3/3/2022

speaker
Michael Morris
Analyst, Guggenheim

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter 2021 earnings call.

speaker
Adam Townsend
Chief Financial Officer

Joining me for today's discussion are William Wang, our founder and CEO, and Adam Townsend, our CFO. Also joining us for the Q&A portion of today's call is Michael Donald, our Chief Revenue and Strategic Growth Officer. Please note that in addition to our earnings release, a slide presentation can be found on our investor relations website at investors.visio.com. I'll refer you to the second slide in the presentation and remind you that certain statements made on this call are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements are discussed in more detail in our filings with the SEC and our press release that was issued this afternoon. We undertake no obligation to revise any statements to reflect changes that occur after this call. During the call, we also refer to non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA. Reconciliations with the most comparable GAAP measures for non-GAAP financial information discussed on this call can be found in our earnings release or in the investor section of our website. Note that all quarterly comparisons in today's remarks will be made on a year-over-year basis, unless otherwise specified. Now, I will turn the call over to William.

speaker
William Wang
Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Michael. And hello. Everyone, thank you for joining us today. This is the first time we get to discuss a year together. I'd like to take a few minutes to talk about some highlights on 2021, and then Adam will give more details on Q4 and full-year results. 2021 was a transformational year for Vizio. Our IPO was almost one year ago. And since then, we have continued to see success in the execution of our combined hardware and software strategies. We invest in talent and double in size from 400 to more than 800 employees, mostly in product and engineering expertise to accelerate innovations for our integrator, hardware, and software efficiency. While we continue to sell millions of connected devices to Americans, we also pack a lot of new programming and functionality into every TV to improve the experiences for our new and existing customers. And we grew a national sales organization that has strengthened our dual revenue business model. We accomplished all of this growth and innovation while maintaining a strong balance sheet and positive cash flow. Now, that is not easy. Such an achievement requires a tremendous amount of discipline and expertise. I want to thank our team for making this happen year after year. This year marks Vizio's 20th anniversary. We're continuing our history of delivering quality products and incredible value It is also our sixth year of owning both the hardware and software experiences and perfecting the relationship between the two. The value consumers get when they buy our products has never been greater. And I'm happy to say that we have maintained our market share position for full year 2021 as a top three smart TV brand. and the number one-selling soundbar brand in the U.S. Going into the holiday season, we focused our promotional efforts on the big screen and higher-end products that drive greater engagement and output, a strategy which paid off with strong shipments for TVs in the 50-inch and above class. Since these three levels have normalized, we are executing aggressive pricing strategies to increase demand and enhance our market position. And our products remain highly competitive in both quality and value. The combination of our dual revenue business model and a healthy inventory dynamics puts us in the position of competitive strength heading into 2022. And we intend to continue to leverage that strength and implement additional pricing tactics as we push to increase market share. We are excited to launch our new collection of devices, which went into mass production this week and will start hitting shelves in the spring. And our new collection is already earning awards. Virgil was named a CES Innovation Award winner by the Consumer Technology Association for the new product, including our N-Series Quantum X 4K HDR gaming smart TV, which delivers the highest frame rate available on a picture-perfect 15-inch screen for fast action play. The Vizio N-Series Elevate 5.1.2 soundbar, which is a sleeker, more affordable Elevate soundbar featuring patented, award-winning audio technology. and the latest version of our operating system, SmartCast, was recognized for improved user experience with new voice capabilities and the updated program guide. A world-winning product at a great value is what Vizio is all about. We have also improved our Watch 3 Plus service with the addition of over $5,000 of premium ABOT content partners, such as Disney, Lionsgate, Sony Pictures, and Samuel Gowen. And we'll continue to expand our free and premium ad-supported content options. Watch Free Plus is the second most watched ad-supported app on our SmartCast platform. Nearly 50% of all SmartCast users are watching Watch Free Plus. Our data system features channels are fast becoming favorites, and we recently added even more big-name apps like Discovery+, Sling TV, and a collection of apps on A&E networks. So while streamed content consumption continues to grow and the streaming world heats up, Lyft provides a front-row seat in content for everyone. Q4 was another quarter of rapid output growth, which continues to exceed even my expectations. The visual ad business had a tremendous 2021 and is now the key part of the ad ecosystem in the US. We significantly grew our relationship with agency customers and grew revenue from key ad categories, including insurance, retail, and auto. We expanded our offerings and relationships with media and entertainment companies that need Vizio to help drive subscriptions and tune in. As people move to streaming, brands need to find those audiences, and we are able to deliver them. And with our TVs as an anchor for brand experiences and viewing data, We are building our household connects, which allow us to sell ad experiences across other devices. We're also finding more opportunities for advertising to be part of the experience and introducing new kinds of advertising units and sponsorship opportunities. This creates more inventory for us to manage and better revenue optimization of our platform. A key differentiator for Livio is our data. Years ago, before streaming became a house of war, we made the investment to develop the best source of opt-in, glass-level, ACR data in the market. And the benefits of our data go beyond the enhancements to a richer content experience on our own screens. Granular TV viewing data is increasingly important to the $70 billion plus linear TV industry. And Vizio has 70 years of experience in producing market-leading, often black-level data at scale, just feeling a measurement revolution. Five out of the seven leading TV measurement companies are powered by video viewing data. When combined with streaming data, Vizio viewing data supports more effective advertising investments and strengthen the historically challenged TV measurement space. And I'm excited for the future of additional data monetization opportunities for our shareholders. In 2022, as our team celebrates Vizio's 20th year in the TV market, we're seeing the investments in a dual revenue stream and the strategic integration of hardware and software payoffs. We expect the experience, expertise, and the discipline that help us build a great company to propel us forward and to drive growth and the maintenance of a healthy balance sheet. We have lots of happy consumers that use our product at home and lots of happy partners that can use our data and advertising to grow their businesses. And as we head into our second year as a publicly traded company, we look forward to the next 20 years of delivering quality and value to consumers. With that, I will now turn the call over to Adam to speak to our fourth quarter 2021 results in more detail. Thank you.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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