WEIBO Corp Q3 FY2024 Earnings Call

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Weibo's third quarter 2024 financial results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Sandra Zhang. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Welcome to Weibo's third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Joining me today are our Chief Executive Officer, Gaofei Wang; and our Chief Financial Officer, Fei Cao. The conference call is also being broadcast on the Internet and is available through Weibo's IR website. Before the management remarks, I would like to read you the safe harbor statements in connection with today's conference call. During today's conference call, we may make forward-looking statements, which are not historical facts, including statements of our beliefs and expectations. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Several important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Weibo assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements in this conference call or elsewhere. Further information regarding this and other risks is included in Weibo's Annual Report on Form 20-F and other filings with the SEC. All the information provided in this press release is accurate as of the date hereof. Weibo assumes no obligation to update such information, except as required under applicable law. Additionally, I would like to remind you that our discussion today includes certain non-GAAP measures, which exclude stock-based compensation and certain other expenses. We use non-GAAP financial measures to gain a better understanding of Weibo's comparative operating performance and future prospects. Our non-GAAP financials exclude certain expenses, gains or losses, and other items that are not expected to result in future cash payments or are non-recurring in nature, or are not indicative of our core operating results and outlook. Please refer to our press release for more information about our non-GAAP measures. Following management's prepared remarks, we will open the lines for a brief Q&A session. With this, I would like to turn the call over to our CEO, Gaofei Wang.

Thank you. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Weibo's earnings conference call. Today, I will share the highlights of Weibo's product monetization in the third quarter of 2024. On the user front, in September, Weibo's monthly active users reached approximately 587 million, while the average daily active users were about 257 million. This growth is partly due to our revised user acquisition and growth strategy that focuses on attracting high-quality users through an optimized channel strategy. Moreover, our product operations have prioritized improving user engagement and retention on the platform. Combined with the boost from the Olympics, these initiatives have resulted in a higher overall daily active users to monthly active users ratio year-over-year. On the monetization side, boosted by our strengthened marketing competitiveness in key industries and the positive impact of Olympic trends, Weibo's total revenue in the third quarter reached $464.5 million, marking a 5% increase year-over-year. Ad revenue stood at $398.6 million, up 2% year-over-year, with value-added services revenue hitting $65.9 million, up 25% year-over-year. Our non-GAAP operating income reached $164.5 million, translating to a non-GAAP operating margin of 35%. Next, I will outline our advancements in product and monetization during the third quarter. This year, we will continue to enhance the visibility of Weibo's trending topics and social content on mobile devices and improve the targeted reach and content consumption experience for high-quality users in partnership with manufacturers, focusing on driving engagement and retention among channel users. In the third quarter, we specifically collaborated with handset manufacturers to expand user reach and enhance content consumption regarding Olympic-related trends, resulting in average daily active users from this channel realizing double-digit growth compared to the second quarter. With respect to social attributes, in the third quarter for our information feed products, we inched up the consumption of high-quality content across both relationship-based and interest-based feeds, aiming to enhance user social interactions. By leveraging the summer break and Olympic-related trends, we improved the distribution of vertical interest-based content and instant recommendations, catering to the personalized content consumption preferences of various user segments. This strategy increased the visibility of accounts and content with strong relationships and interactions, which in turn enhanced user engagement. As a result, total interactions on the front page rose by double digits quarter-over-quarter. Furthermore, we improved the growth trajectory of user-generated content on Weibo by analyzing various user characteristics, including profiles, interests, and content generation frequency. We offered personalized tips and guidance for content creation, encouraging sharing and helping users consistently generate content to attract traffic and build fanbases. In the third quarter, the number of users creating user-generated content increased by 8% quarter-over-quarter, while the relationships among regular users grew by double digits quarter-over-quarter. Regarding our content ecosystem in the third quarter, we fully leveraged marketing opportunities from the Olympic-related trends, enhancing the visibility of Weibo's sports IP. We intensified content operations across the entertainment, digital, automotive, and gaming sectors, capitalizing on every chance to initiate trending topics on the platform and bolstering Weibo's influence and competitive edge in marketing linked to the Paris Olympic Games. We actively worked with media accounts to create content and stimulate discussions around the Olympics, expanding attention from potential gold medal events to key athletes, which significantly increased traffic and engagement. The Olympic-related topics on Weibo surpassed 400 billion views, with total user discussions exceeding 400 million. We also optimized monetization efficiencies for trending topics, achieving a record high in ad revenue from the Paris Olympics, significantly surpassing the figures from the Tokyo Olympics. Weibo solidified its position as the primary social platform for Chinese athletes, with 93% of the Chinese Olympic delegation using their Weibo accounts. Athletes shared their competition experiences through videos, text, and images, and they made significantly more posts on Weibo daily compared to other platforms. During the Paris Olympics, the total number of fans for these athletes doubled in comparison to the Tokyo Olympics. Throughout the games, we celebrated not only the Chinese team's remarkable achievements but also the skills and contributions of elite athletes like Zheng Qinwen, Pan Zhanle, and Fan Zhendong. Over the last four years, from the Tokyo Olympics to the Beijing Winter Games and now the Paris Olympics, we have refined our operational strategy for trending topics and enhanced our management of the athlete-fan ecosystem, resulting in a year-over-year increase in active users in the sports sector and a more robust sports content ecosystem. Meanwhile, we have continuously tackled the limitations of event-based sales, witnessing considerable revenue growth. These accomplishments bolster our confidence in Weibo's long-term growth in the sports content ecosystem. As the nation rallied around the Olympics, many trends emerged in the entertainment, digital, and gaming sectors during the third quarter, generating widespread user discussions. For instance, in entertainment, we enhanced collaborations with the recently revived comedy variety shows and summer film releases, leveraging Weibo's strength in driving discussions. This effort significantly increased the popularity and recognition of productions such as the movie Successor and the variety show Stand-Up Comedy 2024, with discussions around entertainment content increasing over 20% year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. In the digital sector, product launches from Apple and Huawei on September 10th became central topics of industry discourse in the third quarter. Weibo collaborated with numerous tech influencers to review and share content about these new products, offering users timely, professional insights. On that day, viewership of related content and discussions surged past 2 billion and 1.7 million times, respectively, for both models, showcasing the strong value and stability we provide in our partnerships with advertisers while co-developing the content ecosystem. Overall, we saw continued growth in the scale and engagement of golden and orange verified accounts in the gaming sector in the third quarter, with the number of such influencers doubling year-over-year and their daily posts more than doubling. This growth has fostered further user engagement within the gaming sectors on Weibo, supporting our collaboration with the AAA title, Black Myth: Wukong, during its new game release. On its launch day, Weibo utilized its cross-industry strengths by engaging 30 golden and orange verified accounts across various sectors, including media, digital, culture, tourism, and finance, to promote and discuss the launch. Within just 24 hours, these accounts generated 35,000 posts, with related topics attracting over 4.5 billion views, 8.6 million interactions, and over 200 million video views on Weibo, creating substantial buzz on launch day. The game's popularity also positively impacted local cultural tourism, boosting the offline local economy. On to monetization, in the third quarter, our ad revenue reached $398.6 million, reflecting a 2% year-over-year increase. This demonstrates Weibo's capacity to capture marketing budgets around major events and trending IPs. The Paris Olympics, alongside the intense release of dramas and variety shows during the summer, enabled us to effectively integrate hot trend resources this quarter. By aligning organic trends on Weibo with our clients' marketing goals, we strive to attract and accommodate clients' advertising spending. The primary hot trend was, naturally, the Paris Olympic Games. Drawing lessons from the Tokyo Olympics, we assisted Olympic sponsors in enhancing their brand value and generating marketing momentum through our advertising solutions. We observed a shift in user engagement during the Olympics, with users expressing more interest in athlete stories than in competition outcomes. This change is partly due to our proactive approach to understanding user interests and fostering an ecosystem centered around sports. Over the last two years, we have successfully leveraged sports events to raise awareness about sports figures and deepen engagement between athletes and their fans. For this year's Olympics, we established a strategic direction for trend operations in advance, collaborating closely with influential personalities in the sports media landscape. By accentuating events and athletes, we not only magnified the influence of Olympic-related trends but also widened the discussion scope to include more clients beyond traditional event sponsors, thereby accommodating clients aiming to utilize Olympic-related chatter for brand visibility. Compared to the Tokyo Olympics, we were pleased to observe a substantial uptick in both the quantity of clients and revenues generated from the Paris Olympics. Notably, driven by the Olympic event, our ad revenue from the food and beverage sector experienced strong year-over-year growth, making it a key contributor to ad revenue growth this quarter. In terms of client-focused hot trend marketing, we have increasingly centered on new product launches, covering events like product release unveilings and celebrity endorsements. We intensified content operations, innovated advertising products, and targeted key demographics to enhance the appeal and depth of content pertinent to clients' new product launches. As a result, Weibo covered nearly 50% of new model launches in the automotive sector, with campaigns related to new product introductions making up approximately 70% of ad revenue in this sector. We have also observed robust year-over-year revenue growth in the automotive industry. However, in the handset sector, revenue experienced a slight decline year-over-year due to the timing of clients' product launch schedules in the third quarter. We anticipate a return to growth in the fourth quarter, supported by an exciting lineup of new phone releases. Over the last few years, Weibo has significantly increased its market share in both the handset and automotive industries. In response to industry trends, we have strengthened our content ecosystem focused on high-end photography and electric vehicles while enhancing our marketing capabilities. For instance, this year, we launched a strategic content partnership with Vivo to promote its brand narrative around photography, a campaign that successfully positioned Vivo in the high-end market during the launch of the X100 as a photography channel last fourth quarter. During Q2, we initiated a follow-up campaign for the X100 series, branding it around concert experiences and collaborations with shows. For the upcoming X200 series set to launch in October, we are collaborating with media and influencers to showcase Vivo's technological advancements, specifically spotlighting the telephoto lens feature, which has generated considerable buzz. This strategy resulted in record-breaking engagement during the launch, with first-day sales from all channels exceeding RMB2 billion, effectively doubling the previous model's sales record. Well-known for its frequent product launches, we have also ramped up our hot trend marketing endeavors for footwear and apparel clients, expanding our focus during fashion events and celebrity endorsements. In the third quarter, we further enhanced content operations for sports and outdoor products, leveraging celebrity endorsements and launching new outdoor jacket lines. Consequently, the footwear and apparel sector realized double-digit year-over-year growth, with revenue contributions from new product launches reaching unprecedented levels over the past two years. For example, Weibo developed a deep marketing partnership with Bosideng over the last two years, securing its status as a leading down jacket brand. In September, Bosideng appointed actor Yu Shi as its new brand ambassador, and we maximized this opportunity by generating trending topics, engaging fans in brand promotion, and aligning the launch with the Mid-Autumn Festival and national holiday travel patterns. By connecting the features of Bosideng's outdoor jackets to travel storytelling, we highlighted their selling points, resulting in impressive sales increases for these jackets on e-commerce platforms during the third quarter. Despite the tailwinds from the Olympics and summer season, the overall end market, as indicated by the third-quarter consumer data, shows a relatively sluggish consumer environment, resulting in muted client marketing demand. While Weibo achieved year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter ad revenue growth thanks to the summer season and Olympic effects, growth in some industries still did not meet expectations. However, we are encouraged by similar government policies introduced in September and hope to see them gradually stimulate the macro economy, consumer spending, and related sectors. In light of these market conditions, we will continue to focus on strengthening Weibo's competitive advantages in trend and content marketing by optimizing our content and product resources. Our unique proposition in hot trend marketing is crucial for maintaining high operating efficiency. Additionally, we remain committed to enhancing our brand and performance advertising offerings to boost our competitiveness and expand our market share. I will now turn the call over to Fei Cao for a financial review.

Thank you, Gaofei, and hello, everyone. Welcome to Weibo's third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Let's start with user metrics. In September 2024, Weibo's MAUs reached 587 million and average DAUs reached 257 million, reflecting a pullback from the Olympic peak as we enter the back-to-school season. Additionally, in 2024, we have proactively adjusted our user strategy to emphasize the acquisition and engagement of high-quality users, resulting in improved DAU versus MAU ratios and strong social interactions this quarter. Turning to financials, my remarks will focus on non-GAAP results. All monetary amounts are in US dollar terms and all comparisons are year-over-year unless otherwise noted. Weibo's third quarter 2024 net revenue was $464.5 million, an increase of 5%, or 3% on a constant currency basis, exceeding our own and Street expectations. Operating income was $164.5 million, representing an operating margin of 35%. Net income attributable to Weibo reached $139.2 million, representing a net margin of 30%. Diluted EPS was $0.53. Let me provide more details on the third quarter 2024 revenue performance. Weibo's advertising and marketing revenues for Q3 2024 totalled $398.6 million, a 2% increase, or flat on a constant currency basis. Mobile ad revenues were $374.2 million, contributing approximately 94% of total ad revenue. Growth was driven primarily by the FMCG, Internet services, and automotive sectors. Among FMCG, we were encouraged by the strong momentum in the food and beverage and apparel industries, thanks to robust end demand during the Summer Olympics. However, overall FMCG growth was still dragged down by the underperformance of the cosmetics and personal care industry. The automotive sector continued to deliver solid growth, benefiting from the secular shift from traditional to electronic vehicles and our competitive sales capabilities. For ad products, promoted feed ad was the largest, followed by social display and topic and search revenue. Ad revenues from Alibaba for the third quarter was $21.5 million, a 1% decrease. The decrease was primarily driven by low seasonality in Q3, with e-commerce platforms concentrating ad budgets on shopping festivals. Before turning to the VAS segment, let me provide preliminary insights on trends entering Q4 2024. On the upside, authorities have introduced a set of measures since late September to reignite the macro economy. We anticipate an inflection point in consumer sentiment with the upcoming opportunities provided by the stimulus package and the Double 11 shopping festival. However, we do not expect a V-shaped recovery, given that it takes time for stimulus plans to translate into confidence and for advertisers' product launch pipelines to lead to significant topline recovery. Despite uncertainties and a bumpy recovery in some sectors, we are cautiously optimistic about the overall advertising market. We plan to enhance our sales execution and highlight our value proposition in the market to boost monetization efficiency and capture additional ad wallets. Regarding VAS, revenue was $65.9 million in the third quarter, a 25% increase, primarily driven by revenue growth in membership and games-related services. We benefitted from improved ARPU for membership services since the rollout of premium VIP features to cater to the needs of our engaged users. Turning to costs and expenses, total costs and expenses for Q3 were $299.9 million, reflecting an 8% increase driven by higher marketing spending and personnel-related expenses. Operating income in Q3 was $164.5 million, with an operating margin of 35%, compared to 37% a year earlier. Regarding income taxes, as a GAAP measure, income tax expense for Q3 was $32.2 million compared to $25.4 million last year, primarily due to withholding tax accrued related to earnings to be remitted to Weibo Hong Kong Limited from its wholly-owned subsidiary in China. Net income attributable to Weibo's shareholders in Q3 was $139.2 million, an increase of 2%, with a net margin of 30%, down from 31% in the prior year. On the balance sheet, as of September 30th, 2024, Weibo's cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments totalled $2.2 billion. In Q3, cash provided by operating activities was $124.2 million, capital expenditure was $11.8 million, and depreciation and amortization expenses amounted to $14.4 million. With that, I will now turn the call over to the operator for the Q&A session.

Thank you. We will now take the first question from Felix Liu from UBS. Please go ahead.

Let me translate myself. First, let me congratulate you on the strong Q3 despite the challenging macro conditions. My question is on the fourth quarter advertisement outlook. In light of the recent macro stimulus, how does management see the policies impacting your advertisement outlook in Q4? Can management share more details by industry vertical for Q4? Thank you.

Thank you for the question. In the third quarter, the order indexes related to consumption showed a slight downward trend due to weak economic demand in China, resulting in underperformance in the consumer market. The increase in ad revenue was primarily driven by trending topics like the Olympics and summer holiday dramas. In the fourth quarter, although uncertainties persist, the overall outlook remains positive, supported by government policies aimed at boosting internal and domestic demand. Nevertheless, we anticipate a slow recovery in ad revenues from luxury goods and real estate. We have noticed positive impacts from national subsidy policies in the consumer electronics sector, expecting year-on-year double-digit growth in these areas. Our emphasis continues to be on leveraging the strong demand from advertisers on e-commerce platforms during the Double 11 shopping festival. In terms of sectors, we saw significant ad revenue growth during the Paris Olympics, achieving double the growth compared to the Tokyo Olympics. We recognized a drop in demand due to weak economic conditions last year. There has been a transition of advertisers' budgets from traditional advertising to social media, benefiting from enhanced interactivity on platforms like Weibo, which contributed to our growth in the third quarter. Our new product marketing strategies have become essential to Weibo’s advertising business, driving growth across various industries, particularly in the automotive and apparel sectors.

Thank you. We will now take the next question from Timothy Zhao from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Thank you, management, for taking my question. My question is regarding the VAS services segment. Given the good growth in this segment over the past quarters, could management share the drivers behind this growth and expectations for Q4 and future monetization strategies in VAS?

Thank you for your question. Weibo's value-added services have shown double-digit growth for two consecutive quarters this year, primarily due to ongoing growth in membership business revenue. Our strategy emphasizes acquiring and retaining high-quality users, which naturally increases the demand for value-added services. We have also introduced new products that meet the needs of high-value users, such as enhanced social rights and identity verification rights. Furthermore, our value-added services for key accounts across different sectors have enhanced our content ecosystem, improving overall engagement and user experience. We anticipate continued strong growth for value-added services revenue in the fourth quarter.

Thank you. We will now take the next question from Miranda Zhuang from Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

Can management provide updates about the progress in AI in the second half of this year regarding content production, commercialization, and operational efficiencies? What tangible benefits are you seeing? Thank you.

Thanks for this question. Last quarter, we reported that our independently developed large model passed its filing successfully. We are leveraging this significantly to enhance operational efficiency and capabilities through various AI applications. In Q3, we primarily utilized AI-based intelligent search functions, resulting in approximately 10% growth in daily active users using intelligent search and increased traffic. The total monthly active users utilizing these intelligent search features has now surpassed 20 million, effectively doubling since last quarter. We have also rolled out AI assistant features for key accounts, which have improved content generation capabilities. In Q3, the number of trial users grew, with a retention rate exceeding 85%. Additionally, AI has been incorporated into our technology R&D, and we are actively using the V-code feature to boost productivity in coding and programming. The quantitative advantages will take some time to manifest, and we look forward to providing more statistics in future quarters.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand back over to management for closing remarks.

Thanks, operator. This wraps up our conference call today. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you next quarter.

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