Investors, friends, good morning. Welcome you to 2024 interim results and investors meeting of IGG. Today, our conference will be conducted in Mandarin. The PowerPoint of the results have already been uploaded to our website under investor relations section. Before we start, let me introduce the management to you. Mr. Kevin Xu, Executive Director and the Chief Operating Officer. Greetings of investors. Ms. Jessie Shen, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer. Greetings, investors. Today, our conference consists of two parts. The management will introduce you our financial and business results. Then we will have Q&A session. Mr. Xu, please. He will introduce you the interim results to all of you.
Thank you, facilitator. Good morning. Thank you all for coming to our 2024 interim results meeting. On behalf of IGG, I would like to thank you for all your support. Since last year, actually, we mentioned that we will diversify our business. Apart from Lords Mobile, we will also make three products that has over HKD 10 million billings. Actually, we have achieved that. I am happy to say that. Our Doomsday, Viking Rise, and APP business all exceeded a gross billing of over HKD 10 million. Our total revenue reaches HKD 2.74 billion, up by 9%. In terms of profit, we reached HKD 330 million. We have resumed our profit-making power. We decide to allocate 30% of the profit to make the dividend to reward our shareholders. We also allocate 10% of profit to share buyback. Because of the stability of our Lords Mobile and also Doomsday, Viking Rise, and the APP business, our total revenue has reached its historical peak.
In July, the gross billing is numbered at HKD 550 million. It is the highest in the past few years. What is more important, Viking Rise, at the beginning of this year, the gross billing is only around HKD 40 million, but in the past 30 days, the billing has already exceeded over HKD 80 million. It has been doubled. For our APP business, earlier, it is around HKD 40 million. Now it is standing at HKD 120 million. Yes, it is the number. It has been tripled. For our Lords Mobile, it has been over eight years in history, but it is still very stable. We maintain its gross billing of over HKD 28 million. Under our concerted efforts, we continue to enrich the content. In August, it is standing at $30 million of monthly gross billing. Again, it has reached last year's performance.
Because of all these performance, our revenue also returned to the historical high, which is different from last time, which is contributed to the COVID stay-at-home impact that will also bring to our good results. This is the external fact. Now it is contributed to our own business breakthrough. In terms of new games, usually I would not talk about new games when the results are good. I want to mention to you particularly because there is some change in our R&D. This year, we will emphasize on heritage. We want to stand on the shoulders of the giants to reach even bigger success.
This year, in terms of R&D of new games, we have two SLG games that is based on Doomsday, one is based on Viking Rise. We want to refer to their success story, based on their very mature business structure and the theme. We have new innovation. The test result is very good. We are very confident to its performance for the second half of this year and also next year. Let's look at the PowerPoints. Let's turn to page seven. Page seven is our 2024 new journey and new era. Our aim is to realize growth, profitability, diversification. With the monthly billing of Viking Rise exceeding over HKD 80 million, APP Business continues to climb to HKD 120 million.
Our non-Lords Mobile business takes up over half of our own business. We have four products that has reached over HKD 10 million gross billing. Let's now turn to page eight. Let's look at the gross billing performance. We can see that in the past half year, thanks to our high-speed growth, riding on the rapid development of new games and APP Business. Developed from HKD 460 million to HKD 550 million in July, with an increase of 20%. Let's look at page nine. For our core games, these are the operational data until 30th of June. We can see the data. For Lords Mobile, the MAU is 9.5 million. I think at the beginning of this year, it is only nine million and something. There is a very good growth. For Doomsday, the MAU is at 3.2 million.
It was 2.7 million at the beginning of the year. Viking Rise, 1.9 million. In terms of the users' activity, we can see all the businesses are on a growing trend. Let's look at page 10. For our financial analysis, let's look at the consolidated revenue. For the first half of this year, it is HKD 2.735 billion, a year-on-year increase of 9%. In terms of the gross profit, it is HKD 2.155 billion, up by 19% compared with last year. The GP margin also increased to 79%, up by seven percentage points. This is contributed by our APP Business growth. Our R&D expense is HKD 395 million, significantly reduced by 21%. That is due to our AIGC active use. We have increased the efficiency of our work.
For NP, last year, we had a loss of HKD 360 million. This year, we have a profit of HKD 331 million. The NP margin is 12%. Let's turn to page 11. Let's look at the cash position. It is very solid. We have cash and the cash equivalent of around HKD 1.9 billion. Because we are making profit, the net cash inflow is standing at HKD 600 million. Let's look at page 12. That is the total asset of the group. The total asset is HKD 4.1 billion. Asset, HKD 2.47 billion. Non-current asset, HKD 1.63 billion. Let's turn to page 13, share buyback and dividend. This year, we will allocate 30% of interim profit to dispatch the dividend at HKD 0.085.
We also spent HKD 33 million on share buyback, taking up 10% of the interim profit. In total, 40% of the profit is paying back to the shareholders. Let's look at the new games. This new game is called Project FL. This is what we have mentioned just now, is it a kind of an SLG game. It is one of the three new games. It is based on Doomsday. You may see that its art is more sophisticated. The theme is also surpassing that of Doomsday, so its initiative test result is also better than that of Doomsday. We expect that by the end of November or December, it will be released. You will also see there's an upgrade of the quality of the new game compared with the old.
Next year, it will contribute to our results, which we are very confident in. In summary, for the first half of this year, Lords Mobile continued to be robust. The new game, Viking Rise, and also the APP Business, begin to enter into the rapid growth period. At the meantime of this rapid growth, our NP margin keeps at 12%. For the second half of the year, Viking Rise and Doomsday and the APP Business will continue to grow. We will also release several new games. In all, they will push up revenue to a new high level. Thank you, all. Now we will enter into the Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Xu. Now we have entered into the Q&A session. We will accept online and telephone questions.
For those online, please enter your question in black and white. We will then read out your question. Let's hand over the questions to the telephone users. If you want to raise your questions, please follow the instruction by the operator. Operator, please.
Hello. If you want to raise questions, please press star to wait and then press one. Thank you. Let's invite CICC representative, Mr. Yu Xing Yao.
Okay, thank you. Thank you, management, for answering the question. I'm from CSCC. I have two questions to ask. The first is about 'Doomsday' and the 'Viking Rise' user acquisition expectation of 'Doomsday' and the 'Viking Rise.' We have seen that you have quite a number of products. I also want to share the SLG game competition landscape, especially the overseas market, its competition, and also their impact. Thank you.
For 'Doomsday,' for the second half of the year, the gross billing will be maintained at $12 million per month. We expect that in December, we will increase our promotion and marketing expense. For 'Doomsday,' the theme actually is very popular, enjoys a very large market. In terms of user acquisition and promotion, it enjoys an edge. In the overseas markets, the SLG game will be more and more competition. There will be more and more market players, but because of the advantage of the structure and the theme, we are confident in its performance. For 'Viking Rise,' we expect that for the second half of the year, the gross billing will be maintained at $10 million. For this game, we expect in December we will start a next round of promotion to increase the gross billing at HKD 15 million per month.
This is our expectation for these two games. Just now you also mentioned there are more and more market players in SLG. With more competition, there will be more opportunities. Or put in other words, more challenges, more opportunities. In such a macroeconomic environment, the industry growth has been slowing down, but because of the adoption of AI, the expenses of R&D has been cut and the efficiency has been improved. We believe that based on our experience and our strength, through innovation of theme and the structure, we will continue to re-unleash the potential of our company in such a headwind market. Thank you.
Thank you for the management's answers. Next question from telephone. Operator, please.
If you want to ask a question, please press star and then one. Now let me invite Citi representative Mr. Zhang Furong.
Good morning.
Thank you, management, for accepting my question. My questions are on new game expectation. First is about Project FL. It is based on 'Doomsday,' I want to know our future target audience globally, which markets of the audience you are looking to, and what's your expectation of this new game. We have seen that we have two other new games. What is their R&D progress and the timetable. Thank you.
Okay. Just now I mentioned we have three new SLG games. There will be three SLG games in total. Two are expected to be released in this November. Another one, which is based on 'Viking Rise,' which may be released in Q2 of next year. In terms of the target audience of the games, we learned a lesson from the past.
For example, for 'Doomsday,' its target audience is very vast, its marketing would be relatively easy because the audience covers all over the world, including North America, South America, Southeast Asia, North Europe, and even Africa. For 'Viking Rise,' the target audience is relatively limited, mainly in Europe and in North America. When we are doing the new games, first, we have to inherit the successful lessons and experience from the past games. In the meantime, in terms of target audience, we want to break the limit. For these three new games, in terms of design, art, structure, and theme, we all select the theme that can cover the world, and our target audience is also covering the whole world.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you for your very detailed answers. Let's now answer the questions from online.
This question is from Guangfa Securities, Ms. Yang Ling Ling. With APP Business growth, can you talk about the reasons behind that. For its NP margin, is it very high. What is about its growth of revenue in future. For APP Business, this year, the growth is really very rapid. I think just in the beginning of the year, last year, I also mentioned our APP Business has got rid of a lot of application-oriented APP, and we centered around those content-oriented products. In this January, the gross billing last year, the peak is at $9 million. It is reduced to $5 million in this January. Because we have found the right direction, or found the right means. This July, the gross billing exceeded $15 million. We expect that in the future, it will continue to grow.
In terms of users and gross billing, the APP business still has great potential to grow. For the second half of this year, we will push its gross billing to a new level. For the second half of the year and even next year, our aim is to push the scale of the revenue, because its space for further growth is really vast. The NP margin will be capped at a little bit over 10%. In the future, after it starts getting more stable, the profit margin will be similar to game business and with more scale of economy. In the future, its profit margin will be over 20%. That's our expectation. Thank you. Thank you for your answers. Please continue to raise your questions. Please put in your answer in the Q&A window if you are online users.
I would like to share with you the next question. What is your future APP plans, especially in the long run? Thank you. The APP plans under development actually are really varied. In the future, we will make it into the new growth engine for our group. When it reaches a certain scale, we will make it more efficient and also it will forge synergy with other business of the group. We know that in the game industry, actually, we know that game is quite contradictory with the advertising industry. We develop APP business to a certain degree is to hedge the risks from advertising. We have heard some saying from other game companies that their advertising spending is more and more expensive. With the APP business growth, we can hedge against the advertising cost rise in the future.
We can minimize the impact so that our game industry can also be nurtured. For APP business, it is our strategic deployment, we aim to grow bigger this section, and push forward the scale of the revenue further. Thank you. Next question. This question is about whether the management consider increase of shareholding, any plan, and also the scale. Yes. We can see that the company is growing very fast, and at the meantime, the market value is not so high. We have the intention to increase shareholding, but we cannot disclose too many details because we also don't want our share price to increase too rapidly, too fast for us to catch. In the future, after we concrete the shareholding plan, we will also disclose to you. For the management, we are very optimistic about our future growth in the coming years.
Thank you. Next question. Please input your questions in the window if you are online. Next question. This is about the pipeline. What are the key products in your pipeline? For the second half of the year and next year, how many new games you will release? Yes. Actually, we have quite a number of pipeline games. I mentioned some of them. Actually, we have around over 20 games, including SLG, leisure, and RPG games in the pipeline. The keys are the 3 games that I mentioned just now. Others are just in the trial stage. For these 3 key games, they directly inherit the successful practice of Doomsday: Last Survivors and Viking Rise. It also take the successful practice from the structure, server, and various operation practices. They are our priorities for development.
For the other games, now we do not have very specific target yet. For these three games, please stay tuned for their results after release. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your answer. Next question from online, from Guangfa Securities. What is the expenditure ratio? Will it drop? For the second half of the year and the next year, what about the profit margin and the dividend percentage? Will it be 70%-80% or even higher like before? For expenditure. For the first half of the year, marketing expense takes up a large percentage, and for the profit margin for the second half, it may rise a little bit as compared with the first half. Because the gross billing of the games, for example, Viking Rise has been rising. For example, Viking Rise already reached over $10 million.
We have two to three months for rest so that we can improve this game to improve its ARPU further. Around two to three months, we will reduce the expenditure on advertising so that there will be more profit generated in order to support our future growth. For the Q1 of next year, based on what we have done, we will continue to push up the revenue of Viking Rise. For the first half of next year, the profit may drop a little bit, but all of these actions will have the aim of keeping profit and growth at the first position. Okay, thank you. This one is from Four Winds Capital, Ms. Ellen Zhang. You have a very sufficient cash. Can you share your plan on cash usage and market value management?
In terms of cash, now you can see that we are in a rapid developing period. More of the cash will be used to push forward the business development. Many investors may say that, "Well, in the past, your dividend will be as high as 60%, but now it's only 30%." Now we are at a very high growth stage, we hope that all our resources and bullets will be used to push forward the growth of the company to raise the revenue and also profit. That next year or even further, when our profit reaches a higher level, revenue at a higher level, when it's more stable, then we will consider increasing the dividend and also share buyback. Including the cash usage, all are preparing for our new games and old games development for the second half of the year and also next year.
Thank you. Okay, thank you. Next question, please. Next question is from Beijing Mingcheng Private Equity, Mr. Zhang. The question is about the marketing expense for the second half. It's very simple. For Lords Mobile, we will try to maintain its revenue at $30 million. 30%-35% for Viking Rise. We will also keep it stable. Around 50%, that is around $5 million per month of marketing will be used to keep the revenue at $10 million per month. For Doomsday, 50% of the gross billing, around $6 million-$7 million per month will be used for marketing to keep its revenue keeping at $12 million. All these preparation actually are for the greater promotion of Viking Rise and Doomsday in this December. We will continue to upgrade and test these games, adding new functions and new gameplays and new profit growth points.
We expect that in December, we will increase Viking Rise and Doomsday: Last Survivors' advertising expenditure. For the first half of next year, it will also be more expenditure. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Next question is from online. It is about the CapEx of our second half of the year. For the CapEx, it will increase 30%-35% as compared with the first half. That is mainly due to the building of the headquarter building in Fuzhou. For the first half, we have already paid 50%-60% of the whole construction fee. For the second half, we will complete the construction, so we will pay the rest of the fee, and there will be some renovation. For such fees, we have already prepared. Actually, we made the budget plan the year before.
At that time, we were still at a loss, we are quite conservative when we plan the budget, we will not waste even one dime. Please rest assured. All the budget has been reserved, it will not impact our cash flow sufficiency. When we made the budget plan, we also take into consideration of the loss-making status at that time, we didn't expect that we already turned from loss to profit. All in all, there will not be more expenditure on this aspect. Thank you. Next question, please. Next question is: Whether you consider mini-games? For the mini-games, now we don't have any plan yet. We have seen that these mini-games have a very powerful micro-social function and monetization function, or some innovation points. For our new games design, we also take a lot of reference from these mini-games.
From now to December, you will see in Viking Rise and Doomsday: Last Survivors, we will take a lot of references from a mini-game. For example, its micro-social function. We hope that these new functions will help our gross billing to grow. Thank you. Next question from online. What is your expectation of the staffing scale for the second half and next year? Actually, we expected to maintain at the same level as first half. Next year, we don't have any expansion plan because now with AI assistance, we fill a lot of positions already, we have already completed our staffing adjustments. In the past two years, we have completed all the staffing optimization. Now the staffing structure are quite stable. For the second half of the year and the next year, it will be maintained at a similar level. Thank you.
Thank you, management, for the answer. Next question is from online. Can you share your old game, Lords Mobile, its billing, gross billing, and prospect? For Lords Mobile, you know that last year, every month, it has a gross billing of around $30 million. Many people say that it is an old game of over eight years. Maybe the billing will drop. Actually, it dropped a little bit. It dropped to $28 million. This year, from January to July, through our efforts and in terms of operation and marketing, we keep the gross billing at $28 million. As the head of operation, I think this game still have a great potential. It should not drop.
We are very fortunate that this August, through our adjustments to the gameplay and also adding of some new function, like a battlefield, we inject new vitality into this game, and its gross billing continues to resume. It is standing at $30 million again. So far, for the second half of the year, it will be maintained at $30 million or even more. We feel that it's really happy and also quite surprised because it is an 8-year-old game already. It is like a spring comes to a dead tree, very difficult indeed. But we are very happy that we did it under the concerted efforts of the R&D team and the operation team. It is really hard to gain results. We hope that we can maintain the gross billing at $30 million. Thank you. Thank you for your detailed answers.
Please continue to raise your questions. The operator, please. If you are raising questions from telephone, please press star and then number one. Okay, thank you. Now we turn to the online questions. We have noticed that this year you released a new SLG game, that is Rebirth of Glory. You have good scores from the players. What are the results? When it will be released formally? For this game, actually, I mentioned just now, it inherits from Doomsday. Maybe you can download from online already. You can see that in terms of the graphic design and the gameplay, it's very sophisticated. The grading from the players are quite good. In terms of grading and retention, all the data are very noticeable. It has already surpassed the results of Doomsday and even Viking Rise.
The retention of Viking Rise is the best among all the SLG games. The Rebirth of Glory's retention results is even better than that of Viking Rise. We're very optimistic about it. We expect November, we will release it. Thank you. Let's turn to next question. It is about the APP example. Can you share some example of APP? For APP products, I can only put it in general, because it is business confidential. Our APP business is now content-oriented, so that the users can click into this APP to use it on a daily basis. Before, we did some antivirus software, but later we gave it up. Why? Because maximumly, the user will use it once a day, which is not enough. To make more money, the company wants to create more business.
We don't want to fake some demonstration, we stopped all the utility applications APP, now all our APP is content-oriented, we registered bigger success because of that. Thank you. Next question is about the APP business model and the future developments. Will there be some competition pressure? Yes, of course, there will be pressure. Now our scale is relatively small, although it has reached 50 million, but if there is a very big competitor, actually, we can be caught up. Now, we are trying our best to enrich our product line, our input is really big. For this APP business, if we want to make profits, actually, we can make 20%-25% per month. Now, actually, the NP margin is only around 10%, and the rest of the money is invested into its growth.
That you can see this APP Business, it developed very rapidly. It developed from HKD 5 million per month at the beginning of the year. Now it is around HKD 15 million per month, and by the end of the year, it may be even higher, that it just can provide a bigger guarantee for the group. The investor mentioned, do you have any specific APP? We cannot disclose all those details to you, because we want to keep a preemptive advantage for us. Just stay tuned for the progress. Okay, thank you for the management. Please present your questions in black and white here in the Q&A window. Next question from online. This question is that, do you have any plan to enter into the Hong Kong Stock Connect scheme? Yes. Okay. We are trying.
We also hope that we can be included into the Connect scheme as early as possible. We believe that with the fundamentals improved, the market will see our value, and we will try to reach the threshold of entering into Connect scheme. What we can do so far is to increase our revenue and our profit. With a better profit, we will continue the buyback of shares and also the dividend dispatch, our shareholders will believe in us more and accept us more, our market value will be big enough to reach the threshold. That's our hope. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you for your detailed answers. Next question is from online. Our domestic game, the Black Myth: Wukong, has been a blockbuster.
For IGG, do you have any plan for the game based on Chinese cultural IP and the theme, Black Myth blockbuster, will it be an inspiration for you? Yes, we have seen that this new game, Black Myth: Wukong, has been a big success. Congratulations, because it made a history for the Chinese game, and it also showed that the high-quality game can break out against the market trend. Because of this super high quality, it also created a legend for the Chinese games, and it is bringing new attention and new opportunities for our game industry. IGG, since our founding, we also have this grand ambition. Our product is mainly mobile games. We don't have any plan for the single-player game. We also learned that the high-quality game can still break out against market trend.
Just now, we mentioned we have 3 new SLG games. They also benchmark against the highest level and standard of games. We have the success opportunities for breakout and for the premium cultural elements and IP can have a very large base of audience, even overseas. If we can design good plots and storylines, we can make success like Kung Fu Panda and also the Black Myth: Wukong also are good examples. IGG has the global vision, and we are looking for suitable IPs and timing. Through games, we can communicate the Chinese culture, the history to the global audience. We think that it is a mission for us. That's all I want to say. Thank you. Thank you, management, for your answers. Because of time, the conference is concluded now. Thank you all for your attention and also your participation. Thank you.
Thank you all.