- Walt Disney
- Cardlytics
- Upwork
- Twilio
- Office Depot
Walt Disney Earnings Call Summary
| Walt Disney Company 8/4 | https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2020/08/05/walt-disney-dis-q3-2020-earnings-call-transcript.aspx |
| Summary | With many people staying home and enjoying home entertainment, Disney+ has seen remarkable success worldwide, coupled with ESPN beginning to air sports, the return of TV production, and the repoening of parks, Disney is well on its way to recovery in the COVID world |
| Goals | Return revenues in parks, resume production of shows, and continue to expand DIsney+ |
| Strategies/Initiatives | Expand Disney+ to new regions and capture the increasing momentum of subscribers and success it has already experienced |
| important CEO Quotes | “I am also incredibly pleased to announce that, as of yesterday, we have surpassed 60.5 million paid subscribers globally, far exceeding our initial projections for the service.” |
| As many stay home in the wake of COVID-19, streaming services become paramount to entertainment and reaching customers, in this case, Disney+ has really made a dent in the industry and is doing much better than initally expected | |
| important CFO Quotes | “As we reopened many of our businesses, we have incurred and will continue to incur additional costs related to addressing the safety of our cast members, talent and guests as well as various government regulations.” |
| While parks and other experiences were most hurt by the pandemic, as reopenings occur and filming resumes, the cost of keeping employees and customers safe is to be an expensive endevour, with around $1 billion to be spent by the end of the year | |
| “Assuming the resumption of live sports continues as planned, we expect ESPN’s ad sales in Q4, including the benefit of the 53rd week, to benefit significantly, particularly from the NBA.” | |
| While production costs are down, the loss in advertising revenue is proving large for channels such as ESPN, where sports has been cancelled. With the current resumption of the NBA and other sports, Disney can drive up revenues once again | |
| COVID update | Recent surge in Florida cases is driving revenue down in their parks |
| Layoffs | None |
| Key hires | None |
| Funding or new fund allocation? | Lower spending at resorts is set to open over $700 million |
| Mergers or acqusition mentions | None |
| Product Release mentions | New direct streaming service under the Star brand, with films from major distributors |
| Mulan will also be released on Disney+, and in theatres where they are open and Disney+ is unavalible | |
| Other major business updates | Opening of theme parks worlwide and in the USA |
| Initial restarting of TV and movie productions | |
| Relevant Analyst Questions | None |
Cardlytics Earnings Call Summary
| Cardlytics 8/4 | https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2020/08/05/cardlytics-inc-cdlx-q2-2020-earnings-call-transcri.aspx |
| Summary | As COVID-19 shifts demand for products, both in quantity and type, the company has adjusted to those the best they could, while incurring major losses due to the closing of stores around the world. |
| Goals | FInd new products to target consumers with as the virus shifts consumer spending |
| Strategies/Initiatives | Rise, return, retain strategy |
| important CEO Quotes | “Our clients are still facing severe swings in spend, both up and down, and our three-pronged strategy, Rise, Retain and Return discussed on the Q1’s earnings call, is continuing to produce positive results.” |
| The lack in consumer spending due to the economic harships spearheaded by coronavirus has hurt the company, however they are targetting customers with online grocing, which has been successful so far | |
| important CFO Quotes | “Our US revenue declined 38% year over year in Q2 and our U.K. revenue declined 74%, as businesses there have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic.” |
| With such hard decreases in spending by consumers, the company believes that this will be the worst and that declines will slowly begin to slow down and turn around | |
| COVID update | Even with such decreases, their product has shown to be effective in certain spheres, including Forever21 |
| Layoffs | None |
| Key hires | Farrell Hudzik to lead the bank team, and Pete Davies for sales strategy and operation team |
| Jessica Jensen, CMO of OpenTable, joined board of investors | |
| Funding or new fund allocation? | None |
| Mergers or acqusition mentions | None |
| Product Release mentions | Lindt chololate through Horizon Media, self-service platform by Forever21 |
| Other major business updates | Incerased partnership with Vaynermedia |
| Relevant Analyst Questions | “How you’re thinking about some of the changes in consumer behavior that you’re seeing over these last few months and what could be more permanent versus transient and how that impacts your sales strategy going forward?” |
| While they expect ecommerce to rise and doubtful in-store purchases would recover, targeted ads mean that they are flexible in however the customer wants to buy their products | |
| “You’re obviously now testing with some agencies and some brands on the automated platform.Just wondering if you can give any feedback on what you’re hearing there and potential for an update to the time line on when this would be more generally available.” | |
| Automated platform currently in beta stage, they are being cautious with release however expecting to be rolled out Q3-Q4 of next year |
Upwork Earnings Call Summary
| Upwork 8/4 | https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2020/08/05/upwork-upwk-q2-2020-earnings-call-transcript.aspx |
| Summary | As a business that connects freelance talents to employers, the current remote work situation has created a need for these talents who are capable of helping with their unique skillset, while allowing businesses to manage their employees remotely |
| Goals | Continue recovery to stabalize customers and hope the COVID situation does not worsen |
| Strategies/Initiatives | Improve on the current product and retain existing customers with a currently stable demand for their product |
| important CEO Quotes | “72% are continuing or increasing their usage of independent professionals — underscoring, the focus companies have today on cost management and workforce flexibility. The breakthroughs companies in making the adoption of remote work, and they’re focused on creating a more agile workforce is increasing the appeal of our online freelance talent solution.” |
| As more and more jobs go remote, companies look for cheaper, online solutions, in which Upwork provides a great option to connect talents to employers, adding new clients | |
| “This quarter, as more customers reevaluated their talent programs in a fully remote work environment, we were able to achieve significant adoption of our Bring Your Own Talent functionality, which allows clients to onboard pre-existing individual contractors and agencies onto our platform for global unified billing, enhanced visibility and reporting, strong spend controls, a worker classification option for peace of mind, and centralized team management.” | |
| With a majority of their revenue coming from payment and management abilities over independent contractors, as COVID increased the need for such remote services, that revenue stream increased | |
| important CFO Quotes | None |
| COVID update | Not expecting another surge in cases, which will decrease spending and negatively affect their business |
| Layoffs | None |
| Key hires | Jeff McCombs, new CFO |
| Funding or new fund allocation? | None |
| Mergers or acqusition mentions | None |
| Product Release mentions | Upwork |
| Other major business updates | Saw significant traction among business customers, meaning that they have been able to retain and even add more customers as they recover from April lows |
| Partnership with Citrix | |
| Relevant Analyst Questions | “You mentioned you, you know, saw close rates starting to improve. Can you just talk to what you’re seeing currently now in the current period?” |
| While demand for their products is improving, one spot in which they need to improve is their conversion rates, which is notably lower than expectations |
Twilio Earnings Call Summary
| Twilio 8/4 | https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2020/08/05/twilio-twlo-q2-2020-earnings-call-transcript.aspx |
| Summary | As COVID rages on, companies are now quicker than ever to ditch their legacy systems to replace them with something that is fit for the current remote working enviornment. The company is succeeding in keeping up demand and having companies and gov’t services use their product, however they must keep adapting to the changing landscape |
| Goals | Work to ensure that the company will be able to keep up with the ever-increasing demand |
| Strategies/Initiatives | Invest in their systems, partner with relevant companies that are looking to digitalize |
| important CEO Quotes | “We also found that companies’ digital communication strategies were accelerated by an average of 6 years. Barriers like lack of clear strategy or getting executive approval or reluctance to replace legacy software and lack of time have broken down, and budgets are increasing as companies are seeing new ways of engaging customers.” |
| Such a devleopment is very beneficial to Twilio, which means that more companies will leave their previous practices behind and utilize their product | |
| important CFO Quotes | “However, use cases within healthcare, education, e-commerce and others continued to offset the headwinds. Reemphasizing Jeff’s comments earlier, we have a well-diversified and resilient business model.” |
| With collaberations in contact tracing for coronavirus, the need for schools to connect with faculty, and businesses needs to go remote, the demand for their product is projected to increase and stay resilient throughout the pandemic | |
| COVID update | There seems to be positive signs that the use of services that Twilio provided will stay essential even after the virus has passed |
| Layoffs | None |
| Key hires | Michelle Grover, new Chief information officer |
| Funding or new fund allocation? | New investment towards improving existing infrastructure to keep up with demand, although stated in answering analyst questions that they are struggling to keep up |
| Mergers or acqusition mentions | None |
| Product Release mentions | None |
| Other major business updates | Expanded relationships with zoom and petalon |
| New relationship with Tokopedia | |
| Relevant Analyst Questions | “are companies looking to do bigger overhaul of their communication technologies at once or take on bigger pieces? Are you seeing kind of an acceleration of replacing legacy or seeing more executive-level involvement?” |
| There is no visibility in what consumers may want in the future, for now it is to follow the current trends and try to keep up with demand as much as they can by keeping their infrastructure updated |
Office Depot Earnings Call Summary
| Office Depot 8/4 | https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2020/08/05/office-depot-inc-odp-q2-2020-earnings-call-transcr.aspx |
| Summary | Their expansion into ecommerce and finding new regional suppliers does well to keep costs lower and business running, however the uncertainty ahead means that the company is unsure how their ‘regular’ products will fare in the future |
| Goals | Seek to find new consumers and attempt to navigate new demands/lack of demand for goods (i.e. school supplies, PPE) |
| Strategies/Initiatives | Restructure and increase investments in B2B, ecommerce, and distrubution network |
| important CEO Quotes | “First, we completed our holding company reorganization, created a new publicly traded company named the ODP Corporation. This action simplifies our corporate structure and begins to better align our assets with respective operating channels creating more flexibility for the future” |
| “In fact, we expanded into a new category during the quarter, Personal Protection Equipment or PPE quickly launching this category meeting our customer needs.” | |
| Office depot has extended themselves into the PPE market in order to boost sales, which is a factor in ecommerce sales increasing by double digits from last year | |
| important CFO Quotes | “Sales increased over 20% in our e-commerce channel and demand increased for products supporting work and learn-from-home and essential products with technology sales up 17% and cleaning and breakroom sales up 20% versus last year.” |
| COVID update | School reopening poses new problems where there is uncertainty over demand for school supplies |
| Layoffs | None |
| Key hires | Anthony Scagilone, CFO and exec. VP |
| Terry Leeper, new Chief Technology Officer | |
| Funding or new fund allocation? | None |
| Mergers or acqusition mentions | Acquiring numerous smaller regional suppliers |
| Product Release mentions | None |
| Other major business updates | Increased focus on B2B platform as individual consumers decrease |
| Relevant Analyst Questions | None |
