Dolby Labs warns future outlook “remains unclear”
November 16, 2020
By Chris Forrester
San Francisco-based Dolby Laboratories has delivered its Q4 numbers and admitted that the Covid-19 virus had impacted its revenues in the financial year to September 25th.
For Q4, Dolby reported total revenue of $271.2 million (€228.9m), compared to $298.8 million for same period in 2019. For fiscal 2020, Dolby reported total revenue of $1.16 billion, compared to $1.24 billion for fiscal 2019.
Dolby said it continues to monitor the pandemic and its impact on the company. A statement said: “Since the initial outbreak of Covid-19, our revenues have been, and we expect will continue to be, impacted across various markets within licensing and products and services. The implications of Covid-19 on our future results of operations remain uncertain.”
“We expect continued significant uncertainty in global financial markets. Dolby’s financial results for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020 rely on estimates of royalty-based revenue that take into consideration the macroeconomic effect of global events, including the Covid-19 pandemic, which may impact supply chain activities and demand for shipments,” added Dolby. “Unit volume shipments, aggregated across various end markets and devices, continue to be impacted and difficult to predict because of economic uncertainty due to Covid-19, and it remains unclear when such unit volumes could return to pre-pandemic levels. The global cinema market has been adversely impacted by Covid-19 because of site closures or reduced utilisation, and we anticipate that cinema sites could continue to be negatively affected through the first half of fiscal 2021 or longer.”
As to Q1 of its new financial year, Dolby issued guidance of total revenues estimated to range from $330 million to $360 million, and for Q2 total revenue is estimated to range from $270 million to $300 million.