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Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Platica Q4 2021 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the presentation, please press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you wish to redraw your question, please press the pound key. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I will now turn the call over to David Niederman, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.
David Niederman
Welcome to everyone, and thank you for joining us today for the fourth quarter of 2021 earnings call for Platica Holding Corp. I'd like to remind you that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements. Any such statements are not a guarantee of future performance, but rather are subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which are beyond our control. Any such forward-looking statements apply as of today, and you should not rely on them as representing our views in the future. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements after this call. For a more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties, please see our filings with the SEC. We've previously posted an accompanying slide deck to our investor relations website on February 24th, and we'll also post our prepared remarks immediately following the call. Finally, we would like to remind investors that we will not be providing any financial guidance on this call, nor will we be addressing the press release published February 24th, announcing that Platica's Board of Directors approved evaluating strategic alternatives for the company. We ask that participants on this call please restrict questions to topics regarding our fourth quarter and 2021 results. With that, I will now turn the call over to Craig Abrams, Platica's President and Chief Financial Officer.
Platica
Thank you to everyone joining our call today. We closed out 2021 with strong momentum across the company. In the fourth quarter, we grew revenue 13.2% year-over-year. This resulted in full-year revenue of 8.9% to $2.58 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $982.7 million, exceeding our prior guidance of $2.57 billion and $980 million, respectively. We achieved these results by steadily executing on our growth strategy and leveraging our industry-leading LiveOps capabilities to grow our core game portfolio. Our casual portfolio grew 22% with Solitaire Grand Harvest and Bingo Blitz leading the way with 56% and 22.4% growth respectively, demonstrating the power of our Boost technology and LiveOps platform to drive exceptional performance in our established games. While the casino portfolio was down 1.8% year-over-year, This decline came on the back of a very strong COVID-driven 12.2% increase in 2020. Across the two-year period, casino games grew at a 5% compounded annual growth rate. We ramped our expansion in new categories during 2021 with the acquisition of 80% of the equity of Reworks in August and the launch of Wooka's New Game Switchcraft in October, as well as ongoing development work on two additional new game launches. The first full quarter of revenue from Reworks' Redecor Design Entertainment application helped our casino portfolio generate more than 50% of our total revenue in the fourth quarter, a milestone that demonstrates our ability to deploy our boost technology and live ops approach across all game and entertainment genres. Turning to the fourth quarter, our revenue growth of 13.2% year-over-year was also a 2.1% sequential increase. The casual portfolio led the way, with year-over-year growth accelerating to nearly 31.5%. Our casual games comprised 51.8% of revenue in the quarter. Salter Grand Harvest remained our fastest growing game, with 60.1% growth as both DAU and ARPDAU continue to rise. The game's migration to Unity is tracking ahead of schedule, with its rollouts slated to begin later this month. June's Journey grew 36% year-over-year. Through the Boost platform, we launched multiple collectible album promotions, which resulted in June's Journey's strong performance and record increase in daily payer conversion. In the casino portfolio, revenue was down 2.4% year-over-year, with growth in Caesars Casino and World Series of Poker offset by declines in Slotomania and House of Fun. We were encouraged by the response we saw to new events and products in the World Series of Poker application, which drove monetization and, together with enhanced new user experience, led to a steady increase in DAUs in the quarter. and 7.3% revenue growth on a sequential basis. Caesars Casino also realized increases in conversion and ARPDAU as we launched new and improved events, helping the game grow 7.1% year-over-year, which is a strong milestone in a game that recently celebrated its 10th birthday. Now turning to our P&L, cost of goods as a percentage of revenue declined year-over-year from 30.3% to 28.2%. This shift was primarily driven by the percentage of revenue flowing through our proprietary direct-to-consumer platforms to 21.7% of revenue, up from 15.5% in the fourth quarter of 2020. Our direct-to-consumer platforms continue to be a competitive advantage and strong source of margin for Platica. I'd like to add a quick comment highlighting that we are now referring to our proprietary platforms as our direct-to-consumer platforms. While it's just a change in name, we felt it important and appropriate, as it better describes, what we've achieved, and more importantly, points to the future potential of this piece of the business. Regarding operating expenses, our R&D, sales and marketing, and G&A were all essentially in line with our expectations as we continued to add team members to support our future growth plans and invested in new user acquisitions and marketing campaigns. Gap net income was $102.3 million compared to $76 million in the prior year quarter, With the successful refinancing of our debt in March of 21, we significantly lowered our future cash interest costs. As such, we reduced the associated need to repatriate cash from our foreign subsidiaries, so we were able to reverse approximately $46 million in tax reserves to pay withholding taxes on future repatriated cash. Adjusted EBITDA was $212.5 million, representing a margin of 32.7%. This compares to $210.4 million and 36.7% in the fourth quarter of 2020. As of December 31st, we had approximately $1.1 billion in cash and cash equivalents and $1.7 billion in available liquidity to fund growth opportunities. With that, we'd be happy to take your questions. We ask that you limit your questions to the fourth quarter and full year 2021. Thank you.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question or a comment at this time, please press the star, then the one key on your touch-tone telephone. If your question has been answered and you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. Our first question comes from Matthew Coast with Morgan Stanley.
Matthew Coast
Hi, thanks for taking the question. Good, how are you doing? I appreciate you taking the question. So I guess for margins in 4Q, so it's in line certainly with the guidance that you gave at the 3Q, but definitely down year on year, down sequentially, understanding you're not providing guidance for 2022. you know, what were the drivers of kind of like the margins in 4Q? And should we expect as you mix more towards casual that, you know, margins will be more in kind of like the low 30s rather than the high 30s range going forward? And then I have a follow-up.
Platica
Thanks for the question, Matt. You know, as you mentioned, this was something that we had planned for in the fourth quarter. Obviously, with the execution in the fourth quarter, we exceeded our adjusted EBITDA guidance for the year. It was an investment quarter in growth, both in our people as well as in marketing and media expenses. There were several offline campaigns, several more than a typical quarter in the fourth quarter, which drove additional media expenses, both on production and media. So, you know, listen, investing in our people definitely is a differentiator for us in R&D. and in our technology. And so a lot of that showed up in the fourth quarter as we had planned. A lot of that media was especially in the fourth quarter, and I'm not sure that that necessarily set something for going forward, but we're not making comments on forward guidance.
Matthew Coast
Got it. That's helpful. And then just following up kind of along those lines, there was a comment in the press release about year-over-year CPI growth being up around 6% in 4Q. And I think your commentary on the prior two calls has been that it was stable. I guess I want to just get a sense, is that an acceleration in eCPI growth? And sort of what are you seeing in terms of the effectiveness of your advertising as we kind of stabilize a little bit post-IDFA?
Platica
Sure. So in the past, we'd given commentary sequentially, right, because people were focused on, given IDFA, you know, what was happening from a quarter-to-quarter basis. Obviously, with the holidays in the fourth quarter, sequential wasn't the right comparable, so we wanted to show year-over-year, which shows 5.8%, which we feel demonstrates our capabilities and everything that we've talked about in the past around our ad tech, our strategies around diversification of sources, leveraging offline campaigns. But I think as we really look at this new environment post-IDFA, it really highlights our capabilities, the fact that we are the best at live operations, the fact that we're able to have higher LTVs than anyone else within our genres, and that gives us a competitive advantage in marketing, regardless of the landscape. And this has, in many ways, leveled the playing field and given us an advantage around live ops. And so... I think that's really why we gave that guidance, and obviously we'll continue to execute quarter to quarter, and as you can see by the results in the fourth quarter, it clearly validates our strategy. Great. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from Eric Handler with MKM Partners.
Eric Handler
Good morning, and thanks for the question. I wondered if you could talk a little bit about the ramp of switchcraft and how that's doing relative to your expectations.
Platica
Sure. Thanks for the question. I think it's still too early to tell. Obviously, you know, it's a unique offering. It won the Google Pick Up and Play Award. There's definitely opportunity for us to further optimize it before we put meaningful marketing dollars behind it. And so, you know, it's part of a larger strategy with a slate of titles that we plan to bring to the marketplace. And so, you know, I think we'll obviously update when there's a material update, but as of now, continue to optimize.
Eric Handler
Okay. And then As a follow-up, last quarter's call, you talked about infrastructure investments that were being made in Squadamania and Bingo Blitz. Bingo Blitz didn't seem to have any negative impact from these investments. I'm wondering if you could talk about where you are with these games in terms of how much longer the investment process will continue.
Platica
Sure. So I think the highlight around infrastructure investments was pretty unique to the third quarter. You know, a title like Salter, Grand Harvest, we made commentary that that's still undergoing a transition that will go through end of March. But with that, you know, we flashed January numbers to really highlight the strength of the portfolio and execution. And we're really past that situation we had, which was pretty unique in the third quarter, where we had a lot of infrastructure overlapping at the same time.
Eric Handler
Great. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from Colin Sebastian with Baird.
Colin Sebastian
Thanks. Good morning, Craig. A couple questions for me. I guess first off, a little more detail maybe on what's driving the increase in pair conversion in ARPDAU. I know denominator, enumerator, you know, are maybe moving in different directions there. And then also just the Eastern European studios, I think Ukraine and Belarus, you know, any disruptions expected from from those operations would be helpful to know. Thank you.
Platica
Sure. So let's start with Ukraine, given just the importance there in terms of what's happening, and our hearts definitely go out to the people of Ukraine. Obviously, the dynamic situation that we monitor in real time, the most important thing to us is the safety and well-being of our employees. Our thoughts and prayers are obviously with them. We continue to work on being in touch and ensuring their well-being. We've taken steps over the last few quarters to really geographically diversify ourselves across Eastern Europe and have implemented business continuity plans. In the immediate term, there's been no material disruption to our operations. Obviously, it's a dynamic situation, but it has not affected business ops to this point. In terms of your question on conversion to head back, obviously, you know, January was also continued execution up to 330,000 daily paying users. And, you know, in light of, you know, Dow being pretty consistent, conversion continues to get driven higher. You know, it's really a testament to the technology of the Boost platform and how the teams across the various studios across the company are leveraging Boost. to really drive, you know, monetization and conversion features to really deeply engage our players on a personalized basis. And I think, you know, that kind of growth really highlights the differentiator between us and other competitors in the marketplace.
Operator
Thanks, Craig.
Platica
Thanks, Colin.
Operator
Our next question comes from Steven Ju with Credit Suisse.
Steven Ju
Okay, thank you. So it might be a bit early, but now that eDecor is part of the portfolio, is there anything you've learned from operating an app that's sitting slightly outside what you have been doing historically? And, you know, at the time of the acquisition, it also sounded like there's probably a greater opportunity to generate ad revenue there, given the exposure to the home decor category. So overall, you know, how is operating this asset going? the same, and how is it different versus what you historically have been doing? Thanks.
Platica
Hi, Stephen. Thanks for the question. Obviously, we're still big believers in the gamification of entertainment applications beyond traditional games. Redecor came in at $32.4 million in the quarter, ahead of our public guidance of $30 million, so it really demonstrates our ability to execute and gives us confidence towards being able to execute around gamifying applications. The integration is ongoing and underway, and everything is on track in terms of our thesis around entering this category. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from Drew Crum with Stifel. Okay, thanks.
Drew Crum
Hey, guys, good morning. Last quarter, guys, you talked about board kings and some changes that were being made with the management team there. Any updates you can provide in terms of what you saw in 4Q? And I know you're not commenting on 22, but historically, how has January performed relative to December? You know, the metrics that you provided in the press release suggested sequential uptick month to month. Is that in line with or typically what do you see historically month to month? Excellent.
Platica
Sure. Hi, Drew. Thanks for the question. Last quarter, we highlighted two games that had either delays or management changes. World Series of Poker was first. Obviously, that game clearly had a great quarter and executed up over 7% sequentially, and things are strong there. January was the best month in World Series of Poker history. So clear execution as well, trending into 22. Board Kings is also stabilized. You know, revenue for the year was up 13%, and we're excited for what that team can do. And so, yeah, I think that in terms of that, you know, strong execution by the teams. As we look at January, you know, if I look at just last year, first year public company, you know, Q1 was also pretty strong as we had predicted. had a strong roadmap in that quarter, and I think we previewed last quarter as we talked about a strong roadmap in Q1, and so January obviously demonstrates that.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Betia Levy with UBS.
Betia Levy
Great, thank you. Can you also provide the maybe margin contribution of reworks in the quarter? And I think last time you spoke, you had mentioned that marketing expense will ramp. So are we seeing that through the first quarter, or is there a little bit of a slowdown now? And maybe a final question on any change in incentive compensation plans towards the end of the year?
Platica
Sure. Thank you for the question. So in terms of reworks, we don't break out margin contribution. We're not giving guidance on that on a go-forward basis. And we're not commenting on 21 guidance. In terms of incentive plans, there's nothing that's changed in 21 versus then what's happening here in 22.
Betia Levy
Okay, thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from Michael Eng with Goldman Sachs.
Michael Eng
Hey, good morning. Thank you very much for the question. I was just wondering if I could follow up on the question on payer conversion. Were there any particular games that did particularly well in terms of increasing payer conversion? Obviously, really strong numbers in the fourth quarter ended in January. or any elements of the Boost platform that you would call out that really help with that payer number? Thank you.
Platica
Sure. So, you know, I think one of our core theses around initially entering casual games is the ability to take our know-how to other new genres. And it's clear you see by the growth across the casual portfolio that we're firing on all cylinders in terms of how we're executing. and that's driving continued payer growth and monetization increases, which is driving that top-line number. And then saw that continue into January as well at the start of the year. So I think there's no specific game call-outs, I would say, other than the casual performance is really driving those metrics. Great. That's helpful. Thanks, Craig.
Operator
Our next question comes from Aaron Lee with Macquarie.
Aaron Lee
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I want to click on marketing for a second. I think one of your strengths historically has been the variety of media sources you buy from as well as the offline campaigns that you guys do. You guys call that on the quarter, and I think you had the billboard in Times Square recently. Have you noticed the cost of those offline campaigns increasing perhaps as other companies look for ways to get around IDFA or haven't those remained pretty stable as well?
Platica
Sure. So for us, I think it's a media mix that's shifting in terms of how we diversify our sources. Obviously, in the fourth quarter, we had some of the larger campaigns. We had John Goodman with Slotomania, Ty Pennington with Caesars Casino, Penn & Teller with House of Fun, doing things on television with World Series of Poker, Dr. Phil with Bingo Blitz and Salt and Green Harvest. And so you saw a lot of offline campaigns in the quarter and a bit of a mix shift. But I think you'll see the benefits from that on a go-forward basis as those brands get built. And we continue to see those benefits over time versus performance marketing. It's more directly in the quarter. So I think some of those benefits get a bit delayed from when the spend happens, but it's more of a mix shift rather than a broad increase.
Aaron Lee
Got it. Okay. As a follow-up, DPUs were up in the fourth quarter, which is great and encouraging to see it taking another positive step in January. Your prepared remarks, it seems like 4Q trends were mainly on the casual side. Was it the same story in the January numbers you gave, or were the gains more broad-based across your portfolio?
Platica
Sure. So I would say for January, it's pretty consistent with the execution we had in the fourth quarter.
Aaron Lee
Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from Clark Lampin with BTIG.
Clark Lampin
Thanks a lot. Good morning. Two quick ones for me. First, was any of the fixed cost growth that we saw in the fourth quarter related to some of the initiatives that you guys had talked about with building out in new categories like fashion or auto? And then second, on the marketing side, this might be a little bit too micro, but how important, you know, as you guys have been shifting budget mix around, how important has a channel like TikTok become? And if it is, you know, sort of rising as a percentage of the mix, what are you seeing there conversion-wise? Thanks a lot.
Platica
Sure. Thanks for the question. So in terms of reworks, obviously we were ramping up integration efforts and staffing up there. really for execution around design entertainment. As of now, obviously, we have grander visions for other genres going forward, but the focus right now is integration and growth of Redecor. In terms of marketing channels, obviously, we're diversifying. We're using a variety of influencers and other new channels as well, but we don't comment on specific performance for any given category. Obviously, it's competitively sensitive.
Clark Lampin
Understood. Thanks.
Operator
And I'm not showing any further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back to Craig for any closing remarks.
Platica
Thank you, everyone, for listening in, and we'll talk soon. Thank you.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's presentation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.
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