UP Fintech Holding Ltd (TIGR) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the UpFintech Holding Limited First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today, June 2nd, 2026. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. Aaron Lee, the Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Juan, and thank you for joining us on the call today. UpFintech Coding Limited's first quarter, 2026 earnings release was distributed earlier today and is available on our IR website at ir.itigerapps.com, as well as Globe Newswire services. On the call today from our FinTech, Mr. Wu Tianhua, Chairman and CEO, Mr. Zhuang Zeng, our CFO, Mr. Huang Lei, CEO of U.S. Tiger Securities, and Mr. Kenny Zhao, our financial controller. Mr. Wu will give an overview of our business operations and discuss corporate highlights. Mr. Zeng will then discuss our financial results. They will both be available to answer your questions during the Q&A session that follow the remarks. Now, let me cover the safe harbor. To statements, we are about to make a content forward-looking statement. Within the meaning of the U.S. Private Security Platication Reform Act of 1995, a number of factors could cause extra results to differ materially from those containing annual forward-looking For more information, please report to our Form 6K furnished today, and our annual report on Form 28 filed on April 24, 2026, will undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law. It is my pleasure to now introduce our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Wu. Mr. Wu will make remarks in Chinese, which will be followed by English translation. Mr. Wu, please go ahead with your remarks. Thank you for joining the Tiger Brokers First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. In the first quarter of 2026, benefiting from our diversified offering and steady expansion of core operations, we achieved solid year-over-year growth in total revenue and key operating metrics. Our total revenue for the quarter reached $155 million, representing a 26.3% increase year-over-year.

Operating profit reached $47.6 million, up 17.5% from the same period last year. 第一季度末,公司累计的总入金用户数达到了128万人,交期限同期增长11.3%,客户自然方面,第一季度客户进入金规模达到29亿美金,那这也是公司史上首次实现单季度来自综合账户的零售用户贡献的进入金突破20亿美金,那充分印证的公司聚焦用户质量的发展战略取得的成效。 用户结构与客户质量持续优化 低季度市场波动下行 导致公司客户资产生了49亿美金的市值浮亏 那受此影响 第一季度末公司客户总资产环比小幅回落3.2% 但依旧保持了强劲的同比增长的态势 同比提升28.4% 期末客户总算达到589亿美金 那进入第二季度以后 纳达的市场已经开启反弹 那第二季度截至到目前 一季度产生的客户资产市值的浮亏 已经得到了全部的修复 那此外我们也很高兴的看到 其实在市场回调给客户资产带来较大的市值浮亏的情况下 凭借健康的进入金 那第一季度所有海外市场 均实现了客户资产的环比的上升

那其中美国客户的资产环比上升近40% 澳新和香港市场 客户资产也分别实现了高个位数和双位数的环比增长 28,900 new funded accounts this quarter Singapore and Hong Kong market are the primary contributors As of the end of the first quarter The number of our total funded accounts reached 1.28 million a year-over-year increase of 11.3%. In terms of client assets, we saw net asset inflow of 2.9 billion US dollar in the first quarter. In particular, net asset inflow from retail users and their consolidated accounts exceeded 2 billion US dollar for the first time in our history. This fully demonstrates that our strategy prioritizing user quality has delivered tangible results. With our Our user profile on the client quality is seeing further improvement. Due to the market turbulence in the first quarter, our client assets experienced marked market losses of $4.9 billion. As a result, total client assets at quarter-end slightly down 3.2% quarter-over-quarter, yet maintained robust year-over-year growth of 28.4%, reached $58.9 billion at the end of the first quarter. Looking into the second quarter, NASDAQ has started to rebound, and all market-to-market losses on client assets recorded in the first quarter have been fully recovered on a quarter-to-date basis. Additionally, we are glad to see that despite notable market pullbacks, which led to substantial market-to-market losses on client assets, housing net asset inflow drove a quarter-over-quarter increase in client assets across all the overseas markets.

U.S. client assets rose nearly 40% quote-over-quote, where Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong posted high single-digit and double-digit quote-over-quote growth, respectively. 市场分析、风险控制等功能,拆分为独立的智能模块,大幅提升智能分析输出的精准度和专业性。 那同时我们也正在上线的期货AI的智能模块,有效提升期货相关分析的准确率和使用性,显著改善的用户对老虎AI期货支持的使用企业。 那除此以外,老虎AI也在原有的双模型的价格上成功接入Color大模型,升级为三模型的协同AI工具。 智能化的服务能力实现了大幅提升. 在衍生品的交易领域, 平台上线的香港指数期权交易

实现更优的交易方案.

和期权 T-Web 订单等专业的功能 帮助投资者在复杂市场环境下

We keep building out features updates to enhance users' overall investment experience. This quarter, we delivered a major upgrade to Tiger AI with a brand new multi-agent architecture. We split functions including market code search, market analysis, and risk control into standalone AI agents, which has greatly boosted the accuracy of our AI-driven insights. We also officially launched a dedicated AI agent for futures. It delivers more reliable, practical analysis and improves our user interact with our future tools. Besides, Tiger AI has upgraded from our original dual model framework to a three-model collaborative system by integrating with cloud model marking a substantial improvement in our intelligent service capability derivative features we wrote out hong kong index auction trading and option t-web orders helping investors execute better trading strategies under volatile markets don't forget to be you 保持发展势头 投降业务策 本季度我们承销了10宗港股IPO项目 涵盖了包括minimax 制补AI等头部的人工智能企业

同时也顺利完成了 脸中大型美国的specIPO项目 此外 港股打新市场需求持续旺盛 2026年以来 老虎平台港股新股的认购总额 已经突破了1万亿港币 ESOB EO方面, 本季度新增扣42家, 截止到2026年3月末, 公司美季服务 ESOB 扣达到了790家, 反映了市场对专业 ESOB 服务与数字化管理工具的持续的望胜需求。

Our 2B business continued to perform well. In the first quarter, we enrolled 10 Hong Kong IPO, We also successfully completed two large-scale U.S.-backed IPOs. In addition, demand for Hong Kong IPO subscription remains robust. Year-to-date, the total subscription amount for Hong Kong IPOs on our platform has exceeded $1 trillion. As for our ESOP business, we added 42 new clients in the first quarter. As of the end of March 2026, our total ESOP clients serve reached 790, indicating a sustained strong market demand for professional ESOP services and digital management solutions. To demonstrate our confidence in the company's long-term growth and our commitment to delivering shareholder value, our board of directors has approved a share repurchase program of up to 50 million U.S. dollars to be implemented over a 12-month period from June 1st, 2026 to June 1st, 2027. Now I'd like to invite our CFO Zhang to go over our financials.

Thanks, Tianhua and Aaron. Let me go through our financial performance for the first quarter. All numbers are in U.S. dollar. Commission income was 67.2 million, increased 15% year-over-year, and decreased 5% quarter-over-quarter. Interest income was $64.5 million, increased 20% year-over-year, while decreased 10% quarter-over-quarter. Together, total revenue reached $155 million, up 26% year-over-year, and down 12% quarter-over-quarter. Cash equity take rate was 5 bps this quarter, down from 6.4 bps a quarter ago. The main driver was a quarter-over-quarter increase of roughly $10 billion in trading volume in U.S. Tiger. However, this uptick didn't translate into commission revenue, as in the U.S., we offer zero commission pricing for local users. Within commission revenue, about 67% comes from cash equities, 25% from options, and the rest from futures and other products. Now on to cost. Interest expense was $18.1 million, decreased by 5% quarter-over-quarter, in line with the decrease in interest income, and increased 21% compared to the same quarter last year. Execution and clearing expense were $5 million, a decrease of 6% from the same period last year, due to more self-clearing of U.S. and Hong Kong securities. Employee compensation and the benefit expense were $46.8 million, an increase of 39% year-over-year due to the HACOM increase to strengthen the R&D. Occupancy depreciation and amortization expense were $2.7 million, increased 25% year-over-year due to the increase in office space and the relevant leasehold improvements. Communication and market data expenses were $13.6 million, an increase of 39% year-over-year due to the increase in user-based and IT-related service fees. Marketing expenses were $14 million this quarter, increased 29% year-over-year as we focused on acquiring higher-quality users and accelerating the expenses of our roles management products. General administrative expenses were $7 million, increased 37% year-over-year due to an increase in professional service fees. Total operating costs were $89.2 million, an increase of 33% from the same quarter of last year. On May 22nd, we received a regulatory penalty notice totaled approximately R&B $411 million. We have fully accounted for this amount in our first quarter results and this is a one-time non-recurring charge and will not have material impact on our core business and overall financial As a result, net loss and non-GAAP net loss were $26.9 million and $23.8 million. Operating profits were $47.5 million, increased 17% year-over-year. Now I have to conclude our presentation. Operator, please open the line for Q&A.

Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. We'll now go to our first question. And our first question comes from the line of Peter Zhang from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask questions. This is Peter John from JP Morgan. I have two questions. First is, how do you interpret the new regulatory rules released on May 22nd, and what will be the impact on your business? Also, could you share the mainland retail client's share of your total client assets as of first quarter, as well as their contribution to the total revenue in first quarter? Second, the amendment has mentioned that the quarterly net asset inflow from retail clients has reached a record high in first quarter. Can we have some color on the regional breakdown? Thank you.

是對全行業統一試用的 並非針對老虎國籍一家公司 那具體來講 第一點 關於罰款的這個事項 本次是一個一次性的處罰 罰款金額合計4.1億人民幣左右 只合約6千萬美元 那以公司目前的引力能力 以現金儲備來看 該理罰款不會對公司的核心業務 和未來發展構成重大的影響 那第二點是關於行業 规则的调整以及对公司的影响 那本次监管政策最核心的变化 是监管罗里从身份的审核 转变为属地管理 因此 年年整治期并不是清退账户 而是限制在境内的行为 那本次所有的监管约束 均聚焦于在境内的这个业务行为 那此外 新规也禁止券商、银行在内地开展跨境投资业务的营销 同时要求关停内地的官方网站、下架内地应用市场 内的相关应用 上述很多整改动作 公司已经于2023年的5月份全部完成 需要强调的是 本次政策的调整对海外市场的用户均没有影响 截止到第一季度末 综合账户大陆的零售用户客户资产占整个集团客户总资产的比例为10%左右 净收的占比在20%到25区间 那我们也看到新规出台到目前为止 大陆零售用户存在净出金的情况 那我们认为这是短期很正常反应 并会逐渐的稳定 That's not the impact of other foreign markets. The whole situation is now in the future.

I'll translate. On May 22nd, China's securities regulator together with multiple ministries wrote out a new industry-wide regulation governing cross-border securities, futures and fund trading by many investors. These new rules apply to the entire industry, not only our firm. We took this new regulation very seriously with swift response. Regarding the fine, this is the one-time penalty totaling approximately 410 million RMB, equivalent to around 60 million US dollars. Given our current profitability and cash reserves, this fine will not materially affect our core operation or long-term development. Second, on the regulatory overhaul and its business impact, the core shift here is the regulatory approach moving from user identity verification to territory-based oversight. Therefore, the two-year rectification period is not about closing all existing PRC client accounts, but to restrict trading activities when they are onshore in mainland of China. This new regulation targets onshore operation of all industry players. Under this new rule, brokers and banks cannot market cross-border investment services within mainland of China and are required to close down mainland-focused official websites and to remove relevant apps from local app stores. We've already completed all this requirement rectification back in May 2023. It is important to note that policy changes have no impact on users offshore. As of the end of the first quarter, mainland retail investors' client assets under consolidated accounts accounted for roughly 10% of our total client assets and contributed between 20% to 25% of our total net revenue. Since the new rules were announced, We saw some uptick in asset outflow from mainland retail accounts. We believe this is a normal short-term market reaction, and we expect outflow to stabilize soon. Users in other overseas markets remain unaffected, and still record net asset inflows as usual throughout the period. For a second question, roughly 90% of our total net asset inflow from omnibus retail accounts This quarter came from markets outside of China. By region, Singapore contributed over one-third of the total net asset inflow. Australia and New Zealand plus U.S. combined for around another one-third. And the reminder came from Hong Kong retail users. Thanks, Peter. And operator, move on to the next question, please.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Cindy Wang from China Renaissance. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

The second thing is that we have been affected by this incident. The time period is a loss. But we also have noticed that the payment payment is increased. What is the main reason? How do we look at the company's effective tax rate? I will quickly translate my question. Thanks for taking my call. I have two questions here. first one is we noticed that the first quarter take rate decrease sequentially especially for the stock commission rate can you let us know what's the reasoning behind it second this quarter the company was affected by the one of penalty resulting in a quarterly loss but income tax expense increase sequentially so what are the reasons for this and how should we expect an effective tax rate going forward.

Thank you. 交易量占比有所提升 受到对香港用户交易港股免佣的影响 整体来看港股的take rate相比美股的take rate 越低在两个bps左右 所以港股交易量占比的提升 会拉低整体正股的take rate 第二个原因是在本季度的时候 老虎美国有一些质量不错 且交易风格偏高频的用户 拉高了该牌照在一季度的确定volume 但由于我们老虎美国按照当地的市场 管理10年佣金 因此使得整体的take rate 看起来也会比较低一点 然后blendedtake rate的这个下降 除了以上提到的正股的原因以外 就是一季度的期货 在佣金收入的占比 也从四季度的6% 提升到了8%左右 那由于期货的trading volume 是按照lotional value来计算的 因此也会拉高我们整体的交易量 造成blendedcommission rate的这个下滑 那我先翻译一下 Okay, so total trading volume and equity trading volume both increased quarter over quarter, but commission revenue fell roughly 5%, leading to a lower blended tick rate. There are two key main factors. Number one is my Hong Kong trading volume made up a larger share of total stock trading volume in the first quarter. We offer zero commission for Hong Kong users trading Hong Kong stock. and the tick rate for Hong Kong stock is about two bips lower than that of the U.S. stocks. A higher proportion of Hong Kong's trading volume would drag down the overall tick rate. A lot of reason is Tiger U.S. onboarded some active users this quarter and saw an uptick in total trading volume. But in the U.S., we follow market practice and offer zero commissions, which further compress the stock tick rate. Beyond those two factors, revenue from futures trading rose around 6% in fourth quarter to roughly 8% in first quarter. Since future volume is calculated based on lotional value, the enlarged total trading volume caused a decrease in blended commission rate. 然后您的第二个问题是关于这个就是effective tax rate的问题 首先来讲呢就是我们近期收到的这个行政罚款 按照税法的规定呢是不能作为费用在税前扣除的 也就是说实际上tax口径下的税前利润呢 要加上我们这次收到的罚款金额6000万美金 然后所得税费用的环比上升呢 主要的原因呢是由于员工股票奖励所导致的non-cash的 所得税费用调整 简单的来说就是说公司授予员工的股票奖励 在财务上会每个季度按照总额进行贪销 形成人力成本的一部分 包括已经成熟归属的部分 也包括尚未成熟的部分 但税务上只认可已经成熟部分的贪销 对于未成熟部分的贪销产生的费用是不允许税前扣除的 因此会形成一个地延所得税的资产 当一季度公司的股价有下跌的时候 整体为公司员工的股票池的价值会数压降 实际形成的低延税资产也会随之下降 因此在一季度由于这个原因就充减了400万美金左右的低延税资产 并进入了所得税的费用 同样如果未来股价上涨也会形成新的定项税资产 必充减当期的所得税费用 我们认为提出该类影响了公司未来合理的effective tax rate 应该是在低于20%的这个水平的 我也翻译一下 So just based on tax rules, and the ministry identified on deductible tax items. Our tax is based on pre-tax profit before the penalty. The primary reason of this income tax re-increase was due to a non-cash tax adjustment linked to employee stock incentives. We amortized share-based compensation expense is called accounting purpose carrying both vested and unvested stock employee stocks for tax purpose. However, only amortization relates to vested award is tax deductible. Non-deductible amortization on unvested shares is factored in deferred tax asset. As our share price declined in the first quarter, which reduced the fair value of uninvested employee stock incentives, this led to a write-down of prior deferred tax assets for around US dollar 4 million, and this amount was recorded as an increase in income tax expense. Conversely, a future share price rebound would also boost deferred tax assets and reduce tax expense accordingly. Excluding this one-time non-cash impact, we expect our effective tax rate to stay below 20% for it.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Yu Fan from CICC. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

好的. 感谢广里层给我这个提问的机会。 我是中金公司的分析师范悠悠悠。 那我这边的话也是两个问题想要请教一下。 首先的话是想要请教一下咱们二季度以来的run rates如何 包括咱们看到像这个入金用户数 客户的交易回约度 然后包括像客户资产一些变化趋势大概是怎么样的 然后第二个问题的话想要请教一下关于这个新增入金用户数 想请教一下咱们看一季度的话如果按照地区分拆大概是怎么一个分布 另外的话因为我们看一季度这个新增入金用户数2.89万 那可能没有达到我们此前给的全年新增是5万人指引的这么一个增量节奏 所以也想请教一下管理层 咱们后续的话是否会去加大这个货客的投入 或去相应的做这个全年新增用户指引的调整 我这边也快速翻译一下 Thanks management for taking my class rings This is Yoyo Fan from CICC I have two class rings Firstly, could you share more on our run rate since Q2? What's the trend of the new funded client trading velocity and the client AUM? The second question is on the net new funded account in Q1. What's the original breakdown? And it seems that the number of the new added clients has not met the pace required for the four-year guidance.

So will you invest more in client acquisition or adjust for your guidance? 每股回度的提升尤为明显 那二季度截至到目前 每股正股的交易额 已经达到了一季度整个季度的水平 客户自然方面 之前也提到了 就是一季度产生了近50亿美金的 Matto Market North 在第二季度截至到目前 已经全部收复 那同时零售用户在第二季度的这个金入金 依然是比较健康的 That's your first question about our run rates in the second quarter.

For the number of new users, we expect the number to stay stable quarter by quarter, with Hong Kong and Singapore remaining our top contributing markets. Tweeting activity has picked up notably in the second quarter today. both stars and commission income are higher than the Q1 level. U.S. stock trading activity saw the most significant improvement. With Q2 today, U.S. cash equity trading volume already matching the full Q1 total. Regarding client assets, quarter today we have fully recovered the nearly five billion U.S. dollar market losses recorded in the first quarter. Retail net asset inflow remain healthy so far in the second quarter. Assuming no material shifts in the market conditions through June, we expect total client assets to post a solid quarter per quarter increase. and the rest of the world is going to be in the United States.

About the last year, first of all, I'll just answer your question. The last year, it is based on the international industry that brings up the increase. So, the 5.2% of the management change has no impact on the last year. In addition, in the last year, the market has a lot of influence. So we hope that we will be able to improve the future of the ecosystem. Also, we hope that the future is the key. The last one is the key. The key to the company's strategy, is the key to the customer's values. The key to the customer's value is that the key to the customer's value. 因此我们认为最直接体现货货成本效率的指标是货货成本和零售用户当季度进入金的一些比例关系 也就是说每产生一美金的货货成本可以带来多少美元的进入金 那我们看到这个比值在今年的第一季度是170美元左右 过去四个季度是在150美元左右 For new funded accounts in the first quarter, Singapore and Hong Kong together accounted

for over 75% of the total, to bleed almost evenly between these two markets. Australia and New Zealand contributed around 20%, with the rest coming from the US. Even with the headline news on May 22nd, we are confident about our full-year guidance and our global expansion. Market volatility has affected investors' sentiment so far this year. We are optimistic that easing geopolitical tensions and improved inflation expectations in the second half will drive stronger user growth. In addition, it's noteworthy to point out that when evaluating customer acquisition, While indicators like average CAG or ROI are important, our strategic priority is user quality. With client assets and net asset inflow as our core KPIs, therefore, we view the ratio of customer acquisition cost to quarterly retail net asset inflow as a more relevant measure of acquisition efficiency. In other words, it's just how much net asset inflow we can generate per dollar spent on the client acquisition. This ratio was at roughly $170 US dollar in the first quarter compared to around $150 US dollar over the past four quarters and approximately $120 US dollar in the year before that. This shows that our customer acquisition strategy is indeed effective in acquiring high quality users. Let's just move on to the next question.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time so I'll hand the call back to Aaron for closing remarks.

I'd like to thank everyone for joining our call today. I'm now closing the call on behalf of the management team here at Tiger. We do appreciate your participation in today's call. If you have any further questions please reach out to our investor relations team. This concludes the call and thank you very much.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.