MTG reports strong Q1 with revenues up 11%, adjusted EBITDA up 51% and an operating margin of 27%

Our Q1 revenues grew by 11%, including a 1% uplift from currencies, to SEK 1,447 million, driven by PlaySimple’s established portfolio which now includes Word Search, the newly consolidated Snowprint and InnoGames’ successful live-ops. We reported a strong adjusted EBITDA of SEK 396 million and a margin of 27%. The performance was driven by the scale gained by PlaySimple in 2023, the lower cost base and growing browser revenues in InnoGames along with lower UA spending. Today, we also initiated our latest share repurchase program which will run until our 2024 AGM.

Financial highlights Q1

• Net sales increased by 11% to SEK 1,447 (1,306) million year over year and up 10% in constant currencies
• UA spend of SEK 527 (537) million corresponding to 36% (41) of revenues
• Adjusted EBITDA of SEK 396 (263) million with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 27% (20)
• Reported EBITDA of SEK 377 (245) million and EBIT of SEK 236 (121) million
• Net financial items of SEK -157 (-61) million of which SEK 33 million was interest income. The remainder reflected revaluations and exchange rate effects which are currently non-cash items
• Tax amounted to SEK -111 (-36) million
• Total net income of SEK -31 (24) million
• Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the period amounted to SEK 3,332 (4,019) million with a cash conversion of 62% for the 12-month period ended 31 March 2024
• Outlook for 2024 for net sales growth is 1% to 5% at constant currencies, and an adjusted EBITDA margin between 26% to 29%

Financial overview

President & CEO’s comments

A quarter of strong growth with high profitability and cash conversion

We reported a strong Q1, with revenues increasing by 10% excluding currency effects. Our growth continued to reflect the quality of our focused portfolio and the organic elements of our strategy, which focus on optimizing revenues through live-ops and in-game content.

We also had an active quarter from an M&A standpoint, with the changes we made contributing to our overall revenue trajectory. In early Q1 we agreed to divest Kongregate by merging it into Monumental in the US, ensuring that the studios can continue pursue their ambitions together. We also executed on a roll-up acquisition after the end of the quarter, when Ninja Kiwi acquired the successful studio AutoAttack. The small team behind AutoAttack will now both continue to develop their existing Tower Defence success Legion TD 2 and work on a new future release. This was also our second quarter with Snowprint, after acquiring them in October last year.

PlaySimple, Snowprint and InnoGames were the drivers of our growth in the quarter. PlaySimple has focused on optimizing its established word games portfolio, which now includes our newest successful game Word Search which represents over 15% of franchise revenues. PlaySimple is also well underway with their work on several new games and on the upcoming localization of current top games, which will enable the studio to continue scaling its business in the future.

InnoGames reported another quarter of sales growth driven by strong live-ops and events in Forge of Empires. Browser revenues were up year over year, which underscores the power and longevity of our mid-core titles as well as InnoGames extensive experience on the browser platform. Tribal Wars, originally released in 2003, had its second-best year last year, and grew revenues year over year in Q1.

Warhammer 40,000: Tacticus, developed by Snowprint, continued to show good traction in Q1 thanks to a very active live-ops and events pipeline. This included the addition of a guild wars feature and a new faction to the game.

Ninja Kiwi’s revenues were down slightly year over year in the quarter. The studio continued to expand our flagship title Bloons TD 6 with major content updates and launched the game on the Apple Vision Pro. They are also making good progress on two new games.

Hutch’s revenues were down year over year. Forza Customs is still in the very early stages of its development and the team is focused on evolving the game with additional content and features The studio’s second new game, NASCAR Manager, is showing encouraging early performance metrics and we are following its progress closely.

Disciplined UA spend drives strong adjusted EBITDA and profitability

We invested SEK 527 million in total in user acquisition (UA) in Q1, which represented 36% of our revenues for the period. Our total UA spend was down year over year as we maintain our disciplined approach to healthy return on marketing investments. PlaySimple is currently evaluating the potential impact on our ability to scale marketing from Google’s recent changes to advertising bidding and upcoming end user privacy updates.

InnoGames invested less in marketing year over year, in line with the longer mid-core trends we have observed and discussed during 2023. Hutch’ UA spend was higher year on year in Q1. The studio balanced its marketing efforts for its new games during the quarter, since Hutch launches new titles in an early stage of development and have an iterative process when it comes to development and scaling.

Our total adjusted EBITDA grew by 51% year over year and amounted to SEK 396 million in the quarter. This strong growth was driven by the overall scaling of PlaySimple’s portfolio, lower UA spending in PlaySimple and InnoGames and stronger underlying profitability in InnoGames thanks to the restructuring in April last year and continued successful activation of established players and growth of browser revenues from Forge of Empires.

We delivered a cash conversion of 62% for the 12-month period ending 31 March 2024, reflecting the strong ongoing cash generation from our studios. The cash conversion for the rolling 12-month period was slightly above our expected long-term range of 50 to 60%.

We remain confident in our portfolio in a recovery year with limited visibility

We did not see any major changes to the overall environment or trends on our In App Purchase markets in Q1. Market analysis firm Newzoo continues to expect the overall market to grow by low-to-mid-single digits in the coming two to three years and the trends that we are observing on our markets, including those around launching and scaling new games, seem to support that assumption.

During the last year, the casual segment of the mobile gaming market has been growing at a significantly faster pace than mid-core. We expect this trend to continue in principle, but we are taking a more cautious approach to when it comes to the specific levels of this growth during 2024. This is based on multiple factors that could impact the market environment this year. These factors include the recent changes to the bidding system for ads along with the upcoming end user privacy settings to be implemented by Google as well as the general evolving market landscape on the advertising platform side.  

We have an encouraging pipeline of new games and content planned for 2024 and beyond. This includes several new games from PlaySimple in adjacent casual genres as well as the localization of our current hits. It also includes two new titles from Ninja Kiwi, with one of them set within the evergreen Bloons IP, and a fresh take on the reworked Rise of Cultures from InnoGames. On top of that, Hutch also continues to work on their two brand new games to improve key metrics and expand in-game content.  

The mix of an uncertain short-term outlook in our advertising markets, together with delays to new game launches and key content, will impact when and how much we can scale our marketing during the year. This in turn means that we will continue to deliver higher operating margins while we get ready for further expansion. Our outlook for the full year reflects this and we therefore currently expect to deliver reported revenue growth of 1% to 5% excluding currency effects, and an adjusted EBITDA margin between 26% and 29% for the full year 2024.

We continue to have a strong balance sheet, underpinned further by the robust cash flow we generate from our operations. We have a clear M&A strategy in place and will continue to explore relevant opportunities to expand and strengthen our portfolio in 2024. We believe that this is an important avenue of growth which will help us drive synergies and accelerate growth as a group. M&A will drive the quality and value of our Gaming Village as a whole.

You can see that we expect to continue delivering robust performance for our shareholders. While our main priority is and continues to be profitable long-term growth, we remain disciplined in our approach to our expansion. This means that we can deliver high profits for our shareholders in periods where we see less growth opportunities.

Today we launched a new share buyback program, which will run until our 2024 AGM. The Board also intends to launch a new share buyback program after the AGM, contingent on the necessary approval from our shareholders.

MTG has a great portfolio of games, a healthy future pipeline and a talented global team led by great entrepreneurs. We will work hard to deliver on our objectives and strategy for our stakeholders. Thank you once again for following our progress and I look forward to continuing to share our story with you in the future.

Maria Redin

Group President & CEO, Modern Times Group MTG AB

2024 outlook

MTG’s outlook for 2024 is for reported sales growth to be within the range of 1 to 5% on a currency adjusted basis. The group also expects its reported adjusted EBITDA margin for the full year to be between 26% and 29%.

Shareholder information

MTG’s Annual General Meeting 2024

The Annual General Meeting will be held on 16 May 2024 in Stockholm.

All information relating to the Annual General Meeting, including the notice, the Nomination Committee's proposals and related materials has been published at www.mtg.com.

Financial calendar

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Modern Times Group MTG AB (publ) – Reg no: 556309-9158 – Phone: +46 (0) 8-562 000 50

MTG (Modern Times Group MTG AB (publ)) (www.mtg.com) is an international mobile gaming group that owns and operates gaming studios with popular global IPs across a wide range of casual and mid-core genres. The group is focused on accelerating portfolio company growth and supporting founders and entrepreneurs. MTG is an active driver of gaming industry consolidation and a strategic acquirer of gaming companies around the world. We are born in Sweden but have an international culture and global footprint. Our shares are listed on Nasdaq Stockholm (“MTGA” and “MTGB”).

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