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Dolby Sees Continued Long-Term Growth From Atmos, Vision

Dolby ended the fourth quarter and fiscal year (ended Sept. 29) on a strong note, with Kevin Yeaman, the company’s CEO and president, saying he remained “confident in our opportunity to drive long term growth” in TVs, mobile and automotive as Dolby-enabled content “continues to proliferate and attract” more consumers.

“The amount and availability of great content created in Dolby continues to grow,” he told analysts Nov. 16 on an earnings call, referring to that as the “first step in a virtuous cycle.”

He explained: “As more creators create high-quality content in Dolby, that content attracts more distribution and device partners. The virtuous cycle for Dolby is as more devices support the Dolby experience, the more content creators want to create in Dolby and more distributors want to deliver that content. We remain excited about our business because we see the momentum from our creators and strong engagement from our distributors and device manufacturers, which we expect to drive long-term growth.”

Meanwhile, today there is “more content, more types of content and more ways to enjoy that content” than ever before, Yeaman noted. “The top 10 global movie and TV streaming providers all offer an ongoing flow of Dolby-enabled content, with several of them carrying thousands of movies and TV episodes sourced from a large range of major and independent studios who create in Dolby. The top 20 grossing movies in the United States for the last two years were created in Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, including two of the biggest movies this [past] summer: Barbie and Oppenheimer, as well as this fall’s Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.”

Also, more than 85% of the worldwide Billboard top 100 recording artists of 2023 have one or more tracks available in Dolby Atmos, he said. “All three major record labels and hundreds of indies are delivering Dolby Atmos tracks to 16 music services in over 160 countries.”

The company is also seeing “growing support for Dolby Vision capture so that anyone can create and share high-quality videos,” Yeaman said. In sports, Men’s World Cup Soccer, Major League Baseball, the Super Bowl and the U.S. Open are among the leagues that he noted “delivered content in Dolby technologies.”

He added: “These content stories highlight that Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision are becoming a de-facto standard across a wide variety of content, and we believe this sets us up very well to continue to drive partnerships.”

Chinese car maker BYD, which already shipped its first car with Atmos, became Dolby’s fifth automotive OEM win this year a d its 10th OEM win to date, he noted. The other car makers are in various stages of rolling out their first models and, in some cases, like Mercedes, rolling out multiple follow-on models, he told analysts.

Yeaman added: “Bringing Dolby Atmos music to automotive represents one of our most compelling growth opportunities and momentum continues to build.”

Total Dolby Q4 revenue grew to $290.6 million from $278.2 million in Q4 a year earlier, the company said. For the fiscal year, total revenue inched up to $1.3 billion from $1.25 billion in fiscal 2022. Income for the fiscal year jumped to $200.7 million ($2.05 per diluted share) from $184.1 million ($1.81 per diluted share)