Applovin Corp (APP) 2022 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Hello. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to AppLovin's earnings call for the third quarter ended September 30, 2022. Joining me today to discuss our results are our Co-Founder, CEO and Chairperson Adam Foroughi; and our President and Chief Financial Officer, Herald Chen. Please note our SEC filings as well as our shareholder letter discussing our third quarter performance, are available at investors.applovin.com.

大家午安！歡迎參加AppLovin截至2022年9月30日的第三季財報電話會議。今天，我們的共同創辦人、執行長兼董事長Adam Foroughi和總裁兼財務長Herald Chen將與我一起討論我們的業績。請注意，我們提交給美國證券交易委員會（SEC）的文件以及討論我們第三季度業績的股東信可在investors.applovin.com上查閱。

During today's call, we may be making forward-looking statements regarding future events, expectations regarding the market, the future financial performance of the company and our strategic review of our apps portfolio. These statements are based on our current assumptions and beliefs, and we assume no obligation to update them, except as required by law. Actual results may differ materially from the results predicted. We encourage you to review the risk factors in our most recently filed Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2022, and in our Form 10-Q for the third quarter, which we expect to file later this week.

在今天的電話會議中，我們可能會就未來事件、市場預期、公司未來財務表現以及我們對應用程式組合的策略評估做出前瞻性陳述。這些陳述是基於我們目前的假設和信念，除法律要求外，我們不承擔更新這些陳述的義務。實際結果可能與預測結果有重大差異。我們建議您查看我們最近提交的截至2022年6月30日財季的10-Q表以及我們預計本週稍後提交的第三季10-Q表中的風險因素。

We will also be discussing non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of our GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures are included in our shareholder letter available on our Investor Relations website. Please be sure to review the GAAP measures and the reconciliations as the non-GAAP measures are not intended to be a substitute for or superior to our GAAP results.

我們也將討論非公認會計準則 (non-GAAP) 財務指標。我們的 GAAP 和非 GAAP 財務指標的對帳表已包含在我們致股東的信函中，該信函可在投資者關係網站上查閱。請務必仔細閱讀 GAAP 指標和對帳表，因為非 GAAP 指標並非旨在替代或優於我們的 GAAP 績效。

Be advised this conference call is being recorded, and a replay will be available on our IR website.

請注意，本次電話會議正在錄製中，重播將發佈在我們的 IR 網站上。

I'd now like to turn it over to Adam for some opening remarks, then we'll open it up for Q&A. Please go ahead, Adam.

現在我想請亞當致開幕詞，然後我們進入問答環節。亞當，請繼續。

Thanks all for joining us today. As this market continues to be difficult, it's easy to get disappointed, but you're not going to hear any disappointment from me today. I've been building businesses for nearly 2 decades now. And one thing I know is it takes years, not quarters to build a great business. We have several things to be excited about at AppLovin today. First, in '22, we're going to generate over $1 billion of EBITDA, growing nearly 50% over '21. We're going to convert a majority of this to cash. Our ability to generate so much cash allows us to patiently address our market and go after the business opportunities in front of us even in a difficult market.

感謝大家今天加入我們。由於市場持續低迷，大家很容易感到失望，但今天我不會說任何失望的話。我創業近20年了。我知道，打造一家偉大的企業需要數年時間，而不是幾季。 AppLovin 有幾件值得我們興奮的事。首先，2022年，我們的息稅折舊攤提前利潤 (EBITDA) 將超過10億美元，比2021年增加近50%。我們將把其中的大部分轉換為現金。我們創造如此多現金的能力使我們能夠耐心地應對市場，即使在艱難的市場中也能抓住眼前的商機。

Second, our business is incredibly stable. It's easy to look at our industry and realize how difficult it is right now, but it's really easy also to forget how big a sector we're in. Everyone's got a mobile device. Most people are playing mobile games. Many people are playing mobile games every single day. The size and stability of our category as well as our market-leading technologies give us a lot of confidence in our business long term.

其次，我們的業務極為穩定。縱觀我們的產業，我們很容易意識到目前的困境，但也很容易忘記我們所處的產業規模有多大。每個人都擁有行動裝置。大多數人都在玩手機遊戲。很多人每天都在玩手機遊戲。我們產品類別的規模和穩定性，以及我們市場領先的技術，讓我們對長期業務充滿信心。

So what are we focused on at AppLovin today that gives us a lot of confidence that as we go through this economic downturn and come out, we're going to be a stronger business for it. First and most importantly, we're focused on retaining our core team. Many of our key contributors have been at the company for many years. I've had the pleasure of working with each and every one of you. We're going to continue to invest at AppLovin to make it a great place to work at. Second, we're really focused on attracting new talent. Over the last decade, there's been a talent crunch in Silicon Valley. More recently, we're getting resumes from incredibly qualified individuals better than we've ever seen before. The opportunity to attract new talent and pair with our existing and exceptional team gets us very excited.

那麼，AppLovin 目前專注於哪些方面，讓我們充滿信心，並相信在度過經濟低迷期後，我們將變得更加強大。首先，也是最重要的一點，我們專注於留住核心團隊。許多核心團隊成員已經在公司工作多年。我很高興能與你們每一位共事。我們將繼續投資 AppLovin，使其成為一個理想的工作場所。其次，我們非常注重吸引新的人才。過去十年，矽谷出現了人才緊缺的現象。最近，我們收到了許多非常優秀的人才的履歷，他們比以往任何時候都更優秀。能夠吸引新的人才並與我們現有的優秀團隊合作，讓我們感到非常興奮。

Third, we're working tirelessly to improve our core technologies. We see a path to doing so. And if we're successful, it will allow us to create growth that we can control. Fourth, we're still investing in new initiatives, and we're very excited about these. They utilize our core technologies and core competencies and will enable us to go into bigger market opportunities. If we're successful here, we'll create immense upside for both our shareholders and team. And lastly, we'll continue to be strategic with our cash. We'll look at share buybacks. We'll also use this moment in time to try to attract new investors, shareholders that are going to be focused on our long-term vision, just as we are.

第三，我們正在不懈地努力改進核心技術。我們找到了實現這目標的途徑。如果成功，這將使我們能夠創造可控的成長。第四，我們仍在投資新的項目，我們對此感到非常興奮。這些項目將利用我們的核心技術和核心競爭力，幫助我們抓住更大的市場機會。如果我們在這方面取得成功，我們將為股東和團隊創造巨大的收益。最後，我們將繼續對現金進行策略性管理。我們將考慮股票回購。我們也將利用這一時機，努力吸引新的投資者和股東，他們將像我們一樣關注我們的長期願景。

The market today presents a low multiple entry point into our company. What's interesting about that is we generate a ton of cash, so it gives us a good base, and we're also going after very, very big opportunities. If we're successful in executing around our vision over the coming years, we're going to create outsized returns, private market like returns. That opportunity gets us really excited. In fact, we're working harder today at AppLovin than we've ever worked before because of that upside.

當今市場為我們公司提供了較低的門檻。有趣的是，我們創造了大量的現金，這為我們奠定了良好的基礎，我們也在追逐非常非常大的機會。如果我們在未來幾年成功實現我們的願景，我們將創造超額回報，就像私募市場的回報一樣。這個機會讓我們非常興奮。事實上，正是因為這個優勢，我們今天在AppLovin比以往任何時候都更加努力。

I'll now hand you off to Herald.

我現在將你交給《先驅報》。

Thanks, Adam. And as we outlined in our shareholder letter, given the challenging backdrop, we are very much focused on what we control. Firstly, bolstering our leadership positions in our core markets and our core products; and second, using this cash flow that Adam mentioned, to really invest behind initiatives that are focused on increasing the durability of our business, ultimately leading to long-term growth, which will then lead to enterprise value creation.

謝謝，亞當。正如我們在致股東信中所述，鑑於當前充滿挑戰的形勢，我們非常專注於我們能夠掌控的事情。首先，鞏固我們在核心市場和核心產品的領導地位；其次，利用亞當提到的現金流，真正投資於那些專注於提升業務持久性的計劃，最終實現長期增長，進而創造企業價值。

Shifting to the third quarter. Starting with the software business, we grew that 59% year-over-year. And based on our guidance from the second quarter, as expected, it was generally flat to the third quarter. EBITDA grew 49% year-over-year and achieved a 62% margin in the third quarter. We had 538 SPECs, a record in the quarter, and that also had an NDRR, net dollar revenue retention of 166%. On the app side, which is a midstream or change, operational changes as we previously discussed, the revenue was down 24% year-over-year, but EBITDA, which is where we're focused, was up 12% to a 17% margin. So on a combined basis, the total revenue was down slightly year-over-year, but EBITDA was up 35% to $258 million, $1 billion run rate and achieved an EBITDA margin of 36%.

轉到第三季。從軟體業務開始，我們的軟體業務年增了 59%。根據我們第二季的指引，正如預期的那樣，第三季的軟體業務與去年持平。 EBITDA 年成長 49%，第三季的利潤率達到 62%。我們擁有 538 個 SPEC，創下了本季的新高，同時 NDRR（淨美元收入留存率）也達到了 166%。在應用程式方面，這是一個中游或變革，正如我們之前討論過的營運變化，營收年減了 24%，但我們關注的 EBITDA 成長了 12%，利潤率達到 17%。因此，總體而言，總營收同比略有下降，但 EBITDA 成長了 35%，達到 2.58 億美元，運作率為 10 億美元，EBITDA 利潤率達到 36%。

Then shifting to our outlook for Q4. We see Q4 coming in fairly similarly to what we achieved in Q3. And if that's the case, then the year, we'll end up at $2.8 billion with a margin structure around 37% to 38% adjusted EBITDA. The components of that we see would be software being over $1 billion in revenue with a mid-60s EBITDA margin. And on the application side, we would see a $1.7-plus billion revenue stream with a margin structure in the mid-teens. Of note, going forward, we will only be providing our forward quarter guidance and will not be providing a full year guidance in the future.

接下來談談我們對第四季的展望。我們預期第四季的業績與第三季的業績基本相似。如果情況如此，那麼全年營收將達到28億美元，調整後息稅折舊攤提前利潤（EBITDA）的利潤率約為37%至38%。其中，軟體業務營收將超過10億美元，EBITDA利潤率約65%。應用業務營收將超過17億美元，利潤率約15%。需要注意的是，未來我們將只提供季度業績指引，不再提供全年業績指引。

Then talking about cash flow in a little more detail. We do plan on generating $1 billion of EBITDA this year. We also plan on finishing the year with over $1 billion of cash on our balance sheet. And as you all know, we're able to convert a high percentage of the EBITDA to free cash flow, given our very limited amount of CapEx. And as Adam described, we're able to then reinvest those dollars and have the financial flexibility and the patience to invest in projects, not trying to chase quarter-to-quarter growth on things that don't yield long-term return, but really invest behind our team, our talent and our tech to ensure that we're in a great spot going forward.

然後更詳細地談談現金流。我們計劃今年實現10億美元的EBITDA（息稅折舊攤提前利潤）。我們也計劃在年底資產負債表上擁有超過10億美元的現金。眾所周知，考慮到我們非常有限的資本支出，我們能夠將很大一部分EBITDA轉化為自由現金流。正如Adam所描述的，我們能夠將這些資金進行再投資，並擁有財務靈活性和耐心來投資項目，而不是試圖追逐那些無法帶來長期回報的季度增長，而是真正投資於我們的團隊、人才和技術，以確保我們在未來處於良好的狀態。

We also have $400 million of availability -- over $400 million of availability on our stock repurchase plan. And given the stock market environment today and the rerating of risk as well as our highly leverageable operating structure, where if we do have growth in our high margin, high cash flow business, we think the combination of today's stock valuations and stock multiples, combined with the ability to have high operating levers when we return to growth, those dollars fall into the bottom line. We think for shareholders and for us in considering stock buybacks could be a very attractive return.

我們還有4億美元的可用資金——超過4億美元的可用資金用於我們的股票回購計畫。考慮到當前的股市環境、風險重估以及我們高槓桿的營運結構，如果我們的高利潤率、高現金流業務確實實現成長，我們認為，結合目前的股票估值和市盈率，再加上我們恢復成長後擁有的高營運槓桿能力，這些資金最終將進入盈利。我們認為，對於股東以及我們自己而言，股票回購都可能帶來非常誘人的回報。

And with that, I'll turn it back to Ryan to go through Q&A. Thank you.

好了，接下來請 Ryan 繼續問答環節。謝謝。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員指示）

So the first question that we're going to take is from Tim Nollen from Macquarie.

我們要回答的第一個問題來自麥格理銀行的 Tim Nollen。

Could I dig in a little bit to the Software Platform side, please? You've said previously that given the integration of MoPub and the great scale you've got there, all the integrations you've got on the mediation platform, that game makers will simply have to continue advertising to promote use of their games and you've got such a great market position there. It does, however, look like the growth is slowing. Just wondering if you could maybe update us on your thought process as to how game developers are going about their advertising or where they are pulling? And is there any increased risk from some of these being small game developers and therefore, in a financial crunch like this, high interest rates, maybe they're running into some sort of near-term funding problems of their own, and that might lead to them pulling back on spending.

可以稍微談談軟體平台方面嗎？您之前說過，鑑於MoPub的整合以及你們在該平台的龐大規模，以及你們在聚合平台上進行的所有集成，遊戲開發商只需繼續投放廣告來推廣他們的遊戲，而你們在該平台擁有如此強大的市場地位。然而，看起來成長確實正在放緩。您能否向我們介紹一下遊戲開發商是如何進行廣告投放的，以及他們正在從哪些方面吸引用戶？此外，由於這些小型遊戲開發商在當前的金融緊縮和高利率環境下面臨風險，他們是否可能面臨一些短期融資問題，從而減少支出？

Thanks, Tim. So a couple of things packed in there that I'm going to address. First, we're on our mediation platform and also AppDiscovery platform, we're market leaders. The MAX platform, that's our mediation solution probably has the vast majority of all the ad inventory in the gaming sector running through it.

謝謝，蒂姆。我想談幾點。首先，我們的聚合平台和 AppDiscovery 平台是市場領導者。 MAX 平台，也就是我們的聚合解決方案，可能佔據了遊戲領域絕大多數廣告資源的運作。

Now what's interesting about that is it gives us access to a diverse set of advertisers where we're not dependent on any individual one. And most companies this year have been going through their P&L and really cutting costs. So marketing and OpEx. So most companies are at a stable point now where you're seeing the gaming market not growing because of that because of the focus on cash flow but you've also had that happen.

有趣的是，它讓我們能夠接觸到多元化的廣告商，而無需依賴任何廣告商。今年大多數公司都在仔細核算損益表，並大幅削減成本，包括行銷和營運支出。因此，大多數公司現在都處於一個穩定的階段，你會看到遊戲市場因為關注現金流而沒有成長，但這種情況也曾經發生過。

And because we've got a lot of diversity and because the sector is so big and consumers are still engaging with mobile games as much as they've ever engaged before. And the biggest change was just this handicap of shift from growth investment to cash flow, and that's already been baked in. That gives us a lot of confidence in the stability of our business that I referenced in my comments a couple of minutes ago.

因為我們擁有豐富的多元性，而且這個產業規模龐大，消費者對手機遊戲的參與度仍然和以前一樣高。最大的改變就是從成長投資轉向現金流的障礙，而這一點已經被消化了。這讓我們對業務的穩定性充滿信心，就像我在幾分鐘前的評論中提到的那樣。

Tim, did you have any follow-ups?

提姆，你還有什麼後續消息嗎？

No, I'll jump back in queue, let some others go in.

不，我會重新排隊，讓其他人進去。

Okay. We'll next go to Youssef Squali with Truist Securities.

好的。接下來我們請 Truist Securities 的 Youssef Squali 發言。

So I guess just as a follow-up to the comments about the stability in the business, Adam, I know you guys are not guiding, obviously, to 2023. But how are you guys thinking about the puts and takes. As you go through your own budgeting process, do you think at a base level that 2023 is a growth year or not? And then revenues from non-SPECs was down 34%. Can you just unpack that for us a little bit what drove that?

所以，亞當，我想補充一下關於業務穩定性的評論，我知道你們顯然沒有給出2023年的預期。但你們是如何考慮利弊的呢？在你們自己的預算過程中，你們是否認為2023年基本上是個成長年？然後，來自非SPEC的收入下降了34%。您能為我們簡單解釋一下是什麼導致了這種下降嗎？

So I'll touch on the first point, and then we can come back to revenue from non-SPECs because frankly, I think that's just a very small percentage of our numbers. So it's going to be a volatile metric that doesn't, frankly, matter a whole lot. When you think about the business as it is, again, we're very strong in the market. We have very consistent business. So there's no share loss anywhere in our core technologies. They work really well for the mobile game developer.

所以我先談第一點，然後我們再來談談非SPEC的收入，因為坦白說，我認為這只占我們收入的一小部分。所以，這將是一個波動性很大的指標，坦白說，它並不重要。考慮到我們的業務現狀，我們在這個市場上非常強勁。我們的業務非常穩定。因此，我們的核心技術沒有任何市場份額損失。它們對行動遊戲開發商來說非常有效。

And the one thing that we can't control that gives us hesitation on having long-term guidance right now is this focus of cash flow amongst our advertiser base and frankly, any company in technology today and away from growth. That's been baked into a lot of businesses at this point. Most managers are savvy enough to now have made the changes there. We just don't know when that reverses out. When the economy is going to turn around, when there will be a shift back to growth and sort of when you get to the bottom of this economic downturn.

目前，我們無法控制的一件事，讓我們對制定長期指引猶豫不決，那就是我們過於關注廣告客戶群的現金流，坦白說，如今任何一家科技公司都如此，而忽略了成長。目前，這種情況已經深深融入許多企業中。大多數管理者都夠精明，現在已經做出了改變。我們只是不知道這種情況何時會逆轉。經濟何時會好轉，何時會重回成長軌道，以及何時才能走出這場經濟衰退的谷底。

What we do know and that gives us confidence is we're already there and the business is very stable. We also know that our core technology has a lot of room to improve. That was another thing I touched on is that we're working really hard to improve it. And really, we have 2 paths to grow. One is advertisers are willing to invest more into growth and cash flow. So they're going to lower their goals and invest more dollars into our platform. The other is entirely in our control. It's improving the efficacy of our solution so that we're able to take the dollar spent. And even at a tighter set of goals, drive more scale to our advertising partners.

我們確實知道，並且讓我們充滿信心的是，我們已經達到了目標，而且業務非常穩定。我們也知道，我們的核心技術還有很大的進步空間。我之前提到的另一件事是，我們正在努力改進它。實際上，我們有兩條成長路徑。一條是廣告商願意在成長和現金流方面投入更多資金。因此，他們會降低目標，在我們的平台上投入更多資金。另一條完全由我們掌控。那就是提高我們解決方案的效率，以便我們能夠收回成本。即使在目標設定更嚴格的情況下，我們也能為我們的廣告合作夥伴帶來更大的規模。

We see a path to doing that, and that's what we're working on today. Both of those things give us a lot of confidence that we're going to have a strong baseline where we are in terms of the cash that we're able to generate, and we have room to grow as well that both has 1 factor outside of our control and 1 factor entirely within our control.

我們看到了實現這一目標的途徑，而這正是我們今天正在努力的方向。這兩件事都讓我們充滿信心，相信我們目前的現金流將保持強勁增長，而且我們還有成長空間，因為這兩個因素中，有一個是我們無法控制的，另一個是我們完全可以控制的。

Okay. But at a high level, though, no comment whether 2023 is a growth year for you guys or not. I guess you're saying it really depends on the overall macro environment?

好的。不過，從宏觀層面來說，2023年對你們來說是否是增長年，我目前還無法評論。我想你是說這真的取決於整體宏觀環境？

And our overall ability to improve our core technologies.

以及我們提高核心技術的整體能力。

Right. On the non-SPEC, the reason I was asking is to try to get a sense of whether you're seeing more of the weakness among the smaller kind of Software Platform clients were among the enterprise because the non-SPECs would tend to be the smaller ones, correct?

對。關於非 SPEC，我問這個問題的目的是想了解您是否認為小型軟體平台客戶在企業中存在更多弱點，因為非 SPEC 往往規模較小，對嗎？

Yes. Honestly, we don't actually look at each individual business. None of these partners make up a big part of our business. It's just as a whole, we all know that every company is under a lot of pressure right now to cut costs. So there has been just cost-cutting and budgetary constraints across the advertising sector. That's impacted most businesses, whether small or big.

是的。說實話，我們實際上並沒有關注每一項業務。這些合作夥伴在我們業務中所佔的比例都不大。只是總體而言，我們都知道每家公司現在都面臨著巨大的成本削減壓力。所以整個廣告業都在削減成本，預算也受到限制。這影響到了大多數企業，無論規模大小。

We'll next go to Eric Sheridan, Goldman Sachs.

接下來我們請高盛的艾瑞克‧謝裡丹 (Eric Sheridan)。

Maybe two, if I can. First, on the Software Platform. Intrigued by the comment you made in the letter about continuing to invest for the long term against potential new use cases. Away from the dynamic you find yourself in the market today, maybe sketch out a little bit about what you're sort of investing against for the longer term and how you see the Software Platform continuing to evolve. That would be number one.

如果可以的話，我想提兩個問題。首先是關於軟體平台。您在信中提到，為了應對潛在的新用例，您將持續進行長期投資，這讓我很感興趣。撇開您目前所處的市場動態，能否簡單談談您長期投資的目標，以及您如何看待軟體平台的持續發展？這是第一點。

And then number two, turning to the apps business. Felt like based on the letter, there was a fair bit of puts and takes in the quarter, the relevance of selling nonstrategic assets some investment being redirected in different elements. Can you talk a little bit about some of the headwinds and tailwinds just historically, that business faced as a result of those decisions in Q3 that impacted the absolute dollar amount we saw?

第二，談應用程式業務。根據這封信，我覺得本季出現了不少利弊，出售非策略性資產的相關性，以及一些投資被重新分配到其他領域。您能否簡單談談歷史上，由於第三季的這些決策，該業務面臨的一些不利因素和有利因素，這些因素影響了我們看到的絕對金額？

I'll take the first question, Eric, and Herald will jump on the second. When it comes to our core business, we're pretty large scale at this point. We've talked about processing billions of dollars a year of advertising budget, and we're netting quite a bit, well over $1 billion a year of software revenue. And so at that level of scale, we built very good core technologies there. We also touched on a couple of letters ago about some investments in new initiatives. These have option value in our business. Frankly, like I said, I've been building businesses over a couple of decades. It takes years to be able to build the business to make an impact on a business as large scale as ours.

艾瑞克，我先回答第一個問題，Herald 會直接回答第二個問題。說到我們的核心業務，我們目前的規模相當大。我們每年處理的廣告預算高達數十億美元，而且我們的軟體收入也相當可觀，每年超過 10 億美元。因此，在這樣的規模下，我們建構了非常優秀的核心技術。我們在幾封信中也提到了一些對新項目的投資。這些投資在我們的業務中具有選擇權價值。坦白說，就像我說的，我創業已經幾十年了。要打造出像我們這樣規模龐大、能夠產生影響力的業務，就需要花費數年時間。

But what gives us confidence going after these is they use the same core technologies and core competencies as our main business. One of those is extending our advertising solution to CTV. We did an acquisition there with a team role that we're very excited about. They have core technologies that are differentiated. And as we get our ad technologies to be sophisticated enough to extend to CTV, which is a work in progress, there'll be a go-to-market there, too, and the 2 technologies will couple together.

但讓我們充滿信心的是，他們使用的核心技術和核心競爭力與我們的主營業務相同。其中之一就是將我們的廣告解決方案擴展到CTV。我們在那裡進行了一次收購，並組建了一個團隊，我們對此感到非常興奮。他們擁有差異化的核心技術。隨著我們的廣告技術發展到足以擴展到CTV（這項工作正在進行中），我們也將在那裡推出市場，並將兩種技術結合起來。

Initiatives like that, we're not baking into any of our forward outlook or a thought process around the short term in the business, but we think long term will create immense shareholder value and value for our team.

對於這樣的舉措，我們並沒有將其融入任何前瞻性的展望或圍繞短期業務的思考過程中，但我們認為長期來看將為股東和我們的團隊創造巨大的價值。

Eric, on the app side, I think we're making very good progress against our initiatives to get our portfolio to the position we want to get in terms of both the margin and then in a position for growth. So I'd say, really, there's 3 things that have taken place there. One, was instead of just driving users to gain the data, we really cut back on the UA to make sure that we are driving strong ROAS. And as we know in this marketplace, ROAS is even more difficult to come by. And so we've managed that UA spend. So we're taking revenue hit in exchange for profitability.

Eric，在應用方面，我認為我們在推進各項計劃方面取得了非常大的進展，使我們的產品組合在利潤率和成長方面都達到了我們預期的目標。所以，我想說，實際上發生了三件事。首先，我們不再只是推動用戶獲取數據，而是大幅削減了用戶獲取（UA）的投入，以確保我們能夠獲得強勁的廣告支出回報率（ROAS）。眾所周知，在這個市場中，ROAS 的獲取難度更高。因此，我們控制了用戶獲取（UA）的支出。也就是說，我們承受了收入的損失，以換取獲利。

And then the second lever is just going through the portfolio and saying, well, which ones actually have the ability to drive real enterprise value for us in the long term. And there's some that frankly need more investment and more team, and there's others that really won't get there. And so we're in the process of winnowing through that, some of the studios we've just shut down or sold back to the founder. We're renegotiating some of the earnouts. And again, others were actually investing in quite a few new games.

第二個槓桿就是仔細檢視投資組合，看看哪些公司真正有能力長期為我們創造真正的企業價值。有些公司坦白說需要更多投資和團隊，而有些公司則無法實現目標。因此，我們正在篩選這些公司，有些工作室我們剛剛關閉或賣給了創辦人。我們正在重新協商一些獲利方案。另外，有些公司實際上投資了不少新遊戲。

So the third lever will then be ultimately when we get to portfolio that we want to own and grow forward. We think that will be a healthy portfolio. We hope to get there really by the end of this year is what we talked about. And then from there, it really depends if the market recovers in terms of valuations on whether or not we'd actually be able to monetize any significant portion of the portfolio. We may end up owning all of it, or with the right bid, we may end up selling all of it. But given the macroeconomic environment and where purchase multiples might be out there, our focus is very much on owning those assets for now, optimizing them and then figuring out what value creation could be had down the road. And it is a significant amount of value relative to our current enterprise value and would be very accretive and deleveraging to us, we think, with the right price for the right assets.

因此，第三個槓桿最終將是我們最終擁有一個我們想要持有並持續成長的投資組合。我們認為這將是一個健康的投資組合。正如我們之前所討論的，我們希望在今年年底前真正實現這一目標。之後，我們能否真正將投資組合中的大部分變現，實際上取決於市場估值是否復甦。我們最終可能會擁有全部資產，或者如果出價合適，我們也可能將其全部出售。但考慮到宏觀經濟環境以及可能出現的購買倍數，我們目前的重點是持有這些資產，對其進行優化，然後思考未來可以創造哪些價值。相對於我們目前的企業價值而言，這筆價值相當可觀，我們認為，如果合適的資產得到合適的價格，它將為我們帶來巨大的增值和去槓桿作用。

We'll next go to William Lampen at BTIG. Clark, go ahead.

接下來我們請 BTIG 的 William Lampen 發言。克拉克，請講。

I've got two. Adam, you talked a couple of times about improving your own core technologies, and you alluded to that a couple of times sort of intra-quarter back in August and September. I wanted to see if maybe you could give us just a small window into sort of what you're working on, how that's progressing and sort of what's in focus. And then on diversification and appreciating that you guys are operating this business with more of a long-term mindset right now. And I think, as you said, like a private entity, are you comfortable investing more to help scale and drive growth for businesses like Wurl or perhaps also Array or Vessel next year. And maybe along those lines, has Apple's change around in-app NFT utility change the priority in terms of which of those new businesses, you do want to focus a little bit more on scaling and growing?

我有兩個問題。亞當，你曾多次談到改進自己的核心技術，並且在八月和九月的季度內也多次提到這一點。我想看看你能否稍微介紹一下你正在進行的工作、進度以及目前的重點。然後是關於多元化，我很欣賞你們現在以更長遠的眼光來經營這項業務。正如你所說，作為一家私人企業，你是否願意在明年加大投資，以幫助擴大規模並推動像 Wurl 這樣的業務，或者 Array 或 Vessel 這樣的業務的成長？或許，蘋果對應用內 NFT 實用程式的改變，是否改變了你更希望在哪些新業務上更專注於擴展和成長的優先事項？

Thanks, Clark. I'll go the second first and then back to the first question. We're focused on investing in new initiatives but we know how to build businesses with a cash flow mindset from the very beginning. As a company at AppLovin and we were profitable our second month in operation. And every one of these new initiatives, we take that same approach into. We're excited about the opportunity. We leverage a lot of the resources that we already have in place and the incremental investments that we're making into them are not material given the market opportunity that they present us.

謝謝克拉克。我先回答第二個問題，然後再回到第一個問題。我們專注於投資新項目，但我們從一開始就知道如何以現金流的思維模式來建立業務。作為AppLovin旗下的公司，我們在營運的第二個月就實現了盈利。對於所有這些新項目，我們都採取了相同的方法。我們對這個機會感到興奮。我們充分利用了現有的大量資源，考慮到它們為我們帶來的市場機遇，我們對這些新項目的增量投資並不大。

We'll continue to approach any business opportunity that way. We think of them as startups and the GMs that we have running those businesses also think of them as the CEO of a start-up. And when you have a new business that you're trying to incubate and build, a lot of times, you want to do it organically, make sure the product market fit is there, not overinvest early, and then we will invest behind growth as we know that we have something that's hot. And at that point in time, we'll talk about these businesses because in theory, they'll be making an impact to our numbers, both revenue and cost.

我們將繼續以這種方式對待任何商業機會。我們將它們視為新創企業，而我們經營這些業務的總經理也將其視為新創企業的執行長。當你嘗試孵化和打造新業務時，很多時候你會希望有機地進行，確保產品市場契合，避免早期過度投資。之後，我們將投資於成長業務，因為我們知道我們擁有一些熱門產品。到那時，我們會討論這些業務，因為理論上它們會對我們的收入和成本產生影響。

And on the first question, when it comes to core technology, we always measure the error rate in our predictive engine. The whole model is predicated on being able to predict what are users going to download and engage with next and driving value to our advertisers. Value comes from revenue. So we've got to be very, very good at predicting a future event. And we know that there's error in our system. There's a lot of incremental changes that we, as a technology company, will do at all times. But very rarely, we'll go and rebuild a lot of our core system. We're doing both right now. And the last time we rebuilt a lot of our core systems to try to get an upgrade was actually the initial release of AXON, which was now, I think, about 2 years ago and obviously facilitated a ton of growth in our business. We're very excited about the potential of all of our investments in technology into our future.

關於第一個問題，當涉及核心技術時，我們總是會衡量預測引擎的誤差率。整個模型的前提是能夠預測使用者接下來會下載和使用什麼，並為我們的廣告商創造價值。價值源於收入。因此，我們必須非常非常擅長預測未來事件。我們知道我們的系統存在誤差。作為一家科技公司，我們會不斷進行許多漸進式的改進。但我們很少會重建核心系統。我們現在正在同時進行這兩種操作。上一次我們重建大量核心系統進行升級實際上是在AXON的初始版本發佈時，我想那是大約兩年前的事了，它顯然促進了我們業務的大幅增長。我們對所有技術投資在未來的潛力感到非常興奮。

That's really helpful. And if I could, maybe, Herald, just as a quick follow-up, you have north of $400 million in authorization for your buyback right now. I know that you have a lot of sort of attractive capital allocation opportunities in front of you. How does the sort of stock buyback option fit into the overall priority set right now?

這真的很有幫助。如果可以的話，先驅報，我想快速跟進一下，您目前有超過4億美元的回購授權。我知道您面前有很多有吸引力的資本配置機會。這種股票回購選擇權在目前的整體優先事項中佔比如何？

Yes. Thanks, Clark. Look, it is a high priority for us to allocate our capital wisely, particularly when there's opportunities that arise. And in this market, maybe it's around stock, maybe there's other assets that have gotten a lot cheaper that we'd want to own or it's just hiring a lot of great people that we didn't have access to before. And so we're taking advantage of this time in making lemonade out of these lemons, and we're glad to have the EBITDA that we do and the cash balance sheet that we have. But certainly, at these stock prices and given all the upside opportunities we see in the free cash flow characteristics and just the cash-on-cash yield that we project out, we certainly are considering stock buyback and we think the sizing of $400 million. We'll have to figure out what's the right amount to use at what period of time.

是的，謝謝克拉克。你看，明智地分配資本對我們來說至關重要，尤其是在機會出現的時候。在這個市場中，也許是股票，也許是其他便宜得多的資產，我們想要持有，或者只是聘請許多我們以前無法接觸到的優秀人才。所以我們正在利用這段時間，將這些“檸檬”變成“檸檬水”，我們很高興擁有目前的EBITDA和現金資產負債表。當然，在目前的股價下，考慮到我們在自由現金流特徵中看到的所有上行機會以及我們預測的現金收益率，我們肯定會考慮股票回購，我們認為規模應該在4億美元左右。我們必須弄清楚在什麼時期使用多少金額是合適的。

We'll next go to Matt Cost at Morgan Stanley.

接下來我們來談談摩根士丹利的馬特‧科斯特。

So it seems like the overall app install ad market has been decelerating over the course of 2022 but has not reached the level that we've seen mobile gaming and consumer spending on mobile gaming reach where you've got market year-on-year decline. So is it a fair statement that maybe the ad business here is a lagging indicator to what consumers are spending on mobile games? And does that create maybe more risk for next year, which you're reacting to? That's question one. Question 2 is, are there any indications or data points that you'll be looking for? I know you can't predict the future, but that you will be looking for to try to assess when the market has bottomed and maybe you'll be looking for opportunities to push harder on investment at that point?

因此，看起來整個應用程式安裝廣告市場在 2022 年一直在減速，但還沒有達到我們所看到的行動遊戲和行動遊戲消費者支出所達到的水平，也就是市場同比下滑的水平。那麼，說這裡的廣告業務可能只是消費者在行動遊戲上支出的落後指標，這種說法是否合理？這是否會為明年帶來更多風險，您對此有何回應？這是第一個問題。第二個問題是，您是否會注意一些跡像或數據點？我知道您無法預測未來，但您會關注這些數據點，以評估市場何時觸底，並在那時尋找機會加強投資力度？

Yes. So I'll take the second first again, just top of mind. Look, we're investing in our business as it is. We run a high-margin business because we've got a lean team, we've got an exceptional team that creates a lot of output. We've been run entrepreneurial since the get-go. So there's no shortage of investment against things that we see as opportunities. We've got new initiatives that we're investing into. We've got a technological (inaudible) that we're investing into. And we're organizing a lot of the acquisitions that we've made over the last couple of years to be more advantageous for our business going forward.

是的。所以我還是先說第二個，這是我最先想到的。你看，我們正在投資我們現有的業務。我們經營高利潤的業務，因為我們擁有一支精幹的團隊，一支卓越的團隊，能夠創造大量的產出。我們從一開始就秉持創業精神。因此，我們並不缺乏針對我們認為有機遇的領域的投資。我們正在投資一些新的項目。我們正在投資一些技術（聽不清楚）。我們正在整理過去幾年進行的大量收購，以便為未來的業務發展提供更有利的條件。

So we've not stopped investing and we'll continue to invest both in growth opportunities that we see in front of us right now and those that we come up with in the future. Nothing about the market is going to change that because we do generate enough cash to be opportunistic enough to be able to invest in things that we deem worthwhile even in today's market.

因此，我們不會停止投資，我們將繼續投資於我們目前看到的成長機會以及未來可能出現的成長機會。市場的任何變化都不會改變這一點，因為我們確實擁有足夠的現金，即使在當今市場環境下，我們也能抓住機會投資我們認為有價值的項目。

Now when it comes to the market itself, mobile gaming has been declining. People are still consuming the same amount of mobile games, though. The big change, there's been 2 changes. One is, as we've talked about, macroeconomically, a lot of companies are focused on cash flow and away from revenue growth. That's just a requirement. That's already baked into the advertising ecosystem. The other change that came obviously in our sector right around the same time as the economy fell off is that IDFA change. And traditionally, mobile gaming companies were able to spend a lot of their revenue back in the user acquisition, namely on some big social properties to be able to grow. Those buys had the best return on ad spend. They were highly targeted, and they were able to use those profits to subsidize future growth.

現在說到市場本身，手游市場一直在下滑。不過，人們玩手遊的數量仍然保持不變。最大的變化有兩個。其一，正如我們之前提到的，從宏觀經濟角度來看，許多公司都專注於現金流，而不是收入成長。這只是一個必然要求，已經融入了廣告生態系統。另一個變化顯然發生在我們這個行業，與經濟衰退同期，那就是IDFA的變化。傳統上，手遊公司能夠將大量收入用於用戶獲取，也就是一些重要的社交資產，以實現成長。這些購買的廣告支出回報率最高。它們具有高度的針對性，能夠利用這些利潤來補貼未來的成長。

Take that away, and you have 2 things that really hit the category. And both those happen at the same time. So you can't really decouple them. Both are also baked into the business. Our business, we're fortunate enough to have a massive penetration in the market we operate in. Our mediation product is market leading and our AppDiscovery product is market-leading. And we've got no dependency on any single advertiser.

撇開這一點不談，你會發現有兩件事真正影響了我們的產品類別。而這兩件事是同時發生的。所以你無法將它們真正分開。兩者都是業務本身的一部分。我們的業務很幸運，在我們經營的市場中擁有巨大的滲透力​​。我們的聚合產品是市場領先的，我們的AppDiscovery產品也是市場領先的。而且我們不依賴任何單一的廣告商。

The nice thing about mobile gaming is that it is a very commoditized industry when it comes to advertising. All of our mobile gaming categories have multiple gaming companies that all look very similar to the naked eye. They certainly have different products. But if you think about some of our biggest advertisers, they make solitaire games or they make puzzle games, and there's 100 other ones of them that look the same, and most of them are marketing on our platform. So even if a couple of them start struggling as businesses, the other ones just fill in the gap. Therefore, we look at our businesses in a very stable place, and we don't see much more deteriorating going forward.

行動遊戲的一大優勢在於，就廣告而言，它是一個高度商品化的產業。我們所有的行動遊戲類別都包含多家遊戲公司，這些公司肉眼看起來都非常相似。當然，它們的產品也各不相同。但想想我們一些最大的廣告客戶，他們製作紙牌遊戲或益智遊戲，還有100多家看起來類似的公司，其中大多數都在我們的平台上進行行銷。所以，即使其中幾家公司開始陷入困境，其他公司也會填補空缺。因此，我們認為我們的業務目前非常穩定，未來不會有太大的惡化。

So would it be fair to assume then that your quarter ahead guidance does not contemplate material further deterioration?

那麼，是否可以公平地假設，您的季度指引並未考慮進一步的重大惡化？

Yes, I think we said, stable.

是的，我想我們說過，穩定。

We'll take our next question from Stephen Ju at Credit Suisse.

我們將回答瑞士信貸的 Stephen Ju 提出的下一個問題。

All right. So Adam, to dig into the AXON topic a little bit more. I think you've previously talked about how it has helped you guys drive I think it was a 500% improvement in the accuracy of what ads you are showing. So have those improvements been fairly steady over the last couple of years? Or do they tend to show up in large steps as you think about what kind of effective CPI improvements you could drive over the longer term? And also if you can update us on where you are in the transition of the mediation solution from, I guess, the more waterfall to real-time bidding?

好的。 Adam，我們再深入探討 AXON 的話題。我記得您之前提到過它是如何幫助您們提高廣告展示準確率的，大概提升了 500%。那麼，這些改進在過去幾年是否比較穩定？還是說，當您考慮長期內如何有效提升 CPI 時，這些改進會逐步顯現？另外，您能否介紹一下，你們在聚合解決方案從瀑布流向即時競價的過渡方面進展如何？

Yes. So on the first, obviously, when we rolled out the AXON upgrade, there were huge step-ups of growth. And when you roll out a core technology like that, it has to get adopted by all your advertisers. So we have very predictable growth that was in the double digits, I think, around 30% for 4 subsequent quarters. That accuracy came from the upgrade in the engine. Then we've had incremental changes every step of the way. A material upgrade to the engine really is a step function opportunity, whereas your incremental upgrades end up just baked into your numbers. This isn't to do with CPI though. It's not that we were able to improve the accuracy and drive up CPI. Our goal is to say advertisers have their goals. Our advertisers are willing to spend today in our platform of whatever return on ad spend goals they've set, the amount that they're willing to spend.

是的。首先，當我們推出 AXON 升級版時，顯然帶來了巨大的成長。推出這樣核心技術，必須讓所有廣告主都採用。因此，我們的成長非常可預測，在接下來的四個季度裡，成長率都達到了兩位數，大概在 30% 左右。這種精準度得益於引擎的升級。之後，我們每一步都進行了漸進式改進。引擎的實質升級確實是一個階梯式成長的機會，而你的漸進式升級最終會體現在你的數據中。但這與 CPI 無關。我們並非能夠提高精準度並提高 CPI。我們的目標是確保廣告主有自己的目標。我們的廣告主願意在我們的平台上投入他們設定的廣告支出報酬率目標，也就是他們願意投入的金額。

We have a lot of excess budget that we're not able to fulfill today. So if we're able to improve the accuracy of our predictive engine, we'll be able to fulfill that excess budget and maintain advertiser rates similar to where they are. So that the advertiser is happy, and we're growing our business. And that's the opportunity that we're excited about. That's a performance business at its core.

我們目前有很多超額預算無法完成。因此，如果我們能夠提高預測引擎的準確性，就能完成這些超額預算，並維持與廣告主的費率水準基本上一致。這樣，廣告主滿意，我們的業務也能成長。這正是我們興奮的機會。這本質上是一項績效業務。

So on the second question, in the move from mediation to real-time bidding, we've talked about this in the past. There were some early adopters of real-time bidding, and a lot of the market is going to move there over time. And there's just some technology companies that are still getting to the point of being able to support real-time bidding instance.

關於第二個問題，關於從聚合到即時競價的轉變，我們之前討論過這個問題。有一些早期採用即時競價的公司，隨著時間的推移，許多市場都會轉向這個方向。目前，一些科技公司仍在努力實現能夠支援即時競價的階段。

Now the biggest and most interesting partner there for us in the future is Google. There was an announcement a couple of months ago about their investment in real-time bidding. We're one of the launch partners for their efforts there. They're starting to see strong success there. We love that partnership. And together, if we can facilitate Google moving towards real-time bidding, it will really end up tilting the majority of the market over to it. We're excited about that. It will create efficiency gains for publishers, incremental revenue for the publisher that will then flow back into user acquisition. Obviously, we can charge for it. So it improves the business opportunity we have with the MAX products. And so we think there's a lot of gains to be had there over the coming quarters and years.

現在，未來我們最大、最感興趣的合作夥伴就是Google。幾個月前，他們宣布投資即時競價。我們是他們在該領域的首批合作夥伴之一。他們正在那裡取得巨大成功。我們非常重視這種合作關係。如果我們能夠共同推動Google朝著即時競價邁進，最終將真正贏得大部分市場。我們對此感到興奮。這將提高出版商的效率，增加出版商的收入，這些收入將用於用戶獲取。顯然，我們可以收取費用。因此，這將提升我們MAX產品的商業機會。因此，我們認為在未來幾個季度和幾年裡，我們將在該領域獲得巨大的收益。

And Herald, I think up to 40% of your revenue base is coming in from international given the strength of the U.S. dollar that had to have put the squeeze on revenue growth for you guys a little bit. So can you talk about the FX headwinds probably separated for perhaps the software business as well as apps?

《先驅報》：我認為，鑑於美元走強，你們高達40%的收入來自國際市場，這必然會對你們的收入成長帶來一些壓力。那麼，您能否分別談談軟體業務和應用程式業務可能面臨的外匯逆風？

Yes, for us, a lot of the app side is transacted in dollars and through app stores. And so really more of the FX headwind is probably more macroeconomic and then if people are just transacting in a currency, then it's always translated into dollars for us. So we don't actually -- for our specific P&L, on the software side as well, we don't have like a big FX headwind on our P&L. It would be just if there was some currency translation of someone buying a good in a game itself, for example, you might see it there. But for us directly, it's not a big impact.

是的，對我們來說，許多應用程式端的交易都是透過應用程式商店以美元進行的。所以，外匯逆風實際上更多的是宏觀經濟因素，如果人們只是用某種貨幣進行交易，那麼對我們來說，它總是會轉換成美元。所以，就我們具體的損益表（包括軟體方面）而言，我們的損益表並沒有受到太大的外匯逆風影響。例如，如果有人在遊戲中購買商品，可能會涉及貨幣轉換，你可能會在那裡看到這種情況。但對我們來說，這並沒有太大的影響。

Well, next go to Jason Bazinet with Citi. (Operator Instructions)

好的，接下來去找花旗銀行的 Jason Bazinet。 （操作員指示）

We'll next go to Omar Dessouky at Bank of America. (Operator Instructions)

接下來我們去美國銀行找奧馬爾·德蘇基。 （操作員指示）

Yes. So look, in terms of specifically these other big players in the market that have been dominant prior to IDFA. They're making a lot of investments into kind of privacy-enhancing technologies and infrastructure and presumably once they get around to completing that and have it available for general use, market share could kind of shift back to them. And I was wondering if you had any thoughts on how long -- like how many years that would take before some of these players like Facebook could get there?

是的。具體來說，就那些在 IDFA 出現之前就佔據主導地位的其他大型企業而言，他們在隱私增強技術和基礎設施方面投入了大量資金，大概一旦他們完成這項工作並將其提供給公眾使用，市場份額就可能重新回到他們手中。我想知道您是否認為像 Facebook 這樣的一些公司需要多長時間才能實現這一目標？

Yes. Thanks for the question, Omar. We can't comment on what other people are investing into or how long those investment efforts will take. But the reality of our sector is we want the pie to be growing. If the pie is growing, it means advertisers, these mobile gaming companies in general are able to reinvest more dollars into user acquisition. And we've got a strong share of that pie. We've always had a strong share of that pie. We had a very strong growing business.

是的。謝謝你的提問，奧馬爾。我們無法評論其他人在投資什麼，或這些投資需要多長時間。但我們這個行業的現實是，我們希望蛋糕越來越大。如果蛋糕越來越大，就意味著廣告商，以及這些行動遊戲公司，整體上能夠將更多資金再投入到用戶獲取上。而我們在這個蛋糕中佔據了相當大的份額。我們一直都佔據著相當大的份額。我們的業務成長非常強勁。

Prior to the IDFA change, we didn't really change a whole lot. After the IDFA change and now we're just caught up in the macroeconomic cycle. But the reality is that IDFA change is a burden on the growth of the whole sector. We want our advertisers, including our own gaming studios to be able to invest on Facebook and other properties as successfully as they possibly can. The deployment of dollars in efficacious and ROAS-based advertising, creates this upside to the category that did fuel a decade of consistent growth.

在IDFA變更之前，我們並沒有做出太多改變。 IDFA變更之後，我們只是陷入了宏觀經濟週期。但現實情況是，IDFA變更對整個產業的發展造成了負擔。我們希望我們的廣告商，包括我們自己的遊戲工作室，能夠盡可能成功地在Facebook和其他平台上進行投資。將資金投入到有效且基於ROAS的廣告中，為該類別創造了優勢，並推動了該類別十年的持續成長。

Take that away and it creates a handicap. So we have no fear to that. We hope that all the technologies in the ecosystem continue to innovate and improve. We also, as a possible growth opportunity are hoping that Apple and the other -- and Google and other platforms bring more inventory online because as Apple continues to invest in their advertising efforts and they've talked about bringing more inventory online, it creates more places for these same advertisers to go invest and again, grow their business.

拿走這一點，就會造成障礙。所以我們對此並不擔心。我們希望生態系統中的所有技術都能持續創新和改進。我們也希望，作為一個潛在的成長機會，蘋果、谷歌和其他平台能夠提供更多線上廣告位。隨著蘋果繼續在廣告業務上投入，並且他們已經談到要提供更多線上廣告位，這將為這些廣告商創造更多投資機會，並再次促進他們的業務成長。

Because our business is performance-based, that never means that we lose budget. It just means that the businesses of our advertisers will improve, which then ends up allowing them to be more stable companies and reinvest back into our platform as well.

因為我們的業務是基於效果的，所以這絕不意味著我們會損失預算。這只會讓我們的廣告主的業務得到改善，最終讓他們變得更加穩定，並將資金重新投入我們的平台。

Okay. So if I heard you right, it sounds like you're saying that a resurgence of those dominant companies pre-IDFA is actually more of like a tailwind and benefit for you guys rather than headwind...

好的。如果我沒聽錯的話，你的意思是，IDFA 出現之前那些占主導地位的公司的復甦實際上對你們來說更像是順風和利好，而不是逆風…

Yes. We want a growing sector. In a growing sector and a predictably growing one where companies can reinvest their dollars, everyone is winning together. And we have market leadership technologies when it comes to monetization, mediation and growth. And so we've got a very strong base to our business. We were always totally fine, doing very well, growing consistently prior to the IDFA change and we'll see that afterwards if these companies do make their technologies more efficient again.

是的。我們希望看到一個不斷成長的行業。在一個不斷成長且可預測的成長領域，企​​業可以重新投資，實現共贏。我們在貨幣化、聚合和成長方面擁有市場領先的技術。因此，我們的業務基礎非常牢固。在IDFA變更之前，我們的業務一直都很好，發展良好，持續成長。之後，如果這些公司再次提高其技術的效率，我們拭目以待。

We'll next go to Franco Granda with D.A. Davidson.

接下來我們將和 D.A. Davidson 一起去 Franco Granda。

Couple of questions here. I was wondering, how many studios are you down to at the moment? How many do you own? And how should we think about the performance-based payments for the studios given the lower expected revenues?

這裡有幾個問題。我想知道，你們目前有多少工作室？你們自己擁有多少個工作室？考慮到預期收入較低，我們該如何考慮工作室的績效付費？

Yes, we have about a dozen studios now, and we are -- as I think I mentioned before, in process of renegotiating some of those payments. The vast majority that have already been paid out. And some of those studios are obviously not performing and not going to hit their earnouts either. And so the projected earn-out payments are not terribly significant. We hope as we restructure them in a way that there's more alignment for the new world and the new expectations that they succeed and we succeed along the way. So they're very much going to be aligned with our success going forward.

是的，我們現在大約有十幾個工作室，而且——我記得我之前提到過——我們正在重新協商部分付款。絕大多數已經付了。其中一些工作室顯然表現不佳，也達不到獲利目標。因此，預計的獲利目標金額並不大。我們希望，透過重組這些工作室，能夠更好地適應新的環境和新的期望，確保他們和我們都能成功。這樣，這些工作室的業績將與我們未來的成功高度一致。

Awesome. And then can you speak to what the business at Wurl is like at the moment? Where do you expect it to end for the year relative to your expectations entering the year? And then maybe any color around customer engagements that could translate into revenue next year?

太棒了。那麼，您能談談 Wurl 目前的業務狀況嗎？相對於年初的預期，您預計今年底的業績會如何？您能談談客戶互動方面的情況，這些方面明年可能會轉化為收入嗎？

Yes, we're excited to own Wurl. Obviously, it's a very big category. If you've been looking at some releases of companies that are involved in the CTV category, it seems to be the one place that there's some green shoots and some growth. So we're excited to be entering the category and assessing our best strategies there. Wurl in and of itself in terms of revenue still very -- relatively small but growthful. It's in the $30 million, $40 million, $50 million range in terms of where it's going to grow to in the near term. So not meaningful from our revenue standpoint but it is very strategic, given the inventory that they operate with, given all the partners that use them for the distribution of content. We think it's an interesting way to enter the category instead of us trying to do it from a standing start. And they've got a team of people that are thinking about it every single day.

是的，我們很高興能擁有Wurl。顯然，這是一個非常大的類別。如果你有在關註一些參與CTV領域的公司發布的消息，你會發現它似乎是唯一一個出現了一些復甦和成長的領域。所以我們很高興能夠進入這個領域，並評估我們的最佳策略。 Wurl本身的收入仍然很小——相對較小，但正在增長。就其短期成長目標而言，它在3000萬美元、4000萬美元或5000萬美元之間。因此，從我們的收入角度來看，這意義不大，但考慮到他們營運的庫存，以及所有透過他們分發內容的合作夥伴，這非常具有戰略意義。我們認為，這是進入這個領域的有趣方式，而不是試圖從零開始。而且他們有一個團隊每天都在思考這個問題。

And as Adam mentioned earlier, we're very much partnered up with them on the technology side, using our ad tech technology and their experience and expertise in the CTV category to figure out what our best plays are. But that's going to be a longer-term play for us. It is a big category. We want to figure out how to get it right. It's very dynamic. A lot of players in the space. And Wurl is going up and groups coming together. So it's something we're very focused on and excited about, but still pretty early.

正如Adam之前提到的，我們在技術方面與他們合作密切，利用我們的廣告技術以及他們在CTV領域的經驗和專業知識，來探索我們的最佳策略。但這對我們來說將是一個長期的策略。這是一個很大的領域。我們想找到正確的方法。這個領域非常活躍，有很多參與者。 Wurl正在崛起，各家公司也不斷整合。所以我們非常關注並期待這件事，但目前還處於早期階段。

We'll next go to Martin Yang with Oppenheimer.

接下來我們將和奧本海默一起拜訪馬丁楊。

I want to dig in to the mechanics when a diversified publisher scale back UA and focus on ROAS. How -- assuming a customer's yours does the same as you treat your apps? And how does it impact your AppDiscovery and AppLovin Exchange, respectively?

我想深入探討一下，當多元化發行商縮減用戶獲取 (UA) 並專注於廣告支出回報率 (ROAS) 時，具體機制是怎樣的。假設你的客戶對待你的應用程式的方式與你對待應用程式的方式相同，那會怎麼樣？這會分別對你的 AppDiscovery 和 AppLovin Exchange 產生什麼影響？

Yes. So that's only directly impactful to us, Martin, on the AppDiscovery side, the ALX business is third-party demand sources that aggregate a lot of demand that may have the same or different models to us. But on the AppDiscovery product, if there's a customer to say, for instance, wants to spend $1,000 a day at 10% return on ad spend, willing to make $100 a day in the first 24 hours, our systems are very good at driving advertising for them that will yield that return.

是的。 Martin，這只會直接影響我們，就 AppDiscovery 而言，ALX 業務是第三方需求來源，它聚合了大量可能與我們擁有相同或不同模式的需求。但就 AppDiscovery 產品而言，例如，如果有客戶希望每天花費 1,000 美元，廣告支出回報率為 10%，並且願意在最初的 24 小時內每天賺取 100 美元，那麼我們的系統非常擅長為他們投放能夠帶來該回報的廣告。

Now that may back into somewhere around, let's call it, a day 270 return on ad spend, where they break even on the $1,000 spent, and they may be looking at this economy and saying, we can't afford to wait 270 days anymore to breakeven on the dollar invested. So they pull back that date. What they would do is they'd go, we're willing to spend the same $1,000, but now get us 20% return on ad spend in the first 24 hours. And again, that in our system, it's all programmatic. So they changed the goal, it instantly will flow through the system and the advertising now will try to find users that will yield twice the return on ad spend that yesterday's budget and targets would have gone and yielded.

現在，廣告支出回報率可能會回到大約 270 天左右，也就是 1,000 美元的收支平衡。考慮到目前的經濟狀況，他們可能會說，我們再也無法承受等待 270 天才能收回投資成本的局面了。所以他們推遲了這個日期。他們會做的是，我們願意花費相同的 1,000 美元，但現在要求在最初的 24 小時內獲得 20% 的廣告支出回報率。再說一次，在我們的系統中，一切都是程式化的。所以他們改變了目標，它會立即流經系統，廣告現在會嘗試尋找能夠產生兩倍於昨天預算和目標的廣告支出回報率的用戶。

And so that's really the change that has flowed through the industry is that as advertisers have had to get tighter with the cash that they're able to invest on user acquisition, those just automatically flow through our system. Now also as this economy goes the other way and we get back to a growth period, hopefully at some point into the future, it will go the other way where they lower their goals and automatically will have a step up in the dollars that we can go spend on their behalf to drive them their new economic goals.

所以，這其實是整個產業發生的變化：廣告商不得不收緊用於用戶獲取的資金，這些資金會自動流向我們的系統。現在，隨著經濟情勢的逆轉，我們又回到了成長期，希望在未來的某個時候，情況也會反過來，廣告商降低目標，我們就能自動增加資金，用於幫助他們實現新的經濟目標。

One more follow-up on margins for Software Platform. So aside from your own investment decisions regarding OpEx and anything else that are in your control, what are the potential factors that could impact your Software Platform margin?

再問一個關於軟體平台利潤率的問題。那麼，除了您自己關於營運支出的投資決策以及其他您能控制的因素之外，還有哪些潛在因素可能會影響您的軟體平台利潤率？

Martin, we report on a net revenue basis to start with. So we do take out the vagaries of having a gross to net in our net revenue. So below the line there, though, it's really the data center costs, which we talked about before, and we have our contract in place and that we have a very good handle on to know what that cost will be. Our team is in place. Yes, we were trying to add awesome talent that's available to us now. But we're not talking about dozens and dozens of people at a time. So I wouldn't see any real significant increase there. Our new initiatives, we are spending against already. So it is in the P&L and part of our operating expenses today.

馬丁，我們首先以淨收入為基礎進行報告。因此，我們的淨收入中確實剔除了毛收入與淨收入之間的差異。不過，這筆費用的真正來源實際上是資料中心成本，正如我們之前討論過的，我們已經簽訂了合同，並且能夠很好地掌握成本。我們的團隊也已到位。是的，我們正在努力引進現有人才。但我們不是說一次性引進幾十個人。因此，我認為這部分不會有顯著的成長。我們新的項目，我們已經在支出了。所以這部分費用已經計入損益表，並成為我們今天的營運費用的一部分。

Now if one of them catches fire, do we increase dramatically there? Potentially. But as Adam said, we've always been very cash flow focused and return focused. We'll do the right thing there. And by the way, likewise, on the app portfolio, and we've been targeting to get our margins up. But if there is a game that we see in the past, we've done that with Project Makeover and others. But if there's a game that we see that has a great return on ad spend, we will spend there to and possibly bring down margins on a quarterly basis as we scale our game. But on the software side, we have a high degree of confidence and visibility into that. Now mid-60s margin structure, including new initiatives.

如果其中一款遊戲火爆，我們會大幅提升利潤嗎？有可能。但正如Adam所說，我們一直非常注重現金流和回報。我們會在這方面做正確的事。順便說一句，在應用程式組合方面也是如此，我們一直致力於提高利潤率。如果我們過去看到一款遊戲，像是《Project Makeover》和其他遊戲，我們就這麼做過。但如果我們發現一款遊戲的廣告支出回報率很高，我們就會繼續投入，並可能隨著遊戲規模的擴大而逐季度降低利潤率。但在軟體方面，我們對此非常有信心，並且有預見性。現在的利潤率結構在60%左右，包括新項目。

And if our core technology ramps up, there's a significant amount of flow-through per incremental dollar to the bottom line given the fact that our infrastructure is basically fixed at this point as well as our team has paid for as well.

如果我們的核心技術得到提升，那麼考慮到我們的基礎設施目前基本上已經修復，並且我們的團隊也已經支付了費用，那麼每增加一美元就會給底線帶來大量的流量。

We'll next go to Ralph Schackart with William Blair.

接下來我們將和威廉布萊爾一起去拜訪拉爾夫沙卡特。

I jumped on late, so I apologize if this has been asked. But can you maybe talk about sort of the softness that you saw in the quarter and maybe sort of the pace of that. And I think on the call, you had said that you feel that stuff is -- that the business has stabilized. Just trying to understand sort of the linear area of the pullback and sort of the comments around stabilization. That's the first one. And then I have a follow-up, please.

我來晚了，如果有人問到這個問題，我很抱歉。您能否談談本季您看到的疲軟情況，以及疲軟的程度。我記得在電話會議上您說過，您感覺業務已經穩定下來了。我想了解一下回調的線性區域，以及關於穩定的評論。這是第一個問題。然後我還有一個後續問題，請繼續提問。

Yes. Ralph, we referenced it in the last call, but we've been pretty stable since our last big step-up growth quarter. It's not that we're seeing any trends change late in the quarter at all since then. We signaled that we thought it would be relatively flat on the quarter, it was. We see the same thing going forward. Right now, we're in an ecosystem that sort of has priced in all of this difficulty on the macro side and difficulty on the targeting side. And so we see stability everywhere in this business at the moment, and that gives us a lot of comfort with where we're at.

是的。拉爾夫，我們在上次電話會議中提到過，但自從上一個季度大幅增長以來，我們的業績一直相當穩定。這並不是說我們在本季末看到任何趨勢變化。我們之前暗示，我們預計本季業績會相對持平，事實也確實如此。我們看到未來情況也是如此。目前，我們所處的生態系統已經將宏觀層面和目標層面的所有困難都計入了價格。因此，我們目前看到整個業務領域都保持穩定，這讓我們對目前的狀況感到非常安心。

Okay. And then just a clarifying question from the shareholder letter talked about during Q3 within Apps business about the sale of nonstrategic assets, did you sell off something during the quarter?

好的。然後我想澄清一下股東信中提到的一個問題，在第三季度，Apps 業務內部談到了非策略性資產的出售，你們在本季度出售了一些東西嗎？

Yes, there was one that actually a very, very small asset that we sold back to the founders. They were trying to develop a new game that wasn't going to come to fruition so that they wanted to own the entity going forward. So it's a very, very small asset.

是的，我們把其中一項資產賣給了創辦人，那其實是一筆非常小的資產。他們當時正在嘗試開發一款新遊戲，但最終無法實現，所以他們想繼續擁有這個實體。所以，這筆資產非常小。

We'll go ahead and take our last question from David Pang with Stifel.

我們將繼續回答 Stifel 的 David Pang 提出的最後一個問題。

Just wanted to see if you could provide an update on the DSPs that were transitioning from MoPub to MAX that you highlighted last quarter. And then for Herald, how are you thinking about leverage in general in a rising rate environment?

只是想看看您能否提供您上個季度重點介紹的從 MoPub 過渡到 MAX 的 DSP 的最新情況。對於 Herald，在利率上升的環境下，您如何看待槓桿？

DSP side, we use the word stable again, super stable. We are cut over on pretty much all the MoPub DSPs at this point. Really, the shift is a year ago, there's a lot more brand dollars in the ecosystem. A lot of these DSPs are advantageous for us because they're hedged on our business. They go tap into brand dollars, which is not something we've traditionally focused on. And all of those big vendors are live on our platform. They're doing very well. They like the new infrastructure and system. MAX plus MoPub is over 2x bigger than what MoPub was for them. So in terms of the pipes being connected up to the DSPs were there, in terms of them being able to spend materially more than they were doing in the past, we're actually there as well because our business is so much bigger. But in the long term, there's really going to be an opportunity there as this economy recovers for these DSPs to flow more dollars to our system.

在 DSP 方面，我們再次使用了「穩定」這個詞，超級穩定。目前，我們幾乎已經連接了所有 MoPub DSP。實際上，這種轉變發生在一年前，當時生態系統的品牌投入要多得多。很多 DSP 對我們來說都很有利，因為它們對我們的業務進行了對沖。它們會利用品牌投入，而這並非我們傳統上關注的重點。所有這些大型供應商都已在我們的平台上線。他們做得非常好。他們喜歡新的基礎設施和系統。 MAX 加上 MoPub 之後，規模比 MoPub 大了兩倍以上。因此，就連接到 DSP 的管道而言，就他們能夠比過去大幅增加支出而言，我們實際上也處於這種狀態，因為我們的業務規模要大得多。但從長遠來看，隨著經濟復甦，這些 DSP 將有機會為我們的系統注入更多資金。

Yes, David, thanks for the question. Yes. So on the leverage side, we feel very comfortable with where we sit today. We're at just over 2x net leverage, which is very reasonable. We have 4 Bs in terms of the rating. So we feel comfortable there as well. Of course, interest rates have gone up significantly and something that we watch. We did hedge out for the year, some of the interest -- actually more than half of the interest fixed for the year. Our duration also is fairly strong. So we have maturities coming in '25 and '28. So we can live with our term loans. There's no maintenance covenants or anything like that on it as well. So it does provide us quite a bit of flexibility.

是的，David，謝謝你的提問。是的。所以在槓桿方面，我們對目前的狀況非常滿意。我們的淨槓桿略高於2倍，非常合理。我們的評級是4B。所以我們對目前的狀況也非常滿意。當然，利率大幅上漲，這是我們關注的。我們今年確實對沖了部分利息——實際上，超過一半的利息是固定的。我們的期限也相當長。我們的貸款將在2025年和2028年到期。所以我們可以放心地使用我們的定期貸款。貸款中也沒有維護契約之類的條款。所以這確實為我們提供了相當大的靈活性。

So we're very, very comfortable with the current leverage levels, and we still generate after interest cost, significant amount of free cash flow. As we described before, we have a relatively modest tax rate. Given a bunch of deductions, we have very little CapEx to us in there, just a little bit of lease expense. We are able to flow through a very strong percentage even with the amount of leverage we're carrying today.

因此，我們對目前的槓桿水準非常滿意，扣除利息成本後，我們仍然擁有大量的自由現金流。正如我們之前所述，我們的稅率相對較低。考慮到一系列的抵扣，我們的資本支出非常少，只有少量的租賃費用。即使我們目前持有大量的槓桿，我們仍然能夠實現非常可觀的現金流。

Okay. Well, thank you, everyone, for joining. That does conclude our call for today. We appreciate you hopping on, and we'll speak with you all next quarter.

好的。謝謝大家的參與。今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝大家的參與，我們將在下個季度與大家交流。

Thanks, everyone.

謝謝大家。