Life360 Inc

NASDAQ:LIF

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q1

[Jolanta Masojada, executive]

[Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Chris.

[Chris Hulls, executive]

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining the call today. Life360 continued its significant business momentum, delivering strong results across key operational metrics in the March 2022 quarter. We added 71,000 net new subscribers, an increase of more than 160% from the March '21 quarter. Monthly active users also showed a significant increase with an 8% quarter-on-quarter gain to 38.3 million, translating to 36% year-on-year growth.

We're also on schedule integrating Tile and Jiobit into our offering with earlier trials showing exceptionally strong results. For example, we ran a test where we bundled Tiles with an upsell offer and achieved a 35% uplift in subscriptions versus the control group. Both our results for the quarter and the strong early signals from our Tile bundling efforts validate our long-term membership vision. We are looking forward to scaling these efforts, starting with our back-to-school campaigns in Q3.

Given these strong early indications and the fact that available inventory may be constrained by continuing supply chain issues, our guidance reflects our decision to prioritize inventory allocation for the benefit of high-margin bundled subscription offers over retail sales.

We've also adjusted our strategic plan in light of market conditions and are now targeting cash flow breakeven by Q4 of CY '23 with our first full year of cash flow breakeven in CY '24. This target will be assisted by the accelerated integration of Jiobit and Tile into Life360 as a single business unit. This is being driven by the extremely promising results we are seeing for hardware to drive membership revenue. While this will not result in significant savings for CY '22, we will enter CY '23 with a much leaner organizational structure that has more of an emphasis on membership, which has been our core focus and is significantly outperforming expectations. Once the integration is complete, all key functions, including product, marketing and G&A will be consolidated with corresponding realization of head count and efficiencies.

To facilitate the accelerated integration of Jiobit, we have negotiated an amendment to the Jiobit merger agreement with a 50% total upfront buyout of the contingent consideration in the agreement while allowing the company to integrate Jiobit fully and immediately into the Life360 organization and platform. The buyout will reduce the equity contingent consideration portion of the deal which was valued at $17.5 million at the time of agreement by 50%.

The cash and cash equivalents balance of $98.2 million in March 2022 compares with our previous estimate of $94 million pro forma at 31 December '21, after giving effect to the Tile transaction.

I'm also very pleased to announce that according to Data.ai, formerly App Annie, Life360 is now ranked as the 19th most used iOS app in the United States based on install penetration just behind household names such as WhatsApp and Twitter, and ahead of LinkedIn, Venmo, Walmart and other exceptionally large brands.

Turning now to detail for the quarter. Life360's global active user base was 38.3 million, an increase of 2.8 million from the December 2021 quarter and 36% year-on-year.

U.S. MAU of 25.1 million increased 39% year-on-year and 6% from the December '21 quarter. International MAU of 13.2 million increased 32% year-on-year and 12% for the quarter. In our listed home of Australia, the MAU base of 1 million increased 47% year-on-year and 7% quarter-on-quarter.

Consolidated revenue in the March quarter, including Tile and Jiobit, increased 129% to $52.7 million with a core Life360 business, excluding Tile and Jiobit, increasing 64% year-on-year.

For the month of March, consolidated annualized monthly revenue, excluding hardware, increased 73% year-on-year and 51% for the core Life360 business.

Direct revenue benefited from strong subscriber growth, increasing 59% year-on-year on a pro forma consolidated basis, including Tile and Jiobit and 63% for core Life360. Consolidated subscriptions of 1.8 million grew 38% year-on-year, including Tile and Jiobit on a pro forma basis. Core Life360 Paying Circles delivered quarterly additions to more than 70,000, close to triple the March 2021 growth. The membership model now has 641,000 new and upsell subscribers, accounting for 61% of U.S. Paying Circles.

Indirect revenue, which includes data revenue and lead generation partnership, delivered a strong growth year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter as the business transitioned to our new arrangement in Placer.ai. As previously disclosed, data revenue for CY 2022 is expected to be broadly in line with the Q4 CY '21 run rate.

Tile CY '21 Q4 revenue met expectations that we set at the time of the acquisition for the critical holiday sales period. Performance for the March quarter, which is seasonally lower, was impacted by a generally softer environment for consumer electronics and media coverage of privacy concerns related to Apple Airtags. While Tile subscriptions remained strong, up 36% year-on-year on a pro forma basis, weaker Q1 hardware trends resulted in the business narrowly missing the aggressive earnout targets agreed as part of the acquisition, which were based on Q4 CY '21 and Q1 CY '22 revenue. As a consequence, the $50 million equity contingent consideration will not be played (sic) [ paid ], including the $15 million related to Tile security holders.

We are increasingly optimistic about our ability to drive subscription growth by bundling Tile devices into membership and retention of Tile employees is key to delivering this strategic pillar. Therefore, while the $35 million portion of the earnout related to Tile employee retention equity will cease to be an obligation, the company created a separate, broadly equivalent, pool of retention equity grants for these employees to vest over a 2-year period directed towards ensuring that we have competitive compensation plans in place while resetting performance goals for senior management.

We are also pleased to share our first formal update on our Canada Membership rollout, which is performing extremely well. Since launch, new registrations have increased materially and MAU growth has outpaced the U.S., up more than 50% year-on-year. We are seeing an increase in Average Revenue Per Paying Circle of more than 100% while conversions are staying in line with historical averages. Perhaps more importantly, this success is reflected in higher user engagement, such as increased family circle and feature activation and usage of new available safety features. This shows our playbook is working and increases our optimism for other international market rollouts. However, the timing for these launches is being impacted by the war in Ukraine where we had a development office that is responsible for our international efforts.

While we have been able to adapt and get development back on track by redeploying these teams, our road map has been delayed by the conflict due to temporarily reduced engineering capacity. We now expect to launch the U.K. membership in the first half of CY '23, and based on the strong Canada statistics, we are even more confident about its prospects for success.

Paid User Acquisition and TV channel spend of $6.7 million increased from $4.6 million in the December '21 quarter, reflecting the inclusion of Title from January 2022. Investment in core Life360 Paid User Acquisition of $2.4 million increased slightly from $2.1 million in the December '21 quarter.

Consolidated non-GAAP underlying EBITDA loss, including Tile and Jiobit, and excluding stock-based compensation and other nonrecurring adjustments of $12.6 million, increased from $4.6 million in the December '21 quarter, reflecting the inclusion of Tile and seasonality of Tile's quarterly contribution.

I'll now turn it over to Russell, who will share more details on our cash flow performance for the quarter.

[Russell Burke, executive]

Thank you, Chris, and thanks, everyone, for joining the call today. Please note that all the numbers I will be discussing are denominated in U.S. dollars, are in accordance with U.S. GAAP accounting standards and are unaudited.

Life360 ended the March 2020 quarter with cash equivalents of $98.2 million, including $15.5 million of restricted cash. This compares with the $94 million following the close of the Tile transaction in early January as we advised last quarter.

The Appendix 4C includes Tile's results for the first time. Tile's hardware business has significant seasonality, with sales weighted towards the second half and the peak Q4 holiday season, in particular. Tile also benefits from deferred payment terms with contract manufacturing partners and other suppliers ahead of the peak Q4 sales period. Accordingly, Tile's hardware business has historically delivered strong positive cash flow in Q4, followed by peak cash burn in Q1 due to the timing of supplier payments. Reflecting this well-known seasonality, the Tile transaction structure incorporated a working capital adjustment to insulate Life360 from this volatility in quarterly cash flows.

Tile's Q1 cash outflows included $12.2 million related to manufacturing costs and $6.7 million related to advertising and marketing costs. In addition to the typical high seasonal Q1 cash burn, the March 2020 quarter includes $11 million of onetime costs and payments associated with the acquisition.

In the Appendix 4C, all of these impacts are reflected in cash used in operating activities of $37.8 million in the quarter. However, the offsetting working capital adjustment is reflected in the $46.7 million of cash that was acquired with Tile, and in the Appendix 4C, this is netted against the $96.2 million cash paid for the acquisition in cash flows from investing activities. This is in line with expectations at the time of the acquisition as reflected by the $98.2 million cash at quarter end. Again, compared with our previous estimate of $94 million, which was a pro forma at December 31, giving effect to the Tile transaction.

Receipts from customers of $50.2 million increased from $25.1 million in the December 2022 quarter, reflecting the inclusion of Tile and higher Life360 subscription and other receipts.

Total payments in the quarter of $88 million increased from $36.8 million in the December 2021 quarter. The increase is largely due to the inclusion of the Tile business, the usual seasonally high Q1 cash burn related to the timing of supplier payments and the $11 million of onetime costs and payments associated with the acquisition. The Tile hardware business is significantly seasonal, as I said, with higher burn in Q1 and strong inflows from the peak holiday season in Q4.

Staff payments of $25.7 million increased from $11.2 million in the December 2021 quarter due to the inclusion of Tile employees from January 2022 with associated onetime transaction bonuses as part of the acquisition as well as higher Life360 head count.

Administration and corporate payments of $14.7 million increased from $3 million in the December 2021 quarter due to the inclusion of Tile and the transaction costs of $5.4 million associated with the Tile acquisition.

Advertising and marketing payments, which include Paid User Acquisition of $14.1 million increased from $5.3 million in the December 2021 quarter primarily due to the inclusion of Tile.

Product manufacturing payments of $13.5 million increased from $0.8 million in the December '21 quarter primarily due to the inclusion of both Tile and Jiobit, and these are seasonally concentrated in the first quarter with the extended terms provided by contract manufacturing partners during the buildup of inventory prior to the Q4 holiday season.

Cost of revenue of $10.9 million increased from $10.5 million in the December 2021 quarter due to the timing of technology payments.

Research and development payments of $8.3 million increased from $5.4 million in the December 2021 quarter primarily due to the inclusion of Tile.

Cash used in investing activities of $96.2 million compared with $0.2 million in the December 2021 quarter, reflecting the timing of the Tile acquisition.

And cash received from financing activities of $0.9 million reduced from $192.8 million in the December 2021 quarter, again reflecting the timing of the capital raising associated with the Tile acquisition.

Thanks for your attention, and I'll now hand back to Chris.

[Chris Hulls, executive]

This morning, we filed a Form 10 registration statement with the SEC and the ASX. The SEC requires an issuer with total assets in excess of $10 million and more than 2,000 holders of record to undertake such a filing. We reached that threshold in December '21 primarily due to equity issuances of common stock and CDIs in connection with the Jiobit and Tile acquisitions, and we are therefore required under U.S. law to file the Form 10.

The Form 10 is not being used to conduct a U.S. initial public offering or U.S. Stock Exchange listing and does not raise any additional capital for Life360. Our previously announced plans for U.S. dual listing process via IPO have ceased due to the change in market conditions since the process commenced in Q4 '21.

The company maintains a very strong capital position with more than $98 million of cash and cash equivalents on the balance sheet. We expect the registration statement to become effective in June and therefore, anticipate complying with the SEC regulatory regime from CY '22 Q2 onwards. We intend to apply for a waiver from the ASX to avoid duplication of financial reporting while complying with all ASX and SEC required and customary information to the market.

We are excited by the continuing growth of Life360, which has seen the business achieve a scale that places us among the most globally significant social networks. As we grow and broaden our shareholder base, particularly in the U.S., we welcome the opportunity to comply with U.S. financial reporting practices, which complement our current ASX reporting regime.

The addition of U.S. financial reporting practices will provide U.S.-based shareholders access to a more familiar reporting framework and allow our shareholders to make it easier like-for-like comparison of Life360 with our U.S.-based peer group.

Life360 is now able to provide guidance for the CY '22 year and expects to deliver: core Life360 subscription revenue, excluding Tile and Jiobit in excess of 50%; consolidated revenue of $245 million to $275 million for subscription, hardware and indirect revenue; consolidated non-GAAP underlying EBITDA loss, excluding stock-based compensation and nonrecurring items in the range of $32 million to $38 million. This includes incremental investment to rapidly integrate the Life360, Tile and Jiobit businesses of approximately $13 million.

Given the strong results from early Title bundling trials and the ongoing supply chain issues impacting hardware, the company intends to prioritize hardware inventory allocation towards bundled subscription offers over retail sales. While this strategy may have an adverse impact on the company's consolidated revenue near term, we believe the benefits to higher-margin subscription revenue as well as improved customer retention and lifetime value make this a sound strategic decision.

The guidance range reflects the greater quarter-to-quarter volatility in the newly enlarged consolidated businesses especially with respect to hardware sales. Positive underlying EBITDA and operating cash flows are anticipated in Q4, a result of continued strong subscription growth and the impact of the holiday season on hardware revenue.

An accounting charge for integration costs of approximately $3 million will be reflected in CY '22 Q2 and Q3 results as a onetime item and has been excluded from CY '22 underlying EBITDA guidance. We anticipate Life360 to move towards consistently positive operating cash flow by late CY '23 such that we recorded positive operating cash flow for CY '24.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Mel to run the Q&A.

[Melissa Goodell, executive]

[Operator Instructions] First, we have Laf.

[Lafitani Sotiriou, analyst]

It's Lafitani from MST. A few questions if I may. The first is in relation to some of the cost savings from merging the 2 hardware businesses. Can you just go into a little bit more detail around quantum and timing? So is it from the 1st of January next year? How much can we expect in terms of cost savings? And how do we reconcile this with the $11 million onetime -- sorry, the $13 million accelerated integration costs?

[Chris Hulls, executive]

Why don't I answer that qualitatively and then Russell can speak from a quantitative standpoint. So in the short term, there really is no immediate savings. It's more about getting a more lean foundational position for '23 onwards. We're essentially as of now replicating all 3 functions across the different business units. With the consolidation that's now underway, we will no longer have duplicate G&A, no longer duplicate finance, legal, marketing, product engineering. You don't get 1:1 efficiencies, obviously, but there will be many and it is part of our strategy to double down on what's working so well, which is membership.

So for the rest of this year, it's executing that process. It actually does slow us down on certain things for a little bit because there is work merging the systems, but it's more about having that leaner base in 2023 and beyond, and I can let Russell chime in on specific numbers to the extent we're able to do so.

[Russell Burke, executive]

Thanks, Chris. Yes, Laf, I view those two things as sort of quite, quite separately. As Chris said, in terms of the efficiencies that we're driving from the combination of the businesses, it's primarily about future costs that we're taking out. So if we'd look at sort of future costs on an ongoing run rate basis, we're probably taking out about $10 million out of the cost structure of the business.

The investment in the integration is quite different. That's the associated onetime cost of really focusing the whole teams on getting the integration done on an accelerated basis primarily just because where we saw such strong results from the trials that Chris mentioned. We really wanted to focus on getting that integration done as quickly as possible, and that's the cost of the teams that are involved in just focusing on that.

[Lafitani Sotiriou, analyst]

Sure. Can I just clarify a few things, then? So within the guidance range of $32 million to $38 million for this calendar year for non-GAAP underlying EBITDA, the $13 million accelerated integration costs are included. What about the $11 million onetime integration transaction costs? Is that included or excluded from that figure?

[Russell Burke, executive]

The $13 million is certainly included in that number. The transaction costs are generally treated as a below-the-line type expense for underlying EBITDA purposes so they would not be in that number.

[Lafitani Sotiriou, analyst]

Okay. So they're not in that number. But in terms of us looking at this calendar year versus next calendar year, your -- the $13 million that is included in the guidance range is not going to be repeated next year. So there's a $13 million improvement from that number. And you're saying on top of that, there's a $10 million savings from the consolidation of the 2 businesses. So there's broadly a -- to simplify this $23 million that you expect to save from not needing to spend $13 million, but also from the cost savings of the integration.

[Russell Burke, executive]

On a simplified basis, I think that's fair left. What I would point out is that the $13 million is primarily head count costs, which would be a saving in as much as we would not expect to duplicate the hiring needed to replace those positions in the following year. So it's effectively an economy of scale saving.

[Lafitani Sotiriou, analyst]

Okay. And so -- but just to be clear, the simple analysis is that there would be roughly [ $23 million ] less in burn or savings?

[Russell Burke, executive]

As I said, I think that's a fair take on projecting for next year.

[Lafitani Sotiriou, analyst]

Okay. And just going into the Tile seasonality and timing of that, could you give us a better idea so we can sort of recast some of our numbers? Because obviously, retail hardware makes sense, the cash burn's primarily in the March quarter. But can you -- like how much was the profit for that final quarter? And what's the -- or can you give us the magnitude of how you think the rest of the year will be? So is the final quarter 40%, 50% of revenue and then it's pretty even between the rest or any color that you can add to it?

[Russell Burke, executive]

Sure. No, it is very seasonal. So in terms of the hardware retail business, something in the order of 60% of revenue or sales happened in that, that fourth quarter. And the balance of the sales are spread over the first 3 quarters, if that gives you a sense of it.

[Lafitani Sotiriou, analyst]

Sorry, can you just repeat that? I kind of missed some of it.

[Russell Burke, executive]

60% of the revenues are in Q4. The balance of the revenues are spread out.

[Lafitani Sotiriou, analyst]

Yes. Got it. Got it. Sorry, you just cut out for a little bit of that. Okay. All right. So -- and then also in relation to the accelerated upfront for the Jiobit, does that mean that you've got a $9 million cash payment coming out in -- or $8.75 million to reconcile that equity component?

[Russell Burke, executive]

I'm not -- could you clarify that question?

[Lafitani Sotiriou, analyst]

I couldn't quite understand when you said there's a 50% saving for the money due in relation to Jiobit, but in order to accelerate the component, the wording was a bit confusing. So I'm not that quite sure what you're going to have to do.

[Russell Burke, executive]

Yes. So just to be clear, on the, on the Jiobit acquisition, there was a $17.5 million equity component, which was a contingent consideration. So that was dependent on an earnout over 2 years. So we have negotiated a 50% buyout effectively of that, so we will end up saving sort of 50% of that contingent consideration.

[Lafitani Sotiriou, analyst]

Sure. And -- but that buyout, does that mean you'll be paying them $8.75 million-odd for that? Or does it come in equity? How do we -- what's the mechanics of that?

[Russell Burke, executive]

The mechanics of that is that, yes, we'll be paying the 50% of the equity that's associated with that. The $17.5 million, as you'll remember, was valued at [ USD 7.50 ] per CDI. So it's at a specific strike price. And therefore, for accounting purposes, has a lower sort of dollar value associated with it. And the benefit of that will be -- will flow through in Q2.

[Lafitani Sotiriou, analyst]

Sure. And just with the Apple Airtag thing, I mean there is some commentary that the sales were down. But given that the -- it's roughly only a small portion of the overall annual sales falling in any 1 quarter, can you comment as to whether that's changing at all? Do you think it will change? What's the market condition like for the wearables?

[Russell Burke, executive]

So to your point, Q1 is historically a lower period. We're definitely seeing some softness in the hardware retail business. And that's actually across the board, we're seeing in sort of consumer electronics in the U.S. in that -- in the first quarter. There's definitely been softness. Given the market indications, generally that -- the general view is that, that will turn around. And because such a large part of the sales occur in Q4, that gives us a fairly long period there to plan for that.

[Chris Hulls, executive]

In addition to that one, just as a reminder, when we think about hardware and the overall model, the membership is by far the strong emphasis. We would rather exchange $5 of hardware revenue for $1 of subscription given they're so much more durable and higher margin. And what has really excited us is how well that early testing is doing. It's what we've expected, but we're very happy to see what we hoped would happen. And that does go to our comment where if we do end up in a constrained state, we're definitely going to put everything towards driving membership numbers.

And then to Russell's point, too, it's really hard to draw trends from Q1 because so much of the sales are in Q4. Clearly, the world is in a unique time from just a macro standpoint, but we're extremely confident that the membership drives [indiscernible] very well given the early results. And then we really have -- will be indifferent around standalone, but then on standalone, another 3 quarters to the holiday period, which is going to be the real -- the next real-time that generates meaningful revenue for the bottom line.

[Lafitani Sotiriou, analyst]

Sure. And just final question on supply side for the hardware products and that launch you're talking about with back to school and the integration. So can you just comment as to how prepared you will be for that back to school? Will it all be ready on time? And do you have the hardware -- will you -- do you anticipate having the hardware in place for that?

[Chris Hulls, executive]

We are on track. Hardware is in place. And if that is some big, huge sellout, that goes to our point of that would ironically lower our top line revenue, but what you'd see is much higher membership, which is why we flagged that because we are feeling like there is a decent chance so we get that outsized win.

[Melissa Goodell, executive]

Up next, we have Chris. Chris, please tell us your full name and what company you're calling from.

[Chris Savage, analyst]

It's Chris Savage from Bell Potter. Chris, can we get an update from you on your thinking re a U.S. listing? I mean, I obviously get the reasons why you've stopped it, but I imagine your intention still is to achieve that at some stage. So is it just a matter of waiting for markets to recover? Can we just get some sort of update there?

[Chris Hulls, executive]

We're heads down. We're executing. We're not focused on the markets right now and just looking forward to putting up a good result, and the rest will follow in due course.

[Chris Savage, analyst]

Okay. And just the change in reporting. So you're now in compliance with U.S. securities law, does that mean that even when you do restart the process, you will be able to continue providing guidance? Or will we go back into that sort of vacuum period?

[Chris Hulls, executive]

Russell?

[Russell Burke, executive]

So the answer to that, Chris, is that once the Form 10 becomes effective, which is we expect to be at the end of June, we're then out of that, that process. So yes, we would be able to provide forward-looking statements and, therefore, guidance.

[Chris Savage, analyst]

So if you did restart the process, though, would you have to go back to not providing guidance?

[Russell Burke, executive]

I don't believe so.

[Chris Savage, analyst]

Okay. Switching tack, just back on the Apple Airtags. So Chris, we haven't seen a lot of news lately, obviously, on the privacy concerns. Do you think they are now starting to subside?

[Chris Hulls, executive]

They are still coming. Obviously, the war in Ukraine has changed people's focus. I'll be very interested to see where the world normalizes. A little more indirect to your question though. We don't see this as a real issue in terms of being a user problem. It's really about partners and retailers and their excitement about the category. It has a little bit of hair on it. I'm very confident that, over time, that's going to normalize. Whether it's this month or in a quarter or 2, I don't know. But I don't think a press cycle base, what I would consider pretty darn close to fake news as long-term legs.

[Chris Savage, analyst]

Okay. And you did introduce a means of testing privacy or stocking or whatever you want to call it, for Tile. Have you seen much uptake of that process?

[Chris Hulls, executive]

No, very little, but that's sort of the point around this whole thing. For the very, very small people that are worried about it, we want to be able to be good stewards and good citizens and say that we have an offer for them that should make them feel safe. For potential partners or retailers who want to work with us and want us to have parity with Apple, we now have that. So opinions aside on whether there's an issue or not, we can say we're doing the same thing as Apple. Any partner who wants to work with us can feel very confident that we're in line with industry norms and guidelines. And that's the primary reason we're doing it. We expect very, very little usage of the future.

[Chris Savage, analyst]

Okay. And last question. During Q1, there was an increase in app downloads, the data suggests, particularly around February. Do you attribute that to the war in Ukraine? Or was there some particular marketing campaign you were doing? Or just in general, what do you attribute that to?

[Chris Hulls, executive]

It's really not related to the war in Ukraine. And when we have these increases, it largely is just what we've long said that we have this huge demographic tailwind, and more and more people are understanding the power of location. We're now the, as mentioned in the call, the 19th most installed app in the country according to App Annie on iOS. So people know about us. The world continues to reopen. Our product continues to get better, word of mouth continues to grow. There's no explicit catalyst.

I will add one more thing to that point, just on the margins. The paid acquisition we're doing is showing very positive results. And as we've always said, when we see positive results that are highly measurable, and we can see that they're going to break even within the targets we set, we spend more. So we are seeing different channels, streaming TV, in particular, continuing to really deliver. We're also seeing some very interesting results in things like audio ads on Pandora and podcasts. So I'm pretty excited that we are seeing these advertising channels work in ways that let us tell that brand story. So that is contributing to more top of funnel.

[Chris Savage, analyst]

Sure. And sorry, I will add one more question, if I can. Just that uplift in direct revenue, is that due to a change in the revenue model with Placer.ai? Did they give you sort of up-front payment in Q1?

[Russell Burke, executive]

It's primarily just the overlap between the transition from the -- from our old deals to the deal with Placer. There is a small element of the accounting process for that, where it's straight line, but it's primarily the overlap.

[Chris Hulls, executive]

And as you do know, I think the deal is essentially a fixed amount for 2 years with some upside in year 3. So it should be an extremely predictable cash flow stream, assuming that we continue to hold and grow our user base.

[Melissa Goodell, executive]

Thanks, Chris. Next up, we have James. James, please repeat your full name and what company you're calling from.

[James Bales, analyst]

It's James Bales from Morgan Stanley. I'd like to just, firstly, clarify one of the points on guidance. Just to make sure, does the 50% subs revenue guidance include the impact of hardware being included into those subscriptions?

[Russell Burke, executive]

That 50%, James, only refers to the core Life360 business. But in terms of this year, that would include the portion in the second half that is driven by bundling hardware, if that answers your question.

[James Bales, analyst]

Yes. Okay. So that's helpful. And then to understand then the underlying transactional hardware sales growth, how should we think about, firstly, the cannibalization that you expect to experience by selling some of that hardware into your subscriber growth in this calendar year? And then secondly, if the emphasis is on growing rather than hardware sales, what the growth rate for that business should look like?

[Russell Burke, executive]

We're projecting out, as I think we've said, sort of retail to be sort of fairly flat in the current year. But the other factors that come into that are the fact that there are continuing supply chain issues, and there is a chance that we may be constrained with inventory later in the year. If that is the case, it's certainly the plan to use as much as we can of the hardware to really drive the subscription sales. Basically, given the higher margins -- the high margins of the subscription business and the success that we've seen so far with the trials that just seems to us to make the most sense in terms of deploying of those assets. And that's -- it comes down to the fact that that's why we did the trial -- the Tile transaction in the first place.

[Chris Hulls, executive]

And to layer on just a little bit, we are obviously going to be seeing most of this impact in Q4. So most of the year and most of the growth will not really be impacted by hardware. We're running some tests, but the real integration is going to be very much backload to the end of the year. And then CY '23 is when we expect that we'll see the full force and impact of the acquisitions. When we have been looking at budgeting for orders with hardware, it's obviously very long lead times, even in a situation where you don't have supply constraints.

So we're taking, what I'd call, a prudent approach where we would rather be in a spot where we feel a little constrained in supply versus over ordering. I think one thing we've done a good job of and I think have some good credibility from the market is we will always be good stewards of cash, and we do want to be very clear that the money we have in the bank now is enough to get us cash flow breakeven based on this current plan. And so we do want to be very deliberate in terms of how we deploy that capital that does include how we think about hardware.

[James Bales, analyst]

And so how long do you expect it to take before the mix of hardware being sold in subscriptions versus being sold standalone is in a steady state?

[Chris Hulls, executive]

That's going to be a while from now, definitely, probably middle of next year. This is a very, very, very big integration with multiple phases. First phase is just including it in membership. Second phase is having it integrated on the map. Third phase is actually having hardware being set on some a recurring basis. Fourth phase is consolidating the apps. So it's going to be a long time before we get that steady state. And what I'm expecting is that we'll see some really good results out of the gate, which will lead to even better results when the thing is fully done.

[James Bales, analyst]

Got it. I'd like to switch tack and ask a bit about the stock-based comp. How should we think about the impact of a much lower share price in terms of the stock-based comp dilution that we should see? And then you guys outlined the deal with Tile seeing some of that being rolled over effectively for staff, when we're thinking about the share count over the next couple of years, can you help us out with how that should move and how we should sort of think about that equation?

[Chris Hulls, executive]

Sure. So I'll talk a little bit high level, and Russell can chime in with numbers if I get anything wrong or don't go to enough detail. I'll start with Tile because that's an easy one. There was a $35 million of the earnout that was for Tile employees. We are essentially preserving all that and letting them earn it, but that is going to account for that lower share price. So it's sort of like is neutral thing and a slightly selfish way of it -- having Tile just the -- a hair under the earn-out single-digit percentages was very helpful in that restructuring because everyone feels good about how we're able to keep everybody whole and also manage the frustrations around the share price.

When we look at our broader staff, it is a reality when share price goes down, to retain employees, you have to give more. We've been through this once before during COVID where we were double-digit percentages on a relative basis ahead of where targets were, but it was very temporary. I think it will be something similar again. But this time, we do have an added benefit of just looking at the markets in general. Most of the competing companies are being impacted worse than us. Our business fundamentals are so much better than the companies that kind of have these artificial COVID bumps because we've been the inverse.

So it definitely will mean slight increases or moderate increases in share-based comp for the year. But I don't think it's going to be anything that is going to truly be something that will be problematic for most investors because it's going to be temporary. And I haven't done the analysis, but I think we've targeted normally about 5% annual share count issuances, that might go a little bit over that, but it's not going to be double or anything like that.

[Russell Burke, executive]

And just to layer on that, James, we will have the benefit from a couple of these transaction-related sort of follow-ons in terms of the Jiobit contingent consideration that we talked about earlier as well as the Tile earnout. While we're certainly using a significant part of the $35 million that was designated for employees for that purpose, there was another $15 million associated with that earnout that just won't occur at this point.

[James Bales, analyst]

Got it. Okay. And then maybe one last question on App Store fees. Basically, you're keeping 85% of new Android customer revenues versus 70% for iOS customers. Has that 20% uplift improved Android economics materially and changed your marketing behavior and allocation of dollars?

[Chris Hulls, executive]

So Android, as you know, is a smaller portion anyway, but just very simply flows to our OS model. It was free money. It's a relatively small change, but yes. So we have a model, we look at contribution margin. This improves our contribution margin. Therefore, we can spend a little bit more and have the same efficiency on spend. But it's on the margins.

If Apple follows suit, which we certainly hope, and perhaps even more importantly, we think there's a very good chance that by having hardware and subscriptions, we can go to credit card completely. If that happens on Apple, that is going to be a huge impact. It's very hard to predict when and how that happens, but I am very confident that the -- time will show that we're going to be the beneficiaries of that even if I don't know the specific of the date.

[Melissa Goodell, executive]

Thanks, James. As there are no more questions, I'll now hand it over back to Chris for some closing remarks.

[Chris Hulls, executive]

Since there are no further questions, I'll wish everybody a good day and very excited for the quarters to come. Thank you all.

[Russell Burke, executive]

Thanks, everyone.