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Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference 2024

Sep 12, 2024

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Amazing. All right, let's get started with our next session. Thank you everyone for taking the time to join us today. My name is Stephen Laszczyk , and I'm the lead entertainment analyst here for Goldman Sachs. We are excited to welcome to the Communicopia and Technology Conference, Kevin Yeaman, the CEO of Dolby Laboratories. Kevin, thank you so much for joining us today.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Thanks for having us.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

So maybe to start off high level-

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Yeah.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

You know, Dolby, I think a lot of people know as a, as a consumer-facing product, likely from either being in a movie theater or something in their, their television. But your products and technology are in many different products and devices.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Yeah.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

So I thought it'd be a good place to start, maybe just by telling the Dolby story, telling what types of products and services, your patents, your IP is in, and really how it interfaces with the end customer.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Yeah, of course, and again, thanks for having us, and thank you all for joining us to learn a little bit more about the Dolby story, and to your point, one of the fun things about working at Dolby is I meet so many people who will remember their first experience with Dolby. You know, if you're from my generation, that was often, you know, the button on the cassette player or the first time you experienced surround sound in a movie theater, but we've, you know, continued to innovate, so today, you know, I hear from people that are just absolutely passionate about seeing their movies in Dolby Cinema, and only Dolby Cinema, and Dolby Atmos, and Dolby Vision, or they wanna tell me about the first time they experienced their favorite music in Dolby Atmos.

So we continue to renew that innovation, and it's because we have a relentless focus on the science and the engineering of sight and sound, and we develop deep partnerships across the content creator ecosystem, the content distribution ecosystem, and then ultimately with the consumer device ecosystem, which is, of course, important because that is where we generate our revenue, royalty per each device, and to your point, our work is not always as visible as the examples I just gave, and so, you know, we are a part of most of the consumer electronic devices that you enjoy every day, whether it's your TV, whether it's your PC, your mobile device, your sound bars, and speakers, increasingly in cars. We continue to expand that presence, and that is a function of our work throughout these entertainment ecosystems.

So we work with content creators to help them realize their creative ambition. We're effectively providing them a palette of sight and sound to work with to tell their stories. We work with the content owners and distributors because once that content's available and the artist is passionate about it, we need to provide the tools and technologies to make sure that this can be efficiently distributed to these devices, whether it's someone in a production truck or someone in a mixing studio, whether you're distributing it to a cinema, or whether you're streaming it, or whether it's over a traditional broadcast ecosystem. Dolby does all of that, and that's what creates the opportunity to add value on consumer devices and to create those moments that we talked about, and to have a consistently high-quality experience.

And, you know, we've been doing this for nearly 60 years, and we have continuously been able to raise the bar on the quality of the entertainment experience. The key is that ecosystem, because the more, the more content you have in Dolby, the stronger the value the proposition is on the device. The more devices you're on, the more motivation there is to create content and to bring it to new types of content experiences. So most of our revenue is from device licensing. Last year, we were about $1.3 billion in revenue. 90% of that was from licensing, and we had about 30% non-GAAP operating margins.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

You mentioned Dolby being around for 60+ years, lots of tech innovation over that period of time.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

You touched on it a little bit, but the importance of the ecosystem you've built around the company, how does that play into evolving through tech cycles? And I'd be particularly curious, you know, the tech cycles that we're seeing play out at the moment.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

How do you feel Dolby is positioned heading into the new wave of innovation on the media, entertainment, tech side?

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Yeah. Well, we're really excited about the future. I don't think there's ever been more of a time where there's been a greater demand for entertainment content. I don't think there's been a time where there's been more pull and demand for greater immersiveness of experience. To your point, we have thrived through, you know, in just, like I said, just under 60 years, you know, every imaginable economic cycle on technology transition. I myself have been at Dolby for about 18 years, and we've been through a lot of technology transitions that were of deep significance to entertainment, content, and what we do. When I joined, we were still in the midst of the analog to digital transition. Believe it or not, that was still within the 18-year window.

Of course, the transition to streaming, standard def to high def, 2K to 4K. Each of those transitions, not only did we thrive through those transitions, but in each case, it created an opportunity for us to bring even more value to the devices and ecosystems we serve, and to bring the Dolby proposition to new content ecosystems. And so, yes, of course, the environment continues to evolve, and that creates opportunity, and I think the way we've been able to do that, again, it starts with this relentless focus on...

I mean, we have a lot of people that will geek out all day long on, you know, the science and the engineering of sight and sound, and what current and future trends pose in terms of the challenges that our partners are likely to face and the opportunities it creates for new, more immersive experiences, and then also really important are these engagements with the ecosystems, right? Because, you know, we have continuously brought the Dolby experience to new types of content, where, you know, we started with movies and then TV, but we are in gaming, we are in music, we are in sports, we are across, like I said, all the devices.

And so we're a part of these ecosystems, which means that we are working with the people who have problems, challenges, and opportunities to solve. And by being their partners, while also deeply studying the technology trends ourselves and having a whole bunch of labs down the street here in San Francisco, where people are experimenting with what's possible, that's how we've been able to not only make these transitions, but also to bring more value with each of them.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

You mentioned 90% of your business coming from licensing.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Could you maybe just spend a minute talking about the types of licensing contracts you enter into, your key partners in this business, how we should think about how revenue is generated, out of this 90% portion of your business?

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Yeah, sure. So, most of our revenue is from branded licensing, which is to say that includes our patents, but also an implementation fit for the purpose of our device manufacturer. That's where we generate our revenue on a typically a royalty per device. How much that royalty is will, of course, depend on how many technologies they're employing. They could have one, they could have all. It also depends on volume, and then, you know, the value we're adding. And, you know, the royalty we get for a car is gonna be quite a bit more than for a TV, which is gonna be quite a bit more than for a mobile device. We work with all the major consumer electronic manufacturers.

And we also have a patent licensing business, so this is where we are licensing our patents into most of the businesses through patent pools. So these are pools that are formed around, you know, fundamental needs around audio and video codecs. It has a number of licensors. We participate those, and again, it's a royalty per device. It's more of a component, so it's gonna be lower than the branded licensing, where we're providing a full solution and certification that it works in the content ecosystem. Those are the basic structures.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Got it. Let's talk a little bit about opportunities to grow the business.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

So Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision products amongst the fastest-growing products that you offer. And from your perspective, you know, key features of Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision, that make them most attractive to the content creator and the consumer, and opportunities to further increase penetration on those products. Where do you see the greatest opportunity?

Yeah. So to what's driving the demand, you know, it does. In the beginning, it always starts with the creator. The one thing that is great about artists from our perspective is never has the phrase, "It's good enough," been uttered, right? They always wanna continue to push the boundaries and bring new experiences to life. And so with Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, when we first bring those to the world, the first place we go are to the artists. What we want to know is whether they see in our innovation a palette that helps them tell the story they wanna tell, right?

And with Dolby Atmos, I remember sitting, watching with the team, a movie director who was seeing it for the first time, and he said, "Oh, now I can shoot that shot." He had envisioned a shot where a car was flipping off the screen, but he felt like he couldn't keep them in the audio. But with Dolby Atmos, could keep him in the audio, because you no longer just have five spots in the room the sound can come from. You actually mix up to a hundred and twenty-eight objects at any moment in time where you want the sounds to be, and we render that faithfully, no matter what your output capability is.

Or with Dolby Vision, which is about contrast, it gives you much more ability to have lights and darks, and allocate the lights and darks in a scene, and it expands the color range. So I remember you know, people who... directors who were specifically excited about being able to bring to life colors that have never been brought to life before in the cinema. Or one exclaiming, "Oh, this allows me to use night as a character," because you can get true you know true blacks and have the highlights. Sometimes these are artistic interpretations that I may not truly understand, ...

But I love to hear that, because when we get that kind of passion, then we know that we can, you know, when they're excited about it, and they can create differentiated experiences, then we know that we're gonna be able to bring that magic to consumers as well. That's what it really is all about. And yeah, Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision came to life around 2000, plus or minus 2015. And they are our fastest-growing technologies. We still have considerable room to grow across each of our device categories. And already it has a very prominent presence in movies and TV, where we're most established. But also, we've brought Dolby Atmos to music. We're bringing Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos to mobile devices and many forms of content.

I wanna get into each of the subcategories a little bit deeper, but one of the other areas you're diving deeper into is live sports.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

And on your most recent earnings call, you mentioned Cricket World Cup, European Soccer Championship, Wimbledon, NHL, NBA, all utilizing either Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision. You know, curious if you'd talk a little bit more about the adoption of those products in maybe TV from a larger standpoint but specifically for sports, which I think is a very interesting and a very compelling use case.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

It is. I mean, sports is such a passion point, right? Most of us, you know, can, you know, have had a lifelong relationship with one or more sports teams, and that doesn't change. And, you know, it's one reason why people still will tune in at a certain time on a certain day to make sure that they don't miss their favorite sports team. And, you know, a big part of making this happen is about coming back to the tools required for people to produce the content and do it in real time. It's no coincidence that we start with movies and TV. When you're making a movie, you literally have three months for a major motion picture to do nothing but work on the sound, right? But when you're talking about sports, you have seconds, right?

So that ecosystem takes time to come together and to make sure that the people that have to make all that work happen, understand how to use those tools, and you see that coming together with sports. Over the last couple of years, we had an increasing number of events, and to your point, just this quarter, you know, Wimbledon, cricket, Euro, football championships, the Olympics, and then, so why is this important to Dolby? Well, it's a passion point, and passion points are what drive device purchases. And so, we are on currently, you know, this last year, we were on about 25% of high-definition televisions with Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision. I would say, for the most part, that has been driven by the substantial amount of content available for movies and TV.

It's mostly we have very high inclusion at the high end of televisions. Increasingly, we're seeing companies like Hisense and TCL move it throughout the entirety of their lineups. Hisense, of course, is making a big push in sports. You'll see them sponsoring a lot of events, including the World Cup. So the importance of getting more sports content is that it's a passion point for consumers, and it's something that device manufacturers want to market, and that helps us drive further penetration throughout the TV lineups.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Max, I think, recently mentioned that they're using Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision in some of their live sports products. I'm curious, other streamers, Netflix, Amazon, et cetera, you know, the likelihood that they eventually adopt the products as well as what do you think is required? Is it getting deeper penetration at the TV level before you start seeing some of these other streamers offer that technology, or do you expect them to maybe adopt the technology before that?

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Yeah, no, great question. And look, I think a big part of, again, is just the evolution of the ecosystem, right? And we've seen that it gets tested out on these major events, and the significance of Max is that they've adopted Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision across all of their sports streaming. And of course, they're increasingly engaged in that. And as it turns out, the move toward having more live sports streamed and having rights distributed among players is good for us because it turns out it's faster to implement over streaming environments than it is over traditional broadcast and paid TV networks. We still support all of that, but you tend to get faster adoption through streaming. And so we think the stage has been set, where we've had these major events.

We've got Max doing all of their sports. That allows us to have a mature set of tools and capabilities. And so we do expect to see an increasing number of providers wanting to make sports available in Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision. That'll be a big... That is currently a big focus for us, it continue to be a very big focus this year, is bringing more live sports online. And then, you know, we would hope that, that you will then, you know, we would expect that you will then see that, you know, whether it's in Best Buy, that people will be showing what your, your TV, what your experience could look like with, with sports.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

I wanna pivot a little bit and talk about mobile.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Yeah.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Dolby Vision on mobile phones has been a big focus area of yours. Could you talk a little bit more about that ambition, where you see opportunities for incremental growth, and how you think about the size of the opportunity in mobile from here?

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm. Well, obviously, just in terms of you know, the size of the market, it's you know, over a billion devices, so it's a big market. We have, as you, as I'm sure you know, Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision is supported throughout iPhone and the Apple ecosystem. The opportunity is the Android ecosystem. And as it relates to Dolby Vision, the demand for movies and TV over phones has gotten us on a number of high-end models, but of course, that's not the primary use case on the phone every day. With the iPhone, you're able to capture content in Dolby Vision. You can capture videos in Dolby Vision with all the contrast, and you basically have a professional camera.

What we've been focused on is bringing this to life through the ability to share videos and on social media and video sharing, and where we have the most progress is actually in China, where most of the major video streaming and social media services there are supporting Dolby Vision, and so we have wins, initial wins for Dolby Vision and Dolby Vision capture across most of the major mobile OEMs there, so we're off to a good start and still have a lot of work to do to then support their desire to begin to bring that deeper and deeper into their lineups, and now we're working, you know, a big focus of ours is bringing that same, you know, Dolby Vision support to some of the major Western platforms that y'all be familiar with here.

That's what will drive more demand for phones, in addition to the demand we have now.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Any sense of penetration curve, what would that could look like over the next couple of years in terms of handset devices, or if you think about brands or where you are in the arc of the model cadence, like high line versus mid-tier versus low tier?

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Yeah, I think, I think that's at a stage where we tend to talk about design wins. So with TVs, where I just said we're at 25%, you know, that's like a attach rate's a good metric for that one. For vision on mobile devices, apart from Apple, where we're on all the iPhones, it's about the design wins. It's about the fact that we have a number of models now with Xiaomi, with Oppo, with Honor, that they, you know, we're excited to work with them to bring that further into their lineups and to be distributing it to more regions around the world. They each started in China, some of them have gone beyond that.

So I would say it's still very early days, and the things to watch then are those partners continuing to expand throughout their lineups, getting new partners on board, and importantly, building out this ability for, you know, outside of China, for more people to be able to be capturing content in Dolby Vision and sharing that across their favorite sites.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

... I think for this year, in particular, you expect mobile licensing to be down slightly.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Maybe just talk a little bit about the near-term volatility you're seeing on the mobile side of the business, and, you know, what's the path to that growth inflecting back, back positive?

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Yeah. So, certainly the last, you know, few years, have been a little bit, soft in terms of just the overall macro environment. Most of our revenue comes from TV manufacturers, mobile manufacturers, and PC manufacturers, and it's, it's not been an easy time to be in that business for the last few years. Now, with mobile especially, talked a little bit about our licensing arrangements. We do sometimes have minimum volume commitments, which can result in, revenue coming in kind of once a year instead of every quarter on a royalty basis, and then you, you know, also have timing of renewals. Those types of arrangements are more prevalent in mobile than any other part of our business.

I would say across all of our end markets, we always encourage investors, and we try to contextualize it in the context of the annual trends rather than the quarterly trends. That's especially true in mobile. Even then, you can get, of course, some of the timing that will affect you year to year. It's essentially about you know getting to replacement cycles, ideally upgrade cycles. Any time that we get advancements that will drive upgrade cycles because you feel like you're missing out is good for us, both because of our existing position, and it's also an opportunity for us to leverage those moments to bring new value propositions to life. And again the content.

You know, we have a lot of content that flows to mobile phones today, but video sharing and social media is the biggest use case and one that we're really focused on bringing more broadly to the world.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Got it. On auto, I think you've recently announced you're in 20 OEM partners, Dolby Atmos. Most recently discussed partnerships with GM, Rivian, and Hyundai.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Yep.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Talk a little bit more about your autos business. So where do you see the largest opportunity for growth? And as you penetrate further down market, you know, what that opportunity looks like.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Yeah. So we're really excited about this one. Having, like I said, been here for eight- I've been here for eighteen years, I've seen a lot of our new technology cycles. You know, we've brought it into a number of new entertainment contexts and device types. None of them have developed as quickly and with as much strength as auto, and it again starts with the value proposition. I mean, we have literally seen, and I use the royal we, because I'm mostly talking about my marketing and creative folks, that there are A-list musicians who have been brought to tears the first time they heard their music in Dolby Atmos, and it's an amazing experience. And one thing that's different compared to our other transitions, remember, music is not going from surround to Dolby Atmos.

It's going from stereo, or sometimes even mono, but stereo to Dolby Atmos, so it really is just a truly, different experience. That's significant because we believe the opportunity is to have this be the way artists want their music to be heard and the way that consumers want to hear it. And that's why our ambition is to be in every car and in every device through which you listen to music. Now, again, like mobile, we're at the earlier days. It's been about, roughly three years, that we've already have 20 OEM wins. Like most of our, categories, they'll start at the high end because, of course, you wanna bring that to the Maybach before you bring it to the next thing.

But, you know, but Mercedes, as an example, we expect they'll have rolled out to about probably plus or minus fifteen models by the end of this year, so they're moving along pretty quickly. We have a really strong presence with the major EV manufacturers in China, who are doing really well: BYD, NIO, Li Auto. You mentioned GM. We just recently announced our first EV with the OPTIQ, Hyundai. So, what you should expect from us is that we're engaged with all the major auto OEMs. We're working to continue to announce new partners. And then, of course, be able to drive it deeper and deeper into lineups, like we're doing with Mercedes.

You know, at CES this year, I mean, obviously, the hardware capabilities of a mid or affordable car is very different than that of a Maybach. At CES, we were, you know, demonstrating to our partners the four-speaker solution, which is at an affordable price point. We're already looking ahead to that, engaging with partners on it. As I said, naturally, people are gonna wanna start with something, an experience so compelling, they're gonna start with the high end and then begin to work their way through their lineups.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Yeah. Thinking back in the auto industry over the last decade or two, I think it's been frustrating just how slow the auto industry has historically adopted tech changes.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

It seems to be accelerating.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Curious your sense on that, and if you feel like we've hit this inflection point with EVs, with maybe connected infotainment systems, where that pace of acceleration, where it might have been a five, six-year install cycle for-

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Yeah

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

... new tech is shortening.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

It's shortened considerably, and look, it's no coincidence that we have so many partners. You know, we have a lot of partners in the China EV manufacturers because they're fast, they're aggressive, they have global ambitions, they value the brand and the experience. They move very fast, but across the board, everybody's moving faster. I mean, you know, Mercedes, you know, announced and had their first model in market in under a year, and they're now close to fifteen models. So look, it's still, it still varies, but you're right. When I first started, the common kind of rule of thumb was it could take, you know, five, six, seven years. You know, now you're talking, for somebody who's really aggressive, it could be less than a year.

And, you know, for others, you're talking two to three years for something like this, not six to seven. So that's working in our favor in terms of rolling this out and the growth trajectory going forward.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Got it... Let's talk about a few other types of consumer products that your technology's in.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Set-top boxes and game consoles being two of them. I'm just curious, the health of the consumer and maybe some of the headwinds or tailwinds you're seeing emerge within those categories.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

How do you see that playing out over the next couple of quarters? What's your sense of the consumer at the moment?

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

I'm sure that we study all the same reports on the health of the consumer and the macro environment as all of you do, right? And I think, you know, at the highest level, what I would say is that whereas even a year ago, and certainly two years ago, when talking to our OEM partners or listening to their earnings reports, the discussion was mostly about the challenges they were facing and the things they were doing to solve supply chain issues or focus on costs. And what we're seeing now is that, generally, people are believing that things have likely stabilized. They're at least beginning to talk about kind of their growth strategies. It's all still with a hint of caution.

A lot of shoes have dropped over the last three years, so everybody has, you know, let's call it cautious optimism. But it feels like we're, you know, approaching the place where the consumer, what's important to us, obviously, is consumer device purchases, where that can stabilize and get more constructive, right? And then, you know, beyond that, again, the question is, you know, could some combination of AI features or other things really create, you know, a drive for an upgrade cycle where you feel like you're, you know, you need hardware? That's kinda that would be that would move it to tailwind.

But for now, we'll take a stabilizing environment, because look, the last few years, you know, two-thirds of our licensing business is audio patent licensing and the branded audio codec portion of our branded licensing business. And each of those has very high penetration across a broad range of device categories. So it is gonna be impacted, and it has been impacted by the overall macro environment. So getting that part of the business from being down mid-single digits to being, you know, flat and then slightly up is a huge swing factor in our overall revenue growth. Because over the last few years, the growth we're getting in Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision has been muted by the weakness in the overall economy. So we're cautiously optimistic that we're reaching that point of stabilization.

That's what we're hearing from our partners. That's our read of the data points. Like I said, I'm sure you all study that at least as much as we do.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Maybe to put a bow on revenue and growth opportunities going forward, as you look across your different verticals, TV, autos, devices, movies even, what do you think is gonna drive the most growth over the next, you know, call it one to three years?

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

-for Dolby?

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

I think with the biggest growth driver for us from a experience point of view is Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision. Cars is Dolby Atmos music for automotive, definitely one of the largest drivers. It's one of our, you know, it's fastest growers now, and doing very well. TVs, again, we're on 30 or 25% of TVs. We're seeing some increases in attach rates this year, and we think there's a big opportunity. We think sports can be a big catalyst for that. And then mobile. We've really touched on what I would say are some of the biggest drivers. I think as it relates to the two-thirds of the business, which is audio patents and branded audio codecs, that's just about the recovery kind of across the board of stabilizing in these categories. Yeah.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Maybe switching over to margins. You've stated in the past it's your intention to grow earnings faster than revenue.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Any helpful frameworks you could point investors towards to think about the pace of earnings growth relative to revenue growth and maybe as a function of that margin expansion?

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, we have said that we. So, yes, we've said that we can drive earnings faster than revenue. That's a function of a couple of things. One is, we have invested in a number of growth opportunities. In our case, these cycles take years, not quarters, to develop. As an example, the Dolby Atmos music for automotive ecosystem. We've been working on that for years before anybody saw any word of that, right? Working with the artists, working with the labels, so, as that begins to take hold, that gives opportunities for margin expansion. Like many companies that you cover, over the last couple of years, we have gotten very focused on operational efficiency. There's been a lot of changes in the environment. There's a lot of changes in the way we work.

And so we have become very focused on operational efficiency, and between those things, we do think we have room to expand margins. I will also say, you know, with Dolby, because we have such high-margin licensing revenue, that, you know, turns in the environment can have a big impact on operating margins. In 2021, when we were as surprised as anybody, that everybody decided to go out and buy a PC and a TV, operating margins went up substantially. But I think in terms of what we plan for, we see that we've invested in a number of new experience ecosystems, which we know result in very sustainable, high-margin revenue streams for very long periods of time, and you're beginning to see those take hold.

That helps with margins, and this commitment to really focusing on operational efficiency and adapting to the changes that we've all been through over the last several years.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Got it. Maybe touching on capital allocation. You recently expanded your share repurchase authorization.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

You repurchased $35 million in stock in the third quarter. Maybe, you know, looking ahead here, how are you thinking about capital allocation? I know you've recently done some M&A, as well. So just take us through that, the capital allocation stack-

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

And looking ahead, where do you think you're, you know, prioritizing the most?

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Yeah. Well, look, we are always looking at the M&A landscape for opportunities to accelerate or expand the opportunities that we've been talking about here today. And it happens that in this most recent quarter, we had two of those land. And, you know, one of them was in the patent licensing space, where we had the opportunity to do a very financially attractive acquisition with assets we understand very well in the patent licensing space. And another was an opportunity to accelerate a newer initiative of ours, which is also focused on live sports, but in a different context. And so we can talk more about those, but we're always looking across that landscape, and just happens that two of those came to fruition.

We're disciplined buyers, so, you know, it's not gonna be a steady stream of acquisitions. Beyond that, we have returned about $4 billion to shareholders over about the last ten years. We are committed to, at minimum, buying back shares to offset stock compensation dilution. We do have a recurring dividend. We've raised it every year, but one during the pandemic, and beyond that, we look at it every quarter. The board and myself and the team review it every quarter, and we have, from time to time, decided to do more buybacks beyond the dilution offset.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

I thought the GE deal was particularly interesting.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Can you talk a little bit more about the strategic rationale there, the opportunities you see to maybe you know, uplift monetization of that portfolio? Then I'm curious, to the extent there's more of a pipeline on the M&A side, on the you know, the patent side, where how deep is it, and what areas would you-

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

... would you most be focused?

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Yeah. Well, so first of all, like I said, we've always had, you know, we always have a pipeline of potential M&A. It's always focused on expanding or accelerating one of the things we've been talking about today. As it relates to patent licensing, we've actually been frequent buyers in the patent space. They've just tended to be small. What was unique about this opportunity was that it was a large portfolio that is very pertinent to pools, and IP that we know very well. And so we were able to expand our presence within pools that were already participating. It's inherently a quite high profitability business. We're bringing it into a team that knows how to do it, so we have said that we expect it to be accretive in the first year.

And, of course, whenever you're expanding the portfolio, it always also gives you an opportunity to identify new opportunities in the future and continue to evolve our content and share of those pools.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Got it.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Mm-hmm.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

Maybe with a minute or so remaining, Kevin-

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Yeah.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

I'm curious, you know, looking out over the next 12 months, if you want to leave the room, investors, with one or two things that you feel are particularly important to the investment narrative at Dolby, and what that would be?

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Yeah, well, first, again, I wanna thank everyone for coming here today. Look, I would reiterate that Dolby, over, you know, nearly 60 years, has been at the forefront of raising the bar on the evolution and the quality of the entertainment experience, and we've done that through multiple economic environments. We've done it through multiple technology transitions, and that's because we have people who live and breathe this stuff, that it is. If you come visit us, the first thing that will strike you is how passionate our company is about doing this, and then combine that with the fact that we're deeply engaged across all these ecosystems that we serve. That's what puts us in a position to continue to innovate and continue to be a part of the future. That's what I'm most excited about.

Look, over the next year, I'm really excited about where we're going and continuing to build out automotive, bring more live sports in Dolby, to sell more TVs in Dolby, and continuing to expand deeper into contexts like social media.

Stephen Laszczyk
VP and Equity Research Analyst covering the Media & Entertainment, Goldman Sachs

It's a great place to end. Kevin, thank you so much for your time.

Kevin Yeaman
CEO, Dolby Laboratories

Thank you.

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