Labs

GigaMedia Limited (GIGM)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Oct 23, 2014

$1.46

-1.68%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+1.31%

1 Week

+22.62%

1 Month

+17.86%

vs S&P

+11.53%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Q3 2014 GigaMedia Limited Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today, Friday, 24 October 2014. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. Brad Miller, Investor Relations Director for GigaMedia Limited. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Bradley Miller

Analyst

Thank you. This is Brad Miller, Investor Relations Director of GigaMedia. Welcome to our conference call to discuss GigaMedia’s third quarter 2014 financial results. With me today is Collin Hwang, our CEO; and Dirk Chen, our CFO. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that a number of forward-looking statements will be made during this conference call. Forward-looking statements are any statements that are not historical facts. These forward-looking statements are based on the current expectations of GigaMedia and there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Because forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, GigaMedia’s actual results could differ materially from these statements. Information about factors that could cause, and in some cases have caused, such differences can be found in GigaMedia’s Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in April 2014. This presentation is being made on October 24, 2014, in Taiwan. The content of this presentation contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the time hereof. If any portion of this presentation is rebroadcast, retransmitted or redistributed at a later date, GigaMedia will not be reviewing or updating the material that is contained therein. After today’s prepared remarks, we will respond to questions that we’ve taken by e-mail and we'll also be taking live questions. With that, I would like to turn the call over now to our CEO, Collin Hwang.

Collin Hwang

Analyst

Hello everyone and thank you for joining us. Yesterday we announced our third Q results which included a forecast for solid double-digit quarter-to-quarter revenue growth, our strong business outlook in years. We have made great progress this year, rebuilding our games and cloud computing business. It has taken time and a great deal of work. Let me review where we now stand and where we are headed. First, online games. In online games, rebuilding is focused on: One, ending dependence on publishing games of other companies; two, creating a stronger portfolio; and three, scaling up. We began earlier this year to move our game business towards vertical integration, to build strong development, distribution and operating capabilities for games and services. Our focus has been on transforming our game business by establishing strongholds in upstream game development and publication and downstream licensing and distribution. [Our two of the strategy officer are driving this]. Dan Wu who has a lot of the expertise in building vertically integrated games operation from his experiences with Perfect World in China and Japan. Dan has been doing a great job retooling and also helping to rebuild our portfolio and to establish our identity regionally. Our short-term approach has been to license games from third parties. This has allowed us to quickly build our pipeline while carefully managing costs. We did not add any new games to our portfolio in third Q and as a result, revenue was flat. But in Q4 and first quarter next year, we have a busy launch schedule. More importantly, in line with our integration and expansion strategies, we have several key growth initiatives now, evolving that our longer terms are more promising. I will give a brief overview today. You will hear more about them going forward. First, new game development…

Bradley Miller

Analyst

Thanks, Collin. I have a few more details on our financials and operations to add. First, our third quarter gross margin was negatively impacted by game development expenses, totaling $925,000. This consisted of outsourcing expenses for the development by two Korean studios of three games. One is a mobile role-playing game appropriate for global cultures. The other two games are related and are much larger projects. First, there is a web-based first person shooter MMO game, with unique country designs and secondly, there is a mobile version of this game that shares the player’s data so that you can play seamlessly across platforms. GigaMedia has global rights for all three of those products. As Collin stated, total development cost for these three games is about 2.5 million. As of the third quarter, fees remaining to be paid for the games totaled about 1.6 million. We expect to record final payments for those games in the fourth quarter, the first quarter and the second quarter next year. Excluding those fees, our gross profit margin improved quarter over quarter. Second, our consolidated non-operating income in the third quarter reflected two items. We disposed of a portion of our marketable securities-current. This was sales of a part of our holdings of the Korean developer JoyCity. The disposal resulted in a gain of about 2.5 million. We also recorded an unrealized investment loss of 3.9 million. This was related to a decrease in market value of our holdings of the Taiwanese game company, Gamania. The negative net impact of the unrealized loss in the third quarter was about 1.4 million. Excluding the game development fees and the unrealized loss, third quarter net results were about breakeven with a net loss of $5000. Third, cash on our balance sheet for 3Q does not include about…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) I see that we have no questions on the line at this time.

Bradley Miller

Analyst

Okay, operator. We’ve received some questions via email. So at this point, we will just address the questions we’ve received by mail. Could you tell us more about your social casino projects? Is there a lot of competition? Basically with the social casino, in the beginning we are targeting Greater China where our platform serves as a distribution channel for international operators. We believe there is a big opportunity here. There is no Facebook in China. Social casino games generate about half of Facebook’s revenues. There is of course strong competition but we are confident that we have a strong group of affiliates that can deliver a large player band to us and we are offering premium content that is polished and has a real base in Macau field. Now we are focused on play-for-free social casino games. But the name free-to-play is a little misleading. Although you can play for free, under the freemium model, players can still buy for a number of things: a) for continued gameplay; b) for competition, c) self-expression and d) for gifting. What’s really interesting about free-to-play social casino is that it has strong appeal and monetizes very well, even though there is no real money gambling involved. Players usually do not have great patience to wait for free chips. They are willing to pay to play right away. Near misses are just as fun as wins. As long as the game is fun, basically players do not care if they win or lose. Moving to new levels can be more fun than winning real money with social casino games. Operator, are there any additional questions?

Operator

Operator

No, we have no question on the line at this time. (Operator Instructions)

Bradley Miller

Analyst

Okay. Operator, thanks very much. That’s all we have for today. For further information about GigaMedia or if you have questions and would like to contact the company, please visit our website at www.gigamedia.com. That concludes today’s call. Thank you again for joining us.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.