Dolby Labs has unveiled its Q4 and full year results, saying that Q4 revenues were $233 million (€213.3.m), about $3 million more than the high end of their expectations. Full year revenues were $1.026 billion, up 5.7 per cent on 2015.

The bulk of Dolby’s revenues are from the licensing of its various IP products ($203m) and just $30 million from manufactured products and services.  Dolby finished the year with cash of “a little over” $1 billion, despite having bought back 320,000 of its own shares during Q4.

Lewis Chew, CFO, told analysts “Broadcast represented about 52 per cent of total licensing in Q4. Revenues in this market were up sequentially by about 7 per cent and also up y-o-y by about 12 per cent. Both increases were driven by higher recoveries and higher volume in TVs, offset partially by lower volume in set-top boxes.”

“Consumer electronics in Q4 represented about 13 per cent of total licensing. They were down about 23 per cent sequentially due to timing of revenue, and y-o-y consumer electronics were about flat as we saw lower volume in DVD, Blu-ray and home-theatre-in-a-box, offset by higher revenue from DMAs and sound bars.”

Chew said that 2017 growth would come from new revenue streams, such as Dolby Cinema, Consumer Imaging and Dolby Voice, as well as higher revenue from mobile. This will be partially offset by declines in areas such as PCs, DVD, Blu-ray and home theatre equipment.

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