Beyond Frames Interim report Q3 2023

Third quarter, July 1 – September 30, 2023

• Sales amounted to 35,980 (7,790) kSEK, an increase of 362% compared to Q3 2022.                   
• Operating profit before depreciation and amortization and shares in associated companies' earnings (EBITDA) amounted to 2,196 (-2,939) kSEK
• Profit after financial items amounted to -1,839 (-6,014) kSEK
• EBITDA per share amounted to 0.13 (-0.17) SEK
• Profit per share after financial items amounted to SEK -0.11 (-0.35) SEK
• Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter amounted to 34,555 [1] (57,373) kSEK. This compares to 24,205 kSEK at the end of the previous quarter.
• Equity attributable to the parent company's shareholders in the Group amounted to 85,352 kSEK at the end of the quarter, corresponding to 4.97 SEK per share, compared with 97,273 kSEK, corresponding to 5.67 SEK per share at the end of the corresponding quarter last year.

The Period, Jan 1 – September 30, 2023

• Sales amounted to 96,546 (20,578) kSEK, an increase of 369% compared to the corresponding period of 2022.              
• Operating profit before depreciation and amortization and shares in associated companies' earnings (EBITDA) amounted to 6,307 (-8,327) kSEK
• Profit after financial items amounted to -3,997 (-14,856) kSEK
• EBITDA per share amounted to 0.37 (-0.49) SEK
• Profit per share after financial items amounted to SEK -0.23 (-0.87) SEK
• Comparative figures refer to the corresponding period of the previous year unless otherwise stated.

[1] Cash at the end of the Quarter included the repayment of a 15M cash placement plus interest

CEO comments

Significant growth and investment in the future

With a 362% increase in revenue year over year, positive EBITDA, and the strong launch of Outta Hand in the last few days of the quarter, we ended what is typically a tough quarter for VR on another high note.

Q3 is usually a quiet sales period for VR due to standard seasonality in video games, but strong sales from Combat Waffle’s Ghosts of Tabor, paid milestones from project funding, and a great response to Capricia Production’s Outta Hand kept our positive momentum going from previous quarters. This gave us a strong cash position to reinvest in our future revenue pipelines. A part of those efforts was seen after the quarter with us winning the license to develop a new VR title for an internationally-loved, multi-billion dollar franchise. 

Publishing

Outta Hand launched on September 28th to rave reviews by critics followed by strong sales, landing the title in the number 7 spot of the top sales lists on the Meta Quest store. This has been the second strongest launch for us behind the massive success of Ghosts of Tabor. Plans to continue supporting Outta Hand with updates and further opportunities for commercialization were already underway prior to launch.

Much of our focus is continuing to build out our pipeline for 2024. As mentioned last quarter, Ghosts of Tabor is planned to leave Meta App Labs and Steam Early Access and release on the main storefronts of digital platforms during Q1.

On a separate note; at the end of the quarter, we ended our relationship with Sylphe Labs due to missed milestones. No material investments were made.

Studios

Cortopia is hard at work on three titles at the moment. While we’re overjoyed with all three productions, I wanted to emphasize that two of those titles are attached to large IPs with built-in audiences. One of those two is connected to a major IP that has amassed billions of dollars in revenue for its films, TV series, toys, and other downstream products and partnerships. It’s not our intention to overhype its potential financial impact on our business, but we did want to emphasize the kind of ambition we’re targeting with the growth of Cortopia.

Market

The major market highlight was the reveal of the Meta Quest 3 at the end of September and its subsequent release on October 10th. Given that the headset launched at the beginning of Q4, we won’t know the impact until after this holiday season, but we have plenty of reasons to be optimistic given the early positive response from professional critics and consumers.

In more Meta Quest news, it was announced that Meta and Tencent struck a deal to bring a low-cost version of the Quest headset to China. We continue to believe China is a strong growth market for XR, and given our existing presence in China and our strong relationship with Meta, this is great news for us.

Last, but not least, Apple has reiterated their plans to release their first XR headset in early 2024.

The Future

We mentioned our ambition to expand to PC and console games as the next step on our path to becoming one of the greatest providers of immersive entertainment in the world. During Q3, we continued exploratory conversations with potential partners to support this expansion. While we’re not prepared to share more on our tactics, our current concept is to find a mix of traditional and emerging ways forward that follows our ethos of spreading risk while putting out games players will love.

Thanks to our players, staff, partners, and investors for your continued support.
 

Ace St. Germain, CEO Beyond Frames Entertainment AB (publ)