Modern Times Group MTG AB (publ)

Good afternoon and welcome to MTG's interim report presentation for the second quarter 2021. My name is Lars Torstensson and joining me I have our group president and CEO, Maria Hedin. As usual, we will begin by presenting the quarter and then take your questions in a Q&A session for diving participants only. With that said, I'm now handing over to you, Maria, to take us through the quarter.

Thank you, Lars, and good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining our Q2 earnings call today. The second quarter was yet another intensive quarter for us, both from an operational and M&A perspective. We delivered solid progress on our strategy in both the gaming and esports verticals. This quarter also marks the full year of operations under the ongoing corona pandemic. Stay-at-home and lockdown orders have contributed to the growth of our gaming verticals, with our companies gaining new users and experiencing higher user engagement. However, as expected, we're now also starting to face tougher year-over-year comparisons against this elevated baseline. Our esports vertical, on the other hand, was initially hit hard, but is now starting to improve and recover thanks to our agile shift to online events, as well as the gradual reopening of society. Unlike gaming, esports will face easier comps going forward. I will now walk you through our presentation, and afterwards, I look forward to taking to your questions. Our results for the second quarter shows that we're executing well on our strategy, with solid development in terms of net sales and EBITDA. Our gaming vertical delivered a solid quarter, mainly driven by good monetization, solid display-based engagement, and clearly supported by the inclusion of both Ninja Kiwi and Hutch driving overall sales. The esports vertical returned positive revenue growth, driven in particular by stronger ESF sales, as well as renewed growth within our own and operated operations. ESM Gaming hosted six digital-only master properties and successfully produced another season of Gamers Without Borders and hosted a successful Rainbow Six live event in Paris. On the gaming vertical, we continue to deliver on our buy-and-build strategy, announcing the acquisition of PlaySimple, a rapidly growing, highly profitable Indian gaming studio and a global leader in the mobile word game genre. Last but not least, we maintain a high level of strategic investments in our esports product portfolio and B2C platform, strengthening our position and diversifying our current offering ahead of a return to live audience events, which we expect by the end of 2021. If we then move to the next slide, let's start out by reviewing the performance of our gaming verticals in the second quarter. Net sales increased 9% to $810 million, Foreign exchange rates had a negative impact of 5% resulting in a growth at constant currency of 14% fueled by the inclusion of hutch and . Organic growth was minus 14% due to the tough comparison against an elevated 2020 numbers. However, when comparing to the first quarter this year, our sequential growth was 3%. I'm pleased with the results in the quarter, but admittedly, we did end the quarter slightly soft. we saw a lower than expected result from InnoGames' June event for its largest game, Porto Empires, in conjunction with the European Football Championship. It's quite rare that we do not see the anticipated uplift from an in-game event, but it happens from time to time. And as we're now progressing into the third quarter, the next event InnoGames had in the schedule, which was played out early July, performed instead in line with our expectations. On a general note, InnoGames' core title and portfolio of classic games delivered a solid performance. Congress operations development in the quarter showed stable progress, but the issues with the newly launched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles title have not yet been fully resolved, which is hampering the company's development to some degree. On the other hand, HUD popular Formula One class title for a strong customer intake and revenue development, supported by increased marketing on back of the Formula One championship season starts. We also consoled Nintakivi starting the 1st of June, which had a strong performance in the quarter. Its key title, Blue's TD6, maintained high engagement with lower seasonality than normal. It is worth pointing out that Nintakivi's TD6 is a premium game, having its main product updates annually in December. The team has therefore been working on in-game improvements and releasing more frequent updates to reduce the cyclical characteristics of the game, and I would say that the Q2 performance is a good sign of this paying off. I also would like to make a short comment on Apple's change to their identifier for advertisers' features, commonly referred to IDFA, which has been thoroughly discussed by the industry since it was first announced last year and rolled out this quarter. The changes to IDFA, which means that apps need to be obtaining sharing permission from iOS users to share data with app developers, opt-in rather than an opt-out basis, have so far had limited financial impact on our gaming verticals. That said, we continue to monitor the situation and we encourage all group collaboration of topics. We do believe that solid processes along with agile working ways will be the success factor in this changing environment. It is also important to underline that the IDFA changes will likely have different impact on different gaming companies. If you look at our portfolio, Ninda Kiwi, for example, having 100% organic traffic will not have any impact as in its all community-centric approach to marketing. Meanwhile, in games, which has both mobile and browser-oriented business, we'll experience a different impact. But in both instances, as I said, the financial impact has been limited so far. I'm also pleased to see that our gaming vertical maintained its margin, despite the push behind our growth gains, such as the already mentioned Formula One clash. The solid development was supported by the recent acquisitions, as well as the underlying adjusted EBITDA growth. We're very excited about the gaming vertical that we're building, with a balanced portfolio across both casual and mid-core. Our work to further diversify our gaming vertical through strategic M&A has continued, and on June 1st, we added a strong Blooms IP to our portfolio of casual games throughout the closing of Nita Kiwi transaction. On July 2nd, we announced the acquisition of Play Simple, a rapidly growing, highly profitable Indian gaming studio and global leader in the mobile world game genre. Through the acquisitions carried out over the last eight months, Touch, Ninja Kiwi, and Play Simple, MTG has become a scale player in the industry. As of the second quarter, we now reach 31 million monthly active users across more than 50 live games. We have also shifted our mobile revenue representations to be above 70% of total net sales for the gaming vertical. And as mentioned, we have now a much more diversified games portfolio, stretching across different genres and life cycles, along with a solid line of games. Additionally, we have now a first group common project between our gaming studios underway to ensure that we realize synergies between the different companies and showing the key benefits of operating as a group of gaming companies. We're still in the early days, but I'm very happy to see the high level of engagement between the different management teams and the excitement about working together. I am certain that this, over time, will result in stronger vertical performance and better, more engaging games, which ultimately will accelerate the value of the Gaming Co. as a whole. Let me go to the next slide, please. Our new games pipeline continues to develop well over the quarter, with some delays due to identified areas of improvement in the top launch titles ahead of the commercial launch. InnoGames made good progress on the development of the new games and currently has two games in soft launch, Rise of Cultures and Lost Survivors. Ninja Kiwi soft launched one game, Bloons Pop, at the end of the quarter with promising early results. While it's exciting itself with the title, it also serves to generate excitement ahead of the widely anticipated release of Bloons Battle 2, which will come now in the second half of 2021. Hedgehog's launch title, Battle Heights, has so far not performed as anticipated, and the team is focusing on improving both the user acquisition campaigns and the early experience of the game metrics. In total, there are currently four games in soft launch, for which we are planning commercial launches in the second half of the year. In addition, there are several new games that remain to be soft launched in 2021, including Play Simple's new word and part game title. And speaking of Play Simple, let's move to the next slide, please. With the acquisition of Play Simple, we added a category leader within the word game genre to the group. along with the highly relevant capabilities around cross-promotion and ad pick. Since being founded in 2014, PlaySimple has developed word games for the English-speaking audience with strong analytics and a data-driven approach that has enabled them to master both retention and monetization. They have a balanced portfolio of nine live games across Anagram, Crossword, and PvP word game franchises. And three of these games quite equally drive the majority of the sales, all within the growth mode space. Within the pipeline of new gains, they're further moving into the solitary space. For Q2 and H1, play simple delivered revenues of $285 million and $535 million respectively, which is at the higher end of our guidance, and it equals the growth of 100% for Q2 and 87% for H1. Margins continue to expand in the quarter, and adjusted EBITDA amounted to $94 million in Q2 and $151 million in H1, also better than our initial guidance. We do expect PlaySimple to continue to perform growth rates above market averages and accelerate the growth profile for the gaming group in totality, though we do not expect the current levels to be sustained. The upfront consideration amounts to $360 million and with a performance-based earn-out of $150 million. We expect a closer transaction at the end of July, following our EGM that is scheduled for July 28th. Through a successful execution of a buy-build strategy, entities' revenues and adjusted EBITDA profile have changed significantly, with faster underlying growth and a margin expansion. On a performance basis, 2020 net sales amounted to more than $4.4 billion. That should be compared to the $2.7 billion reported net sale, with a solid 29% adjusted EBITDA margin. If we now look at 2021, for H121 and Q2, respectively, We report sales of $2.3 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively, driving a 30% and 8% year-over-year growth in content ethics and a margin expansion to 31% in the second quarter. Looking at the breakdown of revenues, mobile revenues are not close to 70% for the group, and we have diversified our revenue stream to also include paid apps and increased advertising contributions. All in all, we're very proud of the company we have built, and we look forward to continue to develop and grow our business. If we then move to the next slide and move into esports, our esports vertical continued to be affected by the ongoing pandemic in the second quarter, but we maintained a successful online schedule for our esports tournaments with a strong fan reception and continued commitment from partners. Net sales for the esports vertical increased by 18% to $388 million, negatively impacted by foreign exchange rates of 8%, which meant an organic growth of 10%. ESL Gaming successfully delivered and produced six master properties, such as digital-only events, including DreamHack Master Spring, IEM Summer, and ESL One Summer. Furthermore, our ESS operations made a strong contribution to the Eastport Vertical, and ESL Gaming produced another season of Gamers Without Borders, as well as Rainbow Six live event in Paris. At the Paris event, we successfully invited the teams to physically participate, provide us with good learnings ahead of our recently conducted ESL One Global Colony event that was also done in the same format. Additionally, DreamX Sport Games started the production of the Olympic Virtue Series, which will lead up to the Tokyo Olympics and produce a playoff of eNHL. On a general note, we continue to believe that we will see a few live audience events returned by the end of 2021. and we are optimistic about 2022 being a year of normality. As a result, we are still experiencing some soft reception from brand sponsors on 2021, but we are seeing more activity regarding 2022. Hence, our sales team at ESL Gaming is already having discussion with both new and existing partners on commitments for 2022. We are pleased to see ESL Gaming announce a strategic extension on its cooperation with Intel starting in 2022, which is a strong signal of confidence from our largest partner. Additionally, DHL also prolonged its contract, starting now in Q2, and wants to make commitments to its ESL gaming in the quarter. Furthermore, our discussions with publishers remain active in the quarter, and we feel that our proposition is resonating well with them. As an example, DreamHack, as a part of ESL gaming, announced a new partnership with Epic Games through the DreamHack Open featuring Fortnite. If we then move to the next slide, we continue to make strategic investments to fully capitalize on the trends that have emerged during the pandemic, leveraging the learning from digital-only events and a more platform-based operating model. Our focus has been on building the esports platform, including B2C and mobile esports products, supporting traditional esports and traditional sports into esports products, and prepare the organization for potential geographic expansion. These investments have already started to yield early results, For example, in the second quarter, a mobile esports product, ESL Mobile Open, ran competitions across North America, Europe, and Asia for titles such as PUBG Mobile, Clash of Clans, Brawl Stars, Assault Mine, and many others, attracting over 850,000 unique players. I strongly believe in this product as it enables a broader fan engagement through a larger addressable market. Additionally, as games are converging towards mobile platforms, together with the 5G mobile networks being rolled out, the mobile esports market is set up for strong growth going forward. Another clear example of early results from the strategic investments is within DreamHack Sport Games and its ambition to digitalize traditional sports into esports products. In Q2, we produced events for NHL and the International Olympic Committee as a part of the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Additionally, ESL Gaming invested into the interactive experience DreamHack Beyond, that is an all-digital festival concept developed for the gaming community. Created to both complement and showcase the best of DreamHack in a fresh new way, and we will start to test this on the market now in Q3. We also continue to invest through our VC fund into the casual competitive gaming platform Joyride, which enables tournaments and competition for mobile casual gamers. This is a new innovative casual competitive gaming platform and an absence trend to the mobile esports that we see. Through these investments, we are preparing our esports vertical for a mixed model of live events and an enhanced online product proposition in a normalized business environment as we expect in 2022. We do expect this emerging hybrid model to lead to both faster growth and increased revenues, but also to richer, more resilient commercial operations. At the same time, we will carry on to pursue the operational efficiencies in the core export business and seeking new commercial and sponsorship agreements. With that said, I hand over to you, Lars, to walk us through the financials.

Thanks, Maria. As Maria has already stated, it has been a very active quarter, both operationally and from an M&A perspective. As in Q1, the second quarter was impacted by significant currency headwinds. The gaming vertical experienced a negative 5%, while esports saw an 8% in translational headwinds, resulting in a total negative 6% for the group. Net sales amounted to $1,198,000,000, growing by 9% or 15% excluding FX. Organic growth amounted to a negative 3% due to, and as flagged in the first quarter, difficult comparisons in the same period last year, as the gaming vertical operated from elevated levels due to the pandemic. With that said, we are pleased to see that both verticals have grown double digits in constant currencies. The gaming vertical grew by 9%, with the inclusion of Ninja Kiwi from the month of June. The underlying net sales was a negative 14%, including FX, due to last year's quarter being positively impacted by the pandemic with elevated activity. As mentioned, our esports vertical had six master events in the first quarter, all online and without live audience. Compared to the same period last year, net sales were up by 10%, positively impacted by a better performing ESS business, but also due to easier comparisons versus Q2 2020. Excluding exchange rate impact, sales was up 18%. Organic net sales growth was also up 18%, with O&O at plus 6% and ESS at plus 36%. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to $155 million, $228 million from gaming, including Hutch and one month of Ninja Kiwi, and maintained solid performance from video games. And minus $48 million from eSport, supported by improved cost structure related to online events and the higher proportion of ESS work, but affected negatively by the ongoing pandemic, and accelerated operational investments into new strategic initiatives. The gaming vertical had an adjusted EBITDA margin of 28%, driven by continued robust performance at InnoGames despite difficult comparisons. New game launches for InnoGames and Hutch, together with a strong marketing push behind F1 Clash, impacted profitability in the quarter to some extent. Let's take a closer look at esports. We continue to experience an impact from the pandemic in the form of less activity from brand sponsors, thus because of the lack of live audience events. We are optimistic about 2022 when we believe we will see a year that has returned to normalcy. We have seen several of our most important sponsors prolong the contract with CSL Gaming, showing commitment not only to esports but to us in particular. We maintain our accelerated investments into several strategic initiatives in the esports vertical, follow us starting to look more positive into a return to live audience events again. Hence, we would like to make sure that we are at the forefront when it comes to services offered to fans and partners. As we flagged already in Q1, this will continue throughout the year. With that said, the EBITDA adjustments in the quarter amounted to $41 million to be compared to $63 million last year. Management incentive programs amounted to $25 million. Also, M&A cost amounted to $60 million as a result of activity in both the gaming and eSport verticals. It should be noted that the M&A cost associated with the acquisition of PlaySimple would be booked in Q3. Depreciation and amortization in the first quarter, or sorry, second quarter amounted to 102 million and included amortization of PPA of 54 million. Amortization of PPA was higher compared to last year, mainly related to the Hatch and Ninja Kiwi acquisition. Excluding PPA, depreciation and amortization was merely flat year-over-year at 48 million. Net financial items amounted to 26 million, predominantly driven by exchange rate changes. Last but not least, the group tax was negative 49 million, predominantly reflected the increased result in the gaming vertical and in-games, but also a result of timing effects. Let's move on to the cash mistakes. Cash flow from operations before changes in working capital amounted to negative $3 million. The management incentive program amounted to $85 million was paid out by the gaming vertical during the quarter. The cost of the four-year program has been provisioned on a quarterly basis, and the first part of the program was paid out in the quarter. Operationally, the cash flow was positively impacted by continuous strong performance by the gaming vertical and negatively affected by maintained investments in the eSport vertical. When looking at the cash flow profile of the company on a half-year basis, the swing versus the same period last year can more or less be fully explained by the management incentive program being paid by the gaming vertical. Cash flow in investing activities contain the net cash payment of the acquisition of Ninja Kiwi of $507 million close to 31st of May and a final payment of Hutch of $30 million. Furthermore, we invested 26 million in the VC fund in a company called Joyride, an up-and-coming casual competitive gaming platform for mobile players. CapEx amounted to 59 million in the quarter, mainly consisting of capitalized development costs for games and esports platforms that have not yet been released. Cash flow from financing activities mainly consists of capital injection from minority owners in the gaming co. of 154 million as they partly participated per rata in the Ninja Kiwi transaction. As a result, the net change in cash and cash equivalents for continuing operations amount to a negative 624 million. That gives us a group net cash position of 1.2 million as of end of Q2. which is to some extent being used for the simple acquisition. Gaming continues to be the main cash flow contributing entity. Looking into the third quarter, I would like to remind everyone that the upcoming costs will continue to be high for gaming and easy for esports because of the way the pandemic affected the third quarter of 2020. Gaming will face more normal comps as of the fourth quarter. That concludes the financial presentation of the quarter, and now back to you, Maria.

Thank you, Lars. So to summarize the second quarter now in 21, our financial results for the quarter were solid, and we continued to grow our gaming vertical with new companies, strong risk, and strong IP, as well as more talented people. The latest addition is a great team of Play Simple. Through the acquisitions carried out over the last eight months, we've become a scale player in the industry, And our gaming vertical generated Q2 performance revenues and adjusted EBITDA of approximately $1.2 billion and $367 million respectively, corresponding to an organic net sales growth of 8%. We now have an even stronger group capabilities and skills when it comes to user acquisition, live ops, and BI. Along with our growing player base, this is creating operations synergies that will help us remain competitive in the gaming industry. Additionally, a very strong new games pipeline is setting our gaming vertical up for continued organic growth. With the software comps, we are back to growth on the esports vertical. Although short-term visibility remains limited for esports, we are confident in our strategy and ability to adapt. The pandemic will impact our operations for the remainder of 2021, but we are feeling increasingly optimistic about the return to normal business in 2022. We will continue to make strategic investments to fully capitalize on the trends that have emerged during the pandemic, leveraging the learning from online-only events and a more platform-based operating model. Looking ahead, we will continue to execute on our buy-and-build strategy. Both our verticals are strong growth projections, and we expect to create share of the value through both organic and inorganic investments in gaming as well as esports. And with that, I'll conclude my part. So thank you.

Thank you, Maria. That concludes the formal presentation of our Q2 interim financial results report. We are now ready to take any questions that you might have on the report or the conference call presentation. So, operator, can we please have the first question?

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question on this call today, please press star 1 on your phone and wait for a name to be announced. If you wish to cancel that request, please press the hash key. So once again, it's star and 1 on your telephone if you wish to ask a question. Your first question today comes from the line of Oscar Erickson. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Thank you, and good morning, Maria and Lars. A couple of questions from me, starting with gaming. Relatively soft development on the organic growth side and for inner games. Just regarding your comments here, should we interpret your comments about July as a recovery for inner games and solid momentum in games? If you could also comment on the momentum here sequentially for Inakibi, Hutch, and Play Simple. Thank you.

Thank you, Oscar, and good afternoon. So two questions, both for you, Maria. The first one is InnoGames and the current trading in July. And then also if there is any additional questions, clarity or flavor we can provide when it comes to either Kiwi, Hutch, and PlaySafe as well.

Thank you, Oscar, for your question. I think that we were equally disappointed, to be fair, in the last month in Q2 on back of the softness of the campaign. I mean, usually InnoGames has an extremely high predictability on the event side. This was a miss on their end. But that's, again, I mean, sometimes it does happen. That's also what you learn. I think on a positive note, and I think that's why it's also important to highlight, and you said it in your question, the July event performed in line with expectations, and we are back on the expected underlying momentum, both in in-game, but also across the remaining portfolio. So that gives us comfort on the way forward. And also, as Lars said, in Q4, then we see, again, a more normalized comp.

Excellent. And then regarding your soft launches – It seemed quite promising with rights of cultures as of Q1. What's the latest there, and should we expect meaningful contribution from new releases for InterGames and Kongregate here in 2021?

Thanks. So, Maria, a question for you when it comes to how the soft launches have developed both in the quarter but also looking forward. It's a bigger question now. There's a lot of companies and a lot of games that are going to be soft-launched, so maybe we can also adjust it a little bit in order as well.

Yeah. No, but I think if you look at it on a big scheme of things, I think that we have a very exciting games pipeline. I don't think we have ever stood that strong, also including the Play Simple games that you have four in the pipeline. So that's extremely exciting. Of course, that is an important factor on organic growth going forward. I think if you look at the quarter where we then put two games in particular, InnoGames into SoftLodge, I think that the retention metrics that we are seeing on back of the games, which is the foundation for strong games, is continuing to perform extremely strong. What we've saw in order to actually properly monetize and scale the games, we need to add more features and enhance those, and I think that is the work that we are currently doing, which means that we are optimistic about making sure that we can gradually transform these games into software soft launch into commercial launch sort of towards the end of Q3 and then Q4, which means that they will be in Q4 the earliest you're going to see any meaningful impact, and then in 2022.

Great. Thank you. And then on the margin side, I noticed that the pro forma margin in gaming was around 31%. in Q2. Could you please break that down a little bit between different studios and also perhaps some flavor on what is reasonable to expect here in Q3 and Q4 and also beyond. Thank you.

Thanks, Oskar. So, performer margin for our gaming business, 31%. We are, as you know, Oskar, we're not the keenest on breaking down details on our games, but the Let's see if we can provide a little bit of flavor there when it comes to how it has been distributed. Maria, if you could just add some color.

Yes. I think that, I mean, one company that you saw also by the numbers that we announced is Ninda Kiwi, which has extremely high EBITDA margins, as you can also see in our sort of announcement disclosure on the back of that. So, of course, that is improving the underlying margins. But also, I think what is extremely exciting, and I think that embeds for a strong future going forward, is When you consolidate both Huxley to Kiwi and Play Simple, we're actually creating a gaming group that has faster underlying growth rates. I mean, you have 8% in Q2, and you have 13% for the first half of the year with a margin expansion. I think that is something that we're excited about, and I think that is something that we also believe going forward is that we're going to see faster growth with a new gaming vertical going forward than what you have done, so an accelerated growth with these new acquisitions and a margin expansion. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. And a final question for me before handing over. You said that esports, the strategic investment in esports is at similar levels, I think you want, if I interpret correctly. Could you discuss the delta here sequentially with lower losses? Is it primarily due to more events or are there also sort of facing effects that you recovered some of your investments in Q1, and also just what to expect in Q3 here in terms of margins for the esports side. Thank you.

Thanks, Oskar. So, as you said, we are doing a similar level of strategic investments in the quarter, but we still see a sequential improvement when it comes to EBITDA losses. And what is the driver behind that predominantly, Maria? And then any view on the esports business going forward, even though we don't provide guidance?

No, but I think if you look at the quarter, it's a busy quarter in Q2 versus Q1. So you have six master events, which is driving revenue growth. So we have a quite high sequential increase on revenues Q2 versus Q1 as well. And on top of that, I mean, we did have a very strong ESS operation in the quarter. I mean, we had two main events was Gamers Without Borders, which we also produced last year, and then also the Ubisoft Rainbow Six International. Those two is also positively impacting our revenues and also the bottom line. And then, of course, that underlying improvement is being offset by the investments we're doing to make sure that we are better positioned in 2022 and have a much broader portfolio. product proposition and also becoming through that a better partner to the publishers, which is our name of the game and the purpose to become a really strong e-sports enabler for the publishers. I think as you look forward to Q3 and Q4, I think nothing has changed if you compare it to the historical sort of development. The Q3 is on the slightly softer side of it versus Q4 is a busier one. I think if you look last year, I think that We had maybe a little bit unproportionately soft Q3 because what we did last year, if you remember, is that we put actually all the events more or less into Q4 because we had a hope that maybe COVID, the second wave, would not come, which meant that we scheduled only one event in Q3 and the remainder in Q4, which meant that you had a proportionally high density of events in Q4, which meant that you also had a proportionally high revenue composition in Q4. which means that even though, as we said, we're going to have softer comps for the full second half of the year versus last year, but it's going to be, of course, on the e-verse softer side in Q3 versus Q4. So I think that's how you should think about the revenue mix. And as to the investments, they will continue also in the second half. And the way that we see it is that we should then start to be able to monetize and just see revenues on back of these in any sort of material substance starting in 2022. Okay.

We're looking at the more balanced schedule then for 2021 second half versus 2020. That was a little more skewed towards Q4 2020.

Yes, you're sure. But still, Q4 will be the strongest quarter as it normally is.

Yes. Would you like to call up there, Oscar?

No, that's enough for me. Thank you very much, both.

Thank you. So, operator, can we have the next question, please?

Of course you can. Your next question comes from the line of Eric Linton. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Yes. Hi, Maria. Hi, Lars. A couple of questions from me here. So just following up on Oscar's question here, is it possible to sort of say anything on how weak the sales were in June for gaming compared to April and May? And are you kind of back at the April and May levels now in July?

Hi, Eric. Thanks for the question. So, looking at the monthly performance and how week June was, unfortunately, we do not break down monthly performance, but if we could try to characterize it in any way that could be helpful to Eric and Maria.

Yeah. No, but it was, obviously, If it wouldn't have been at least the material deviation, we wouldn't have mentioned it. So I think that normally you do see a pretty strong uplift when we run the events, and that uplift was not notable during these events, unfortunately, which, of course, made a dent in the total revenues for June and then also for Q2. If you compare June to April and May, I mean, it's a little bit difficult comparison to begin with because June and July, you always have a seasonality effect, so there's there is a different revenue mix to begin with. And also, I mean, we always see this time of the year as well, different marketing efficiency as well. So there are many combinations, and that's why it doesn't make sense to break out monthly by monthly sales, rather year-over-year trend, and also versus our forecast. And I think that's where we saw in June that we were having a deviation versus our expectations on that event. That is the learning we will bring with us. On a positive note, when we look at July, we're in line with expectations.

Perfect. And a follow-up on that. So, I mean, you highlight that you see tough comps in gaming in Q3 as well. So, I mean, is it fair to assume that we should interpret it as negative organic growth in Q2, sorry, Q3? And is it possible to say anything about the magnitude of this tough comps and the negative organic growth?

So we commented in our material on Q3 for gaming being also with the tough comps. And if we could then help the market to understand what that means when it comes to tough comps and when it comes to the level of effect that would have. I don't know, Maria, if there is anything to share there.

Yeah. No, we will continue to see tough comps, and you should not, in the old portfolio, if I may say it that way, you should not expect us to be in the positive organic growth territory. But I think when you look at the performer basis, we're going to continue strong underlying growth. And I think that is what we're focusing on. We're building a new gaming group that's going to continue to have a strong growth pile and also, as I said before, with a margin expansion. And that's what we're building, and I think that's what we're very excited about, And then also making sure that we within Keno Games in particular are successful with our games that are in soft launch so we can get them into full commercial launch that will then be the driver for 2022 growth as well.

All right. I'm switching over to the esports here. You talked about this mobile esports product having 800,000 unique players in Q2. Can you say something about sort of how much revenue this is generating right now, and how do you aim to monetize this going forward?

So mobile export, which is one of our emerging products and something that we are currently investing in when we refer back to strategic investments, as you know, Eric, we don't necessarily go into details on the product by product within or subproduct in this case. Maria, at least we could maybe add a little bit of color on our excitement when it comes to mobile esports.

Yeah. To me, I think it's one of the most exciting new products that we're having. If you look at the growth of mobile gaming in general and you look at the 5G rollout and so forth and the growth of customer base, I think that having sort of quite a few interesting value propositions to it So right now it doesn't drive a material revenue for us. It's in the early infancy and building up that product. But I do see a very big potential over time on sponsorship value in that product if we get it right. And I think that's what is still early trends and KPIs. But I think the engagement that we see on back of that product is extremely encouraging and also the early discussions we're having with potential brand sponsors on back of this.

Perfect. And just a final question from me, then, perhaps, looking at the eSports services, which was very strong. Should we expect revenues to sort of continue at this level going forward, or was this sort of a one-off in this quarter?

So, yes, that's revenues up 38% in the quarter. Of course, quite strong. How do you believe that will develop, Maria?

No, I think eSports services will always be seasonal, but it's difficult to predict the seasonality because it depends on when publishers drive activation. Some activations are very long partnerships, like our partnership with Ubisoft and back with Rainbow Six. If you take games without season, that's a one-off event done on an annual basis, so that's why it's a little bit difficult to forecast on a quality-by-quality basis. But I see ESS as very strategic importance. It doesn't have the same scalability as owned and operated. So, I mean, that is, of course, where we are seeing the big picture potential. But I do believe that the ESS work is an extremely important value add to our owned and operated, and that is something we focus on building up and making sure, as I said before, we want to be the best partner for publishers and help them enable esports for them. And that's what we do within our ESS operations as well. And in some of those partnerships, you can then over time also sell and upsell into owned and operated. So we want to grow that going forward. I think that's my long answer in a short summary.

Thank you.

Thank you, Erik. So, Operator, could we have the next question, please?

Your next question today comes from the line of Erik Moberg. Please ask your question.

Hi, and thanks for taking my question. Just going back here to the gaming division, if you look at it organically, I mean, you're down 14%. But could you perhaps elaborate a bit on how much of this decline that stemmed from the lower than expected activity for innoGames in June?

Thanks, Eric. So when it comes to the negative organic loss that we experienced in Q2 in gaming, Maria, if we could, as we say, elaborate on how much was then associated to InnoGames campaigns. I mean, the reason why we mention it is because it did have an impact. So, but please, Maria.

No, I mean, it wouldn't change between a positive growth and a negative growth, but it wouldn't improve the underlying revenue performance. So you would have seen a few percentage points less decline. So I think that's the best way to look at it.

So like two, three percentage points, ballpark number, is that fair?

I don't want to be specific, but it would add a couple of percentage points better year-over-year growth.

understood. And then just to follow up here on the margin within gaming, if you perhaps could give us, give some flavor on Hutch games and sort of how that margin, sort of what margins Hutch has in the quarter and also whether or not they expect these Hutch margins to come back to normalized levels in Q3 and Q4.

Thanks, Eric. So Hutch, as you know, we have had great success with FOM Clash, one of our big three titles within Hutch. We don't go into specifics, as you know, Eric, but once again, Maria, I'm asking you to provide flavor all the time, so I'm doing it again when it comes to how Hutch has been developing in the quarter and what sort of expectations we have on the company.

But I think if we take a step back and think about that we are now building actually a gaming group, I think that the beauty of that is that our job is to make sure that we deploy marketing where we see the best return and then look at what is the absolute EBITDA that we feel we want to deliver and how can we actually reinvest some money into our different games. And I think what we see within Hutch is that they have great games, especially Top Drive and Formula One Flash, that are in the early growth phase where we can really be able to push marketing. And I think As we saw, and I think you noted that in Q1, we had a higher negative seasonality effect in Formula 1 before the season started. I think on the opposite, we saw equally positive effect now as the season actually started. And on back of that, we wanted to make sure that we can actually benefit on marketing, and we saw really strong RUA levels, which meant that we accelerated marketing because that is in our long-term interest to drive top-line revenues that over time convert into revenue. So that's in the quarter we increased marketing, which means, of course, isolated production margins went down. So what we look at is the group performance and making sure that we allocate marketing where we see the best return.

Understood. Thank you. That's all from me.

Thank you, Eric. Operator, do we have any more questions?

It appears there are no questions at this time, but as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your phone. There are no further questions at this time. Please continue.

Thank you, operator. That concludes the conference call for MTG's second quarter interim report. We appreciate you taking the time to join the call today, despite summer vacations for some of you, and we look forward to staying in touch until we release the next quarter report. That will be in October, or more specifically, the 28th of October. Thank you very much, and enjoy the rest of the summer. Bye-bye.

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you all for participating.