Gamehaus Holdings - Earnings Call - Q4 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Gamehaus' fourth quarter and full-year of fiscal 2025 earnings conference call. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will be followed at that time. As a reminder, we are recording today's call. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I will now turn the call over to today's speaker host, Mr. Jack Wang. Jack, please proceed.

Jack Wang (Managing Director)

All right. Thank you, Operator. Hello, everyone. Thank you all for joining us on today's conference call to discuss the financial results of Gamehaus for the fourth quarter and full-year of fiscal 2025. We released our earnings results earlier today. The press release is now available on the company's IR website, as well as from newswire services. On the call with me today are Mr. Brian Xie Feng, Chairman of the Board; Mr. Carl Cai Yimin, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Shawn Zhang, Head of Capital Markets and Investor Relations. Brian will review business operations and company highlights, followed by Shawn, who will discuss detailed financial results. They will all be available to answer your questions during the Q&A session.

Before we proceed, I would like to remind you that this call may contain forward-looking statements, which are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from our current expectations. For detailed discussions of the risks and uncertainties, please refer to our filings with the SEC. Also, please note that, unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during the conference call are in U.S. dollars. And with that, I would like to introduce our Chairman, Brian. Brian will deliver his remarks in Chinese, and I will follow up with corresponding English translations. Please go ahead, Brian.

Brian Xie Feng (Chairman of the Board)

[Foreign language]

Jack Wang (Managing Director)

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining Gamehaus' conference call for the fourth quarter and full-year of fiscal 2025.

Brian Xie Feng (Chairman of the Board)

[Foreign language]

Jack Wang (Managing Director)

Looking back on the final quarter of fiscal year 2025 and the full-year as a whole, we achieved our objectives through disciplined execution. This quarter, we formally introduced a Dual-Engine Growth Strategy that combines organic growth with strategic expansion. On the organic side, we continue to operate and enhance our mature titles that generate stable cash flows. At the same time, we're extending our Game Architect Model across our developer network to drive higher quality outcomes. In parallel, we are actively evaluating high-quality casual mobile game assets worldwide by leveraging our long-standing data resources and AI capabilities. Together with China's deep pool of development and live ops talent, we are confident in our ability to help promising casual titles become more profitable and achieve longer life cycles.

Brian Xie Feng (Chairman of the Board)

[Foreign language]

Jack Wang (Managing Director)

Our efforts to diversify into new game genres achieved a significant milestone this quarter. In April, we launched our first RPG title, Adventure of the White Chord, which enabled us to fully test and extend our end-to-end publishing capabilities in this genre, from team selection and theme evaluation to publishing support and art asset management. Building on that foundation, we plan to launch our second RPG in late September. Beyond that, our pipeline remains very strong, with a healthy slate of titles in testing or preparing for launch, many of which are scheduled for release in 2026. As these new games come online, we expect our portfolio mix to become more balanced and resilient, with a greater likelihood of generating breakout hits. In short, our organic growth strategy is not about betting on a single title or even a single genre.

Instead, we are investing in a proven methodology that lays the foundation for a more sustainable growth trajectory in 2026 and beyond.

Brian Xie Feng (Chairman of the Board)

[Foreign language]

Jack Wang (Managing Director)

As we expand our pipeline and strengthen our portfolio, we are also enhancing our operating capabilities, where AI has become a core part of our operations. We are applying it extensively in areas such as asset generation, multilingual localization, and customer support, while encouraging broader adoption of AI tools to drive meaningful transformation across the company. In customer support, AI currently resolves about 30%-50% of tickets, and our goal is to push that figure above 50% over the next few quarters. On the monetization front, early results from AI-driven content generation, personalized recommendations, and multi-round alpha and beta testing have collectively increased player spending by 5%-10%.

Brian Xie Feng (Chairman of the Board)

[Foreign language]

Jack Wang (Managing Director)

On the other hand, we continue to focus on direct-to-consumer or DTC payments as a key driver of margin improvement, and increasing our DTC mix has become an important strategic objective. Regulatory and platform developments vary across markets. In the United States, where progress has been most advanced, our title Grand Cash Slots generated over 10% of its iOS revenue through DTC channels in August. In other regions where regulations and platform policies are evolving more gradually, we are closely tracking developments and stand ready to roll out DTC as soon as conditions permit. If regulatory and platform timelines unfold as we expect, our near-term goal is to increase the DTC mix of our key titles to 15%-20% by the end of fiscal 2026, which we believe will meaningfully enhance our gross margin profile.

Brian Xie Feng (Chairman of the Board)

[Foreign language]

Jack Wang (Managing Director)

Beyond expanding our scale and improving profitability, we also remain committed to delivering returns to our long-term shareholders. Since completing our De-SPAC transaction, we believe our stock has for an extended period failed to fully reflect our fundamentals or the long-term growth potential of both our business and the broader gaming industry. As such, in late August, our board approved a share repurchase program authorizing the buyback of up to $5 million of our Class A ordinary shares over a one-year period. We see this as an important first step, as we intend to continue pursuing various shareholder return initiatives to strengthen investor confidence.

Brian Xie Feng (Chairman of the Board)

[Foreign language]

Jack Wang (Managing Director)

Finally, based on our current product portfolio and the anticipated launch schedule of our upcoming pipeline titles, we are setting our revenue guidance for the first quarter of fiscal 2026 ending September 30, 2025, in the range of $27 million-$30 million.

Brian Xie Feng (Chairman of the Board)

[Foreign language]

Jack Wang (Managing Director)

Now I will turn the call over to Shawn to walk you through our financial performance.

Shawn Zhang (Head of Capital Markets and Investor Relations)

Thank you, Brian, and hello everyone. I will now provide a detailed overview of our financial performance for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2025, which ended June 30th, 2025. Please note that all figures are in U.S. dollars and all comparisons are made on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise stated. In the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025, our revenue exceeded the high end of our previous guidance range to reach $30.7 million, compared with $31.6 million in the same period last year. The decline primarily reflects our strategic pullback in user acquisition spending and our deliberate adjustments to our marketing approach in response to evolving platform dynamics and heightened industry competition. Lower marketing expenditures resulted in reduced traffic and user acquisition, which in turn weighed on revenue.

Breaking down our revenue by segment, our in-app purchase revenue was $27.9 million, a modest decrease of 2.4% from $28.6 million a year ago. Advertising revenue was $2.8 million, down from $3 million in the same period last year. It's important to note that despite these headwinds, our ongoing enhancement to in-game content and features helped sustain engagement and retention among our existing players. For the full fiscal year 2025, revenue totaled $118 million, compared to $145.2 million in the previous fiscal year. The decline mirrors the same trends we observed in the quarter, primarily driven by a reduction in user acquisition spending and the strategic adjustments to our marketing efforts. In-app purchase revenue was $106.3 million, down 19% from $131.6 million a year ago. Advertising revenue was $11.7 million, compared to $13.6 million last year.

Turning to expenses, in the fourth quarter, total operating costs and expenses were $29.3 million, remaining relatively stable compared with the same period last year. More specifically, cost of revenue declined nearly 6% to $14.5 million, primarily driven by lower platform fees, reduced profit sharing payments to game developers, and a decline in customized design fees. R&D expenses increased 37.3% to $1.4 million as we advanced early-stage collaborations with multiple developers to build out our future content pipeline. Selling and marketing expenses were $11.8 million, slightly lower than $12.1 million in the same period last year, consistent with our strategy to scale back advertising spending for mature titles. G&A expenses were $1.5 million, compared to $0.8 million a year ago, mainly due to higher salary expenses and professional service fees tied to our public listing and associated governance enhancements.

For the full fiscal year 2025, total operating costs and expenses were $114.7 million, representing a 16.2% reduction from $136.9 million in the previous fiscal year. This reflects our disciplined cost management in a challenging environment. Cost of revenue declined 20.9% to $55.9 million, driven by similar factors as in the quarter, including lower platform fees, reduced profit sharing payments to game developers, and a decline in customized design fees. R&D expenses were $5.7 million, up 18.9% from $4.8 million in the previous fiscal year, underscoring our commitment to content innovation through investment in early-stage partnerships with game developers. Selling and marketing expenses were $48.4 million, down 16.1% from $57.7 million in the previous fiscal year, in line with our strategy of scaling back advertising spending for mature titles.

G&A expenses were $4.7 million, up 25.4% from $3.8 million in the previous fiscal year, primarily due to the same factors that led to the quarterly increase. Shifting to profitability, in the fourth quarter, operating income was $1.4 million, down from $2.3 million a year ago. Operating margin was 4.6% versus 7.1% in the same period last year. For the full fiscal year 2025, operating income was $3.4 million, down from $8.3 million in the previous fiscal year. Operating margin was 2.9% compared with 5.7% last year. Net income for the fourth quarter was $1.5 million, down from $2.5 million in the same period last year, and earnings per ordinary share was $0.03, compared with $0.05 a year ago. Net income for the full fiscal year 2025 was $3.8 million, down from $8.6 million in the previous fiscal year.

This translated into earnings per ordinary shares of $0.08, compared with $0.16 last year. We ended fiscal year 2025 with $15.2 million in cash and cash equivalents, compared to $18.8 million as of June 30th, 2024. We believe this is sufficient to meet our liquidity and working capital needs for the next 12 months. In addition, I want to highlight an important capital market development. On August 29th, 2025, our board authorized a share repurchase program of up to $5 million over the next 12 months through August 28th, 2026. This underscores both our confidence in the company's long-term growth trajectory and our commitment to delivering shareholder value. Looking ahead to the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, we expect total revenue to be in the range of approximately $27 million-$30 million, based on current progress and market demand.

Overall, we see fiscal 2025 as a year of strategic recalibration, one where we strategically balance short-term headwinds against the needs to invest in our future. While the external environment remains challenging, we believe the actions we have taken, including tightening marketing spending, refining cost structure, investing in innovative game content, and deepening partnerships with developers, are laying the foundation for sustainable growth. As we enter fiscal year 2026, we remain focused on disciplined execution and unlocking growth from our strengthened content pipeline and enhanced operating efficiency. We are confident in our ability to capture new opportunities and deliver sustainable value for our shareholders. With that, we can now open our call for questions. Our CEO, Mr. Carl Cai, and I will answer your questions. Operator, please proceed.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one, on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Additionally, when asking a question, please state your question in Chinese first, then immediately translate them into English for the convenience of everyone on the call. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question today comes from Tina Wang with CITIC International. Please go ahead.

Tina Wang (Money Market Trader)

[Foreign language]. I'll translate myself. Thank management for taking my question. I have two questions. The first one is, during fiscal year 2025, net profit declined much more than revenue change. Could management share more color with us regarding the reasons behind, and how should we think about the further margin trend? And my second question is regarding DTC payments. To my understanding, both Apple and Google have historically taken a hard line on DTC payments, and there also have been several restriction cases. So my question is, if Apple and Google take further restrictive action, what is the impact to us, and how do we mitigate this impact? Thanks.

Shawn Zhang (Head of Capital Markets and Investor Relations)

Tina [Foreign language]. I will give English translation for myself. So for fiscal year 2025, our overall net margin was roughly 3.2%. so taken in isolation, this is not a very high level, but I think net margin is not an ideal yardstick for, you know, an industry standard comparison. there are going to be two reasons. So firstly, the bottom line of our P&L is very sensitive to certain one-offs and also the scale of the company. from the top line to the bottom line, there are many items that could move the outcome. So some of them are non-recurring and could meaningfully screw up our net income, especially for you know, the companies that are not yet at a very large scale.

So as we noted last quarter, our net income in the early nine months of the fiscal year still reflected some one-time items related to our listing preparation. So if you could take a look at our Q4, on a standalone basis, the net income was about $1.5 million on $30.7 million of our revenue. That is roughly already, I mean, 5%, which shows a very clear improvement. But we also want to mention that, you know, apples to apples is very hard to make the comparison across our, you know, mobile gaming sector. So our industry actually includes both public companies just like us and also probably private companies operating under, you know, different environments and accounting practices. So I think a simple comparison of net margins often fails to capture operational progress. So internally, we therefore track a more operation-focused metrics.

We take the revenue, subtract cost of revenue, and sales and marketing expense. Then use the result to divide that result by revenue. So on this basis, the rate for the whole fiscal year of 2025 is that was about 11.7%. For the fourth quarter, it was about 14.3%. So personally speaking, I would say a level around 15% is relatively satisfying for us. But also, I would like to mention that it is a non-GAAP measurement. So we only use it as a supplemental context for your information. [Foreign language]. I will give the second question to our CEO, Mr. Carl Cai. Please proceed.

Carl Cai Yimin (CEO)

Okay, [Foreign language]. Okay, I will translate myself.

Your question is crucial as it touches the accessibility of our DTC, so on the current strategy share, we are in a strong growth phase. I'll start from a starting point. As you noted, the overall proportion of DTC revenue company-wide is currently relatively low. This is primarily because our full-fledged DTC strategy was officially launched only after Apple's policy change allowed third-party payments in the U.S. around mid-year. This makes a strategic starting point with a clear timeline. Despite the recent start, the growth trend is highly positive. To date, in our product with the most advanced DTC implementation, DTC payment share has exceeded 10% in the U.S. App Store and is contributing significantly higher margins. Our other product lines are actively following suit, and we expect the overall share to show rapid step-like growth in the coming quarters.

On platform policy risks, our model is compliant and aligned with the irreversible regulatory trend. We are fully aware of Apple's and Google's firm stance on protecting their ecosystems. However, we believe the global wave of anti-monopoly legislation and court rulings, particularly in the United States, Europe, and Korea, is creating an irreversible trend, forcing app stores to open up to third-party payment systems. The Epic versus Apple case is a key indicator. Thus, while platform policies are strict, we must operate within an evolving legal framework, which provides a sustainable space for compliant operation. More importantly, our DTC solution was designed from the ground up with a paramount focus on compliance. We are not trying to circumvent rules, but operating within the allowed framework.

We use compliant methods like user communication, official website guidance, and community management to intelligently inform users about and guide them toward our direct payment options. We are building a direct trust and service relationship with our users, not a technical workaround, which fundamentally avoids the risk of violation and punitive measures. Regarding our Plan B, we have a multi-layered and flexible contingency structure. Management has a clear understanding and preparation for this. So firstly, compliance is our top priority. Even if policy tightens, our foremost principle remains strict: adhere to the current rules. We would immediately adapt our tactics to ensure all operations stay within the platform's guidelines, safeguarding our core business. And secondly, we have already technically integrated and evaluated several mature third-party payment solution providers. Should platform policies change, we could swiftly switch to or integrate these alternative channels to ensure DTC revenue continuity.

The ultimate value of user assets, the core asset of the DTC strategy is not the saved commission, but the direct user community and private traffic we build. Even in the most extreme scenario where DTC payment functionality is temporarily restricted, we retain direct communication channels with our core users. This means we can still conduct marketing, releasing updates, and organize events. The moment the policy allows, we can reactivate payment instantly. Once established, user relations and reach are permanent assets. In summary, our DTC strategy is riding the wave, compliant first and backed by a robust risk mitigation framework. It is a key investment in the company's long-term competitiveness and profitability, not a fragile all-or-nothing gamble. Thank you.

Shawn Zhang (Head of Capital Markets and Investor Relations)

[Foreign languge] Tina. Thank you, Tina. That will be the answer of us.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Hua Rong with Jin Yun Asset. Please go ahead.

Hua Rong (Senior Analyst)

[Foreign language]. Thanks, management. I have two questions.

The first one, I noticed that you have set the revenue guidance of Q1 as $27 million-$30 million, which appears relatively flat versus the prior quarter's guidance. I also noticed that last quarter's actual revenue ultimately slightly exceeded the prior guidance range. Should I build the new outlook as deliberately conservative at this stage? And could you share how you are thinking about potential updates to guidance as the quarter progresses? Thank you. And the second question is, it appears 2025 profitability was driven largely by cost and expense reductions. We have seen cutbacks in R&D, user acquisition, and marketing. How will management ensure this choice would not undermine the company's long-term product competitiveness? Thank you.

Shawn Zhang (Head of Capital Markets and Investor Relations)

[Foreign language]. I will give the English translation for myself. So, you're right. Our fourth quarter revenue ultimately came in slightly above the high end of our previous guidance. That outperformance was largely driven by some, you know, one-time factors. Overall, the quarter was still consistent with our former expectations. When we set the revenue guidance, we anchor it with the in-quarter gross revenue generated by our mobile game portfolio. So, as Brian just mentioned before, we are executing on several fronts. Firstly, operating and nurturing our mature titles that generate a stable cash flow. Secondly, broadening into new genres.

In April, we just launched our first RPG game, which is a small controlled experiment that gives us valuable publishing experience. At the end of September, we will roll out our second RPG game. Into the next year, we expect a number of our pipeline projects to come to market in stages. In parallel, we are closely monitoring high-quality mobile gaming assets globally. If attractive opportunities arise, you will see the progress on any of these fronts could influence our future guidance. Also, of course, we will, as always, refine our quarterly guidance when appropriate to reflect the underlying business, so that we will let the market and also our investors to have a timely and accurate view of our progress. [Foreign language]. I will give the second question to our CEO Carl Cai. Please proceed.

Carl Cai Yimin (CEO)

Okay, [Foreign language]. Okay, I will translate myself. Thank you for your question. It's a very good one. While we have improved profitability through efficiency measures, please rest assured that our cost saving is strategic and selective operational refinement, not simply across the board cut. We ensure our long-term product strength is not compromised through two core strategies. Firstly, for existing live games, we focus on precision and efficiency, not blind reduction. Our strategy for mature and live games has shifted from extensive scaling to deep operation and efficiency enhancement. We optimized user acquisition spending and team structures to eliminate broad non-targeted investments. Instead, we focused our resources on direct-to-consumer and VIP user management. This approach has not shortened the product lifecycle, but has strengthened and extended it by boosting user loyalty and payment conversion rates.

This secures a stable profit foundation and provides reliable cash flow for funding new game projects. Secondly, for future projects, we maintain revenue opening alongside cost saving, investing wisely in the future. Cost optimization has not reduced our investment in core strategic initiatives. In fact, we continue to attract top-tier game design and production talent from the industry to bolster our innovative capabilities. Our core Game Architect Model is actively underway. The reason it's not fully reflected in the current cost structure is due to our phased success-oriented development path. Each new project undergoes rigorous internal testing and validation at the concept and prototype stages. Only projects that hit key performance metrics proceed to receive full-scale development. This approach ensures controllable upfront investment and significantly mitigates the R&D risks. It's a smarter and more responsible way to invest.

As these validated projects progress into full development, you will see a continued and healthy increase in our product side investments in the near future. In summary, our cost saving optimizes existing engines, while our revenue opening cultivates new ones. Together, they safeguard both our short-term profitability and long-term product competitiveness. Thank you.

Shawn Zhang (Head of Capital Markets and Investor Relations)

[Foreign language]. Thank you. That will be our answer.

Operator (participant)

There are no additional questions at this time. I will now hand the call back to management for any closing remarks.

Shawn Zhang (Head of Capital Markets and Investor Relations)

Thank you, Operator. Thank you all for participating on today's call. Thank you for your support. We appreciate your interest and look forward to reporting to you again next quarter on our progress.

Operator (participant)

The call has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.