Playboy Inc (PLBY) 2023 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to PLBY Group's Second Quarter 2023 question-and-answer session. Hosting today's call are Ben Kohn, Chief Executive Officer; and Marc Crossman, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. (Operator Instructions).

大家下午好，歡迎來到PLBY集團2023年第二季度問答會。今天的電話會議由首席執行官 Ben Kohn 主持。首席財務官兼首席運營官 Marc Crossman。 （操作員說明）。

While we wait for the Q to fill, we remind everyone that the information discussed today is qualified in its entirety by the Form 8-K that has been filed today by PLBY Group, Inc., which may be accessed on the SEC's website and PLBY Group's website. Today's call is also being webcast, and a replay will be posted on PLBY Group's Investor Relations website.

在我們等待 Q 填寫時，我們提醒大家，今天討論的信息完全符合 PLBY Group, Inc. 今天提交的 8-K 表格，該表格可以在 SEC 網站和 PLBY 上訪問集團網站。今天的電話會議也進行了網絡直播，重播將發佈在 PLBY 集團的投資者關係網站上。

Please note that statements made during this call, including financial projections or other statements that are not historical in nature may constitute forward-looking statements. Such statements are made on the basis of PLBY Group's views and assumptions regarding future events and business performance at the time they are made, and we do not undertake any obligation to update these statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, which could cause PLBY Group's actual results to differ from its historical results and forecasts, including those risks set forth in PLBY Group's filings with the SEC, and you should refer to and carefully consider those for more information. This cautionary statement applies to all forward-looking statements made during this call. Do not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements.

請注意，本次電話會議期間發表的聲明，包括財務預測或其他非歷史性的聲明，可能構成前瞻性聲明。此類聲明是基於 PLBY 集團在做出時對未來事件和業務績效的觀點和假設而做出的，我們不承擔更新這些聲明的任何義務。前瞻性陳述存在風險，可能導致 PLBY 集團的實際結果與其歷史結果和預測不同，包括 PLBY 集團向 SEC 提交的文件中列出的風險，您應該參考並仔細考慮這些風險以獲取更多信息。此警告聲明適用於本次電話會議期間做出的所有前瞻性聲明。請勿過分依賴任何前瞻性陳述。

During this call, PLBY Group may refer to non-GAAP financial measures. Such non-GAAP measures are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is available in the earnings release PLBY Group filed with its Form 8-K today.

在本次電話會議中，PLBY 集團可能會參考非 GAAP 財務指標。此類非公認會計原則衡量標準並非按照公認會計原則制定。 PLBY Group 今天提交的 8-K 表格中的收益報告中提供了非 GAAP 財務指標與最直接可比的 GAAP 指標的調節表。

Ben, do you have any comments before we take the first question?

本，在我們回答第一個問題之前，您有什麼意見嗎？

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. We have changed our earnings call format that starting this quarter, we not no longer hold prepared remarks. Instead, we will go right into the Q&A dialogue. We see other companies doing this, and we feel it's a better use of time, and it also leads into an open or more open dialogue instead of taking half the conference call to regurgitate which should be in an earnings release. Also in our release, we will lead with a business update from me, and we anticipate sticking with this format going forward. With that, we will now begin our Q&A session. Operator?

謝謝接線員，大家下午好。我們改變了財報電話會議的形式，從本季度開始，我們不再舉行準備好的講話。相反，我們將直接進入問答對話。我們看到其他公司也在這樣做，我們認為這是對時間的更好利用，而且它也導致了公開或更公開的對話，而不是用一半的電話會議時間來反省，而這應該在收益發布中進行。此外，在我們的發布中，我們將首先發布我的業務更新，並且我們預計今後將繼續採用這種格式。接下來，我們將開始問答環節。操作員？

Our first question comes from the line of Andrew Uerkwitz with Jefferies.

我們的第一個問題來自 Andrew Uerkwitz 和 Jefferies 的對話。

I appreciate the new format. Just 2 questions. The first one, I think on the last earnings call you mentioned reviewing the strategic value of Honey Birdette. Can you just give an update on that? It seems like a great asset, but it is facing some macro headwinds according to the press release. So just curious where you stand on that particular asset?

我很欣賞這種新格式。只有 2 個問題。第一個，我認為在上次財報電話會議上您提到了審查 Honey Birdette 的戰略價值。你能介紹一下最新情況嗎？這似乎是一筆巨大的資產，但根據新聞稿，它面臨著一些宏觀阻力。所以只是好奇你對這項特定資產的立場如何？

Thanks, Andrew. I'll take that and Marc, please, pipe in. We have limited resources internally, and we have been spending a lot of time focused on selling levers. That business has now been moved to our discontinued ops in the financial statement. We had multiple offers for that business. We are under exclusivity with a party. And at the same time, we are working on putting materials together for Honey Birdette for our financial adviser. And based on market conditions, specifically the M&A market. And when we conclude the leverage process, we will then evaluate the timing to start the Honey Birdette process.

謝謝，安德魯。我會接受這個，請馬克插話。我們內部資源有限，而且我們花了很多時間專注於銷售槓桿。該業務現已轉移到我們財務報表中已終止的業務中。我們對該業務有多個報價。我們擁有一方的排他性。與此同時，我們正在努力為我們的財務顧問整理 Honey Birdette 的材料。並基於市場狀況，特別是併購市場。當我們結束槓桿流程時，我們將評估啟動 Honey Birdette 流程的時機。

Got it. That's helpful. And then switching over to the creator platform. I guess, like 2 half questions here. The first is you made several changes in the quarter that seem to have a very positive outcome. Can you just remind us what your road map is on adding features and other updates to the platform? And then secondarily, AI has been all the rage. How are you guys thinking about leveraging AI and maybe discovery and other areas?

知道了。這很有幫助。然後切換到創作者平台。我想，就像這裡有兩個半問題。首先，您在本季度做出了幾項改變，這些改變似乎產生了非常積極的結果。您能否提醒我們您在平台上添加功能和其他更新的路線圖是什麼？其次，人工智能風靡一時。你們如何考慮利用人工智能以及發現和其他領域？

Sure. Look, we are constantly updating the platform, and we're using data to help us do that. So the biggest change that we undertook during the quarter was actually changing our onboarding process. And there were certain things that the consumer or the user does not see that we had to put in place and expand, for example, our moderation tools, making sure that we create a safe platform not only for the company, for our creators, but also that complies with our credit card companies. And so historically, we were onboarding creators in a very manual way. People would apply, but the process to actually onboard a creator was all manual. And so we look at actually some of the dating sites as how do users on board there, what are the best ones out there like Bumble, et cetera. And we completely reworked the back end of the system to put in the right IV checks with state databases, et cetera, coupled with the right AI tools for moderation. And then we work the whole entire process to onboard graders. And the data for that is extremely encouraging.

當然。看，我們正在不斷更新平台，並且我們正在使用數據來幫助我們做到這一點。因此，我們在本季度進行的最大改變實際上是改變了我們的入職流程。還有一些消費者或用戶看不到的東西，我們必須落實和擴展，例如我們的審核工具，確保我們不僅為公司、為我們的創作者，而且為我們創建一個安全的平台。也符合我們的信用卡公司的規定。因此，從歷史上看，我們以非常手動的方式引導創作者。人們會提出申請，但實際加入創作者的過程都是手動的。因此，我們實際上會關註一些約會網站，看看那裡的用戶如何，最好的網站是什麼，比如 Bumble 等等。我們徹底改造了系統的後端，以對狀態數據庫等進行正確的 IV 檢查，並結合正確的 AI 工具進行審核。然後我們將整個流程交給分級人員。這方面的數據非常令人鼓舞。

So if you look at what happened, we increased our creator count at the end of July to almost 4,000 -- about -- earning creators in July. About 1,400 of those earned for the first time in July. The bulk of that team in the second half and the trends have continued in August. What this allows us to do is now really focus on on-platform marketing versus what I would say is individual creative recruitment. And at the same time, when you look at the concentration of where our revenue is coming from and how many creators, what's most encouraging to me is we have decreased the percentage of weekly GMV that are top 10 creators contribute to the platform by over 20% -- or sorry, they decreased by over -- they decreased by over half, really -- more than half, but it's 20 percentage points they've decreased.

因此，如果你看看發生了什麼，就會發現我們在 7 月底將創作者數量增加到了近 4,000 名（大約）7 月的創作者。其中約 1,400 人是在 7 月份首次獲得收入。下半年該隊的大部分陣容和趨勢在八月份仍在繼續。這使我們現在能夠真正專注於平台營銷，而不是我所說的個人創意招聘。與此同時，當你看看我們的收入來源和創作者數量的集中度時，最令我鼓舞的是，我們將前 10 位創作者為平台貢獻的每週 GMV 百分比降低了 20 多倍%— —或者抱歉，他們減少了超過——他們減少了一半以上，真的——超過一半，但他們減少了20 個百分點。

And so what that talks -- that tells me is that our revenue mix is becoming much more diverse, and it speaks to the health of the platform that we have a lot more earning creators. We look to continue that moving forward. Other changes we made, we greatly enhanced and rebuilt our live product. There's a lot more coming with that in the future, including a one-on-one live feature. We also did something that others don't have, which is either an entry fee or pay per minute. And then we also changed where credit cards are put in the system. And so when does a consumer put a credit card in, we just recently did that a few weeks ago, and we see a 3x increase in the number of credit cards that consumers are entering versus before.

所以這告訴我，我們的收入組合正在變得更加多樣化，並且它說明了平台的健康狀況，我們有更多的賺錢創作者。我們期待繼續前進。我們所做的其他更改極大地增強和重建了我們的實時產品。未來還會有更多功能，包括一對一的實時功能。我們還做了一些別人沒有的事情，要么是入場費，要么是按分鐘付費。然後我們還更改了信用卡在系統中的放置位置。因此，消費者什麼時候輸入信用卡，我們幾週前才這樣做，我們發現消費者輸入的信用卡數量比以前增加了 3 倍。

What's coming up? And lastly, we started to test what I would say, legacy content in the system. So we took 12 former playmates of the company, and we created a profile distinguished from other active creator profiles in the system. This is all part of a much larger play that we'll get into as we go into the fall. How do we integrate the various pieces of this company into one hero product, which is our creator platform. And then really, how does that integrate into the Playboy lifestyle. Those are the highlights of the changes. There's a lot more coming and there's a lot more that was done that users might not see that goes into setting up where we're moving throughout the fall and into next year with the product.

即將發生什麼？最後，我們開始測試系統中的遺留內容。因此，我們選取​​了公司的 12 名前玩伴，創建了一個與系統中其他活躍創作者檔案不同的檔案。這都是我們將在秋季進行的更大活動的一部分。我們如何將這家公司的各個部分整合到一個英雄產品中，這就是我們的創作者平台。事實上，這如何融入花花公子的生活方式。這些都是變化的亮點。還有更多的事情即將到來，還有更多的事情已經完成，用戶可能看不到這些事情，這些事情涉及我們在整個秋季和明年的產品發展方向。

Our next question comes from the line of Jason Tilchen with Canaccord Genuity.

我們的下一個問題來自 Canaccord Genuity 的 Jason Tilchen。

Great. Going back to the creator platform for a second. Could you please remind us maybe update us on the level of investment in that platform that's being made on sort of a quarterly basis? And how you sort of view a target level of GMV to get that creator platform to sort of breakeven or so? And then I have a follow-up after that.

偉大的。回到創作者平台。您能否提醒我們更新一下該平台每季度的投資水平？您如何看待 GMV 的目標水平以使創作者平台達到收支平衡？之後我會進行跟進。

Yes. So the level of investment we're seeing in the creator platform right now is mainly coming out of OpEx. So it's not -- it's roughly in line with where we were last quarter. And what was the second part of your question?

是的。因此，我們現在在創作者平台上看到的投資水平主要來自運營支出。所以它不是——它與我們上個季度的情況大致一致。你問題的第二部分是什麼？

Sort of if you have like a target level of GMV that you're looking towards a sort of a breakeven point before that starts to be a positive contributor towards overall profitability.

如果您有一個 GMV 目標水平，那麼您希望在開始對整體盈利能力產生積極貢獻之前達到某種盈虧平衡點。

Yes. I think if we continue to run at the rate we're at, we'll be able to get there by year-end, but we'd have to see a little bit of growth. I think that number is probably around $50 million to $55 million of GMV.

是的。我認為，如果我們繼續以目前的速度運行，我們將能夠在年底前實現這一目標，但我們必須看到一點增長。我認為這個數字可能約為 5000 萬至 5500 萬美元的 GMV。

Yes. So $50 million to $55 million of GMV, the business turns cash flow positive for the year. And right now, we continue to see the growth that we've outlined in the previous calls. So if you annualized our weekly GMV right now, we would be in excess of $35 million. We took a little bit of pause during the second quarter on onboarding creators as we reworked in the process. It just wasn't a good use to prove human capital. And so the acceleration we saw at the end of the July, and that's continued through August, especially when we look at the number of applications and now really turning to the platform marketing is very encouraging for us moving forward.

是的。因此，GMV 達到 5000 萬至 5500 萬美元，該業務今年的現金流將轉為正值。現在，我們繼續看到我們在之前的電話會議中概述的增長。因此，如果您現在按年計算我們的每週 GMV，我們將超過 3500 萬美元。在第二季度，我們在重新設計創作者的過程中稍微暫停了一下。這並不是證明人力資本的好用處。因此，我們在 7 月底看到了加速，並且一直持續到 8 月，特別是當我們看到應用程序的數量並且現在真正轉向平台營銷時，這對我們的前進非常鼓舞。

That's really helpful. And then just on the $8.5 million of cost savings that you called out in the press release, can you just talk about where those are coming from and sort of support a specific level that we've already taken out in Q2 versus sort of the time line for when the rest of that we should expect to be coming out of the business.

這真的很有幫助。然後，就您在新聞稿中提到的 850 萬美元成本節省，您能否談談這些成本來自何處，以及對我們在第二季度已經採取的特定水平的支持與當時的情況相比剩下的部分我們應該預計何時會退出該業務。

Yes. So a lot of the -- this is Marc. A lot of the costs that we're seeing coming out over the course of this -- that we're -- the $8.5 million that we announced is, I would say, a mix between headcount and basic operating expense for systems that we're using throughout the company. The original headcount or the original cost cut that we had talked about in the first quarter, a lot of that was coming out of our IT and our supply chain costs. As I said, that will play out over the course of the next 2 to 3 quarters.

是的。很多——這是馬克。我們在這個過程中看到的很多成本——我們宣布的 850 萬美元，我想說，是我們系統的員工人數和基本運營費用的混合。在整個公司重新使用。我們在第一季度談到的原始員工人數或原始成本削減，其中很大一部分來自我們的 IT 和供應鏈成本。正如我所說，這將在接下來的 2 到 3 個季度內發揮作用。

And specifically with the $8.5 million, that -- although we've achieved some of that in the month of July in the second quarter, there's very little, if any, of that in the second quarter. So we -- as we talked about previously, are we building the business line item by line in them. And so a huge example and a big part of that is actually repricing all of our insurance of the country. We've seen multiple millions of dollars of savings just through insurance, and we're in a much better market today than we were 2 years ago as well for insurance.

特別是 850 萬美元，儘管我們在第二季度 7 月份已經實現了其中的一些目標，但在第二季度實現的目標（如果有的話）也非常少。因此，正如我們之前談到的，我們是否在其中逐行構建業務行。因此，一個很大的例子，其中很大一部分實際上是重新定價我們國家的所有保險。我們已經通過保險節省了數百萬美元，而且今天的保險市場比兩年前要好得多。

(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from the line of Alex Fuhrman with Craig-Hallum.

（操作員說明）我們的下一個問題來自 Alex Fuhrman 和 Craig-Hallum 的線路。

Wondering if you can talk about the outsourcing of the Playboy e-commerce business. Can you give us a sense of how profitable that business has been historically? Are you going to have any ongoing expenses related to that business to offset the 15% licensing fee you're going to receive? And then can you just talk about maybe what your licensee there might be able to do in terms of growing the brand or expanding to new types of items?

不知能否談談花花公子電商業務的外包。您能否讓我們了解一下該業務歷史上的盈利情況？您是否需要承擔與該業務相關的任何持續費用來抵消您將收到的 15% 許可費？然後您能否談談您的被許可人在發展品牌或擴展到新產品類型方面可能能夠做些什麼？

Yes, this is Marc. So we had pretty heavy losses from that business in the past when I came in. And part of it was we wanted to turn those losses to profits. We didn't have the infrastructure in place to make the product ourselves. So we had very low margins on it, sub-50% starting margins. And so we license it out. And right now, the agreement, we don't have any cost that we have to bear. So that 15% hits pretty much straight to the bottom line. So from our perspective, it will be profitable day 1. And I think as minimum guarantees right now started about $5 million a year, so that's about $750 million to the bottom line to us just in year 1. And the overall goal is in the course of the next 3 years to grow that to be a $20 million business, if not more.

是的，這是馬克。因此，當我進來時，我們過去在該業務上遭受了相當嚴重的損失。部分原因是我們希望將這些損失轉化為利潤。我們沒有適當的基礎設施來自己生產產品。所以我們的利潤率非常低，起始利潤率低於 50%。所以我們將其授權出去。現在，根據協議，我們不需要承擔任何費用。所以這 15% 幾乎直接達到了底線。因此，從我們的角度來看，第一天就將實現盈利。我認為，目前的最低保證金每年約為 500 萬美元，因此第一年我們的底線約為 7.5 億美元。總體目標是在未來3年裡，我們的業務將增長至2000 萬美元（甚至更多）。

Yes. Alex, it's Ben. I'll just chime in. In the second quarter, we had 7 figures of losses still related to playboy.com, the e-commerce store. And so if you look at our adjusted EBITDA, when we talk about actually being positive without those losses because we have now closed that deal and outsourced it. EBITDA would have been positive in the second quarter if it weren't for those losses and some costs related to the China -- onetime costs related to the China JV. And so the partner was actually in the office yesterday. Very encouraged by their early work and actually some of the collaborations they're working on for Playboy merchandise going forward.

是的。亞歷克斯，這是本。我順便插一句。第二季度，我們的電子商務商店 Playboy.com 仍然造成了 7 位數的損失。因此，如果你看看我們調整後的 EBITDA，當我們談論實際上沒有這些損失的情況下是積極的，因為我們現在已經完成了該交易並將其外包。如果沒有這些損失以及與中國相關的一些成本（與中國合資企業相關的一次性成本），第二季度的 EBITDA 將會為正。所以合夥人昨天實際上在辦公室。他們早期的工作以及他們正在為《花花公子》商品進行的一些合作讓我們深受鼓舞。

Our next question comes from the line of Jim Duffy with Stifel.

我們的下一個問題來自吉姆·達菲和斯蒂菲爾的對話。

Guys, typically, you filed the 10-Q coincident with earnings. Should we expect that tonight?

伙計們，通常情況下，您提交的 10-Q 報表與收益一致。我們應該期待今晚嗎？

Yes, you should. It should be forthcoming.

是的你應該。它應該即將到來。

Okay. Great. And then considering your comments, is it fair to say you expect monetization of both levers and the art collection before year-end?

好的。偉大的。然後考慮到您的評論，可以公平地說您預計槓桿和藝術品收藏在年底前貨幣化嗎？

Jim, it's Ben. Look, I can't predict buyers in M&A and sale processes. What I can say to you is we see multiple offers on levers. We are under exclusivity with a party. And that, coupled with where we are, our finance team and accounting team decided that it warranted moving out to discontinued ops. And so when you look at our revenue that we reported, you have to add both discontinued ops and continuing ops together for an apples-to-apples for the quarter. As far as the art collection, we are in multiple conversations and down the road with multiple parties on selling it either in one or multiple auctions. Some of those will happen before the end of the year. And we are going beyond just the art collection. And I think there's some stuff from our archives, that's very interesting. And then we still have a lot of remnants with furniture from mansion, et cetera, that we plan on selling.

吉姆，是本。看，我無法預測併購和銷售過程中的買家。我可以告訴你的是，我們看到了多種槓桿報價。我們擁有一方的排他性。結合我們目前的情況，我們的財務團隊和會計團隊決定有必要轉向已停止的運營部門。因此，當您查看我們報告的收入時，您必須將已停止的業務和持續的業務加在一起，才能獲得本季度的同類數據。就藝術收藏品而言，我們正在與多方進行多次對話，並在一次或多次拍賣中出售藝術品。其中一些將在今年年底前發生。我們不僅僅局限於藝術收藏。我認為我們的檔案中有一些非常有趣的東西。然後我們還有很多剩餘的豪宅家具等，我們計劃出售。

Helpful. And then with respect to Honey Birdette, I'm curious, is the brand growing outside of Australia? And then within Australia, it seems like you're ripping the band-aid off of a promotional dependence. How long do you think it could be before that Australia business can rebase?

有幫助。關於 Honey Birdette，我很好奇，這個品牌是否在澳大利亞以外的地區發展？然後在澳大利亞，你似乎正在撕掉對促銷的依賴。您認為澳大利亞企業需要多長時間才能重新定位？

Yes. So the Australia business is decline is -- outpacing the decline that we're seeing in the U.S. and Europe. But I make no bones about it is the brand is declining in both the U.S. and in Europe. Now what we saw is there are kind of 2 things, the consumer right now is really pushing towards services and essentials. And we're not necessarily an essentials product, but we see when we have a sale, the stuff flies off the shelf. And so we actually saw extremely high positive comp sales in both all 3 regions when we had just a 7-day sale over Memorial Day weekend. So May comped up by tremendously.

是的。因此，澳大利亞業務的下滑速度超過了我們在美國和歐洲看到的下滑速度。但我毫不諱言，這個品牌在美國和歐洲都在衰落。現在我們看到有兩件事，消費者現在確實在推動服務和必需品。我們不一定是必需品，但我們看到，當我們打折時，這些東西就會被搶購一空。因此，當我們在陣亡將士紀念日週末進行為期 7 天的促銷活動時，我們實際上在所有 3 個地區都看到了極高的正銷售額。所以梅的表現非常出色。

And then, of course, you have the typical hangover in June from the big sales. So what we're seeing right now is conversion, traffic is there. The conversion moves up and down with whether we're on sale or not. And to your point, we were on sale last year, I think, is about 118 days during the year. And this year, we're coming up on September. September, we are on sale almost for the entire month. We'll run a Labor Day sale. We'll be in, we'll be out. And I think that's the goal is to really push towards profitability and not push towards revenue growth.

然後，當然，你會經歷六月份大促銷帶來的典型宿醉。所以我們現在看到的是轉化，流量就在那裡。無論我們是否打折，轉化率都會上下波動。就你的觀點而言，我認為去年我們的促銷活動大約有 118 天。今年，我們將於九月到來。九月，我們幾乎整個月都在打折。我們將舉辦勞動節促銷活動。我們會進來，我們也會出去。我認為我們的目標是真正推動盈利，而不是推動收入增長。

(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from the line of J.P. Wollam with ROTH MKM.

（操作員說明）我們的下一個問題來自 J.P. Wollam 和 ROTH MKM 的線路。

If we could maybe start just in terms of the licensing business and the joint venture, you made a call out just about kind of some of the geopolitical situation. I'm curious if there's been any kind of changes to what the JV looks like and/or is going to be able to achieve relative to when you first got into that?

如果我們可以從許可業務和合資企業方面開始，您就提到了一些地緣政治局勢。我很好奇合資企業的外觀和/或相對於您第一次進入時能夠實現的目標是否有任何變化？

J.P., it's Ben Kohn. We just had a call with our partners last night. I think that the business plan that we set out with them and really crafted last year was to create and take back these flagship stores on Tmall, Douyin and the platforms so that we could control the sale process, obviously, not controlling inventory or manufacturing, but really control the sale process with the consumer. It's something that the platforms wanted and the business models in China have changed.

J.P.，我是本·科恩。昨晚我們剛剛與我們的合作夥伴通了電話。我認為我們去年與他們制定並真正制定的商業計劃是在天貓、抖音和平台上創建並收回這些旗艦店，以便我們可以控制銷售流程，顯然，而不是控制庫存或製造，但真正與消費者一起控制銷售過程。這是平台想要的東西，而且中國的商業模式已經改變。

The specific issues in China and Chris Riley or JC and myself were just there 2 weeks ago, really related to macroeconomic issues. So the economy is very, very poor in China outside of the luxury consumer, it's knocked down the ground there. And then on top of that, moving money out of China right now, it's just a much more levers process than it was historically, where banks sometimes are rejecting wires going out because they are leaving the mainland, even moving money to Hong Kong at times can be challenging.

中國的具體問題以及克里斯·萊利（Chris Riley）或 JC 和我本人在兩週前就已經討論過，確實與宏觀經濟問題相關。因此，除了奢侈品消費者之外，中國的經濟非常非常貧困，那裡的經濟已經崩潰了。最重要的是，現在將資金轉移出中國，這只是一個比歷史上更多的槓桿過程，銀行有時會因為要離開大陸而拒絕電匯出去，甚至有時會將資金轉移到香港可能具有挑戰性。

And so the overall opportunity and what the business plan has not changed. It's just that the timing of things, you have to be flexible with what's going on on the ground there. I think that it's been reported by others. It's not us. That -- the economic rebound people were expecting in China post the 3 years of lockdown they had. It did not happen. And I think the consumer over there is wary right now. And so it actually helps us to some extent as we're talking and negotiating with our partners to take back some of these stores, and that's what we're focused on.

所以總體機會和商業計劃沒有改變。只是事情的時間安排，你必須靈活應對當地發生的事情。我認為這已經被其他人舉報了。這不是我們。那就是——人們期望中國在三年封鎖後經濟反彈。但它並沒有發生。我認為那裡的消費者現在很謹慎。因此，當我們與合作夥伴討論和談判收回其中一些商店時，這實際上在某種程度上幫助了我們，這就是我們所關注的重點。

Great. Really appreciate the color there. And then one more, if I could just follow up. In terms of gross margin, obviously, kind of a lot of moving parts in the P&L this quarter with the move to discontinued ops. But just curious now that we kind of have a lot of high-margin, licensing rev and then kind of also Honey Birdette as a big contributor. Is 2Q's gross margin somewhat indicative of kind of the base business going forward of how that should look? Or is there anything just to point out that would mislead us about Q2?

偉大的。真的很欣賞那裡的顏色。如果我能跟進的話，還有一個。就毛利率而言，顯然，本季度損益表中有很多變動部分，因為業務已停止運營。但現在很好奇的是，我們有很多高利潤的許可收入，然後還有 Honey Birdette 作為一個重要的貢獻者。第二季度的毛利率是否在某種程度上表明了基礎業務的未來發展情況？或者有什麼只是指出會誤導我們關於第二季度的信息？

Yes, this is Marc. It did tick up a little bit from the high-margin businesses. Yes, that's true. The one thing I would look at is the licensing business that you'll probably see that tick down a little bit because we did have a pickup from a reversal of a -- sorry, commission that we had in there. So licensing will come down a little bit. But to your point, you will see HB start to lift. And so I think if you net the 2 together, they should be roughly about the same.

是的，這是馬克。高利潤業務確實有所增長。是的，這是真的。我要關注的一件事是許可業務，你可能會看到它略有下降，因為我們確實從逆轉中得到了回報——對不起，我們在那裡的佣金。因此許可會減少一點。但就你的觀點而言，你會看到 HB 開始提升。所以我認為如果你將兩者加在一起，它們應該大致相同。

Our next question comes from the line of Greg Pendy with Chardan.

我們的下一個問題來自 Greg Pendy 和 Chardan 的對話。

Just, Ben, I think earlier you kind of gave us the revenue dependence of the top 10 performers on [Central Falls]. Just kind of wondering, could you share any color on how many of those performers are exclusive to the platform and kind of how you're kind of thinking about that dependence going forward?

只是，Ben，我想早些時候您向我們介紹了[中央瀑布] 表現最好的 10 家公司的收入依賴情況。只是有點想知道，您能否分享一下有多少表演者是該平台獨有的，以及您如何看待這種依賴的發展？

Sure. Thanks, Greg. So we don't have exclusivity with any of our creators. Our creators are free to do way after they want. And I think that's consistent with the creator economy, right? They want to be able to monetize where they want to monetize. But what I would say, and again, largely, once a creator has an audience on the platform, that audience tends to stay with that creator on the platform. And I don't see most of our creators on other platforms.

當然。謝謝，格雷格。因此，我們對任何創作者都沒有排他性。我們的創作者可以隨心所欲地做他們想做的事情。我認為這與創作者經濟是一致的，對嗎？他們希望能夠在他們想要貨幣化的地方貨幣化。但我想說的是，在很大程度上，一旦創作者在平台上擁有了觀眾，觀眾就會傾向於留在平台上的創作者身邊。我在其他平台上看不到我們的大多數創作者。

We've actually been successful during the quarter actually with creators that have wanted to leave other platforms, starting to move their -- move over to us and those revenues continue to build. When I look at the concentration risk, what's encouraging to me is -- our GMV is -- if you annualize for a weekly basis, is now in excess of $35 million. And when I look at what our top 10 creators contribute versus where they were a few months ago as a percentage, that number continues to come down because we've added so many other creators now that they're earning. And so from a diversification point where -- when we first started, you might have revenue concentration issues today, amongst -- on that platform now in the company as a whole. Today, you really don't have that.

事實上，我們在本季度取得了成功，那些想要離開其他平台的創作者開始將他們的平台轉移到我們這裡，並且這些收入繼續增加。當我看到集中風險時，令我感到鼓舞的是——我們的 GMV 是——如果按週計算的話，現在已經超過 3500 萬美元。當我查看我們的前 10 位創作者的貢獻與幾個月前的百分比時，這個數字繼續下降，因為我們已經添加了很多其他創作者，現在他們正在賺錢。因此，從多元化的角度來看，當我們剛開始時，今天整個公司的平台上可能會遇到收入集中度問題。今天，你真的沒有了。

And so what it leads to is a much more consistent daily growth on the platform than if one of the creators historically was on vacation or sick or something, you're going to see more daily or hourly variability than what you're seeing today. And so this to me is what we've been focused on, which is really building out that middle of the platform and health on it. And I'm encouraged. We made this change in the beginning of July. It's something that was month from the making and very encouraged by the results. It also allows us to reprioritize the human capital internally, really now starting to focus on platform marketing. Again, we haven't spent the dollar so far really of [TAC] against us. All of the customers have come through the creators. But it allows us to think more about the Playboy lifestyle and marketing very smart ways to the platform versus what I would say is a very labor-intensive individual creator recruitment, just given how we were set up internally from a tech perspective.

因此，它會導致平台上的每日增長更加一致，而不是如果其中一位創作者歷史上正在度假或生病或其他原因，您將看到比今天看到的更多的每日或每小時變化。因此，對我來說，這就是我們一直關注的重點，即真正構建平台的中間部分及其健康狀況。我很受鼓舞。我們在七月初做出了這一改變。這是一件從製作開始就花了一個月的時間，並且對結果感到非常鼓舞的事情。它還使我們能夠在內部重新確定人力資本的優先順序，現在真正開始關注平台營銷。再說一遍，到目前為止，我們還沒有真正花掉[TAC]的錢來對付我們。所有的客戶都是通過創作者而來的。但它讓我們能夠更多地思考《花花公子》的生活方式和在平台上進行非常聰明的營銷方式，而不是我所說的非常勞動密集型的個人創作者招聘，只是考慮到我們從技術角度的內部設置方式。

There are no further questions in the queue. I'd like to hand the call back to Ben Kohn for closing remarks.

隊列中沒有其他問題。我想將電話轉回本·科恩 (Ben Kohn) 致閉幕詞。

Thank you, operator. I appreciate everyone joining, and we look forward to talking to you on our next quarterly earnings call. Thank you.

謝謝你，接線員。我感謝大家的加入，我們期待在下一個季度的財報電話會議上與您交談。謝謝。

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.

女士們、先生們，今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。此時您可以斷開線路，度過美好的一天。