Unity Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Financial Results

Fourth quarter revenue of $220.3 million, up 39% year-over-year

Monthly active end users, downloads, and mobile market share hit record levels

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Unity Software Inc. (NYSE: U), the world’s leading platform for creating and operating interactive, real-time 3D content, today announced results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2020.

“Unity achieved record fourth quarter and full year 2020 revenues in an unprecedented and fast changing technological and economic environment,” said John Riccitiello, President and Chief Executive Officer of Unity. “As the leader in creating and operating tools for the world of real-time 3D content, we continue to invest with the intent to capture what we believe is a substantial opportunity ahead in 2021 and years beyond.”

“Our fourth quarter revenue of $220.3 million, a 39% increase year-over-year, substantiates our focus on innovation and our powerful go-to-market strategy,” said Kim Jabal, Chief Financial Officer of Unity. “Our full year 2021 revenue outlook is a range of $950 million to $970 million, with non-GAAP operating margin of (9)% to (11)%, demonstrating the continued growth in our business and our dedication to a path to free cash flow break-even.”

Fourth Quarter 2020 Financial Highlights

• Revenue was $220.3 million, an increase of 39% from the fourth quarter of 2019.
• Create Solutions, Operate Solutions, and Strategic Partnerships and Other revenue was $66.9 million, $134.3 million, and $19.1 million, respectively, an increase (decrease) of 39%, 55%, and (19)%, respectively, from the fourth quarter of 2019.
• Loss from operations was $80.8 million, or 37% of revenue, compared to loss from operations of $48.6 million, or 31% of revenue, in the fourth quarter of 2019. Our fourth quarter 2020 results were impacted by an increase in stock-based compensation expense.
• Non-GAAP loss from operations was $20.1 million, or 9% of revenue, compared to a non-GAAP loss from operations of $23.9 million, or 15% of revenue, in the fourth quarter of 2019.
• Basic and diluted net loss per share was $0.31, compared to basic and diluted net loss per share of $0.97 in the fourth quarter of 2019.
• Basic and diluted non-GAAP net loss per share was $0.10, compared to basic and diluted non-GAAP net loss per share of $0.79 in the fourth quarter of 2019.
• 793 customers each generated more than $100,000 of revenue in the trailing 12 months as of December 31, 2020, compared to 600 as of December 31, 2019.
• Dollar-based net expansion rate as of December 31, 2020 was 138% compared to 133% as of December 31, 2019.
• Net cash provided by operating activities was $14.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2020, compared to net cash provided by operating activities of $0.9 million for the same period last year. Free cash flow in the fourth quarter of 2020 was $3.6 million, compared to $(9.7) million for the same period last year. Cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash were $1.3 billion as of December 31, 2020 compared to $0.1 billion as of December 31, 2019.

Full Year 2020 Financial Highlights

• Revenue was $772.4 million, an increase of 43% from 2019.
• Create Solutions, Operate Solutions, and Strategic Partnerships and Other revenue was $231.3 million, $471.2 million, and $70.0 million, respectively, an increase (decrease) of 37%, 61%, and (12)%, respectively, from 2019.
• Loss from operations was $274.8 million, or 36% of revenue, compared to loss from operations of $150.7 million, or 28% of revenue, in 2019. Our 2020 full year GAAP results were impacted by an increase in stock-based compensation expense, including a one-time charge of $47.8 million associated with the recognition of restricted stock unit expense in connection with our initial public offering (“IPO”), as well as a charge of $63.6 million related to the donation of 750,000 shares of our common stock to a charitable foundation after the closing of our IPO in our third quarter.
• Non-GAAP loss from operations was $50.6 million, or 7% of revenue, compared to a non-GAAP loss from operations of $91.8 million, or 17% of revenue, in 2019.
• Basic and diluted net loss per share was $1.66, compared to basic and diluted net loss per share of $2.39 in 2019.
• Basic and diluted non-GAAP net loss per share was $0.39, compared to basic and diluted non-GAAP net loss per share of $1.95 in 2019.
• Net cash provided by operating activities was $19.9 million for 2020, compared to net cash used in operating activities of $67.9 million in the prior year. Free cash flow in 2020 was $(20.2) million, compared to $(95.0) million in 2019.

Recent Business Highlights

• Software built with Unity worked on day one across new silicon, game consoles, and more. Unity developers launched game titles on the same day as each new generation of Microsoft and Sony Interactive Entertainment consoles. These releases were the result of years of partnership and collaboration with Microsoft and Sony Interactive Entertainment, ensuring that Unity developers were ready for the new hardware, not only at launch, but at every step of development. Titles made with Unity included Morkredd, an Xbox X|S Console Exclusive, and Haven and Overcooked 2: All You Can Eat, for both PlayStation5 and Xbox X|S. Also in the fourth quarter, the release of Apple’s M1 chipset and the Microsoft HoloLens 2 Development Edition both included Unity technology deeply integrated, rounding out the variety of new platform types on which developers can deploy and operate real-time 3D (“RT3D”) applications.
• Unity introduced Forma, which is designed to transform how businesses create and market their products to consumers. In late 2020, we introduced Unity Forma, a purpose-built tool that streamlines the creation of configurable, photorealistic digital marketing content, including high-definition product rendering and videos, as well as interactive 3D experiences (like car configurators, for example) that bring products to life online. Additionally, Unity acquired RestAR, a Tel Aviv-based computer vision and deep learning company that enables fashion brands, online retailers, and marketers to scan and render physical consumer products in high-quality 3D, using only a mobile device. Used in synergy with Forma, we believe that RestAR will extend the power of interactive RT3D technology to marketers of all types by generating a digital twin of any product or object in 3D.
• Unity’s Operate Solutions services, including Monetization, Game Services, and a Multiplayer Suite, continued steady growth. For example, MatchMaker, launched in March 2020, is already being used in games like Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, Worms Rumble, and Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond. The service connects game players with applicable cloud resources and is designed to ensure that players are matched appropriately for the best play experience. In fact, Respawn Entertainment released Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond in December 2020 leveraging Unity’s Multiplay, MatchMaker, Game Backend, and Vivox voice services. We also introduced the Game Growth Program, an accelerator program providing select mobile, free-to-play game developers technology support, resources, and user acquisition funding to effectively scale their games.
• Engagement and market share grew in 2020. In 2020, we saw improvement in three interrelated and revealing metrics. Games made with Unity accounted for 71% of the top 1,000 mobile games in the fourth quarter of 2020¹. Monthly active end users who consumed content created or operated with Unity reached, on average, 2.7 billion per month in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 63% from a year earlier². Lastly, applications built with Unity were downloaded, on average, five billion times per month in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 41% from last year.

Outlook

Unity is providing the following guidance for the first quarter of and full year ending December 31, 2021.

Unity has not reconciled its expectations as to non-GAAP loss from operations and non-GAAP operating margin to their GAAP equivalents because stock-based compensation expense, employer tax related to employee stock transactions, and non-cash charitable contribution expense cannot be reasonably determined or predicted at this time. Accordingly, a reconciliation is not available, although it is important to note that these factors could be material to Unity’s results computed in accordance with GAAP.

Long-Term View and Impact of COVID-19 and IDFA

• Our goal is to build a company that delivers revenue growth of approximately 30% over the long run. Of course, business, like life, is not linear, so it is likely that some quarters and years will be higher or lower than we expect, but even so, we believe the opportunities in front of us make such a goal achievable.
• When thinking about 2021 guidance, we want to level set on where we are starting the year revenue-wise on a normalized basis. Our best estimate is that netted across our lines of business, COVID-19 boosted our revenue by approximately $25 million, or 3% of revenue, for the full year 2020.
• COVID-19 protocols and precautions also materially reduced travel and spending on events and facilities in 2020, saving approximately $40 million in operating expenses, net of some reinvestment, that will likely not be repeated in future years.
• We expect the arrival of Apple’s iOS14’s privacy modifications on IDFA will affect the way mobile game developers acquire customers and how they optimize lifetime customer value. Although it’s difficult to estimate, our guidance assumes IDFA changes begin in the spring and will reduce our revenue by approximately $30 million, or 3% of revenue, in 2021.

Earnings Webcast Details

Unity plans to host a video webcast for analysts and investors today to discuss its fourth quarter and full year 2020 financial results and outlook for its first quarter and full year 2021. The video webcast is scheduled to begin at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time/5:00 p.m. Eastern Time and can be accessed at the Unity Investor Relations website at investors.unity.com. The video webcast will be available live, and a replay will be available on the Investor Relations website following completion of the live broadcast for approximately 90 days.

About Unity

Unity is the world’s leading platform for creating and operating interactive, real-time 3D content. Our platform provides a comprehensive set of software solutions to create, run, and monetize interactive, real-time 2D and 3D content for mobile phones, tablets, PCs, consoles, and augmented and virtual reality devices. We serve customers of all sizes, at every stage of maturity, from individual creators to large enterprises. For more information, visit unity.com.

Unity uses its Investor Relations website (investors.unity.com), filings with the SEC, press releases, public conference calls, and public webcasts as means of disclosing material nonpublic information and for complying with its disclosure obligations under Regulation FD.

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to Unity’s financial results as determined in accordance with GAAP are included at the end of this press release following the accompanying financial data. For a description of these non-GAAP financial measures, including the reasons management uses each measure, please see the section of the tables titled “About Non-GAAP Financial Measures.”

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements,” as that term is defined under federal securities laws, including, but not limited to, statements regarding Unity’s first quarter and full year 2021 outlook and future financial performance, including Unity’s dedication to a path to free cash flow break-even; strategies, business plans, priorities and objectives, potential market and growth opportunities, including Unity’s goal to be a company that delivers revenue growth of approximately 30% over the long run and the achievability of that goal; product features, functionality, and expected benefits to the business and our customers; competitive position; product strategies and future product and platform features; technological or market trends; and industry environment. The words “believe,” “may,” “will,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “expect,” “seek,” “plan,” “project,” “looking ahead,” “look to,” “move into,” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If the risks materialize or assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. Risks include, but are not limited to: (i) the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on our business, as well as our customers, prospects, partners, and service providers; (ii) our ability to achieve profitability and the timing for any such achievement; (iii) our ability to retain existing customers and expand the use of our platform; (iv) our ability to further expand into new industries and attract new customers; (v) the impact of any changes of terms of service, policies or technical requirements from operating system platform providers or application stores which may result in changes to our or our customers’ business practices; (vi) our ability to maintain favorable relationships with hardware, operating system, device, game console and other technology providers; (vii) our ability to compete effectively in the markets in which we participate; (viii) breaches in our security measures, unauthorized access to our platform, our data, or our customers’ or other users’ personal data; (ix) our ability to manage growth effectively; and (x) the rapidly changing and increasingly stringent laws, contractual obligations and industry standards that relate to privacy, data security and the protection of children. Further information on these and additional risks that could affect Unity’s results is included in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on November 13, 2020, and our future reports that we may file with the SEC from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. Unity assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.

Any unreleased services, features, or functions referenced in this document, our website, or other press releases or public statements that are not currently available are subject to change at Unity’s discretion and may not be delivered as planned or at all. Customers who purchase Unity services should make their purchase decisions based upon services, features, and functions that are currently available.

© 2021 Unity Software Inc. All rights reserved. The Unity design logos, “Unity” and our other registered or common law trademarks, service marks, or trade names are the property of Unity Software Inc. or its affiliates. Other trade names, trademarks, and service marks are the property of their respective owners.

About Non-GAAP Financial Measures

To supplement our consolidated financial statements prepared and presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States, or GAAP, we use certain non-GAAP performance financial measures, as described below, to evaluate our ongoing operations and for internal planning and forecasting purposes. We believe the following non-GAAP measures are useful in evaluating our operating performance. We are presenting these non-GAAP financial measures because we believe, when taken collectively, they may be helpful to investors because they provide consistency and comparability with past financial performance.

However, non-GAAP financial measures have limitations in their usefulness to investors because they have no standardized meaning prescribed by GAAP and are not prepared under any comprehensive set of accounting rules or principles. In addition, other companies, including companies in our industry, may calculate similarly-titled non-GAAP financial measures differently or may use other measures to evaluate their performance, all of which could reduce the usefulness of our non-GAAP financial measures as tools for comparison. As a result, our non-GAAP financial measures are presented for supplemental informational purposes only and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our consolidated financial statements presented in accordance with GAAP.

Non-GAAP Gross Profit, Non-GAAP Operating Expenses, and Non-GAAP Loss from Operations

We define non-GAAP gross profit as gross profit excluding stock-based compensation expense and employer tax related to employee stock transactions. We define non-GAAP research and development expense and non-GAAP sales and marketing expense as research and development expense and sales and marketing expense, respectively, excluding stock-based compensation expense, employer tax related to employee stock transactions, and amortization of acquired intangible assets expense. We define non-GAAP general and administrative expense as general and administrative expense excluding stock-based compensation expense, employer tax related to employee stock transactions, and non-cash charitable contribution expense. We define non-GAAP loss from operations as loss from operations excluding stock-based compensation expense, employer tax related to employee stock transactions, amortization of acquired intangible assets expense, and non-cash charitable contribution expense.

We use non-GAAP gross profit and non-GAAP loss from operations in conjunction with traditional GAAP measures to evaluate our financial performance. We believe that non-GAAP gross profit and non-GAAP loss from operations provides our management and investors consistency and comparability with our past financial performance and facilitates period-to-period comparisons of operations, as these metrics exclude stock-based compensation expense, employer tax related to employee stock transactions, amortization of acquired intangible assets expense, and non-cash charitable contribution expense, which we do not consider to be indicative of our overall operating performance.

Non-GAAP gross profit, non-GAAP operating expenses, and non-GAAP loss from operations have limitations as analytical tools, and you should not consider them in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP. Some of these limitations are:

• they exclude expense associated with our equity compensation plan, although equity compensation has been, and will continue to be, an important part of our compensation strategy;
• non-GAAP research and development expense, non-GAAP sales and marketing expense, and non-GAAP loss from operations exclude the expense of amortization of acquired intangible assets, and although these are non-cash expenses, the assets being amortized may have to be replaced in the future and the aforementioned non-GAAP measures do not reflect cash expenditure for such replacements;
• non-GAAP general and administrative expense and non-GAAP loss from operations exclude the expense associated with the charitable contribution of common stock to a donor-advised fund, and although this is a non-cash expense, we may make similar charitable contributions in the future; and
• the expenses and other items that we exclude in our calculation of non-GAAP net loss and non-GAAP net loss per share may differ from the expenses and other items, if any, that other companies may exclude from this measure or similarly titled measures, which reduces their usefulness as comparative measures.

Non-GAAP Net Loss and Non-GAAP Net Loss per Share

We define non-GAAP net loss and non-GAAP net loss per share as net loss and net loss per share excluding stock-based compensation expense, employer tax related to employee stock transactions, amortization of acquired intangible assets expense, and non-cash charitable contribution expense, as well as the related tax effects of these items. Non-GAAP net loss per share also adds back expense relating to deemed dividends representing excess paid over initial issuance price to repurchase convertible preferred stock. We use non-GAAP net loss and non-GAAP net loss per share in conjunction with traditional GAAP measures to evaluate our financial performance. We believe that these non-GAAP measures provide our management and investors consistency and comparability with our past financial performance and facilitates period-to-period comparisons of operations.

Non-GAAP net loss and non-GAAP net loss per share have limitations as analytical tools, and you should not consider them in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP. Some of these limitations are:

• they exclude expense associated with our equity compensation plan, although equity compensation has been, and will continue to be, an important part of our compensation strategy;
• they exclude the expense of amortization of acquired intangible assets, and although these are non-cash expenses, the assets being amortized may have to be replaced in the future and non-GAAP loss from operations does not reflect cash expenditure for such replacements;
• they exclude the expense associated with the charitable contribution of common stock to a donor-advised fund, and although this is a non-cash expense, we may make similar charitable contributions in the future;
• as further described below, we must make certain assumptions in order to determine the income tax effect adjustment for non-GAAP net loss, which assumptions may not prove to be accurate; and
• the expenses and other items that we exclude in our calculation of non-GAAP net loss and non-GAAP net loss per share may differ from the expenses and other items, if any, that other companies may exclude from this measure or similarly titled measures, which reduces their usefulness as comparative measures.

Income Tax Effects of Non-GAAP Adjustments

We utilize a fixed projected tax rate in our computation of non-GAAP income tax effects to provide better consistency across interim reporting periods. In projecting this non-GAAP tax rate, we utilize a financial projection that excludes the direct impact of the non-GAAP adjustments described above, and eliminates the effects of non-recurring and period specific items which can vary in size and frequency. The projected rate considers other factors such as our current operating structure, existing tax positions in various jurisdictions, and key legislation in major jurisdictions where we operate. For the year ended December 31, 2020, the non-GAAP tax rate was (17)%. For the year ending December 31, 2021, we have determined the projected non-GAAP tax rate to be (22)%. We will periodically re-evaluate this tax rate, as necessary, for significant events, based on relevant tax law changes, material changes in the forecasted geographic earnings mix, and any significant acquisitions.

Free Cash Flow

We define free cash flow as net cash used in operating activities less cash used for purchases of property and equipment.

Contacts

Investor Relations:
Richard Davis

richard.davis@unity3d.com

Media:
Marisa Graves

marisag@unity3d.com

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