10/29/2021

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Good morning. Welcome everyone to the presentation of the evolution's interim report for the third quarter of 2021. My name is Martin Karlsson and I'm the CEO of evolution. With me I also have our CFO, Jacob Kaplan. As usual, I will start with some comments on our performance this quarter. I will then hand over to Jacob for a closer look of our financials. And after that, I'll round off our presentation with an outlook for the rest of the year. And then we'll have the questions. Next slide, please. I'm very satisfied to report consistently strong results for the third quarter. Our investment in new games and studios are having an increasingly strong impact, which is reflected in both the high growth as well as the stronger margins. It has been another hectic quarter where much of our focus has been about investing and building capacity for the future. We see a continuous increase in demand for our products, which means that we must expand in existing studios and build new ones to keep up with that demand. The growth is a natural part of our business and you will never see us slow down even if the pandemic still continues to somewhat impact the pace of our expansion plans. We've launched and are rolling out our one-stop shop, enabling a truly global reach of evolution's casino product. This is a true masterpiece created in a short time with OSS, all our operators will reach all our content through one seamless back end and integration. This will enable a much faster rollout of new products, faster regulatory adjustment and a global reach for all products. At the same time, also making it easier for operators to access and handle all products. In the third quarter, we launched our studio in Michigan, evolution's 11th largest in the studio worldwide. And we are now in rapid expansion phase with both new products as well as volume. After the end of the third, we launched RNG games in Connecticut with live games to follow soon. We are now building our fourth US studio in Connecticut and look forward to an as soon as possible launch. Since yesterday, we're also live in newly regulated Canadian Ontario market, live in the Canadian Ontario market after a successful launch together with the Ontario Lottery Gaming Corporation, OLG. The Ontario market is exciting and with a population of close to 50 million people, surpasses the size of any US state where I gaming is regulated. Currently, this market is only open for OLG at the state lottery, but in December, the commercial market is planned to open and we're already working with operators who plan to obtain a commercial license. The North American market is developing rapidly and I'm proud and excited to further expand our North American footprint. That being said, we are confident that there will be more North American state that will follow. We're prepared to move quickly. I would also like to comment the newly regulated Dutch market as opened on the 1st of October. We went live with the Netherlands Lottery as well as several other operators that got one of the first 10 licenses. However, some of evolution's largest customers in the Dutch market did not get one of the initial licenses and have to wait until 2022 to get one. We of course very much look forward to add also those as soon as possible. The opening of the market was stronger than expected and we see a very limited negative effect of less than 1% during Q4 and in the long term we see the Netherlands as a growth catalyst in Europe. As I stated before, the demand of our products is truly global and we're expanding our studio capacity everywhere. Right now we're building new studios in Spain and Armenia as well as expanding essentially in all existing locations. This quarter was the first one with big time gaming consolidated. Our long time ambition is to become a world leading provider of online casino as you know and we have a high expectation that BTG will be an important piece to shape that ambition. Now let's move to the coming slides and see the effect on the numbers and the products of all our efforts. Operator, next slide please. In the third quarter we continued the momentum from the first half of the year with a strong development. Revenues increased 97% to 276 million euro. BTG increased by 130% to almost 193 million euro corresponding to record margin of .9% exceeding our guidance for the year. Like the single delivery growth of 53% compared to Q3 last year, albeit the lower growth than previous two quarters, it still exceeds all the quarters during 2020. RNG revenue now including BTG in the quarter amounted to 61.5 million euro with a growth of .8% compared to the combined revenue of Nesk and BTG during Q3 2020. At that time not part of evolution. If I isolate our Nesk and BTG brands, growth is about 3% or not higher compared to Q3 2020. It is in line with our base expectations, however we do have a higher expectation for the growth going forward for these two brands. We are in the process of reshaping our RNG roadmap which have led to fewer new releases this year which in turn has had an effect on the growth. In addition to that we have rebuilt the technical platform Nesk and BTG of order dimension which will have a positive effect going forward. Albeit fewer new net mentality so far this year, the ones that we have launched which is much more important have been embraced well by the players and a strong contribution to the result. The lineup of coming slots 2022 is strong and I look forward to see the performance within this vertical as we move forward. All in all fantastic numbers and I'm very pleased with our financial performance in the third quarter and we're off to strong start of Q4 and definitely well placed to deliver strong finish of the year. And as always we will end this list thank for our market share and continue to widen the gap to competitors. Next slide please. That's supposed to be seen as an indicator for the activity in the live network, the evolution live games. The number of batch spots from the end user amounted to 18.1 billion and increase from last quarter with .3% and compared to the same period last year growth by 40%. Increase in our volume that you can see in the increase of batch spots every quarter is a result of that we have been able to attract new players and at the same time been able to keep the players we already have. While it's important for us to keep the players that we already have we are almost obsessed with the players that we don't have. That is why we have to continue to innovate, always refine the playing experience and be the leader that develops new groundbreaking products for the future. Every year we have to develop totally new games that can attract completely new groups of players. Next slide please. Expanding our studio capacity means that we need to need a very high recruiting pace. In the quarter we recruit we hired almost 1000 new employees.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

The

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

increase in staff year on year amounts to almost 5000 people corresponding to an increase of 66%. At the end of the quarter we were over 12,000 evolutionaries and we have to continue to increase headcount to support our rapid expansion. Recruitment is one of our key processes especially in new markets where our company and products are not always well known. Because of that we have to show that we are one of the best companies to work for and that we take care of our employees and that everybody that steps into the studio office or engineering have feel that they are seen and they are appreciated. Evolution is about working as a team and the success of the company depends on everybody's contribution. Everybody should feel that they are an important cog in the evolutionary machinery regardless of where they are placed or what they do. Since the pandemic is still not over yet I would once again stress that our main priorities are to minimize the risk of spreading the virus and to create a safe workplace for our employees as well as to maintain the operations of our operate for our operators. We follow all the requirements of the authorities in countries where we operate but in many cases we have taken more far-reaching own actions. The well-being of our employees is of course the well-being of evolution. I'm very proud of all our employees that make this fantastic company and it's important to me that the people in the companies that we recently acquired feel that they are welcomed and that they are appreciated. Next slide please. Our R&G vertical amounted to .3% of the total revenue in the third quarter. It is at similar level to previous quarters and as mentioned earlier our growth is higher in live casino but in Q3 we also added the DTG for the first time. Big time gaining further strengthens our already world class slot offering and IT. We've lost fewer slots this year which I mentioned compared to what Netlant did historically but the ones that we've launched have been successful and well received by players. An example of that is Starburst Extreme, the new slot title based on the iconic Starburst slot game. With the addition of brands such as Netlant, Red Tiger and Big Time Gaming, evolution has become a powerhouse that now offers incredible array of -in-class solutions for operators and their player across live casino, R&G table games and slots, not to mention a new generation of live online game shows. There is no doubt that we are the most innovative developers of live casino but we still have to prove ourselves in R&G. That's why we are, it's so rewarding that we at the EGRB2B awards won the Innovation in R&G Casino Software Award for our first person range of R&G based table games. Netlant and Red Tiger were also joint winners of the Innovation in R&G Soft Provision Award for the collaborative development of Gonzo's Quest Negaways among other games. Next slide please. Innovation and the best games will always revolution. We continue to innovate substantially and have a refined experience and user focus as always. In the quarter we have continued to expand our range of immersion and engaging game shows with the launch of Casual Crash, an exciting ball drawing game. The game allows the player to make choices during the game with enhanced play control of the outcome. Casual Crash is due to an even broader spectrum of players. Games that give more decision making for players is something you will see more of during 2022. Another launch is the quarter was the Tantan, a classic Asian favorite that has traveled the world and is now set to join the Evolution live casino lineup. In the quarter we have also announced that we have acquired DigiWheel, the developers of the world's first HD spinning gaming wheels. The deal will further strengthen our online gaming portfolio with DigiWheel's unique and innovative digital technology being blended into our online live casino games and game shows during 2022. In the fourth quarter we will launch Golden Well Baccarat. It's very similar to Lightning Baccarat but the luckier version offering more frequent wins. Another launch I look forward to is Lightning and Electrifying Blackjack with enhanced play outs which is launching in November. The game is a unique blend of a scalable blackjack and add lightning multipliers. In addition to new game launches an important aspect of our product development is to constantly enhance user interfaces. In the quarter we have implemented a new zooming feature to our blackjack that enables the player to clearly see the real cards belt with an increase which increases the playing experience. With technical innovations coming rapidly, continuous improvements and existing games it's essential in securing long-term quality and keeping the games up to date. Now we are currently in full preparation for the roadmap of 2022. Developing is going on in full speed and I can assure you it looks very good. I'm very excited 2022 will be a year of innovation and product development. Come to ICE 2022 and have a look. Operators, operator please next slide. This slide shows a breakdown of our revenue by geographic region. We see very good growth year on year in all our geographical markets and it's evident that demand is truly global. The Nordic in ICE ups about 10% of total revenue. It's very rewarding to see the growth of 18% from the second quarter. The growth year on year can to large extent be attributed to Netnet which has a strong position in the Nordics. UK is about the same size as the Nordics. Netnet and the Tiger games have contributed significantly to the increase compared to the same quarter 2020. The rest of Europe is about 37% of the total so together with UK and Nordics about 51% of revenues come from Europe. Compared to previous year all the regions in Europe show good growth but compared to the second quarter both UK and rest of Europe are slightly lower while Nordics show an increase. I received many questions on the effects of for us of societies opening up the COVID and it's difficult to say anything decisive on this topic. In Europe where many countries have started to open during the quarter the picture is mixed and as you can see with UK and the Nordic both societies have reopened moving in different direction compared to Q2. As you've seen during the past year Asia and North America have grown very fast with the year on year growth amounted to 120 and 246 respectively. We see good potential in both these markets and expect to continue high growth rate going forward particularly as we see still our small actor in Asia and with more and more states regulating our products in the US. After including South America and Africa and the remaining part of the world shows good growth of almost 70% year on year. Revenues from regulated markets constitutes about 38% of revenues and now I will pass over to Jacob who will speak more about financial defects.

speaker
Jacob Kaplan
CFO

Thank you Martin and good morning to all of you listening. We'll now move on to a couple of slides for the closer look at financial development during the period. I'm on slide number nine. So as you heard earlier revenue amounts to 276 million in the third quarter that is made up of 214.5 million related to our live casino product and 61.5 million from our RNG games. Live casino continues to develop really well growth in this quarter compared to the third quarter of 2020 is 53%. This actually exceeds the pre-pandemic growth rates from 2019. It's great to see that many of the new players from the past year are staying on the network. Our RNG business consists mainly of two acquired businesses NetEnt which was consolidated from December 2020 and Big Time Gaming which is consolidated for the first time in this quarter. This quarter our RNG revenue is 61.5 it's a .9% increase if I compare to the performer numbers of NetEnt and BTG in Q3 2020. They were not part of the evolution group. Big Time Gaming adds just over 10 million 10.6 million to revenue in this quarter and isolate it. It has a growth rate of over 35% compared to its corresponding quarter in 2020. The growth comes both from the continued success of the megawave game mechanic as well as increased volume of play on the BTG games. Consequently the remainder and the larger part of our RNG business relates to our NetEnt and Red Tiger brands. Smart and mentioned earlier performer growth for those brands compared to the same period 2020 is just over 3%. Also as we talked about earlier today and also in previous quarters it is worth pointing out that we have made a large restructuring of our RNG business during the year both on the product side where the roadmap has been reworked and also on the technical side where the infrastructure has been been rebuilt. The side effect of this restructuring is that there are fewer NetEnt games released this year and the games that have released overall have been very strong but it adds up to 3% growth. So while in line with our expectations and plans we do have an ambition to increase growth in RNG during next year. EPPA for the quarter amounts to 192.9 million euro and an EPPA margin of .9% in the quarter. Again this is a quarter with very strong margin. I have to admit it exceeds my own expectation from just three months ago and the guidance we gave in connection with the second quarter report. As most of you know by now we prioritize top line growth and while we do give guidance on margin we don't steer to specifically achieve it. We are in a period of heavy expansion and we continue to invest in add tables in the fourth quarter as fast as we can. This can have an effect on margin in the short term but overall margin looks good. I refrain from guessing on the margin this time and I'll leave it at concluding that we are at .7% margin year to date and we will exceed our guidance of 68% for the year. All right let's move on to the next slide please. This has the P&L in a bit more detail. Going through from the top we have live revenue again 214 million euro comparable to 140 million euro reported in the third quarter of 2020. So organic growth is 3% and the RNG revenue is 61.5 million and like explained on the previous slide this was not part of the group in Q3. So on this slide you see no performer figures for 2020. Total revenue 276 million increase of about 97% compared to reported revenue of the third quarter 2020 and looking at the -to-date figures revenue amounts to 768 million euro. It's an increase of 100% where of 166 million euros and it's through acquisitions. So you could say organic growth is 57% for the first nine months of this year. Moving down to expenses, personal expenses amounts to 51.5 million euro. An increase of 20 million euro compared to the same period last year. It includes increase in staff in I would say all our teams commercial operations, engineering, business support compared to last year. Appreciations amounts to almost 20 million euro including 11.5 million euro in amortization of intangibles related to acquisitions of net and now also then big time gaming which adds about one and a half million in the quarter. Other operating expenses include items such as consumable equipment, communication costs, consultants, raw entities and this line amounts to 31.5 million euro in the quarter. Summing up the total operating expenses total 104 million, an increase of 84% compared to the previous two years of the same period last year and that brings us to operating profit of 171, almost 72 million. Tax is at almost 12 million in the quarter for a tax rate of 7%. It's about 1% higher than previously this year. Then all of this brings us to a profit for the three-month period of 157 million euro equaling an earnings per share of 71 euro cents per share for the quarter, a 66% increase compared to the same quarter last year. For the rolling 12-month period EPS is 2 euro and 39 cents per share. Let's go to the next slide. Before I hand back to Martin look at cash flow and financial position. So we start to the left in the slide development of capital expenditure. The gray part of the bars represent investment in tangible assets. Mainly this relates to our studio constructions. It's up a bit in the quarter just over 3.7 million, 7.3 million euro in the quarter. Martin commented earlier on our plans for new studios and also the continued investment in current studios. Ongoing projects include Spain and Armenia as mentioned earlier as well as the fourth US studio in Connecticut. And in addition I would say we're expanding in almost all current locations. So a very hectic period that's behind us but also in front of us. The blue part of the bar is investment in intangible assets and it's related to the development of new games and features to the platform. It's 5.3 million euro in the quarter. Up a bit compared to the same quarter 2020 but now of course also includes the development of NetDentro Tiger and BTG games. Year to date capital expenditure total 39 million. So our run rate is a lot lower than our estimated capex for the full year of approximately 60 million euro. We are in the busy period as mentioned but I think might not reach all the way to 60 million euro this year but there will be continued high investment pay source in the fourth quarter. Moving on to the middle of the slide, we show operating cash flow. Cash flow very strong in the quarter over 180 million. Increase from the second quarter is due to both operating profit increasing, some improvement in tax receivable from Malta. So cash conversion percentage relatively stable just under 80% for the 12 month rolling number. And then finally to the far right in the slide, a quick look at the balance sheet. We have added Big Time Gaming in this quarter which affects Goodwill with about 400 million euro. In this table Goodwill is included in the non-current assets and also there's an increase in non-current liabilities also related to the BTG acquisition if there's an earn out component to that deal. Those were my prepared comments. I'll stop here I'll hand back to you Martin for some closing words and we'll take questions after that.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Thank you very much Joakim Jacob. A few words to conclude this report presentation. I already mentioned ISE 2022 and we're in full focus and full speed to prepare right now. At ISE we will release a record number of new innovative products and we will also release a record number of new games 2022 in total. It will be a year of product and innovation with the potential of global releases through OSS. This would be all possible because of the fantastic persons in evolution and the teamwork between all of you. This is when we display why we can pride ourselves on delivering an exceptional and flawless player experience. It is where we show what makes us unique and how we own up to our name evolution. ISE 2022 will also mark the first time where all six products brands of our group will come together under one roof to meet the industry. Very exciting. In October we launched in Michigan. We were first to the market in Connecticut and yesterday we went live with the Ontario Lottery. It's hectic times to as I started this presentation with. But remember, demand of our product is global phenomenon and we need to invest in products and studio capacity in order to reach all corners of the world and we have to stay on our toes and never be laid back and content in order to keep increasing distance to our competitors. Ever so far paranoid, trying to run faster every single day, do something better today than yesterday. Constant focus on end user satisfaction. Thank you all for listening and we'll speak again in a couple of months. Now let's move to questions please. Thank you. Ladies

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please dial 01 on your telephone keypad.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

We have a first question from Ed Young from Morgan please

speaker
Ed Young
Morgan Representative

go ahead. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got three if that's okay. My first one's on RNG, so the smaller of your businesses. Can you talk perhaps a little bit about the strategy there? It seems like there's been, if I could characterize it, I don't know if it's fair to say this sort of pivot towards quantity from quantity. That's sort of been at the heart of what your roadmap said, but it also feels like you've made choices between pace of rollouts and also investing in things like the OSS platform and trying to change that roadmap. If we went back to the time that deal completed, is there anything you would look to do differently? I mean, obviously, as Jacob reminded us, you always prioritize growth over margin. So do you think that business should have had more investment to keep the pace of releases going or are you still convinced it's the right track? And how should we think about the evolution, no pun intended, the sort of trajectory of RNG growth Q4 and into next year as the OSS benefit comes through? That's my first question. Thanks.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

There's no limitations to the investments so that we could go back and invest more and get it faster. To get the OSS, to rebuild the complete platform and get everything in one core, that's like done in a phenomenal place. It's not related. It's hard core brain power to get that out and it's not related to investment money. So that's just fantastic. The focus of end user satisfaction is always there. It has to be there for slots. It has to be there for life. We need to make the best games on the market. That's why we revamped, rent changed and modernized slots for also 2021. And to do that is of course hard work, but it's also about not money only, it's about actually finding out what to do. And I'm very happy with the position we are with the Samsung's release.

speaker
Ed Young
Morgan Representative

Okay, thank you. The second one on geographical growth. As you said, there's no clear picture Nordics in the UK representing different different parts on the same news, but in general terms, Europe, it grew, I think 1% quarter on quarter, but we're still sort of down quarter on quarter in both the UK and the rest of Europe. And equally North America, very good growth, obviously year on year, still very good growth quarter on quarter. But I wondered if you could perhaps give a bit more color on those two geographies, in particular North America, how we should think about the ramp up in Michigan. You said it's been very successful, it still feels like it's very early days there. So how should we think about where you are now versus where you might be over the coming quarters and and equally, I guess, how quickly the phasing might be in both Canada and Connecticut when they're up and running? Thanks.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

There's

speaker
Ed Young
Morgan Representative

a lot of

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

small questions inside that. I mean, I can pick a few things. Just I mean, Ontario market, it will just look at that. It will commercialize somewhere in December, maybe it will become later depends on how fast operators and regulators are. But I mean, that's 15 million persons on a size space, but it's larger than any other state for casino regulated in the US. So it's a good market. It's phenomenal. It's really great. So we're still behind when it comes to supplying to the markets. We're still in a ramp up phase in essentially. And you hear that all over we're expanding in all different bases at full speed, no limitations to money. It's about actually getting people to do together what we need to get done. So we're 12,000 people. It's really a massive work. So we see phenomenal potential in the future. When it comes to new states in the US, no one actually knows exactly when it happens. But we know it will happen. It's just a matter of time. Europe, we have all different flavors of it. There's a risk in regulated markets, as I often point out, due to regulators come to adjust. And we've seen that in the UK, a little bit of pressure on the market. We now see that the Netherlands regulating finally. They announced it like four or five years ago, and now it's actually happening. We go live with these 10 operators that have got license, or most of them, and we're really happy with that. And it takes off strong. And we see limited effect and look forward to less than a percent. And we really look forward to get the old customers back as well during 2022. But also good. But Germany, of course, puts pressure on the market. They don't really regulate clearly. Europe, in a more regulated phase, but still great potential. US, of course, depending on when the state comes, full speed forward, the demand. Canada's really good, comes on. Asia, we're still a small player, phenomenal market, huge amounts of people. And Latin America and Africa, we talk about this. That's something for the future. But we are there. We're starting to focus on that.

speaker
Ed Young
Morgan Representative

Thank you. The final question, I'll try and ask a cleaner single question than the last two. Can you just talk a little bit about how the impact of game performance, the new games, rather, impacts growth? So I think it's fair to say a lot of the growth through the summer, there have been some game releases, but it's been very, it feels like, Q3 into Q4 weighted in terms of some of your big releases like Cache Crash or Lightning Blackjack or some of the Asian games. So you sort of conceptually, what does that do? Does that bring new players to life? Does it create a halo effect over the whole thing? Does it help operators, market evolution games more within their websites? Can you talk a little bit about the kind of impact you expect that to have on Q4 and going forwards in general terms?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

It's also a rather wide question, but we're very happy with the release of the game force in live. We look forward to a year of product and innovation, even increasing the speed 2022. I think that the message that you should take with you is that the market and the end user doesn't stand still. They are moving. They are doing differently today than five years ago. There are new products out there, TikTok and Snapchat and everything is moving. And to take that market, we need to be on our toes and we need to get that level of engagement. And I think that that's some kind of learning to everyone. We all in this line of business need to innovate, focus on entertainment and get that. And I think that we are, and I'm happy with the releases 2021, but I even more so look forward to 2022. Okay, thank you very much.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Thank you. We have a next question from Marvin Barnick from Pareto Security. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning, Martin and Jacob. A couple of questions. To start off, I think there's a comment on the Q4 start. You said it's a strong start. You did not comment on the start of Q4 in the last year, Q34, when life has been a little bit 1% year over year. Putting aside the Q4, how should you interpret your Q4 start comments, especially songs this time and what's describing the growth? Any comments there? It's hard

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

to weigh the words exactly, but I'm very happy it's a strong start of Q4.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

I

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

would like to leave it with that. I'm happy it's a strong start of Q4. And we look forward and we're excited to come to the end of the year and go into the next year with full speed.

speaker
Jacob Kaplan
CFO

You can add on that. I mean, it's still relatively early in the quarter. I mean, sure, it's been four weeks, but it's intentional that we haven't quantified it in any specific way. But yes, it's a good start to the quarter.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

It didn't help much, right? No, but can you tell us anything about what's diving the growth here?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Player activity, new players, player activity, traction of games.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Okay, thank you. But for Q4, given it's a season-long quarter and the strong start, and looking at the Q4 margin, how should we see the EBITDA margin in Q4 in relation to Q3? And what are the costs especially ramping up here in the short term?

speaker
Jacob Kaplan
CFO

Yes, it's a little bit like we commented in the presentation that, yes, for sure the margin in this quarter is a bit stronger than what we saw a few months ago. So that's positive. And the margin year to date now is 68.7. So we don't see that we will be over 68%, which was the guidance for the with some margin. So it doesn't mean that it necessarily needs to go up every quarter. Things that can affect the margin is of course when we have periods of rapid expansion, we will take on costs in order to support future growth. So the priority is to achieve top-line growth. So we haven't said anything specific, exact for the fourth quarter other than that. For the year, we see that we will exceed 68%. So that's how we see it. I mean, we've said it so many times, but we do give guidance on margin to kind of share our view on where we are at the moment. But it's not the number that we specifically fear on and try to hit. As you see in this quarter, sometimes it can definitely move around. It can go a little bit up now. Over time, yes, we do have scalability in the business. That hasn't changed. I mean, we think that we should be able to improve margins when we increase top line. It's not that this is the absolute feeling for margin, but for one quarter to the next, it's, yeah, it's hard to say.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Thank you. And the final question, it's the first time I've mentioned that the Madrid studio has an opportunity to get from the Madrid studio and why you chose Madrid location.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

The reason why we are adding another studio in Europe is of course demand. We focus on international demand, meaning different languages in Madrid, perfect location. We scanned, I don't know, 15, 20 locations and choose Madrid for, of course, various reasons, which is important

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

to us. And are you looking into opportunity to open?

speaker
Jacob Kaplan
CFO

I just clarify that it's not a studio that will serve only the Spanish market. It will similarly to Moldav serve the network with international languages.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

And are you looking into studio or opportunity to open a studio with more focus on Asian players, I mean, dealing with more native Asian speaking languages? And where could that be?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

We're not, that could happen, of course.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you all for me. Thank you very much. Thanks, Marlo. Our next question is from Martin Alain from BND Market. Please go ahead. Good morning, Martin and Jacob. Good morning. I just want to ask the first question on the expansion of studio network there as well. What's the size of these new ones, the Spanish and the Armenian studio? Is that a medium size studio? Yeah, correct. Okay. And the ones you are, you're expanding all of your existing ones as well. What are you adding there? Is it your adding capacity? Is it mainly for dedicated people?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Both. The network has to be contained. So, like, there should be, we add both. It's not only dedicated. Okay.

speaker
Jacob Kaplan
CFO

Excellent. And I remember... I'll just add a comment I think we maybe mentioned before that could be good to repeat. That, I mean, right now, with now 11 studios, you could say that the additional capacity, it can be expanding a current studio or adding a new site. It's, of course, when we add a new site, it's a little bit extra that comes with that. But in terms of the capacity, we try to always invest in that. So, it's not that, you know, with Madrid or with Armenia, the capacity in the network takes a step change. I mean, we're every month adding capacity somewhere. So, that's, yeah, that's just good to know.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Yeah. Perfect. Thank you for clarifying. And then I remember this summer, you mentioned that you have pent-up demand in the dedicated table area. Is that still the case or have you now filled up pent-up demand from last year? We still have demand. Simple as that.

speaker
Jacob Kaplan
CFO

Yes.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Okay.

speaker
Jacob Kaplan
CFO

So, demand is still good. Then it's always a little bit difficult to sort out what's demand from last year and what's the demand right now. But, you know, the demand for tables is still there. The

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

demand for tables and we are in a hurry. There is more demand. We have pent-up demand. And

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

what about restrictions in your studio networks? Can you say anything on

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

that relating to… I could probably talk about COVID for like two hours. I mean, right now, it's still a lot of rules, curfew, transportation, social distancing. There's lots of rules in different countries and some countries have opened, but some is closing now. So, there's still a lot to do with COVID and we are not out of COVID yet. It's not like this should be a big excuse for not doing or for one or the other. It's just that right now, the society is more open than the work class in general. So, it's like more restrictions for us as an employer and maybe a little bit less for the private life, restaurants and other, but there's still a lot of restrictions.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Yes. And just on that subject, what measures have you taken yourself in the Baltics, for example, where one of your most important studios are in Riga?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

I would constantly revise. We're in negotiation, not negotiation, but we talk with the health ministries and see that we're always in line with them. And lately, the Latvian government actually, they're about to take the decision on the law where the employer cannot let a person that has not been vaccinated work. So, essentially, if they are not vaccinated, they're either fired or put on hold without salary to get the vaccination level increasing. So, there's a constant change and there's curfew going on now for the night. So, there's constant in each and every country, there's always new rules and regulations and they are not in sync in the world, which people might think it's really different from country to country depending on the situation.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Excellent. Thank you. And you mentioned the one seamless back end, one stop shop there. And I was just curious to know, what do you think that will mean for your competitiveness going forward? It will strengthen. Can you elaborate a little bit more? I'm sorry.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

I mean, I think it's important to look at it from one perspective of the operator. It will make it easier for every operator to integrate. It will make it sort of make, they can select whatever games they want seamlessly from us. No pressure to take whatever they want and they have one integration in work. For us, it means that when we release a certified game, it will reach the whole world at the same time. And instead of going to different regulatory and different processes and different integrations and different, it's one releases and it's ours. It's, as I said, it's a magnificent piece. I'm very proud of it. It's really good. I don't think it's been done, at least not in this speed as we have done it. And I look forward to rolling it out right now. So I look forward to do that.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Great.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Thanks. And just one final

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

for me. When you look at the pipeline, game pipeline for next year, what's the main topic in there in the games pipeline? And will you introduce, will you announce the full package at ICE or will you sort of gradually announce your new games next year, as you did this year?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

The common word would be innovation and end user satisfaction. The release of ICE will be to release more games than ever. And then, of course, there will be more games during 2022 than ever. So there will be more releases coming after. So product and innovation year, we're going to focus on that. And now we're full speed.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Okay. Thanks, guys. Thank you. We have a next question from Oscar Erickson from Carnegie. Please go ahead. Thank you. And good morning, Martin and Jacob. Good morning. So starting at the same place as the last question here on the 2022 product roadmap, I'm equally excited to see the roadmap as we work in. So first of all, did you say it's going to be two products presented at ICE or released for the full year? You just repeat that. And also then on the same topic, is it possible to say something about the mix roughly between live and slots, entirely new products versus incremental product improvements and variations as well? Thank you. There will be

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

a lot of products more than ever released on ICE in itself, playable at ICE. And then there will be even more products released in the remaining part of the year. We have big now with all these brands, we can't release everything at the same time. And we will sort of, but there will be more products than ever on ICE. So that stands to the first. And it will be exciting to release them at ICE. And I don't want to go into the mix right now.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Alistair, and then some slots. It seems like DTG is forming a line or slightly above expectations here in Q3. What will happen to the Tiger perhaps not giving up to your full sort of ambitions in the long term? What are you doing to accelerate revenue development for these entities? And except for the ones that shop, which seems really exciting. How will you sort of combine your RG focused entities go forward?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

We are of course, I think that your description is fairly accurate. We are of course now coming out of the OSS creation. And now we're focused to deliver even better games, making the right roadmap for next year with even more games.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

So good games, more games. That's sort of the answer.

speaker
Jacob Kaplan
CFO

Great. And then maybe a question for Jacob. The operating costs

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

are quite stable, to quite say, despite a clearly rapid expansion phase, the B2B constellation. What's the explanation here? And could there be any sort of catch up effects in Q4?

speaker
Jacob Kaplan
CFO

As we continue to expand, the cost base will also grow. So then there's always in every quarter, there's a bit of, we don't report them as one of because there's a new one of every quarter. So there is of course a bit of variation in sometimes you have a little more of those costs that come in the quarter and sometimes a little less. So some of that is behind it. But yeah, definitely we will see costs continue to increase in the quarters to come. And longer term it's driven by the expansion of studios and tables and more staff is the biggest cost item of course.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Great. And then a question on M&A as well. How do you think here currently regarding incremental opportunities? Is the primary focus on slots? Is there anything to do at all live through M&A? Is sports an alternative? And also will the one-stop shop tech here support and accelerate the sort of integration based or potential targets?

speaker
Jacob Kaplan
CFO

Yeah, on M&A I think our answer there is really what it's been for the past couple of years, that we remain open to the focus is organic growth. That's true in live and definitely slots as well as Martin just commented on. And then of course one-stop shop, that is a good foundation to also be able to add more products. So that will enable that. But it's definitely doesn't change the strategy that the main growth will be organic still as we see it. And then the second point, I mean no change there in terms of different verticals. We see ourselves trying to become the best provider of online casino in the world and drive innovation in that space. So sports is not in our plans right now. Then again, I won't rule it out for forever that some of the same rationale that was behind that the move from live into also R&G getting a broader portfolio and so forth. That can of course be said also for sports, but it's not in our plans right now.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Understood. And then the final one for me, Connecticut obviously incremental revenue opportunity, which regards Ontario. Could you just tell us a little bit on how you see, how you view this? What type of revenue contribution you have from Ontario currently? What do you think in terms of market growth potential and adding operators?

speaker
Jacob Kaplan
CFO

I think I can answer that. As we said, I mean the Ontario market is relatively big one. It's a lot of potential based on that. It will also open for right now. It's the Ontario lottery that's in the market, but there will be other operators eventually as well. So I think of it like what we see in many markets when they regulate it, there's a period where the sort of incumbent is the first one to market and then eventually the market opens up to more players. I mean, we'll see something similar in the Netherlands, I assume. So that's how we see it. So we're very excited about potential. It's a big market and we'll see it for the future.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Excellent. That's it for me. Thank you. We have a next question from Karen Gerwell from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

speaker
Karen Gerwell
Bank of America Representative

Hey, morning guys. A couple of questions. Morning. Firstly, on taxes, it's very topical at the moment. We do have this backdrop of a potential global tax for 2023, but I mean, in the run up to that, any thoughts on how we should think about 2022 taxes? On capex, you said there's been a bit of a delay this year. Should we expect ramp up of some sort in Q4 this year or some sort of catch up or maybe in 2022? And then lastly, just looping back, I'll tell you two more. Looking back on the OSS, any idea if you did make an acquisition and you integrated on OSS, does it speed up the integration essentially? And then the last one is on consensus. Currently consensus margin for 22 is 69%. How do you feel about that given the Q3 margin? Thank you.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Let me start with the OSS. So, on another run over with capex and tax and margin to Jacob. Naturally, if we would, which we don't know if it would happen that we would require something, it would be fitting very well into the OSS. That's the whole thought. It would essentially make it possible to integrate anything into that, meaning other casino content. Now, I think it's important to understand that we do this right now to make it good for the operators, to make it to enable them to make it sort of simpler, easier, seamless, flawless. And we make it for us to be able to distribute and handle our content. So that is why we're doing it. But the possibilities are still there. Yes. I'll hand over to the tax and capex margin. So

speaker
Jacob Kaplan
CFO

on tax, we also follow all the news on the development of the global tax regime and the pillar to the base. And it seems to be moving forward. Don't really have any any sort of firm view on it from our point of view. If we look at us right now, our tax rate, I would say disregarding the pillar to development will trend up a bit. I mean, we already see in this quarter, we're adding big time gaming, which is tax in Australia. So that's a 30% tax rate. And as we grow in all parts of the world, our tax rate will also trend upwards. So we haven't said any straight number for 2022 or 2023. But I think we're at 7% in this quarter. So I would expect it to move a little bit upwards towards that from that level. And then it depends on where it comes from and sort of what happens. On capex, you're right, we will see, in absolute terms, capex has been up year over year and will continue to increase. So I think we'll probably invest more in 2022 than we did this year. Specifically for Q4, there's high activity, as you've heard. So I think capex could go up. We probably won't reach 60 million for the year in total. We would like to, if we could build that fast or do as much, we'll try to reach it. But it's not, probably a little less than that.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

But that's

speaker
Jacob Kaplan
CFO

where

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

we're on. And Morgan, you said 69%. We will say something.

speaker
Jacob Kaplan
CFO

We will give some guidance for full year on margin when we report the first quarter as we normally do. So the statements on margin are what we said in the past. There's absolutely no possibility. As we roll top line, we can still increase margin some. So we're at 68.7 now, so 67% to 69%. That could probably be reasonable. But yeah, we'll see. We'll say something when we're in a couple of months.

speaker
Karen Gerwell
Bank of America Representative

Perfect. And just on the topic, the delay this year, is that because of COVID, but you haven't been able to roll out certain things you wanted to? Is that what's causing this delay?

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Yeah, very well.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

There's always reasons. COVID could be one. But to build in such many locations that we are doing, it's a physical thing. It's like, sometimes it's not money, it's not external. It's just that it takes a little bit longer time. We all probably renovated maybe a house or an apartment. And it's easy to want to do more in a shorter time than it's actually possible. And right now we're pushing really hard for all expansion all throughout the world. And of course, you can say that it's related to COVID, but not only.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

I think also, in honesty, when we said 60 million

speaker
Jacob Kaplan
CFO

for the year, that was kind of a relatively rough number. So in comparison to previous quarters, you know, capex is increasing. So yeah,

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

that's maybe more relevant. Got it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, we have a final question from Simon Davis from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Morning. I've got two questions on the line, if that's okay. Okay, Gambling Act review should be reaching some kind of conclusion fairly shortly. Do you expect any potential impact from that? And how sensitive would the business be to any imposition of maximum state limits on slots or deposit limits?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Any adjustments that they do, which sort of limits the game phase, of course, affecting us through our operators, we're completely sort of aligned with them on that. And there's so

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

much speculation

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

and no firm real conclusions yet. And to evaluate that, I would rather wait until we know exactly what it is. But any limitations, of course, affect us.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Equally as it would affect an operator, but you're not at this stage expecting any material impact. Okay. I don't know, to be honest, what to expect. But

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

there is no information that I have that would say that it is a material impact. And there's

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

been

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

a lot of

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

pressure constantly. And I don't see that there might be that I don't know that there

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

will be any major changes that will affect us right now. But that's in the hands of the regulator.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

Yeah, absolutely. And secondly, very swiftly, you mentioned an impact of about 1% only from which all the customers in the Netherlands have been able to get around. The second round of licensing. What would the impact be in Ontario? Seeing a number of your customers withdrawing from the market in the short term, is that going to be a similarly modest impact? I don't want to give a figure.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

It's a very good question. I like don't want to give a figure on that, but there will be limited impact. And then of course, it's only a couple of months and the commercial market will open again. And OLG is doing a great job now. They've only been live for a day, but I'm sure that they will

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

do

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

good. It's slightly too early to give a figure on it, but there will be

speaker
Moderator
Conference Host

a small impact. Right. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. We have no further questions in the queue. Okay. Lovely. I want to thank you for all. Thank you. So have a nice day. Thank you very much.

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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