Zedge, Inc. (AMEX:ZDGE) Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Allen Klee: Yes, that was very thorough. Just some updates on AI Art Master? Can you provide an update on that?

Jonathan Reich: Sure. So AI Art Master remains in soft launch. We made the decision to keep it in soft launch, while we are hard at work at unlocking the growth in the core GuruShots game and we continue to gather data. Our plan currently is that when we get to GuruShots’ trajectory in the direction that we believe will allow for this growth, that we will then refocus efforts and resources on AI Art Master. We just don’t want to spread ourselves so thinly that we’re not progressing the GuruShots game and that as we evolve, it will take time to launch this AI Art Master game as we iterate and so on and so forth. So focusing on getting one thing done really, really well and then progressing to the next thing which would be AI Art Master. AI Art Master now is at a point where we are able to monitor the data. That data is going to be exceptionally valuable in terms of helping guide what our future direction is with that game and how it evolves.

Allen Klee: And then I’m guessing a similar answer answered on the past call, you talked about potentially launching a hybrid casual game. Is that kind of in the same status or…

Jonathan Reich: AI Art Master is in that hybrid casual category. Those are not separate and distinct from one another.

Allen Klee: Okay, got it. Okay. And then a question on financials. The jump in SG&A for the quarter, is the way to look at that — to what degree do we think of that as like kind of that this is a seasonally strong quarter versus some of the other things you’ve talked about of perhaps paid acquisition or some of the new — well — and you brought on some more people. So I’m trying to get a sense of how much of it is maybe seasonal versus kind of a new run rate for SG&A?

Jonathan Reich: Sure. I would actually reframe that a little bit. SG&A includes marketing in it. So there are 2 components of that number. One is actual money that we have spent on paid user acquisition. And as I said in the past, in order to scale paid user acquisition, when looking at budgets, there’s going to be the steady state of this platform. This particular campaign works, we continue investing in it but there is obviously a ceiling there. And then, there is what we’ll call test budgets where you try a new platform, you try new creators and stuff like that. And some of that stuff works, some of that does not. You need both components in order to scale paid user acquisition. But then there is also the fee that we pay to whether it be Apple or Google when we bring on a subscriber or when a user makes an in-app purchase.

So those 2 components taken together contributed materially to the increase in SG&A. And the way I sort of look at it is, if we’re successful in growing our subscriber base, If we’re successful in generating more in-app purchases, SG&A goes up, that’s actually a good reason for SG&A to go up as opposed to we’re not managing our expense for infrastructure properly by way of contrast. Yi, do you have anything that you want to add to that?

Yi Tsai: Yes. I will only add, Allen, our SG&A remains quite stable and our net compensation expansion is actually in line with last year. So the order increase in SG&A, Jonathan mentioned, is in the marketing spend and also the platform we see. One of the downside when you rolled out lifetime subscriptions from Google Play’s point of view, this is one is done. So they treat as an in-app purchase. So we pay a 30% fee rather than a regular subscription which is at a 15% fee. So as a result, our platform fees went up by virtue of our rolling out lifetime subscription on [indiscernible].

Operator: This does conclude our question-and-answer session and the conference call. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.

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