Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:DLB) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Kevin Yeaman : Well, again, the — the basis for this foundational versus Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos and imaging patents is to help you understand the growth drivers. And our audio codecs and our audio patents are so pervasive across so many consumer devices and so essential to the entertainment content ecosystem that it is more — much more sensitive to the macro environment and what’s going on with consumer devices. And that’s why we set that apart from Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision, imaging patent, which aren’t immune to the macroeconomic environment, but are much more about getting on more of those devices that are shipping, getting more licensees on board.

Jim Goss : Okay. And the hardware side of the TV business has been very competitive. VIZIO has focused on a couple of sort of a units that have been growing more rapidly. And I’m wondering if, is that phenomenon, which I’m sure they’re not the only one doing that sort of thing coming out to be a help to you in terms of growing the Atmos and Vision type products royalty revenue stream?

Kevin Yeaman : Yes. Well, coming back to a comment I made a few minutes ago, with each of these ecosystems and I would look at the movies and TV content ecosystem for Dolby Vision Atmos as one that we have a lot of scale in terms of content and distribution. Music and auto is really coming along three of the top five streaming services, an increasing amount of content. And then user generated content with mobile devices we do — there’s pattern recognition here, because this is really our business model for a long time around ecosystems, new experiences, new technologies for getting the content to people, new devices. But fundamentally, we are about understanding what the creatives or the content creators, what’s going to help them tell a better story, bring out more motion in your content and then making sure that you can get that — wherever you like to get that content on every device you like to enjoy it on.

So when we get to a certain point in building an ecosystem, we develop a lot of confidence that we can get — that we can significantly increase our adoption in those areas. At that point, the rate of growth has a lot to do with which — when partners come on board, which models do they start with, how far they go in the lineup and that kind of — and I’m relating that to your point because, yes, VIZIO, along with Sony, those are examples of customers have taken us deep into their lineups. And so look, some have — there are different strategies. Some are reacting by looking for share and focusing across our lineups. Some are going to focus even more on premium. Over time, of course, our goal is to bring the Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision experience to everybody.

But when you’re in the mode that we’re in with Atmos Vision and imaging, the growth — where we are in that range and where we’ve grown even here has a lot to do with which models we’re getting on first, when those are launching and shipping and which ones turn out to be the top sellers.

Jim Goss : Okay. And one last one. I was wondering over what period of time you feel the Dolby.io revenues and profitability will become significant and would be more likely to pay attention to them in terms of that significance?