Distinguished investors and old friends, good morning. Welcome everyone to attend the Lianlian DigiTech Co., Ltd. 2025 Business Result Announcement. I am Xu Yed an, the Board Secretary, and also the host of today's meeting. Thank you for taking your time to join us for this announcement. Today, we have three parts. First of all, the company's CEO, Mr. Xin Jie, will review the company's business performance in the first half of the year. Then, CFO, Ms. Wei Ping, will provide a detailed analysis of our financial data. Finally, there will be a Q&A section. Now, give the floor to Mr. Xin.
Thank you very much, Xu Yed an. Respected investors and old friends, hello everyone. I am CEO of the company, Xin Jie. Thank you all for attending Lianlian DigiTech 2025 Business Result Announcement. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to talk to you.
In the first half of 2025, leveraging our steadfast global strategic layout, we deliver a satisfactory performance. With all the business growth engines accelerating comprehensively, the company's Total Payment Volume, TPV, for digital payments exceeded RMB 2 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 32%. Notably, the global payment TPV achieved a leap of 94% of the growth. The company's total revenue for the first half reached RMB 780 million, a year-on-year increase of 26.8%, setting a new historical record. The strong performance of the first half of the year clearly demonstrates the effective execution of the two major strategies. First of all, in terms of strategic layout, we continue to promote globalization. Amid a higher global trade environment, we remain first and firmly committed to supporting the globalization of Chinese products and production capability, achieving significant results.
Second, in terms of the core capability, we adhere to a compliance-first approach driven by technology innovation and product development. Sustained investment in these critical areas significantly enhanced our service capabilities and customer loyalty, laying a very solid foundation for the overall growth. Simultaneously, leveraging our compliance advantages, we actively promoted the internal-external linkage synergy mechanism. All three business segments—global payments, domestic payments, and value-added services—achieved high growth over 20%. This was primarily driven by the 65 globally recognized payment licenses and qualifications, a robust compliance and risk control framework, and over two decades of deep experience servicing global SMEs and trade customers. Additionally, on the 21st of August, the company announced that it had obtained a Type 3 license issued by the Hong Kong SFC, and further, it enriches our capability to serve customers' diverse needs in managing cross-border multi-currency trade and fund flows.
By business segment, in the first half of the year, the global payments maintained sustained a very rapid growth, with TPV reaching RMB 198.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 94%. Revenue reached RMB 470 million, a year-on-year increase of 27%. In terms of the payment infrastructure, we comprehensively upgraded the payment system and successfully built an all-encompassing, highly efficient, and broadly covered payment system. This service system ensures safety and ensures fund settlement while providing customer solutions tailored to the diverse needs of enterprises across different industries and scales. In terms of market expansion, while deepening our presence in the core markets such as Europe and the U.S., we accelerated our layout in emerging regions including South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, leveraging multiple local licenses.
We established offices and built local teams in various locations, promoting a deep integration of the local payment system with emerging business ecosystems. At the end of the period, the cumulative number of customers served by the global payment services exceeded 7.9 million. At the industrial innovation level, we deeply participated in the restructuring of the global trade value chain, established deep collaborative relationships with numerous emerging platforms, and through innovative payment solutions and ecological resource integration, we continuously expanded service boundaries, deeply empowering the entire chain of cross-border trade development. Benefiting from the synergy, domestic payment TPV in the first half of the year reached 1.9 trillion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 27.6%.
We continue to deepen the full chain layout of the industrial payments, and through innovative cooperation models with merchants on the new e-commerce platforms, enhanced the SaaS ecological collaborations, strengthened the strategic service capabilities for private domain e-commerce and upstream and downstream industries, helping customers achieve a full cycle digital transformation. Our innovative products are gradually maturing. Digital equity products continue to expand their ecosystem footprint around the areas of traffic service and cross-border communications. The corporate wallet service has achieved comprehensive upgrades in functionality, customer base, and corporate model, building an integrated collection payment financing closed loop and expanding to global scenarios such as OTA. By connecting domestic and cross-border dual circulation customer service chains, we support the global layout of Chinese enterprises and enable cross-border capital flows through innovative products like physical commercial cards and establish an integrated domestic and international capital circulation ecosystem.
In the first half of the year, domestic payment revenue reached RMB 210 million, a year-on-year increase of 24.6%. Value-added services revenue reached RMB 89.5 million, a year-on-year increase of 34.2%, with growth leading the overall performance and reserving new momentum for company sustainable growth. This above is the review of our core business. Next, I will be further sharing with you the progress related to LianTong Company within the year. As mentioned in the previous conference call, the company announced in late December 2024 the sale of a portion of its equity in LianTong Company for RMB 1.6 billion, while our partners, American Express, completed additional investment of RMB 3.1 billion in LianTong Company. I'm very pleased to report that this transaction has been fully completed. By the end of June, Lianlian stake in LianTong Company had been reduced to 17.63%.
This equity adjustment was made based on the considerations for the company's overall strategic development, aiming to provide sufficient capital support for the growth of our main business and to continue exploring and investing in applications of cutting-edge technologies such as AI and blockchain and digital payments. In the foreseeable future, the company will no longer need to provide funding for LianTong Company's development, but can still participate in LianTong 's profit and valuation growth, creating better returns for shareholders in the future. Also, CFO Ms. Wei will also provide detailed explanations on accounting recognition of the gains from equity disposal in the first half of the year. In exploration of continuous innovation, we particularly focus on blockchain and Web3 technologies, as these fields are key forces driving the next phase of digital transformation and efficient improvement in global trade.
Since several years ago, Lianlian Company has made significant related layouts in this area, including applying for and obtaining a series of infrastructure and scenario-building licenses such as exchanges in Hong Kong, as well as strategic development of core talent. Lianlian DigiTech always adheres to the philosophy of compliance first and licensing first, and this is especially true for its layout in Web3. We also hold a virtual asset trading platform license issued by the Hong Kong SFC and continue to build compliant infrastructure globally. These investments aim to provide the customers with safer, more reliable, and efficient innovative services in the future. We believe that these initiatives are expected to further enhance the efficiency of fund flow within the current global payment network, offering global users safer and more efficient solutions while reducing their global trade costs.
This will also continuously improve our core competence in the multi-currency fund processing and thereby build a company's long-term competitive barriers. In the future, we will fully leverage our global compliance advantages and enhance the synergetic effectiveness of global licenses, consolidating the strategic development pattern of internal-external linkage, building a more efficient cross-border fund circulation system, and improve the full chain digital infrastructure to promote seamless connectivity and continuous innovation in the global payment system. Finally, I would like to take the opportunity to thank our global customers, partners, and our colleagues for their trust and support, and also extend my gratitude to all investors for their continued attention to Lianlian development. Next, I will hand over the call to CFO, Ms. Wei, who will be providing a detailed interpretation of our company's financial performance in the first half of the year. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Xin, for the introduction. Hello everyone. This is CFO, Wei Ping, from Lianlian. In the first half of 2025. Lianlian have achieved high-quality growth, with all business segments demonstrating strong performance. Just now, our CEO provided detailed sharing of business and strategies, and I would like to supplement with specific financial details. Global payment revenue reached 470 million RMB, a year-on-year increase of 27%, gross profit 340 million RMB, gross profit margin 72.7%, up 0.1 percentage points year-on-year. During the period, the TPV of global payments nearly doubled, but costs increased by only 26.4%, consistent with revenue growth. The ability to maintain a high gross profit margin reflects a strong cost-control capability and economies of scale.
In terms of domestic payment revenue, it reached RMB 210 million, a year-on-year increase of 24.6%, gross profit RMB 42 million, with a gross profit margin of 19.9%, compared to 20.1% in the same period last year, remaining almost a very stable performance. This reflects the more robust development of our domestic payment business. The value-added service revenue is RMB 89.59 million, a year-on-year increase of 34.2%, making the fastest-growing business segment in terms of revenue. Gross profit is RMB 17.78 million, with a gross profit margin of 19.8%, down 7 percentage points year-on-year, but largely in line with the full-year figure of the previous year. This was primarily due to the rapid growth of the virtual card business, which had a relatively lower gross margin, although temporarily reduced the gross margin of the value-added service segment in the short term.
But we believe it holds the greatest strategic significance for enhancing customer loyalty. Furthermore, as transaction volume continues to rise, there is potential for full margin improvement. The future dynamic changes in business structure may lead to short-term fluctuation in gross margin, but we believe that this is going to be helping us to improve the customer loyalty, expand business scale, and lay the solid foundation for long-term growth. We will continue to strengthen cost control, optimize the cost structure, and ensure the company achieves a high-quality development and sustainable profitability. Additionally, as the company business scale expands and profitability improves, coupled with a very strong balance sheet, the company will increasingly consider a combination of organic growth and robust merge and acquisition, as well as strategic investments, to further expand our business and growth.
This approach aims to build a larger Lianlian ecosystem and create shareholder value more rapidly and effectively. In terms of the expenses, the company continues to enhance operational efficiency. Initial results of cost optimization have been achieved. In the first half of the year, against the backdrop of growth in both revenue and gross profit, the increase in the company's three major expense categories remains stable. Sales and marketing expenses are RMB 130 million, an increase of RMB 19.9 million compared to the same period last year, up 18.3%. Excluding the share-based compensation expenses, the growth rate was 18.2%. The main reasons for the increase in expenses were higher sales labor costs and increased investment in the business-related promotion activities. However, the growth rate of the sales expense was significantly lower than 26.8% revenue growth, reflecting our improved operational efficiency.
The general administrative expenses were RMB 300 million, an increase of RMB 9.61 million compared with the same period last year, up by 3.3%. Excluding share-based compensation expense and listing-related costs, the growth rate was 2.9%, lower than the revenue growth rate. While the business expanded, the increase in administrative expenses remained modest. The additional cost primarily reflected the company's strategic investments in Web3 sector, including funding to the subsidiary DFX. Research and development expenses were approximately RMB 190 million, a year-on-year increase of 26.8%. Excluding share-based compensation expenses, adjusted R&D expenses increased by 29.5% year-on-year. This was primarily due to the strategic integration and upgrade of the R&D system in the first half of the year, which incurred one-time costs related to workforce optimization, as well as the company's continuous investment in technologies like blockchain and AI. Here, I would like to say a few words more.
In the first half of the year, the company's three major expense categories already include investment in strategic global expansion and Web3-related innovative technologies and models. Through this very good refined management, the company effectively controlled various expenses while ensuring strategic investments. Excluding non-operational items, the portion of the three major expenses to revenue decreased by 6.5 percentage points year-on-year. This fully demonstrates our improvement in operational efficiency and also highlights the strong scalability and economies of scale of the company's business model. In addition to continuously improving the operational efficiency of our core business, we also have actively optimized our balance sheet and investment portfolio at the strategic level. In the first half of the year, we completed a strategic transaction involving a partial equity stake in LianTong Company.
Following the transaction, our shareholding in LianTong Company decreased from 45.2% to 17.63%, significantly reducing the pressure of loss from the associated company on our consolidated financial statements. In the first half of the year, LianTong Company contributed approximately RMB 1.6 billion in profit in Lianlian's income statement. This includes RMB 1.6 billion in gain from equity disposal, RMB 450 million of dilution gains resulting from a passive dilution of equity due to American Express capital injection. Lianlian's share of losses from the associated company amounted to RMB 51 million for the first half of the year, and income tax expenses relating to disposal gains were approximately RMB 410 million. Under the IFRS standard, the net profit the company recorded RMB 1.5 billion, which includes gains from the disposal of equity in LianTong Company.
After excluding all non-operating items, including gains from LianTong disposal, the operating profit performance remained outstanding, reaching 63 million RMB, a significant year-on-year increase of 85%. This demonstrates sustained growth in the profitability of our core business. Overall speaking, within the first half of the year, we systematically optimized our cost structure and leveraged economies of scale to successfully reduce the portion of major expenses. This has enabled the company to achieve sustainable profitability and ensure our ability to maintain a leading position in the competitive landscape. Finally, take a look at the company balance sheet and cash flow. As of June 30, 2025, the company's cash and cash equivalents stood at 1.56 billion RMB. Subsequently, in July, we raised an additional HKD 394 million through a placement of new shares, resulting in sufficient cash reserves.
The book balance of our customer funds reached a historical high of RMB 16 billion. In terms of operating cash flow, the company used RMB 21.14 million in cash for operating activities in the first half of the year. This was primarily improved versus the same period last year due to the distribution of our annual bonuses and changes in net operating asset, which cost them more cash than the cash profit generated in the first half of the year. Cash flow for investment activities showed a net inflow of RMB 1.5 billion, mainly attributable to cash proceeds such as partial disposal of equity in LianTong and paybacks. Also, cash flow from financial activity recorded a net outflow of RMB 450 million, primarily used for establishing employee option trusts and repaying borrowings.
As a conclusion of the earnings call, I would like to share with everyone that we have been having a very good development in the capital market. Since our HKEX listing last year, the management team consistently adhered to a digital and data-driven approach, striving for diverse and satisfied results. Earlier this month, MSCI officially announced that Lianlian DigiTech has been included for the first time in MSCI Global and China Small Cap indices. This inclusion is expected to attract more domestic and international investors, enhancing competence, influence, and visibility. In July of this year, we successfully completed a placement of 38.4 million RMB for the new H shares. This placement successfully attracted several top-tier international investments and injected new capital reserves to our company's sustainable development.
This placement is very helpful to accelerate innovation in the financial business and promote the advancements in new technologies such as blockchain and AI, and strengthen our strategic business layer. Finally, we have deepened our internationalization strategy. The company has recently gained recognition from several international financial media outlets. We were honored with the Best Cross-Border Payment Solution Award for 2025 by The Corporate Treasurer magazine, and successfully listed in CNBC's 2025 World's Top Fintech Companies list. This is also a very good acknowledgment from the authority of international institutions for us. It is a very good acknowledgment. Also, I would like to once again sincerely thank all investors and analysts for their long-standing support and trust. For the first half of 2025, the company delivered record results, featuring a better-than-expected growth in core business, continuous improvement in profitability, and the strategic optimization of financial structure.
Moving forward, Lianlian DigiTech will continue to uphold the philosophy of high-quality, sustainable growth, adhere to the principle of financial prudence, and remain committed to creating even greater returns for our shareholders. This concludes my remark, and now we're going to have Q&A.
Thank you, Mr. Xin and Ms. Wei. Now, we're going to have a Q&A. For those of you joining by phone, please follow the instruction and ask the question. If you join by web, you are able to submit your question on the interactive session. And again, just for your information, this is the English line for listening only. And press star and one. Thank you very much. Hello, everyone. If you'd like to ask a question, you can follow the instruction. The first question comes from Fan Yu.
Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity. This is Fan Yu from CICC. Very glad to have a very good observation of your good performance. I have two questions. The first one is that I would like to know something about the TPV and expense rate, because in the first half of the year, we've been seeing that the global payment TPV growth was 94 point something percent. So, 94%. I would like to understand the reasons behind the growth of this TPV in the global payment system and what are the major drivers. Second is that expense rate actually reduced, especially in the global payment system, about 24 basis points. We would like to understand whether there are any business structure-related reasons looking forward to the whole year. What about the TPV growth, and how do you see the overall trend?
This is actually the very first question. The second question I would like to know is that for the overall virtual asset trading platform TPV, what is the progress? And now, for the stablecoin in the U.S. and Hong Kong, we do see some of the policies. We would like to know something about your views on the stablecoin and whether you're going to be part of the whole game? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Fan Yu, for this question. Very grateful for you to participate in our conference. Let me actually now have the first question answered, and Mr. Xin is going to answer the second question. First question, correctly mentioned, for TPV and expense rate, TPV growth was very high, and the expense rate seems to be lowered, very obviously, in the cross-border payment system itself. Yes, due to the payment structure and the business structure.
We know that for the cross-border business, we have three major categories. The first one is B2C, which was a cross-border e-commerce-oriented money collection and payment and relevant services. In recent years, we have another two extensions. One is B2B, which is the traditional commodity trade, and another one is service trade, which is about the service industry, import and export. So, this year, in the B2C segment, we had a very rapid growth and development. And this particular development was way higher than that of the industrial average. We did not actually have a breakdown in terms of the contribution and the TPV by the three categories. So, it's not convenient for me to give you a detailed number, but actually, at the least, we have a similar growth rate in terms of TPV as the industrial average.
The good thing is that for B2B and service trade, they're having a much higher growth, which actually reached to the level above 100%. So, this is indeed very important. So, for B2B and the service trade, the overall customer base is going to be better and bigger than that of the B2C. The total single-unit transaction volume is going to be actually higher than that of the B2C. So, I believe that everyone knows a lot about the financial industry, and you know that it's like the banking industry. So, when you have a big volume of the money, the overall take rate and the delta of the take rate not necessarily is having a proportional relationship with that of the overall volume growth. So, when you have a bigger volume, there will be a much lower expense rate. The same thing for B2B and the service trade.
Because for B2B and service trade, we had a very significant growth, the take rate was 24 basis points, not 30 + basis points, as shown last year. The next question would be that what is about the whole year performance? What about the future? To be simple, when you have the three business segments that are reaching to a very smooth growth, I believe that the take rate is going to be stabilized. I think that to about 20 + some basis points would be quite normal. But within a short period of time, I believe that this is already the bottom already in the short period of time. We believe that the whole year kind of take rate is not going to be lower than that of the first half of the year. Also, I would like to remind you the gross profit margin of the cross-border trade.
So, when take rate is reducing, whether the gross margin is reducing, actually the first half of the year's performance already illustrates this point because there is no relationship. In terms of the cost structure, it has a certain matching with the structure of the revenue. So, for instance, for the channel cost, it will also reduce while we have an increase of the overall volume. So, the gross margin is going to be stable. I believe that in the future, it will not be 24 basis points anymore because this is all about the business structure, and it is all about the TPV, and this is my answer to the trend of TPV and expense rate. For the TPV, for cross-border business, I believe that the growth rate is going to be as high in the second half of the year as the first half of the year.
So, overall speaking, conservatively, it's going to be above 50%. Right, Mr. Xin, you can have the second question answered.
All right. So, for the virtual asset trading platform, we had a very smooth progress. At the current stage, among the other companies getting the license, we are one of the companies that had the best smooth operation. And at the current stage, we believe that within the year, we are going to actually gain the acknowledgment from SFC so that we're going to have a total operation maintained. So, I believe that in the United States, on the 17th of July, had three acts implemented: the GENIUS Act and the Anti-CBDC, and also three major acts. I believe that these three major acts are very important because of iPhone.
You know that last year, we had an explosion of the smartphone industry growth because of the launch of iPhone. And the first actually phone was, or the smartphone prototype already was there in the beginning of the 1990s. And also, I think that when the Senate is passing these acts, there will be acceleration further. So, I believe that this is going to be causing a growth explosion, a great explosion of the whole market in the U.S. Our opinion to the stablecoin is that we believe that this is going to be very much optimistic. Lianlian Company is going to actually choose to be participatory, but still, there is confidentiality related, so it's not convenient for me to talk to you about the detail of this stablecoin and Web3. But still, I believe that we are optimistic towards the future in terms of this particular area.
Thank you very much, Mr. Xin and Ms. Wei. We're going to have the next question. Question from DB, please.
I'm Johnny from Deutsche Bank. Congratulations on the management of achieving such a wonderful performance in the first half of the year. I have three minor questions. The first one is that in recent years, we saw that the company has the SFC-related Type 3 license. And when you gain that license, and after this, probably we are going to ask you that what kind of progress you're going to make on the foreign exchange. And in terms of the revenue and profitability, how contributive that Type 3 license is going to be. And the second question is that we know that the overall tax rate has been increased a lot, but that was also due to the increase of your revenue and profitability.
But still, we would like to know that you had a lot of tax credits previously, so why you were increasing that tax rate in the recent half a year, and what is going to be the overall trend? The third question I'm asking is that also it is related to the overall kind of growth. So, in the first half of the year, we had already proposed the equity and RMB 1.6 billion cash. It was still on the balance sheet, and we did not use that. So, for this RMB 1.6 billion yuan, what is your expectation on the spending, and where are you going to spend, and what is the cycle of the spending? Thank you very much.
Thank you for your participation. So, I'm going to be taking these three questions. The first one is the Type 3 license. Actually, at the current stage, it is having the same logic of the other licenses that we have. We are going to further explore the business boundary, and second, we are able to explore the boundary of the service type that we are able to provide to our customers. The Type 3 license is allowing our customer of using this, and we are going to actually have the business and trade and transaction related to the foreign exchange and the derivative related, so I have to talk to you about the cross-border trade in specifics because there are two parts of the major payment cost. The first is the processing fee, and the other is more hidden, which is bigger, which is foreign exchange.
Actually, in the global trade scenario, when they are selling goods, they have to face more than one currency used. For the foreign exchange, in the traditional sense, especially for the small and micro-sized enterprises, this is a big impact for them. The Type 3 license is able to expand on our current capability to provide service to small and micro-sized enterprises, and they're going to be gaining the same benefit and preferability of the foreign exchange as the institutional customers, helping them to reduce the cost further. Likewise, the parallel logic and approach is that for SFC, for the VATP license and VATP.
So, for VATP, as I was saying, this is a very good advantage for us because while you have a virtual exchange, we could actually have a foreign exchange in between and among different currencies using the kind of stable and crypto currency. So, this is actually the same. We are helping the small and micro-sized enterprises to actually reduce their cost and also improve their efficiency while doing the cross-border business. So, I believe that this is part of our continuous business and continuous operation, and this is not going to impact our guidance on the overall growth rate. It is going to be improving our capability, improving the competitive landscape, and creating more values for our customers.
The second one is about income tax. Yes, it seems to be very high. Actually, yes, because for the proposal-related income for the major kind of legal entity with an income tax rate of 25%. And this particular expense of the income tax was the biggest source of the income tax in the first half of the year. So, this seems to be adding to a higher income tax rate. But for the overall speaking, I think that based on the current positioning, as well as the major business body, I mean, based on the geographic distribution of this one, we estimated that the effective tax rate is going to be below 15%. This is the overall medium to long-term expectation. The third one is about the balance sheet.
Just now, we have already mentioned that this is going to be a pretty much organic growth all the way with the M&A contribution. So, this is a dual-wheel drive engine in terms of the expanding cycle and efficiency. To be honest with you, it is pretty much quality-oriented. So, in the first half of the year, we have been having explorations, and we've been looking at a lot of opportunities and not take one opportunity. So, in the future, we are going to further look into the opportunities for further expansion and M&A. With the leadership of the board, we have the designated team looking for opportunities. We hope that we are going to have a very good use of this type of resources to further expand our company.
But of course, in terms of the overall cycle and overall pace, we will use this particular money in a responsible way because this is the charged cash from our shareholders and the other customers. Right? This is my answer. Do you, Mr. Xin, have any supplementation?
All right. So, Johnny as already mentioned the virtual exchange and also the income tax and foreign exchange service. We'd like to know that by having this particular way, we're going to actually replace the traditional payment system and route. That is to say that in terms of the payment route cost and versus the overall time efficiency, there will be a great improvement. In this particular process, we are going to have two effectiveness. The first is that we are able to provide a better and higher efficient contribution to our customers and gaining more market share.
Second is that because of the control of the overall cost, for the foreseeable future, we're going to have a better risk control in terms of the expense rate because we are able to provide with our customers a quicker and more real-time transaction method. Rather than taking the risk of a fluctuation of a foreign exchange rate in the long-term route, I believe that this is going to be satisfying the customers more. So, overall speaking, hopefully that we want to replace the current method with the Web3 so that the customer value will be added and we are going to have a better revenue as well. Thank you very much. Hopefully that we have answered your question. Now, let's proceed to the next person.
Now, we're going to give the floor to Liheng Tian from Guotai Junan Securities.
Hello, everyone. I am Liheng Tian , the researcher and analyst. First of all, congratulations on the successful performance. I have one minor question. Just now, the leaders from CICC already mentioned the expense rate and revenue. I would like to know that at the current stage, as for the future three years, what do you think about the overall kind of revenue and what is the overall trend? As you have already mentioned that for the overall revenue, actually you had a much higher growth than the literal average. We would like to understand the overall reasons behind that. And in the short period of time, do you think that is going to be maintained and how that you have the plan to maintain a high growth rate?
All right. Thank you very much. First of all, the high growth and what are the reasons? Actually, just now, we already said that at the end of the day, it will be attributable to the better services provided to our customers. A very important thing is our compliance-related advantage and wide coverage of payment licenses. These two should be seamlessly integrated, which is going to be providing a better safety and better confidence to our customers and better customer experience.
On top of that, we are further enhancing our products and offerings and providing better service to customer groups. On the overall basis, this is going to give us a higher competitive barrier and competitive landscape and creating more customer loyalty and stickiness, so, definitely speaking, this is going to make Lianlian to have a better reputation in the industry and gaining better influence and also having a very good growth, so, this is an inevitable trend, so, we are here to do the right thing. This is very core to us. Another thing is about the innovation, and on top of this, actually, what you're discovering is that every year in terms of business, we have different breakthroughs. For instance, last year in terms of the TPV here in China, we had an explosive growth all of a sudden.
This year, in terms of the B2B and service trade in the global ecosystem, we had an explosive growth. Also, for some of the other kind of product lines and for some specific businesses, we had explosive growth already versus the robust growth of our overall business. We have them all. On top of that, you could see that in terms of the overall revenue and especially the growth of our revenue, we have maintained a very good performance actually continuously around 20%-30% or so, which is actually something quite quick, but not that unbelievably quick. We are very much comfortable with that particular speed of the growth. On top of that, of course, the expense rate is going to be impacted by the business and product structure. In China, for instance, we had a lower take rate.
It was because of some of the kind of products with a lower take rate that grew a lot. And this year, the international cross-border business, B2B and trade service trade, overall speaking, are growing. So, there might be a fluctuation of the take rate on this particular area. But in terms of the profit margin, gross profit margin, even if we had the change of our product structure, overall speaking, the gross margin of the company is very much robust. And I truly believe that this is going to be the future three years or this is going to be representing the future three years. Our company is not providing any official guidance towards the future. However, against that backdrop, I would like to tell you that we are pretty comfortable at the next three years' performance, which is a guarantee of 20%-25% revenue growth.
It's for the take rate. To be honest, we are going to see fluctuations and volatility. In terms of the gross margin, we have confidence to maintain that figure above 50%. As for the three major expense categories of operation, excluding the major investments and strategic and related investments, for the remaining of the three categories of expense, we'll experience economy of scale for sure. In terms of the changes of profitability in the next three years, for the influential factors, we have to consider from a strategic level would be the kind of service. The revenue and the growth rate of take rate or the change of the take rate did not incorporate the continuous strategic investments on Web3 and stablecoin. From an expense rate standpoint, if we want to quicken up the layout, we are going to have more investments.
So, there will be a trade-off made. And when we have that particular plan, we will talk to the market timely. All right. This is pretty much for my introduction and analysis. Whether Mr. Xin. you have anything to supplement?
Actually, no, it's fine.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. I have a follow-up question. Sorry. With regards to the Lian Tong Company, in the first half of the year, you had a big move, which actually reduced your holding of Lian Tong Company in the first half of the year. Actually, this was impacting a little bit on the business. So, I want to know that for the Lian Tong Company, what is your positioning to this company? And how do you think about the synergetic factor overall business and whether you have further layout and strategic layout for Lian Tong?
All right. Thank you. Mr. Xin, please.
Right. So, our CFO will answer.
So, we are having the equity of 17.6% of Lian Tong Company. So, Lian Tong Company is a very important strategic investment of Lianlian DigiTech. We are going to have stratgic cooperations with Lian Tong Company. So, I think that the core advantage of Lian Tong is the up-level and also corporate customers, and they have a global network resource. So, for our business, like payment, cross-border payment and corporate wallet and some of the other equity-related products providing to the other corporations. For instance, for China Mobile, for instance, they have the private domain traffic to operate on their customers. We are having a very valuable service providing to these corporations. So, that is to say that we are going to create a synergetic effect with Lian Tong Company further in the future.
On the other hand, I believe that for Lian Tong Company, I think that this is the company that needs long-term care to make it bigger and better. So, we will be inevitably keeping our investment to the Lian Tong Company. Against the shareholding of 17.6%, we are not going to have a very large investment to Lian Tong anymore. The existing proceeds of Lian Tong Company is able to make it profitable on its own. So, I think that, of course, we're not going to have a true investment to Lian Tong Company. Second, it is very important as a strategic investment subject of Lianlian DigiTech. Let me actually comment on the development of Lian Tong Company. They had a very good growth already.
According to the original strategic layout and according to the priority arrangements that we used to have, we are very affirmative on the investment strategies that we were taking. And the effectiveness is pretty good. Right. This is Mr. Xin speaking. Except for having a direct business connection with Lian Tong Company, and this was very clear, we actually pay attention to keep a very good collaboration with American Express. Because in the future, we believe that it is going to be actually the transitional period from Web2 to Web3, the global financial system. And definitely speaking, we are going to see a lot of possibilities of collaborations with American Express. For the American Express, they've been paying a lot of attention to this, and they are very much advanced and very much advocative on the fintech.
So, on one hand, the relationship with Lian Tong, another one is with American Express. We are going to keep our cooperation with him and definitely speaking, helping us to further enrich our layout in the future. Thank you.
Right. Thank you very much.
Now, let's have the next question, please. From Guangdong Development Securities, Yihua, please.
Hello, good morning, everyone.
We can hear you.
Congratulations on the very successful growth of the company. I have two questions. The first one is that we could see that the company is exploring the boundary of Web3 layout and your strategic investment. So, we would like to know that in recent years, whether you have any kind of plan and you have SFC licenses and whether or not that is in cooperation with Web3. Another one is about the whole industry. On the 1st of August, we've been seeing some of the acts and policies of Hong Kong relating to Web3, but if you're taking a look at those policies and the VATP and SFC licenses are able to be redeemed by the institutions of having this particular license, so how do you think about the competitive advantage of having this license in the first place?
Okay, so for the overall investment to Web3, everybody already sees that it is very much active. So, our thinking is that against the promotion of the United States when we have the three acts fully implemented, it is irreversible already. Against that major trend for all the global payment license, and now we have 65 licenses.
In the future, we're going to further explore the boundary of our license positioning so that in those covered areas, we are going to provide a very good planning capability for our customers and be where they are, so after a while, the whole network will be transitioned from Web2 to Web3, and in terms of the overall kind of upstream and downstream chain, all kinds of different licenses are going to be playing their vital role, and I believe that be in which country we have from Web2 to Web3 transition, this is something that the regulators are going to be focusing on, so at the current stage, our positioning and our strategy will play a very vital role when there is a transition from Web2 to Web3 and gaining a lot of values.
With regards to your second question, which is that for Hong Kong market, our estimation is that for the stablecoin as a whole, in terms of the global trade and the other transactions, it is going to be giving us a very good activity, and at the current stage, when there is a regulatory emergence or merge of the currency or the stablecoin transaction, definitely speaking, this is related to some of the arrangement of the money goes in and out, and as for the anonymous universe of the kind of area, and at the same time, we have a very clear requirement of anti-money laundering, anti-terrorism, and when there is a need to integrate these requirements, the exchange, institution of exchange, is playing a very vital role, so, our understanding is that the exchange is going to be the core part of the transition from Web2 to Web3.
And whether it is about the capital or the other categories, the stablecoin is going to be the major vehicle for transaction in the future. Hopefully, that I've answered your question.
All right. Thank you.
Now, let's give the floor to the next question. Vicky, please. From Citi.
Congratulations. Honest, out of expected performance. So, I would like to have some follow-up on the previous questions. The first one is about the cash spending plan, so whether there will be a better thinking about the shareholder return. And second is that as for the investment to new business, as you have described just now, the expectation on the expenses in the short period of time. But I think that as for the management, R&D, and administrative expenses, how do you think about the overall trend in the second half of the year?
Right. So, what is about the strategic thinking? You could actually answer the strategy part of the question, and I will talk about expense.
Right. So, as the management, how that we are going to maximize the shareholder return when there is actually a big change of the outside market, we have to be moving faster than the other competitors. And at the same time, we have to make sure that we have the kind of layout and the strategic positioning in those areas earlier than the other competitors in the lower cost way. So, when there is exploration happening, we were already part of the whole game. So, while there is an explosion of the whole market, we will definitely make full use of our resources and further benefit our investors and shareholders.
From this standpoint, I truly believe that the positioning of the strategy, position of the timing, and the resource allocation are the best ways to enrich the shareholder return and benefit. Of course, if there's not such a trend and we have a situation that we have a very stable cash flow and a very stable profit margin growth, we have other ways to reflect on the shareholder benefit and interest. Against the backdrop, although there is such a systematic change of the whole system in the whole world, I believe that what we are doing is really meaningful and definitely be very significant to enrich our benefit provided to our shareholders. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Vicky. Now, with regards to the three categories of expenses, what about the overall situation in the second half of the year?
Probably you've been sensing something from a previous financial report, excluding the compensation-based expenses. We have three categories of expenses in the second half of the year, which should be RMB 50 million-RMB 60 million higher than the first half of the year. But this year, it's going to be a similar trend. So, this is something that we are observing as the situation on the second half of the year. Another one is that for revenue and gross margin, we have also seasonality reasons, right? So, still, second half is going to be higher than that of the first half of the year. All right. Thank you.
All right. So, this is the end of today's announcement, and thank you very much for your participation. Now, you're able to be disconnected. Thank you.