Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Weibo Corporation's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you need to press star one one on your telephone. You'll then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to the first speaker today, Ms. Sandra Zhang from Weibo Corporation. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operators. Welcome to Weibo's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 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 broadcasted on the internet and is available through Weibo's IR website. Before the management remarks, I would like to review the safe harbor statement in connection with today's conference call. During today's conference call, we may make forward-looking statements, statements that are not historical facts, including statements of our beliefs and expectations. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. Weibo assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statement in this conference call and 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'll open the lines for a brief Q&A session. With this, I would like to turn the call over to our CEO, Gaofei Wang.
谢谢。大家好，欢迎大家参加微博财报电话会议。
Thank you. Hello everyone, welcome to Weibo's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings conference call.
本次财报会，我会向大家重点介绍微博产品运营以及商业化方面的进展，同时对2023年的策略和发展进行简要回顾，并向各位介绍一下我们2024年公司的整体策略。
On today's call, I will share with you highlights on Weibo's product and monetization, review the progress made in 2023, and elaborate our strategies for 2024.
先介绍微博在四季度的财务表现。23年四季度，得益于我们在高价值用户获取和回馈上的努力，以及我们针对于垂直领域生态的逐步恢复、内容生态运营和热点营销服务的加强，在四季度广告整体疲软的情况下，四季度微博总营收达到了10.637亿美金，年年增长3%，季对季增长5%。其中广告营收达到10.037亿美金，年年增长3%，季对季增长4%。剔除汇率因素，四季度总营收年年增长5%，广告营收年年增长5%。四季度公司调整后营业利润达到1.459亿美金，调整后营业利润率为31%。
Starting from our financial performance in the fourth quarter, in the fourth quarter of 2023, our efforts to improve user acquisition and engagement of high-value users continue to pay off. In addition, we beef up our initiatives to further recover the virtual content ecosystem, strengthen content operations, and enhance our ability to serve hot trend marketing. As a result, despite the overall sluggish end market, our total revenue in the fourth quarter reached $463.7 million, an increase of 3% year-over-year and 5% quarter-over-quarter. Our total ad revenues reached $403.7 million, an increase of 3% year-over-year and 4% quarter-over-quarter. On a constant currency basis, both our total revenues and ad revenues in the fourth quarter would have increased 5% year-over-year.
Our non-GAAP operating income in the fourth quarter reached $145.9 million, representing a non-GAAP operating margin of 31%.
从全年微博财务表现来看，由于宏观经济和行业环境的不确定性，广告市场需求的恢复比较波动，这也导致我们部分核心行业的客户年度营销预算比年初预期疲软，影响了广告业务的整体增速。2023年微博总营收达到17.6亿美金，年年下降4%，其中广告营收达到15.3亿美金，年年下降4%。剔除汇率因素，总营收年年增长1%，广告营收年年增长1%。面对外部环境的变化与挑战，我们今年更关注产品核心竞争力和运营效率的提升。这些举措使得公司23年调整后营业利润达5.9亿美金，调整后全年营业利润率达34%。
Turning to our full year financial performance. In 2023, due to uncertainties of the macro and industry environment, the recovery of ad demand was a bit volatile. It resulted in lower-than-expected annual marketing budgets for some clients in key industries compared with our expectation at the beginning of the year, which weighed on the growth of our ad business. For full year 2023, our total revenues reached $1.76 billion, a decrease of 4% year-over-year. Our total ad revenues reached $1.53 billion, a decrease of 4% year-over-year. On a constant currency basis, both of our total revenues and ad revenues would have increased 1% year-over-year. This year, we focus on improving our product's core competitiveness and enhancing operating efficiency to navigate through challenges from the external environment.
For full year 2023, our non-GAAP operating income reached $592.1 million, representing a non-GAAP operating margin of 34%.
用户方面，截至四季度末，我们的月活跃用户达到5.98亿，年年净增月活跃用户约1,100万。日活跃用户达到2.57亿，年年净增日活跃用户约500万。
On the user front, Weibo's MAU reached 598 million, and average daily use reached 257 million in the fourth quarter, adding approximately 11 million and 5 million users year-over-year, respectively.
接下来，我向大家介绍一下四季度在产品运营和商业化方面的进展，以及24年我们的重点工作思路。
Next, let me elaborate our progress made on product operation and monetization in the fourth quarter and our key strategies for 2024.
回顾2023年，我们上半年面临后疫情时代用户流量的恢复。下半年，公司在保持热点文娱、赛事IP生态核心竞争力的基础上，重点转向对垂直领域流量的扶持，加强垂直领域生态内容发展，提升微博整体生态的竞争力和健康度。
Looking back on our strategies in 2023, in the first half of the year, we started to recover user traffic in the post-pandemic era. In the second half of the year, while maintaining our core competitiveness in hot trends in entertainment and sports, we strengthened the development of vertical content ecosystems through traffic support for vertical content, which enhanced the competitiveness and health of Weibo's overall ecosystem.
在渠道获客方面，我们在四季度保持了厂商的合作，针对高价值用户持续增加渠道投入，并通过加强算法、商业模型的匹配精准性，在提升平台用户回馈的同时，也为公司商业化提供了用户基础。
On the channel front, in the fourth quarter, we maintained cooperation with manufacturers to increase channel investment for acquisition of high-value users. Through more accurate algorithm and targeting capability, our user engagement has been improved, which laid foundation for monetization.
在社交活跃方面，我们四季度继续基于公司发展垂直化的战略。一方面持续优化关系流产品的内容结构，加强重点垂直领域的分发，促进垂直内容生态的恢复建设；另一方面继续加强博主与粉丝间的社交互动形式，提升垂直领域博主与粉丝的互动效率。以上两方面的重点工作不仅让垂直博主在持续获得流量和互动的增长，垂直博主生态更加活跃。与此同时，关系流23年的日均互动人数和互动次数也年年持续提升。另外，社区产品今年也上线了更多的发帖和互动玩法，增加用户在社区的社交活跃度。特别是随着文娱作品环境的改善，我们重点加强社区产品作为用户深度讨论和二创作品内容的社交场景。23年文娱社区用户的活跃度较去年取得明显提升，这也促进了社区用户日活跃用户规模年年的增长。社区日发帖人数和互动规模更是提升超过20%。
On social attributes, in the fourth quarter, we continue to execute strategies to focus on development of content verticals. On the one hand, we continue to optimize content structure for relationship-based feeds to reinforce the distribution of content from key verticals and recover the overall content ecosystem. On the other hand, we continue to enrich the ways vertical KOLs interact with their fans and improve their interaction efficiency. As a result, KOLs from vertical areas continue to gain more traffic and user interactions and became more willing to generate content. In 2023, the number of daily interactive users and the number of interactions in the relationship-based feed continued to grow year-over-year. For Super Topic, we launched new functions for users to post and interact, boosting user engagement in the community.
In particular, for the entertainment vertical, we further enhanced the Super Topic social attributes and interaction for users' in-depth discussion and content recreation in the entertainment sector, leveraging improvement of the overall sector. As a result, user engagement in the entertainment vertical increased significantly in 2023 versus 2022. The number of daily use of Super Topic increased year-over-year, and the number of users who post per day and interaction of the Super Topic increased over 20% year-over-year.
在内容生态方面，四季度我们在保持热点文娱等优势IP生态领域竞争力的基础之上，重点向支撑行业市场的垂直倾斜平台流量。例如，我们在数码、汽车、游戏、时尚美妆、医疗健康领域加大投入，提升行业合作伙伴对平台价值的感知，进一步恢复和提升平台生态的竞争力。
On the content front, in the fourth quarter, on top of retaining the competitiveness of hot topics, entertainment, and other advantages key IP-related verticals, we leaned our traffic toward verticals to support the industry market. For example, we increased investment in digital, automobile, online game, fashion and beauty, and healthcare verticals to enhance industry partners' perception of the platform value and further enhance the competitiveness of our content ecosystem.
IP生态方面，四季度文娱领域通过持续提升投入明星的活跃和互动，加强作品讨论，巩固新粉生态和作品生态竞争力。23年文娱领域的流量和互动规模较去年得到提升，特别是投入明星在微博的发布和互动以及新粉互动的规模较去年提升30%以上。随着今年作品环境的转好，作品在微博的宣发流量及讨论量较去年大幅提升，讨论量年增长超过50%。聚集流量和讨论创历史新高。热点领域方面，我们在四季度加强全国媒体对垂直热点的组织讨论，推动媒体从新闻社会热点向垂直热点的覆盖，提升媒体在垂直行业热点的参与性，稳定用户对于社会热点的消费和讨论需求。
On IP-related content ecosystem, in the fourth quarter, for entertainment vertical, we continue to boost the engagement and interaction of top celebrities and increase the discussion around their works to strengthen our competitiveness in the fans and entertainment work-related content ecosystem. In 2023, the traffic and interactions in the entertainment vertical increased year-over-year. In particular, top celebrities' engagement and posts increased over 30% year-over-year. With a better environment for entertainment work production and release, the traffic around the promotion of entertainment work and discussion around these works have increased significantly year-over-year, with total discussion increasing by more than 50% year-over-year. The traffic and discussion around TV series on Weibo reached a record high.
In terms of hot trends, we encourage national media to organize discussion of hot trends in the vertical area, facilitating media's hot trend coverage from social news to vertical hot trends to increase the media engagement in the vertical hot trends and stabilize user demand for consumption and discussion of the social hot topics.
行业垂直方面，我们在四季度继续加大选战的资源投入。一是加强平台流量对优质垂直内容的分发，提升垂直领域占比，促进垂直领域优质头部博主的成长；二是加强热点流量针对垂直热点内容，形成平台热点效应的产品机制，加强行业热点的感知；三是我们加强行业话题跟活动运营，发挥微博跨领域的优势，引导媒体跨领域的账号发布和参与垂直领域内容的生产。这些举措让商业垂直领域的流量和互动规模较三季度持续提升。例如，10月以来，用户对流感、自然体等重度呼吸道疾病的关注度迅速上升。在引导媒体积极参与报道和科普、跨领域博主分享的加持下，相关热点的微博消费量超过20亿，也吸引了大规模的医生的入驻和活跃，快速提升了微博在医疗行业的影响力，建立起用户在微博发现、消费、讨论健康热点的心智。
On industry-related content verticals, we continue to invest more resources across the platform in the fourth quarter. First, we strengthened the traffic distribution of high-quality vertical content, increased the proportion of vertical content on the platform, and promoted the development of top KOLs in each content vertical. Second, we adjusted the product mechanism to enhance traffic support to vertical hot content that creates hot trend effect, improving the perception of the industry-related hot trends. Third, we improved the operation of industry-related vertical topics and events, leveraging Weibo's advantages in cross-vertical operation to guide media and top cross-vertical KOLs to post and engage with the vertical contents. All these measures contributed to the continuous growth of the traffic and interaction in the industry-related verticals compared with the third quarter. For example, since October, we have seen a surge in user interest in various respiratory diseases such as influenza and mycoplasma.
We encourage the media accounts to actively post content of popular science and also promote related content sharing from vertical KOLs from across verticals. As a result, the total consumption of the related hot topics has exceeded 2 billion, attracting a large number of doctors to join and engage on Weibo. It has quickly increased Weibo's influence in the medical industry and established user habits of discovering, consuming, and discussing hot topics in the healthcare vertical on Weibo.
下面我谈一下商业化的进展。四季度在电商节点、年末促销节点以及游戏版2立好的影响下，通过充分发挥微博热点营销趋势，四季度微博广告收入同比提升3%，环比提升4%。
Moving on to monetization front. In the fourth quarter, thanks to the e-commerce shopping festival, the year-end promotion, and tailwinds from game license approval, Weibo's ad revenues grew 3% year-over-year and 4% quarter-over-quarter, leveraging Weibo's strengths in hot trend marketing.
从行业来看，汽车和手机行业在四季度依旧保持了收入的同比增长。这主要还是得益于微博内容营销在新品营销中的差异化优势，以及平台在数码新技术和新能源车型讨论方面的行业优势。同时，四季度游戏、医疗健康行业收入取得年同比双位数的明显增长。健康行业是疫情开放后用户兴趣快速上升的行业，也是我们垂直流量加大投入的重点领域。无论是行业影响力还是商业化，均处于稳步增长的通道中。游戏行业随着版号发行利好环境、客户与微博基于内容生态营销速度的增强，我们把握住了四季度重点客户新游的宣发机会，带动流域收入保持了同比增长。例如，四季度发布了腾讯圆梦之星和网易蛋仔派对，在微博投放了较大规模的新游预算，并且是聚焦以热点内容营销为核心的营销预算。我们通过独有的内容营销和新游引爆的服务能力，取得了超过客户期望的品牌声量。四季度也是电商营销节点，电商行业同比均有提升。
By industry, revenues from the automobile and the handset sector sustained solid year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter. The growth was mainly attributable to Weibo's differentiated advantage of content marketing in new product launch, as well as favorable discussion vibe in the areas of digital technologies and new energy vehicles. In addition, the online games and healthcare industries booked a double-digit growth year-over-year in the fourth quarter. As for the healthcare sector, we are pleased to see a steady growth trajectory of both our industry influence and monetization, with a surge of user interest in the healthcare industry post-reopening. Our increased investment in the vertical content ecosystem of healthcare also gradually bore fruit.
In terms of the online game industry, with tailwinds from game license approval and better recognition of our content marketing solution among customers, we captured the opportunity to promote the new blockbuster titles for key clients in the fourth quarter, delivering sustained year-over-year revenue growth. For example, in the fourth quarter, Tencent's DreamStar and NetEase Eggy Party spent heavily on Weibo for a new game campaign. With budget allocated mostly to hot trend and content marketing, we have delivered a strong branding effect, beating clients' expectations, entertained by our unique content marketing and service capability of building market hype for the new games. Ad revenues from the e-commerce sector also booked year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter growth in the fourth quarter, thanks to the mega e-commerce shopping festivals.
但美妆护肤行业即使四季度平台给予了较大的流量扶持，加速了博主的生产活跃，但由于头部客户在双十一仍处于清理库存的状态，效果预算持续向效果平台转移。我们四季度收入的恢复依旧不及预期。美妆护肤行业成为23年主要拖累整体收入增长的领域。究其原因主要有两点：一是受20和21年疫情的影响，美妆护肤产品的销售在转移至线上的过程中，微博持续获益，推高了该行业在收入大盘中的占比，基数较高；二是22年以来客户销售向直播带货转移，导致社交媒体以及传统电商平台的份额下降。此外，微博在美妆生态领域的竞争力仍需增强。随着我们对美妆内容生态的持续恢复投入，以及广告组销售渠道趋于稳定，我们希望在今明两年可以恢复增长。
On the flip side, for the beauty and personal care industry, even with strong traffic support to entice content generation, top clients were still clearing out inventory during the Double Eleven Shopping Festival, resulting in continued budget shifts toward performance-based platforms. Therefore, the recovery pace of the beauty and personal care industry still fell short of our expectations, which has become the major drag for the overall ad growth in 2023. For one thing, driven by ad budget shifts from offline to online during the pandemic, revenue contributions from the beauty and personal care industry increased significantly in 2020 and 2021, which created a high base at that time. This effectively created, for another, since 2022, customers have been shifting their sales channels toward e-commerce live streaming platforms, leading to a decline in ad volume share of social media and traditional e-commerce platforms.
Additionally, we also need to further beef up our investment to strengthen Weibo's competitiveness in the content vertical of beauty and personal care. We hope to redeem positive ad growth in this sector this and/or next year, with further recovery of the content ecosystem and normalization in customers' sales channel adjustments.
回顾23年，我们面临着后疫情时代用户兴趣快速转移的挑战，用户对热点新闻的需求下降，对垂直领域内容消费的需求快速增长。我们也面临着整体消费市场恢复节奏不及预期，客户一定程度在削减品牌预算的挑战。在用户内容消费需求转移和客户品牌需求承压的情况下，公司在2023年以平台经营效率为核心，强化平台热点社交的竞争力，提升平台活跃用户的流量规模，提升流量的商业价值。在此基础之上，扶植垂直领域，重新恢复微博的内容生态和竞争力。
Looking back on 2023, we faced challenges from rapid shifts in user interest in the post-pandemic era. Namely, we saw a decline in content consumption demand for news and hot trends, while a surge in consumption demand for vertical content. In the meantime, the recovery pace of the overall consumer market also fell short of expectations, leading to a cut in brand ad budget for certain customers. In light of the headwinds from content consumption and advertising demand side, we focused on improving the platform's operating efficiency in 2023. We strengthened our competitiveness in hot trends and social products, further growing our user community and traffic, as well as enhanced the monetization value of the platform traffic. These efforts laid a solid foundation for us to promote vertical traffic and thus revitalize Weibo's content ecosystem and competitiveness.
总体来看，虽然受个别行业营收不及预期对总营收产生了负面影响，但得益于公司降本增效的有力执行，我们保持了较高的运营利润，并较去年有所提升。公司经营效率的提升、稳定的盈利能力和健康的现金流提升了我们的财务灵活度，也使得我们在24年可以进一步投入到垂直领域内容生态竞争力的建设之中，从而提升我们的用户规模和活跃，增强我们的商业竞争力。我们看到，目前垂直内容生态的竞争加剧富有挑战。我们在聚焦优势领域发展的同时，会逐步扩大对垂直内容生态竞争力的恢复。我们预计需要两到三年，可以实现垂直领域流量在平台整体流量中占据更高的份额，进一步巩固和加强微博的市场影响力和内容生态健康度，为提升商业化效率和商业化的规模打下良好的基础。
Overall speaking, although revenues from certain industries fell short of expectations and dragged the total revenue growth, we delivered decent operating profit, which further increased from last year, thanks to solid execution of our efficiency initiatives. Leveraging improved operating efficiency, stable profitability, and healthy cash flow, we further elevated our financial flexibility, giving us ample room to invest in the vertical content ecosystem and drive user growth and engagement. In view of the challenging competition landscape of vertical content, we will take gradual steps to restoring our competitiveness of the vertical content ecosystem, while focusing on solidifying our advantages areas. It may take two to three years to drive up the traffic share of vertical content on the platform. In this way, we could further reinforce Weibo's market influence, achieve healthy development of the content ecosystem, and thus lay a solid foundation to enhance our monetization efficiency.
二零二四年，微博以提升用户规模以及活跃，强化平台的内容竞争力，增强平台的经营效率为主要目标。在目前的市场环境下，保持收入稳健增长的同时要提升整个经营效率，加强热点和IP竞争力的同时，恢复垂直生态的竞争力。做好内容营销和效果商业产品竞争力提升，为宏观经济转好、品牌需求的提升、收入恢复增长打好我们的用户生态和商业基础。
In 2024, we will focus on growing our user community and engagement, strengthening the competitiveness of our content ecosystem, as well as further enhancing our operating efficiency. In light of the current market conditions, we strive to maintain steady revenue growth and improve the overall efficiency in the meantime. On the operation front, we will beef up our efforts to reinforce the competitive edge of hot trends and IPs, and revitalize our vertical content vertical ecosystem at the same time. On the monetization front, we aim to optimize our content marketing and performance-based ad products. We believe the execution of these strategies will lay a solid foundation for our top-line recovery from the user, content, and monetization side, enabling us to capture market opportunities once the macroeconomy gets better and brand ad demand improves.
从提升平台用户规模及活跃方面，24年重点工作会从以下三方面进行：第一，我们将继续保持和渠道战略伙伴的合作，以继续提升高价的用户获取和批评作为渠道工作的重点；第二，我们将重点优化社交产品结构，进一步加强信息流网络的推荐效率，促进用户互动，带动社交网络用户的规模和活跃的提升；第三，我们将重点改善热点产品的氛围和用户体验，巩固热搜用户的心智与影响力，并尝试购购入更多基于平台热点讨论的热点产品，让用户能发现更多平台上公众讨论的热点和趋势，提升热点产品的用户活跃和规模。
On the user and engagement front, in 2024, our product operation will focus on three aspects. First, we will continue to operate closely with strategic sales partners, with focus on improving high-value user acquisition and usage frequency. Second, we emphasize on optimizing the structure of social products and further enhancing the recommendation efficiency of information feeds, in the hope of driving user scale, social interactions, and engagement. Third, we will refine the product vibe and user experience of hot trend products in order to reinforce the mindset and market influence of hot search users. Meanwhile, we will also try to create more hot trend-based products, enabling users to discover more hot topics and trends under public discussion, and thus grow the user scale and engagement of hot trend products.
从强化平台内容生态方面，24年重点工作从以下三方面进行：第一，我们将继续加强平台文娱生态和赛事生态保持领先的优势，特别是文娱生态竞争力方面，强化兴奋生态提升用户互动规模，重点加强与电影、剧中宣发平台的战略合作，巩固作品生态竞争力的同时，推动平台流量和用户活跃的进一步提升。以24年春节档电影档为例，基于我们与电影IP方在电影剧情互动、电影衍生垂直议题上的热点运营合作，带动了微博春节电影档的讨论量同比提升了50%。这也让我们今年希望在电影宣发上能成为电影IP方首选宣发平台，更有信心。今年也是奥运之年，我们这几年在体育赛事生态的深耕，今年有机会在赛事流量和用户讨论上取得新的高点。
On content ecosystem, we also highlight three aspects in 2024. First, we will continue to reinforce our leading position around the ecosystem of entertainment and sports events. In particular, as for the entertainment sector, we will strengthen the celebrity follower ecosystem to increase user interactions, and focus on strengthening our strategic cooperation with the promotion and distribution platform of movies, TV series, and variety shows. This will not only solidify the competitiveness of the entertainment work-based ecosystem, but also drive platform traffic and user engagement. Taking the movie promotion during the 2024 Spring Festival as an example, leveraging our cooperation with movie IP holders around the hot trends operation of movie plots, celebrity followers interactions, and extended vertical topics, we are pleased to see a 50% increase in topic discussion year-over-year, giving us confidence in becoming the go-to platform for movie promotion this year.
2024 also marks the year of Olympics. Our years of cultivation around the sports vertical will pay off, with the opportunity to achieve new record highs in sports-related traffic and discussions.
第二，我们将继续加强平台热点生态的领先优势，媒体受热点恢复稳定增长，重点是加强媒体、头部博主参与行业垂直热点的发生和讨论，形成更多的头部热点效应，巩固微博热点生态影响力，持续规模化地获取用户。
Second, we will continue to solidify our leading position around hot trends. We hope to redeem the steady growth of society and the media-related hot topics. The key is to better engage the media and top content creators in the distribution and discussion of hot topics around vertical trends, enabling the build-out of mega hot topics. These efforts would hopefully consolidate Weibo's marketing influence in the hot trend area and facilitate user acquisition at a large scale.
第三，我们将继续加强垂直行业、重点行业垂直生态建设，提升行业垂直竞争力账号规模及活跃，提升行业热点讨论规模，进一步实现行业内容生态和商业生态的相辅相成，形成良性循环。
Third, we will further strengthen the cultivation of vertical ecosystem in key industries. To elaborate, we will grow the number and engagement of golden and orange verified accounts, boosting the discussion of vertical hot topics, and thus reinforcing the synergy between the content ecosystem and the monetization ecosystem, which forms a virtuous self-reinforcing cycle.
从提升平台经营效率方面，我们将继续加强公司商业竞争力的投入，继续加强微博的内容IP营销，在更多行业与客户中建立和巩固，提升客户的预算竞争力。广告产品方面，内容IP营销产品继续标准化和规模化售卖，纯品牌广告要提升效果化内容化的服务能力，效果广告要在重点行业和头部客户上加强效果评估能力。例如，著名羽绒服品牌波士登在23年冬季基于两大产品心智：轻薄羽和重塑经典，在微博将代言人营销和场景营销结合，绑定代言人杨紫的衍生热点，抓住入冬降温小雪等平台实质热点，将寒冷降温穿波士登的用户心智牢牢绑定。同时，利用明星热点线上导流电商、线下联动品牌大事件及今年开幕，带动四季度销售额同比提升40%。今年，我们会通过标准化广告产品和营销服务流程，将这些文娱、赛事等热点IP与我们的客户需求及时结合，继续提升热点内容的商业价值。同时，我们将会继续有效地管理费用和成本及费用支出，加强周期性的管理和平台，整体地提升平台的经营效率。
Finally, on the operating efficiency, we will step up our efforts in enhancing our monetization competitiveness. We will continue to strengthen the recognition of Weibo's content and IP marketing among more industries and clients, and thus improve our competitive edge in capturing clients' budgets. In terms of the ad products, we will standardize and scale up the sales of our content and IP marketing offerings. As for performance-based ad, we strive to improve our service capability around ad performance and content, with focus on optimizing evaluation of ad performance of key industries and top clients. For instance, the renowned down jacket brand Bosideng capitalized on its two product concepts: lightweight and thin, and reshaping classics in the winter campaign of 2023.
Leveraging a combination of celebrity endorsement and content marketing on Weibo, Bosideng deeply bonded with hot topics around this brand ambassador, Yang Zi, tapping into real-time winter-related trends such as temperature drop and light snow to firmly associate the brand with staying warm in Bosideng. At the same time, Bosideng leveraged the celebrity's popularity to drive e-commerce traffic online, while promoting its opening of the Wangfujing flagship store as a grand event offline. As a result, the sales performance boosted dramatically in the fourth quarter, with sales volume increasing 40% year-over-year. This year, we will standardize our ad products and service processes to timely integrate popular IPs such as entertainment and sports events with the campaign goals of our clients, which will further promote the monetization value of hot trends.
On top of this initiative to drive top-line growth, we will also continue to effectively discipline our costs and expenses, strengthen the regular platform management, and further improve the overall operating efficiency of our platform.
接下来让我找你，曹飞，介绍四季度和全年的财务结果。
With that, let me turn the call over to Fei Cao for a financial review of the fourth quarter of 2023 and full-year financial results. Thank you, Gaofei, and hello, everyone. Welcome to Weibo's fourth quarter and full-year 2023 earnings conference call. Let's start with user metrics. In December 2023, Weibo's MAU, average DAU, reached 519.8 million and 257 million, respectively, representing a net addition of 11 million and 5 million users on a year-over-year basis in 2023. Our user community and engagement remain healthy despite facing out-of-pandemic-related traffic, as well as ongoing execution of 50% trial investment strategies. Turning to financials, as a reminder, my prepared remarks would focus on non-GAAP results. All monetary amounts are in US dollar terms, and all the comparisons are on a year-over-year basis, unless otherwise noted. We experience headwinds to our financials due to the volatility of foreign exchange rates throughout the year.
Since our business primarily operates in China, while we report our financials in US dollars, our financial performance was affected by adverse currency movements. Let me now walk you through our financial highlights for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023. Weibo's fourth quarter 2023 net revenues were $463.7 million, an increase of 5% on a constant currency basis. Operating income was $145.9 million, representing an operating margin of 31%. Net income attributable to Weibo reached $76.4 million, and the diluted EPS was $0.31. For full year 2023, total revenues reached $1.76 million, a decrease of 4%, or an increase of 1% on a constant currency basis. Operating income was $592.1 million, representing an operating margin of 34%. Net income attributable to Weibo reached $415.6 million, and the diluted EPS was $1.88. Operating cash flow for full year 2023 reached $672.8 million, an increase of 19%.
Let me give you more color on fourth quarter and full year 2023 revenue performance. Weibo's advertising and marketing revenues for the fourth quarter 2023 were $403.7 million, an increase of 3%, or 5% on a constant currency basis. Mobile ad revenues were $379.2 million, contributing approximately 94% of total ad revenue. Full year 2023 advertising and marketing revenues reached $1.53 billion, a decrease of 4%, or an increase of 1% on a constant currency basis, with mobile ad revenues contributing 94% of total ad revenue. Recovering on Q4 performance first. Consistent with our expectations, advertising business booked a solid growth overall, with divergent performance across our pillar ad verticals. By industry, our largest of three verticals were 3C products, FMCG, and e-commerce. In terms of growth, we are encouraged to see strong momentum of the handset sector continued throughout the year.
The auto sector delivered double-digit growth for both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter, as customers embraced our platform to reach high-value users and build market share. The e-commerce and the game sectors also demonstrated a robust recovery trend with double-digit growth, leveraging favorable dynamics in the competition landscape and launch of blockbuster titles. On sales side, the FMCG category continued on a descending trajectory. The food and the beverage sector faced a high comparable base because of the World Cup campaign season in 2022. Meanwhile, the cosmetic and personal care sector remained under pressure, suffering from soft sales and less stringent marketing expense control among our multinational customers. Also, we continue to see ad budgets shift toward those platforms to serve the marketing purpose of inventory clearance during the e-commerce season. Moving on to full year 2023 performance.
Due to macro uncertainties and consumption weakness, the recovery pace of our advertising business in 2023 proved to be rough on a constant currency basis. Our advertising and marketing revenues increased 1% versus 2022. By industry, our largest of three verticals were FMCG, 3C products, and e-commerce. With respect to growth, 3C products were the largest contributor to year-over-year growth, followed by e-commerce and automobile among major categories. However, discretionary consumption categories such as cosmetic and personal care, luxury, apparel faced broad-based heaviness from the demand side. By ad products, promoted feeds were the largest, followed by social display ads and topics and search in 2023. In light of a tepid advertising demand, we focused on revitalizing the content ecosystem with high monetization potential such as 3C products and automobile. These efforts have enabled us to further strengthen our content marketing offerings and enhance our market differentiation.
Ad revenues from Alibaba for the fourth quarter were $44.9 million, an increase of 6%, or 8% on a constant currency basis, that promoted recovery of consumption markets and the intensified competition during the mega shopping festival. Full year ad revenues from Alibaba were $111.6 million, an increase of 4%, or 10% on a constant currency basis, consistent with Alibaba's moderate pickup in marketing budgets. Alibaba stepped up marketing spend this year amidst a sluggish consumption environment, as well as heightened competition in the e-commerce sector. Before turning to the VAS segment, let me share some preliminary color on the trend entering 2024. With the economy in a stage of transition and geopolitical uncertainty in 2024, the macro conditions and consumption sentiment are turning even harder to predict.
Despite the limited visibility of demand stats due to macro uncertainties, we are cautiously optimistic on further recovery of our advertising business in 2024. We hope to further leverage tailwinds in Weibo's competitive sectors, as well as a series of mega sports events. Our team will beef up sales execution to further unlock the long-term monetization opportunities underpinned by our unique value proposition and diversified content ecosystem. Value-added service revenues were $59.9 million in the fourth quarter, an increase of 4%, or 6% on a constant currency basis, mainly due to higher revenue contribution from the game-related business. Full year 2023 revenues decreased 6%, or 1% on a constant currency basis, to $225.8 million. Turning to costs and expenses, total costs and expenses for the fourth quarter were $317.8 million, an increase of 7%, mainly attributable to higher G&A expenses.
The increase of G&A expenses was primarily resulting from lower G&A expenses booked in the fourth quarter of 2022, mainly related to the reversal of compensation expenses for Jiamian Technology based on the contingent payment arrangement between us. Full year costs and expenses totaled $1.17 billion, a decrease of 5%, primarily attributable to the unfavorable forex exchange impact on the reported numbers, as well as a decrease of personnel-related costs. This decrease was partially offset by the increase of G&A expenses, mainly related to the reversal of compensation expenses of Jiamian Technology, as mentioned above. Operating income in the fourth quarter was $145.9 million, representing an operating margin of 31% compared to 34% in the same period last year. Operating income for full year 2023 was $592.1 million, representing an operating margin of 34% compared to 33% in 2022. Turning to income tax and the Non-GAAP measure.
Income tax expense for the fourth quarter was $72.6 million compared to an income tax benefit of $18.7 million last year. The increase was primarily due to two factors. First, we booked a reversal of tax liabilities recognized in the fourth quarter of 2022 related to uncertain tax provisions. Second, we paid and accrued withholding tax related to earnings remittance from the wholly foreign-owned enterprise WFOE to Weibo Hong Kong Limited. The earnings distribution from onshore to offshore would fund our demand for US dollars in business operations and the payments of dividends and debts, etc. Full year income tax expenses were $145.3 million compared to $30.3 million last year, mainly resulting from an increase of tax expense in the fourth quarter of tax expense.
Net income attributable to Weibo in the fourth quarter was $76.4 million, representing a net margin of 16% compared to 30% last year, primarily due to the above-mentioned impact from income tax. Net income for full year 2023 was $415.6 million, representing a net margin of 26% compared to 29% in last year. Turning to our balance sheet and cash flow items as of December 31st, 2023, Weibo's cash equivalent and short-term investments totaled $3.23 billion compared to $3.17 billion as of December 31st, 2022. In the fourth quarter, cash provided by operating activities was $218.2 million, cash expenditures totaled $7.5 million, and the depreciation and amortization expenses amounted to $14.7 million. On a full year basis, cash provided by operating activities was $672.8 million compared to $564.1 million in 2022. Capital expenditures totaled $36.8 million, and the depreciation and amortization expenses amounted to $58.5 million.
Before turning to the credit question, I would like to let you know that we completed an offering of $313 million convertible bond in December last year. The bond is due in 2030 with an annual coupon rate of 1.375%. We plan to use the net proceeds from the notes offering to refinance a portion of the outstanding 3.5% senior notes due in July this year. Upon the convertible notes issuance, we would also effectively beef up our offshore tax reserve in US dollars, which gives us more financial flexibility in capital allocation in the future. Lastly, given our healthy profitability and cash flow generation, we are pleased to announce that our board of directors has approved a special cash dividend of $0.82 per ordinary share for ADS to our shareholders.
The aggregate amount of the dividend will be approximately $200 million, with payment dates expected to be in May. Looking ahead, we remain highly committed to embracing long-term growth opportunities while generating more returns to shareholders and boosting market confidence. With that, let me now turn over to the operator for the Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one one and wait for our name to be announced. To cancel your request, please press star one one again. One moment for the first question. Our first question comes from the line of Timothy Zhao from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
好的，感谢王高飞接受我的提问。那我这边想请教一下关于我们广告业务在2024年的展望。那可否请王高飞再详细分享一下我们对2024年，包括一季度的一个广告增速的一个展望，以及从广告的产品端，我们在今年会有哪些特别的策略？那我很快翻译一下。
Thank you, Management, for taking my question. My question is regarding our advertising business. Could Management elaborate more on your outlook for the advertising revenue growth for this year, including the first quarter? And specifically regarding the advertising products, what are our key strategies for this year? Thank you.
Okay.那整体来看的话，我们对24年一个全年的预估，跟23年因为有23年这个几个季度这种预估的不确定性，所以这么24年预估的时候，比23年年初其实还是会更谨慎一些。那目前一季度来讲，我们确实会看到大部分行业出现了一定的回暖的迹象，但是我们认为24年的宏观环境和消费市场还是存在一些不确定性和挑战吧。
Gordon. Thank you for this question. So first of all, because in 2023, for many different quarters, we had a lot of uncertainties for providing these particular expectations, so we remain cautious and prudent in giving expectations for the whole year of 2024. So in Q1, we do see a recovery of almost all the industries. However, still, there are a lot of uncertainties and also challenges relating to the consumption market as a whole. Okay.
那从需求端来讲的话，24年我们首先会有一些行业是存在一些确定性的机会的，例如说今年的奥运会这些赛事的举办，这有利于我们很多的这种消费行业的广告增量预算的释放。这部分受益行业包括食品饮料和这个鞋服，其实23年我们这个食品饮料的下降主要还是因为22年有亚运会，包括世界杯。那所以说我们预期24年的下半年的增速应该会好于上半年，因为在奥运会在今年的7月底、8月份。那在游戏方面，随着板号的发行利好，我们重点客户基于刚才我们提到了就是微博的热点，包括微博内容营销的诉求都在逐步的增强。我们应该在市场中可以发挥我们的所有的内容营销和这个新游引爆的这个服务能力。我们对游戏行业也是觉得增速应该是下面两笔23年要会更好一些。Gordon。
And also in terms of the overall demand, in 2024, still we have seen some of the uncertainties for some industries. For instance, in terms of the gaming, I mean the sports, for instance, in the Olympics, which took place in July and also the beginning of August. So this has boosted some of the budget of advertisement for the consumption market, for instance, from the food and beverages and also the apparel and also the footwear as well. So of course, in 2022, we had actually a very high base because of the Asian Games and also the World Cup. But still, we expect to have a better second half of the year in 2024 than the first half of the year. And also in terms of the gaming, we do see a lot of uncertainties.
So for instance, with the booming of the granting of licenses to those gamers, to the game developers, we can leverage our advantages in terms of the content marketing. And we would like to leverage this advantage and also help to explore and also help a lot of the new games to be exploded. So in 2024, we expect to have a better gaming industry than that of 2023. Okay.
还有一些行业我们会看到在22年，其实我们的竞争力我们认为在行业里面预算钱包占比比较高，我们竞争力也比较强。但是这些行业是不是在24年可以保持跟23年一样的增幅，还是比较有挑战？因为行业本身的情况，比如说像手机和汽车这两个行业在23年的增速都保持了这个双位数以上的增长。那我们这个行业客户中的这种预算钱包的份额23年也比22年有所提升。但是24年我会看到手机是不是还能像22年一样有这么高的一个增幅？虽然一季度我们看到手机出货情况这个比我们预期的要好很多，但是就是对全年来看的话，我们还是觉得有比较大的不确定性。然后手机汽车这边来讲的话，当然新能源汽车我们的优势还是比较明显的，但是传统车今年因为价格战的问题，其实客户的营销的预算其实有一些明显的削减。所以说对于整体汽车的这种预算是不是能保持去年一样的一个增幅，我们也决定还是有一点不确定性。但是我们的竞争力和客户的预算钱包的份额，我们还是有信心可以保持或者继续增长的。Gordon。
And also in 2022, we did see the enhancement of our competitiveness and also the percentage of the ad budget against the total revenue of against the total budget of the ads of our customers is actually growing as well. But still, in 2024, whether those industries are still going to enjoy the same momentum in Weibo, it is pretty much uncertain and also challenging. For instance, take the examples of the handsets and also the automotive industries. So for instance, in 2023, we had a very good growth in terms of the headset industry, which was double-digit. And also we had an increase of the total ad budget percentage allocated to Weibo in 2023. But still, in 2024, we still remain cautious in terms of maintaining the same momentum of the growth for headset industry versus that of 2022.
Still, we have seen a better than expected shipment of the headset industry in Q1, but still throughout the whole year of 2024, there is a big uncertainty about this. Turning to the automotive industry, we have gained a natural advantage in helping to promote those products of new energy vehicles, but still due to the price war and the budget decrease for the ads for the ICE vehicles, still we found it quite challenging to maintain the same momentum of the growth of our business in the automotive industry than that of last year. Still, overall speaking, we are still keeping a very good momentum of maintaining a very high competitiveness and also the attraction of a higher budget of the ads from our customers. Okay.
还有一些行业，其实就是美妆护肤这个行业，这个在22年、23年其实都是我们整个业绩的一个主要的一个拖累。然后这主要还是因为这个行业在21年的时候因为疫情的影响，再加上我们21年不管是流量还是文娱的这种营销都做到整个相对来讲的话，这个行业里面竞争的最高点。那所以说美妆这个行业在我们整个时候大盘中的占比在21年还是比较高，21年、22年都还是比较高的。那这两年大家也看到一方面来讲的话，是因为很多这个美妆护肤行业本身的竞争，就是价格战竞争的比较激烈，然后客户在品牌这种预算上的钱包的份额，钱包是下降的。再一个来讲的话，也看到像天猫，包括这种传统电商平台，它的很多的这种客户预算和客户的营销也转向直播。那这对于其实对于像微博这种平台它的品牌广告的投放和电商的营销投放都会产生了非常大的压力。那这个行业本身的下降也是造成我们去年本身预计的增长没有完成的主要的一个原因吧。那24年我们原计划我们原来预估来讲的话，这个行业是不是可以24年看起来能够比较稳定，但是从一季度情况看还是不太乐观。对，因为我们虽然说我们这种国际品牌来讲的话，现在来讲还没有完全的恢复，但是国内品牌现在已经开始有一些增长，但是国内品牌也没有大到需要去大幅增加品牌预算的这样一个规模。所以说现在的情况其实就是这是我们今年最有挑战的一个行业。我们其实今年的目标是希望这个行业可以保持稳定，或者尽量的不要产生更多的窟窿，但是我觉得还是挑战会不确定性会最大的一个领域。Gordon。
And also last but not least, I would like to share some of the colors on the industries of the beauty and cosmetic products. In 2022 and 2023, we had suffered from some of the challenges because of the industry itself. So in 2021, because of the COVID and also because of our high concentration in promoting the entertainment and also the traffic attraction, so we had a pretty good year in 2021 and also 2022. But reasonably speaking, there were a lot of challenges going on and headwinds going on in the cosmetics and beauty products industries. For instance, the high competitiveness and also the price war engaged by almost all the brands. And also they were decreasing their allocation of the ad budget, overall speaking.
And also, you can see that there are a lot of transfer of those budgets, the budget from the commercial or the traditional e-commerce industry to the livestream. So this gave us a lot of pressures in terms of the allocation of our budget to the brand-based performance, brand-based ad, or the e-commerce-based ad. So still, there are still a lot of challenges. And also in 2024, originally we wished to have a stabilized performance of the beauty and cosmetics industry ad allocation of our ad budget. But still in Q1, we thought that was less than expected and also less than optimized and optimized. So you can see that for those international brands, still they are a little bit far away from their full recovery.
We also see the recovery of the domestic brands, but still it is not the time for them to increase their ad budgets. So of course, overall speaking, we still wish that we could have a very stable vertical like the cosmetics and beauty products. But still, up to now, we think that this industry is still the most challenging industry against all of our total business portfolio. Okay.
所以说从我们整体的策略，其实刚才script也提到，一个是我们还会继续加强我们的IP热点，包括内容营销上面的投入，这对于我们提升我们在品牌客户品牌钱包里面的份额是和我们的竞争力是最有帮助的。这个会一直加大我们的投入。从这来讲的话，继续增长我们的用户规模，这样的话包括我们的可变现的这种效果广告的信息流的流量能够继续稳定。那至于说客户本身的品牌预算在24年能不能有一个增长，那也就这个其实某种程度上也决定了我们从客户的份额里面，客户的钱包里面能不能拿到更多预算。主要就这些吧。Gordon，谢谢。
And also lastly, I want to say that in terms of the overall strategy, as we have already stated in our prepared script, you can see that our focus of this year will be still emphasizing on those IP hot trends and also the content marketing, so that we can increase our competitiveness and also gain more money and also budget from the total budget of our customers. And also second of all, we would like to further enlarge the user base and also the total scale of that and focusing on those monetizable traffic. So as a whole, in 2024, still the very much focus and also the main driver for us to grow further is to getting more budget from our customers, and also thus we can grow our overall business. Thank you.
Thank you for the questions. One moment for the next questions. The next questions comes from the line of Thomas Chong from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
晚上好，谢谢王高飞接受我的提问。王高飞可以分享一下我们2024年从用户内容生态的一个战略，然后在AIGC方面我们的布局可以吗？谢谢。 Thanks management for taking my question. My question is about our strategies in 2024 with regard to users and our content ecosystem. And on the other hand, how should we think about our AIGC strategies? Thank you.
24年用户策略吧，就是先简单说一下。23年我们会看到我们整个的市场营销预算跟22年相比基本持平。那同时来讲的话，大家会看到23年整个的手机出货量是下降的，但是在这种情况下，我们的MAU大概同比竞争还是在1,000万多一些，DAU可能在500万。那这主要还是一方面来讲的话，我们跟主要的手机厂商有一个比较密切的战略合作的关系。那相对来讲的话，我们获取用户的成本还是会相比相对其他竞品更低一些。同时来讲的话，因为去年文娱的恢复，包括很多热点的恢复，其实对于我们从站外可以获取更多自然用户也会比较有帮助。Gordon。
Also for this question, first of all, let me talk to you about the overall user strategy in 2024. So in 2024, still we are going to maintain the same budget for the marketing activities than that of 2023. So for the handset industry in 2023, we do see a decrease of our total shipment, but still we had a net gain of MAU of over 10 million, and also over 5 million of net gain of DAUs because of a very deep strategic collaboration with the handset makers. So that you can see that we can have a very low user acquisition cost. Also overall speaking, by focusing on the entertainment and also the hot trends and hot topics, we have also very good positioning in getting the users from outside of the Weibo.
那24年我们会现在看到我们整体放的预算比23年6增加基本持平吧。那同时的情况看，我们预估24年整个文娱和我们的整个受益热点应该会进一步的恢复。这个迹象还从今年的春天档来看的话还是比较明显的。所以说我觉得目前来讲，今年其实用户规模的增长应该不会比23年，应该会比23年会更有希望，更有预期会更高一些。但是从我们自己内部来看的话，我们更多的挑战是如何把这种流量从我们文娱和热点shift到我们所说的垂直领域里面去，因为这些垂直领域对于我们提升用户的粘性和商业化变现和商业化效率都是更高的。我们在疫情之前2019年的时候，我们整个的流量结构里面，垂直领域的流量占到整体流量将近60%，58%左右。那疫情这几年还是会出现了比较明显的下降，到22年的时候大概跌到了47%、48%。那今23年我们虽然做了一定的努力，特别是在下半年做了一定努力，但是目前也只是恢复到了50%。对，所以说我们希望中两到三年的时间可以把我们垂直领域的流量继续增长到60%，这样对于整个平台的粘性和竞争力和商业变现都会更有相对来讲的话更有竞争力一些。谢谢Gordon。
In 2024, as a result, we had almost a flat or a little bit more budget allocated to this area than that of 2023. We do see a very good recovery of the social hot trends and also the entertainment industry improved by the performance during the Chinese New Year period. And so that's we are very confident to have a very good user gain and also user scale in 2024 than that of 2023 and also a much better one. Also, the internal challenges still are that first of all, we would like to focus on a shift of the traffic of entertainment and social hot topics to the verticals, because by having more traffic of the vertical or vertical traffics, we are able to increase the user stickiness and enhance our monetization efficiency and also improve our competitiveness.
So before the COVID, before 2019, we had almost 58% of our traffic allocated to vertical traffics. But still during the COVID period, we had a decrease to almost around 47%-48% by the end of 2022. We had a very good strategy to recover that after that, but still it is still at a level of around 50%. So in the next two to three years of time, by focusing on more efforts taken in this area, we hope to increase the total vertical traffic as the amount of the total traffic to about 60% and more, so that we are able to enhance the user stickiness, the efficiency of monetization, and also our overall competitiveness as a whole. Okay.
AIGC的方面其实过去几个财报记录也简单都说过了，对于微博来讲的话，我们更多的是开放性的使用这些AI大模型去提升，更多的是在应用层面来讲的话去做工作。那24年其实通过23年的一些尝试，基本上方向也比较明确。然后一方面来讲的话，就是我们通过AIGC这个大模型，类似于Character AI这种模式去增加我们头部的这种博主他的AI助手，然后他去提升我们的这种新粉互动，也就是说大杯跟粉丝互动的这种效率。那这个我们今年的目标是在部分领域，我们希望能占到这些新粉互动之间的这种互动率，通过AI这个助手能达到他们的5%到10%这样一个比例，是由这种AI助手来完成的。然后另外一个就是针对一些特殊的，就针对一些垂直领域，比如说去年我们说的美妆，今年我们可能会扩大到大概四到五个领域，那通过AIGC去辅助大杯生产内容。那去年四季度的时候，在美妆的测试，我们高的时候可以达到整个领域的8%的内容，是由这种辅助生产的这种内容带来的用户阅读跟互动。那今年来讲的话，我们内部也设了一个相对应的目标，大概10%到15%左右，还是比较有挑战的。对，主要就这两方面，其他的我觉得在商业化方面和其他的这种AI机器人这方面来讲的话，我工作更多还是尝试性的，我们对于它没有一个特别明确的需要占到全平台的一个互动量的比例，或者收入的一个比例，目前没有一个明确的这样一个目标，更多是以尝试为主。Gordon。
And also relating to AIGC, we have stated a few comments already in the past annual performance or some of the quality performance announcements. Still now we would like to have an open mind to use the LLMs and also focusing on the applications of those large language models. So for instance, in 2024, still we have some of the directions of the application. First of all, in terms of the AI assistants, assisting the interactions between the new fans and followers, and also the KOLs, we have been doing a lot to really enhance the interactiveness between the new fans and some of the followers and also their KOLs. So now we can see that around 5%-10% of the overall interactions between the followers and KOLs are actually supported by the AI assistants.
And also second of all, in terms of different verticals, so last year we pretty much focused on the verticals of beauty and cosmetic products, and also to facilitating the generation and the production of the content in this area. And also this year we would like to further expand the application of the content generation to another 4-5 different verticals. So last year, 8% of the contents in this cosmetics and beauty products area was generated by the AI tools. And also this year we hope to have around 10%-15% of the content generated by AIGC facilitations, which is still challenging to say. And also for the other areas, for instance, the AI robots and also some of the commercializations or monetizations using AI to support, it is still an experimental phase.
We don't have a very detailed target or figure to be shared with everyone. Okay.
Thank you for the questions. One moment for the last question. Our last questions comes from the line of Xueqing Zhang from CICC. Please go ahead.
谢谢关立诚。之前我有提问，有看到公司公布了特别分红，那想请教一下公司对于今年资本配置还有股东回报的计划，然后关于分红和回购有没有更多可以跟我们分享的？谢谢。 Thanks management for taking my question. Notice that the company announced special dividends this quarter, so with capital allocation and the shareholder return plan this year, can management share more on the share buyback and dividend plan in the future? Thank you.
Hi Xueqing, thank you for your question. This is Fei. As mentioned in my prepared remarks, Weibo maintained a decent profitability and relatively strong capability to generate operating cash flows. In 2023, our non-GAAP operating income reached $592 million, representing a non-GAAP operating margin of 34%. We generated operating cash flow of approximately $673 million in 2023, representing a year-over-year increase of 19%. So if you can remember last year, when we distributed special cash dividend for the first time last May, we talked about certain principles we would adhere to in use of our cash. First of all, we always prioritize supporting business growth and strengthening our platform's competitive advantages, such as investing in content ecosystems, in vertical areas, and AIGC and any opportunities which are closely related to our business. And then in addition to investing in our own business development, we certainly need to ensure shareholder returns.
So as you know, our board of directors has approved a distribution of another $200 million special cash dividend after we made the $200 million cash dividend last year. So going forward, we expect to continue paying out dividends to our shareholders and gradually formulate an annual cash dividend distribution policy. The board would primarily set the dividend amount based on our company's profit performance in the previous fiscal year, while also considering factors such as our cash flow, our financial condition, and capital requirements. So looking ahead, we will continue to explore various ways to reward our investors, our shareholders, including the dividend payouts and the stock repurchases. These measures will be carefully considered and aligned with our core objectives and subject to our board approval. We will communicate the progress with the market and with our investors in a timely manner.
I hope this can address your questions. Thank you.
Thank you for the questions. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand the call back to management for closing.
Thank you all for joining us, and we will see you next time.
That does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation.