Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Weibo Report third quarter 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in the 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 1 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'll now like to hand the conference over to the company. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Welcome to Weibo's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Joining us 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 I.R. website. Before management remarks, I would like to read you the safe harbor statement in connection with today's conference call. During today's conference call, we may make forward-looking 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 statements. We will assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements 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 current as of 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 excludes 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 the future prospects. Our non-GAAP financials excludes certain expenses, gains or losses, and other items that are not expected to result in future cash payments and are non-recurring in nature, 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 prepared remarks, we'll open up the lines for a brief Q&A session. With this, I would like to turn the call over to our CEO, Gaofei Wang. Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Weibo's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. On today's call, I will share with you highlights of Weibo's user, product, and monetization in third quarter of 2022. On the user front, Weibo's MAUs reached 584 million, and average DAUs reached 253 million in September 2022, adding approximately 11 million and 5 million users year-over-year respectively. In September, 95% of Weibo's MAUs came from mobile. On monetization, with macroeconomy and consumption weighing on the overall advertising markets, our clients remain cautious towards their advertising budget spend.
In the third quarter, our total revenues reached $453.6 million, a decrease of 25% year-over-year and an increase of 1% quarter-over-quarter. Excluding the foreign exchange impact, our total revenues decreased 20% year-over-year and increased 5% quarter-over-quarter. Ad revenues reached $393.4 million this quarter, and 95% of our ad revenues came from mobile. This year, we have focused on improving our operating efficiency. In the third quarter, our non-GAAP operating income reached $162.1 million, representing a non-GAAP operating margin of 36%, up from 32% last quarter. Next, let me share with you our progress made in product and monetization in the third quarter.
Our target on product operations still focus on strengthening the platform's competitiveness through improving operating efficiency, maintaining large user scale, and enhancing user engagement.
特别是三季度的渠道合作社区产品也在文娱电竞领域的进一步投入和深耕。今年九月份整体流量仍保持健康增长的态势。
In this quarter, with the summer holiday season and hot trends effect, our overall traffic reached its peak level in August this year. Based on our experience, the opening of the fall semester in September usually negatively impacts our traffic, especially when campus promotion suspended this year due to COVID-19-related control measures. In response, on the product and operational front, we have stepped up our efforts in the areas of channel investment, community product optimization, and cultivation of entertainment and e-sports verticals, which resulted in healthy trend of our overall traffic in September.
在渠道方面，三季度渠道ROI水平继续提升。我们在持续聚焦优质渠道投入的同时，进一步加强了与手机厂商及热点社交产品的合作。这个季度，我们已经实现了微博热点产品在国内头部厂商核心领域的全覆盖，同时也结合厂商的属性和用户场景，持续优化榜单内容，加强厂商对微博热搜榜的消费心智，进一步提升我们用户手机用户的服务。九月份，厂商热搜用户规模较六月份提升了超过30%。接下来，我们仍将继续深化与手机厂商的合作，关注双方长期收益，拓展微博更多核心产品和内容，与厂商的合作空间，提升微博对于手机厂商用户的触达能力。
On the channel front, the ROI of our channel investment for the third quarter was further improved. We continue to strengthen our cooperation with handset manufacturers in Weibo's hot trends and social products while focusing on investing in high ROI channels. This quarter, we achieved full coverage for Weibo hot trends contents in the core positions on handset devices of domestic leading manufacturers. Meanwhile, we further upgraded our service to domestic smartphone users and enhanced their consumption through improving the quality of hot trend content, considering the handset attributes and users' consumption scenarios. In September, the number of our hot trend users from domestic handsets increased 30% quarter-over-quarter. Next, we will continue to deepen our cooperation with handset manufacturers to focus on long-term mutual benefits, expand cooperation to more of Weibo's core products and content, and increase Weibo's user scale through handsets tech channel.
在社交活跃方面，三季度我们继续加强产品的社交性，提升核心用户群体的规模和活跃。九月，关系流在稳定流量规模的基础上，互动效率保持增长，用户的社交粘性进一步加强。七八月份是暑期流量高峰，明星、剧综、游戏等领域内容生产大幅提升。关系流针对这些主要的用户年轻且粘性高的特点，给予了重点流量扶持。在丰富的垂直领域生产的同时，也提升了用户在关系流的消费和互动。同时，我们在这个季度继续优化关系流的流量结构，进一步提升KOL及社区内容在关系流的分发，强化关系流的社交性。特别是针对社区内容，关系流算法层面进行了较大的调整和优化，更好地促进了社区内容和账号内容的融合。目前，已经有近70%的关系流用户可以在关系流中直接消费到自己感兴趣的优质社区内容。九月，社区内容在关系流的流量和互动人数较六月提升了超过50%，这也在一定程度上促进了用户在关系流关系构建效率和互动效率的提升。
On social attributes. This quarter, we continue to enhance social features of our products and increase the scale and engagement of our core users. On relationship-based feed. While maintaining user traffic, user interaction continued to grow in September, representing improved user stickiness. In July and August, which is a peak season of traffic due to the summer holiday. Weibo content generation largely increased, particularly for verticals such as celebrities, TV series, variety shows, and games, etc. We leaned our traffic distribution towards these verticals with strong stickiness of young users in the relationship-based feed, which helped enrich the vertical content ecosystem and enhancing user interaction and consumption in relationship-based feed. In the meantime, we continue to improve the distribution structure of our relationship-based feed, further increase the distribution of content generated by KOLs and community-based content to emphasize the social features of our relationship-based feed.
In particular, we made significant upgrades in algorithms to enhance distribution of community content, further integrating the community-based content and user-generated content. As a result, in the relationship-based feed, 70% of users were able to consume quality community-based content of their interests directly in the feed. In September, traffic generated from community-based content distributed in the relationship-based feed and the number of users who made interactions through community content has increased more than 50% quarter-over-quarter, which further facilitated users' relationship building and interaction efficiency in a relationship-based feed.
另外，这个季度我们继续加大对社区产品的投入，加强潜在用户对社区产品的感知。一方面，针对六月上线的社区独立消费场景，聚合头部优质内容优先推荐，再加上有效的拉新策略，强化了社区新用户的复访心智。九月，社区独立消费场景的日活跃用户规模较六月增长了超过50%，其中一半是社区的新用户。不仅用户规模的增长，用户的消费黏性也提升明显，人均消费量较六月提升了40%。另一方面，针对社区产品自身功能和机制也不断地完善。三季度上线了更多的发起和互动玩法，提升了用户在社区的黏性，明显带动了文娱、游戏、社区优质内容的生产和互动。九月社区整体的发帖和互动用户数较六月仍保持两位数增长，同时发帖量和互动量的增幅更是人数的两倍。我们看到，我们对社区的持续投入建设，加强了用户在微博的社交黏性，将更有利于平台的长期健康发展。
In the third quarter, we continue to beef up our investments in community products to strengthen the perception of community products by all users. On one hand, with the independent tab of super topic at the bottom of main page launched in June, we are able to improve new users' willingness to revisit the tab through prioritizing traffic distribution for quality community content, coupled with our effective user recall strategy. In September, the DAUs of super topic tab increased by more than 50% compared to that of June, half of which were new users for community products. Not only has the scale of users grown, users' consumption stickiness increased significantly, with per capita consumption of community-related content increased by 40% from June.
On the other hand, we further enhance functions and mechanism of the community products, such as new functions of posting and interaction that launched in the third quarter. The increased user stickiness in the community significantly drove the production and interaction of quality content in entertainment and online gaming verticals. In September, the number of users who posted and interacted in the community continued to grow double digits compared to June, while the number of posts and interactions increased twice the increase of users. We believe that the constant building of our community products has strengthened the social stickiness of Weibo users, boding well for the long-term healthy development of the platform.
在内容生态方面，我们今年的策略是聚焦打造社交型的账号和重点垂直领域，不断强化我们在重点领域和优质账号上的竞争优势，促进平台运营效率的提升。游戏领域三季度继续深耕电竞赛事，进一步加强微博与重点电竞战队及平台的社交合作。电竞选手三季度日均发布量较二季度提升近50%，流量和互动更是三倍的增长，再加上赛事热点的叠加，三季度电竞领域日均流量较二季度提升超过50%。我们在帮助战队提升影响力与商业化的同时，也获得了对更多年轻用户的覆盖，且用户活跃度得到提升。文娱领域暑期正值剧综节目旺季，我们重点联合播出平台和制作方，加强了文娱作品的热点传播和用户讨论，扩大头部剧综领域在全网的声量。三季度剧综整体流量和讨论量较去年暑期档保持增长，特别是剧集流量达到历史新高，较去年暑期档提升超过一倍，涌现出了多个现象级的项目，例如星汉灿烂、苍兰诀这两部电视剧在微博的主话题阅读量超过四百亿，讨论量超过两千八百万。再次夯实了微博在文娱作品宣传及讨论的平台地位。接下来我们也会更加积极地助力合作伙伴，共同促进文娱作品生态的健康发展。
On content front, our strategy this year is to focus on developing social accounts and key verticals to constantly solidify our advantages in key content verticals as well as high-quality accounts, and thus drive the improvement of operating efficiency. In terms of the online gaming vertical, we further cultivates our ecosystem around esport events and deepen cooperation between Weibo and top esport clubs. In third quarter, the daily number of posts by esport players has increased by 50% quarter-over-quarter, with both traffic and interactions doubled. Coupled with tournaments-related hot trends, the overall traffic from the esports vertical grow over 50% sequentially. We have also attracted a wider group of young users and generated higher user engagement, while helping esport clubs build up influence and market value on our platform.
As for the entertainment industry, the summer holiday was the peak season for TV series and variety shows. We focused on partnership with video platforms and show producers to improve distribution of hot trends and user interactions, driving the volume of blockbusters to grow across the platform. In third quarter, the traffic and interaction of TV and variety shows continued to trend up compared to that of the last summer holiday. In particular, the traffic for TV shows has reached record high, which more than doubled compared to the same period last year, with multiple phenomenal projects emerged. TV shows Love Like the Galaxy and The Love Between Fairy and Devil have generated over 40 billion topic views and 28 million discussions, reinforcing Weibo's position as a designated platform for show launching and promoting.
Going forward, we will continue to actively support our partners and drive healthy development of the entertainment ecosystem.
下面我谈一下商业化的进展。三季度客户的广告投放较二季度有所恢复，但不同行业的恢复速度呈现不同的趋势。比如在汽车行业，得益于政策对于新能源汽车的扶持，以及过去两个季度微博新车发布整合营销方案在汽车行业客户中认知度的提升，90%的全新车系的发布会都会选择和微博做更深入的新品宣发合作。除常规的品牌宣、品牌曝光之外，通过媒体垂直KOL配合话题的组合模式，微博成功拓展了新车发布领域的市场份额，使得三季度汽车行业的广告收入保持了同比双位数的增长。再比如奢侈品行业，因为三季度新品大秀密集发布，广告收入同比增长明显。另外，在游戏行业，这两年我们所建立的差异化的营销模式获得了游戏客户的一定认可。虽然今年由于游戏版号的原因，新游戏上市出现萎缩，但是我们针对头部游戏客户开展内容合作，推出了节点营销产品和服务，帮助这些游戏厂商有效地提升了用户ARPU和生命周期，获得了相应的厂商预算，稳定了微博作为游戏推广平台的地位。其他行业，比如快消行业，受到疫情封控和消费疲软等因素的持续影响，客户的品牌投放态度仍保持市场观望。电商平台、手机数码行业等也由于整体市场环境、行业本身淡季的影响，三季度出现了不同程度的下降。
Moving on to monetization. In third quarter, we saw general recovery trend of ad spend on a sequential basis with variance in paces across different industries. For example, in auto industry, thanks to policy support for new energy vehicles industry and enhanced market recognition for Weibo's integrated new car launching marketing solution for automakers over the past two quarters. Weibo's in-depth product launch and marketing solutions attracted over 90% of the overall new model launches. On top of regular brand exposure, leveraging the combo of media, vertical KOLs, and hot trends, Weibo has successfully expanded its market share in new car launches, leading to sustained double-digit year-over-year growth in ad revenue from auto industry in the third quarter. As for the luxury sector, ad revenues also booked significant year-over-year growth due to the intensive launch of new lines and shows in the third quarter.
In terms of online gaming industry, our differentiated marketing model that we have established over the past two years has resonated greatly among game developers. Even though the new games approval this year has shrunk, we have effectively helped these game developers improve user ARPU and life cycle, leveraging cooperation around content with our top-tier game clients and event-based marketing products and services. As a result, Weibo has gained certain ad budgets and further solidified our market position among advertisers in the online gaming sector. Other industries, such as the FMCG industry, continue to be impacted by headwinds of COVID-19 control measures and weak consumption measure, with brands taking a wait-and-see attitude in their branding budget allocation. E-commerce Platforms and the 3C products also experienced varying degrees of decline in the third quarter due to market conditions and the industry's slow season.
从目前看，四季度和明年上半年的整体广告业务，整体市场环境仍存在一定的不确定性。但同时我们也看到了部分行业逐步向上的信号。在这次的双十一营销节点，电商平台和快消客户都有一定程度的预算释放。虽然今年双十一整体时间较去年有所缩短，但是目前看，微博从电商平台获取的预算较去年同期稳中略增。这个季度，我们的广告产品研发也在针对电商投放数据的精准算法匹配上进行了重点投入。期待四季度开始逐步在客户市场获得一定规模的效果广告预算。四季度也是手机行业新品发布的重点时期，我们看到各大手机厂商均有重点新机发布的营销节点，我们也在和客户积极定制内容营销方案，进一步强化微博在新机发布的市场份额。此外，四季度的世界杯也是很多客户，特别是食品饮料客户的重点预算投放节点，我们正在和客户就世界杯热点营销方案做细致讨论，将内容和营销深度结合，强化微博独有的热点营销模式，提升客户广告投放效果和预算。
Talking about outlook of overall advertising business for the fourth quarter and the first half of next year. There is still relatively high uncertainty under the market circumstance. However, we are pleased to see positive signals with certain industries. For example, E-commerce Platforms and FMCG clients have released ad budgets during the Double 11 shopping festival to various degrees. Although the Double 11 shopping festival was shorter this year, ad budgets from E-commerce Platforms returned to a growth trajectory compared with the same period last year. In third quarter, we focused on confirming our algorithm to accurately fulfill the marketing needs of E-commerce Platforms on the ad product front, and expect to gradually capture certain advertising budgets in the fourth quarter. Meanwhile, the fourth quarter is also a key season for new product launches in the handset sector, with all major handset manufacturers launching key models in their pipeline.
As such, we are actively working with our clients to develop content marketing plans to further beef up Weibo's market share in new phone launches. Moreover, the 2022 World Cup in the fourth quarter will be a key advertising window for many of our clients, especially in the food and beverage sectors. We are cooperating with clients and discussing their content marketing plans in detail to tap into World Cup-related hot trends in the hope of enhancing ad performance and ad wallets.
最后，我简单谈一下微博在本季度降本增效方面的进展。如同我们在上一财报中提及的那样，本年度我们在成本费用端做了更严格的ROI管控，采取了一系列有效的降本增效措施。三季度这些措施进一步落地，取得了不错的成效。三季度在收入整体承压的情况下，我们调整后的运营利润率达到36%，较二季度的32%的运营利润率提升近四个点，充分体现了我们降本增效策略的有力执行，进一步提升了经营效率。通过持续有效的降本增效举措，我们有机会将资源向更多有发展潜力的领域倾斜。例如，在渠道上，我们通过战略渠道合作获取更多的高ARPU用户，缩短渠道ROI回正周期。目前我们对大部分渠道回弱成本周期都比去年同期缩短了近一倍。在产品运营方面，我们加大了与内容战略合作伙伴的合作，聚焦社交产品，提升在热点以及重点垂直领域，例如电竞、游戏、电竞、体育等的优势。我们今年与视频网站、主流媒体、电竞战队等达成战略合作，通过多种合作方式获得内容和用户，这在短期内可能产生一定的成本，但会显著提升我们在内容运营方面的竞争力，也提升了整个平台的流量运营效率。在商业上，我们顺应市场趋势，增加客户内容营销投入，强化市场差异化竞争的优势的同时，重点突破电商投放诉求的精准算法匹配。进入四季度，我们仍将继续实施目前的降本增效方案，同时我们将特别聚焦对整体成本结构进行调整，进一步优化各类资源配置，以便使公司能够在宏观环境存在较大不确定的情况下高效运营。我们相信这也将使微博保持长期竞争力。
Now last let me briefly recap on Weibo's progress in our initiatives to optimize costs and improve operating efficiency. As mentioned in our last earnings call, we have taken a series of effective measures to optimize our cost and expense structure and enhance efficiency during the year to better control our ROI on cost end. These measures continue to bear fruit, leveraging our solid execution. In third quarter, we delivered a non-GAAP operating margin of 36%, up nearly four percentage points versus 32% in the second quarter, benefiting from solid execution of disciplined spending strategy to further improve operating efficiency. This has demonstrated our improvements in operating efficiency, giving us the opportunity to lean our resources towards more potential areas. Taking channel investment as an example, through strategic channel cooperation, we acquired more high-ARPU users and thus shortened the ROI retrieving period of channel investment.
Currently, the cost retrieving cycles of most of our channels shortened to nearly half of that in the same period last year. On the product operation front, we deepened the strategic cooperation with our content partners, focused on social products and strengthened our advantages in hot trends and key verticals such as e-sports and sports. We built strategic partnerships with video sites, mainstream media and e-sports clubs this year to acquire more content and users. Despite potential costs incurred in the short run, we could significantly enhance our competitiveness in content operations and improve the operating efficiency of the platform's traffic. On the ad product front, for one thing, we will tap into market trends and beef up our investments in content marketing to strengthen our differentiation. For another, we focus on delivering breakthroughs in accurate algorithm adaptation to capture e-commerce ad budget.
Looking into the fourth quarter, we will continue to execute against our strategy of reducing costs and improving efficiency, with more focus on adjusting our cost structure and optimizing resource allocation to ensure efficient operation of our company amid high uncertainty of macro environment and solidify our long-term competitiveness.
接下来让我转给曹飞介绍三季度的财务情况。
With that, let me turn the call over to Fei Cao for financial review.
Thank you, Gaofei, and hello everyone. Welcome to Weibo third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Let's start with user metric. In September 2022, Weibo's MAU and average DAU reached 584 million and 253 million respectively, representing a net addition of 11 million and 5 million users respectively on a year-over-year basis. We are pleased to see healthy engagement trend and video consumption despite the back-to-school seasonality and ongoing disciplined channel marketing strategy, demonstrating Weibo's core value proposition to users. Turning to financials. As a reminder, my prepared remarks would focus on non-GAAP results. All monetary amounts are in U.S. dollar term and all comparisons are on a year-over-year basis, unless otherwise noted. Now let me walk you through our financial highlights for the third quarter of 2022.
Weibo third quarter 2022 net revenues were $453.6 million, a decrease of 25% or 20% on a constant currency basis. Operating income was $152.1 million, representing operating margin of 36%. Net income attributable to Weibo reached $119 million, representing a net margin of 26%. Diluted EPS was $0.50 compared to $0.90 last year. Now let me give you more color on revenues. Weibo's advertising and marketing revenues for the third quarter 2022 reached $393.4 million, a decrease of 27% or 21% on a constant currency basis, reflecting a tepid marketing advertising market as we expected. Mobile ad revenues was $372 million, contributing approximately 95% of total ad revenues.
With COVID resurgence and macro headwinds weighing on the overall demand side, our advertising business continued a descending trajectory year-over-year, while booking a moderate sequential growth during the quarter. Our leading verticals in terms of ad revenue contributions in the third quarter were FMCG, 3C products, and online games. In terms of growth, the luxury and automobile sector exhibited a solid recovery trend, booking double-digit growth both on annual and sequential basis, benefiting from tailwinds of electric vehicle industry, policy stimulus for the automobile industry, and an eventful product launch season for luxury brands. We beefed up sales efforts to capture high wallet share in this sector with our full spectrum of social ad solutions. The online game sector also demonstrated relative resilience as our brand plus performance ad offerings resonated greatly with game developers.
On the flip side, discretionary consumption categories and the E-commerce sector remained sluggish amid weak consumption sentiment, lukewarm sales data, and broad-based initiatives to optimize costs and expenses among our customers. From the ad product perspective, promoted feeds continued to be the largest part, followed by social display ad, and search, and topic ad offerings. In light of industry-wide pricing pressure and ad execution challenges, we proactively took the window to optimize our ad technology and product in the hope of capturing more performance-driven ad budget, which is more defensive in the current market condition. Meanwhile, we are steadfastly focused on highlighting our market differentiation, as well as further tapping into the visualization trend of the ad market. Entering the fourth quarter, we are seeing signs of advertising market bottoming out in a more moderate and gradual pace.
That said, leveraging the upcoming E-commerce festival, we will beef up our product and sales execution to capture the potential pent-up market opportunities while navigating through many headwinds in the near term. We remain confident in our long-term monetization opportunities that our unique value proposition and a diversified content ecosystem will unlock. Ad revenues from Alibaba for the third quarter was $15 million, a decrease of 28% or 22% on a constant currency basis, which is generally in line with our overall advertising business performance. Value-added service, VAS revenues was $16.1 million in the third quarter, a decrease of 14% or 8% on a constant currency basis. The decrease of VAS revenues was mainly due to less revenue contribution from membership services. Turning to costs and expenses.
Total costs and expenses for the third quarter were $291.5 million, a decrease of 19% as we implemented our efficiency initiatives to stabilize earnings. The decrease was across each cost and expense item, thanks to ongoing stringent cost control measures on various operational fronts, especially disciplined channel investments and reduced offline activities. Operating income in the third quarter was $162.1 million, representing operating margin of 36%, improved from 32% in the second quarter. Our margin performance has exceeded our expectation as our cost optimization initiatives continued to bear fruit despite COVID headwinds and the macro challenges. Turning to income tax. Under GAAP measure, income tax expense for the third quarter was $19.8 million compared to $31.4 million last year.
Net income attributable to Weibo in the third quarter was $119 million, representing a net margin of 26% compared to 34% last year. Turning to our balance sheet and cash flow items. As of September 30th, 2022, Weibo's cash equivalents, and short-term investments totaled $3 billion compared to $3.1 billion as of December 31st, 2021. In the third quarter of 2022, cash provided by operating activities was $74 million. Capital expenditures totaled $4.6 million. Depreciation and amortization expenses amounted to $13.2 million. Before turning to the planning session, I would like to provide update on share repurchase program.
Under the up to $500 million share repurchase program authorized in March this year, we have repurchased a total of approximately 3.1 million ADSs for a total cost of $57.7 million as of September 30th, 2022. We've returned value to shareholders amid a turmoil market. With that, let me now turn the call over to the operator for Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you, management. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask question at this time, please press star 1 1 and wait for your name to be announced. One moment for the first question. First question comes from the line Alicia Yap from Citigroup. Please proceed.
管理层晚上好，谢谢接受我的提问。我有一个问题关于四季度跟2023年的广告展望。因为四季度，就想请教一下，因为疫情，然后还有整个大背景的环境下，我们觉得就是，我们应该年对年的这个下滑，会比三季度再差一点呢？还是说我们去年的那个基础也比较低，然后四季度这个Double 11可能也是有一点贡献，能不能说今年的年对年下滑会比三季度好呢？还是再比三季度差。然后去到2023年的话，能具体跟我们大概分一下，譬如说上半年跟下半年，上半年的展望能不能说还是比较谨慎，然后如果下半年全部都回暖，然后经济也开放的时候，是不是能够会有更好的一个广告的收入的增长？我自己翻译一下。 So thanks for taking my questions. I have a question related to the advertising outlook and sentiment in the fourth quarter as well as into 2023. Given the stricter COVID policy and also the weakness in the macro, how should we think about the growth rate as comparison to the third quarter in terms of the declining magnitude?
Will the Q4 year-over-year decline be bigger, steeper than what we saw for the third quarter? As we go into 2023, can management also kind of split in terms of preliminary view for the first half versus the second half growth? How should we think about whether the first half should be more conservative? Second half we should see some resumption of the growth. Thank you.
首先谈到四季度跟2023年的展望，就是一个是我们如果看微博的广告结构，我们大概超过32%的行业其实跟消费是相关的，例如FMCG、3C，还有电商。所以说我们整个广告收入恢复的节奏基本上跟整体宏观经济跟消费回暖是高度相关的。
All right, thank you for this question. With regards to the Q4 and also the 2023 performance, you can see, first of all, I would like to talk to you about the structure of our advertisement. Two thirds of the industries are actually related to consumption. For example, FMCG or 3C products as well as the e-commerce. You can see that the recovery speed is highly related to the macro.
那我们会看四季度来讲的话呢，我们的同比的一个跌幅肯定比三季度是要缩窄，环比应该是可以保持增长。但是四季度的情况确实跟三季度相比，不同行业来讲的话呢，很多行业的趋势变化比较大。一个是呢，十月份很多客户的这种，因为大家都知道有一些国家有一些活动，所以说很多客户的线下活动是有一些暂停的，所以说十月份其实影响会大一些。但是我们会看今年的双十一及时和双十二的电商节点，我们现在看到很多电商平台和快消客户的预算释放还是比较不错的，我们可以保持一个同比增长的趋势。那但是同时来讲，这次要考虑去年其实我们在电商行业里面，有一个类型的客户就是直播电商，那这部分因为去年的一些原因，其实今年这个category其实下降比较多，但是整体这个电商和快消来讲的话呢，四季度还是可以保持一个不错的同比稳定的趋势。另外呢，世界杯我们会看到很快就要召开，我们会在世界杯里面那样也会强化了这个快消客户在微博里面的投放。我们会看到世界杯的我们的收入可能跟北京冬奥会的收入会差不太多吧。
Next of all, I would like to talk to you about the performance. You can see that we're going to narrow in the kind of a trend in Q4 and also we're going to realize a quarter-over-quarter improvement.
In the future. Also now, I would like to talk to you about the situation. As you can see that talking about some of the offline scenarios and also some of the offline activities, in October, we had a lot of, you know, activities and also events organized by national institutions so that we've got some suspensions of the offline activities organized by our customers. We had a big impact in October. However, you can see that talking about e-commerce, they had actually a great improvements because of the Double 11 shopping festival and also the Double 12 shopping festival as well. That's especially talking about the FMCGs. They're going to allocate more budget actually in these two events timeframes. Also the overall trend will be upward.
Also, you know, last year we had a very special category, which is the live stream e-commerce, and due to certain reasons, they had actually a big decline in terms of this particular this year's, you know, performance. The next one is that talking about the Q4 on the overall basis, the overall category of E-commerce will be experiencing a very stable trend. Talking about the World Cup, you can see that a lot of budget is going to be allocated with us in the World Cup. That's especially FMCG. That is to say that we're gonna receive the same budget of the FMCG allocation of their advertisements in the World Cup session, which is quite equal to the session of the Winter Olympics.
Now I would like to share with you some of the colors, like, for example, if we are talking about the new control, COVID control policy, especially the new 20 items that are issued by the government in controlling the COVID, and also some of the stimulus policies towards the real estate industry, we are able to see a very good recovery of the consumption side. That is to say that, having said that, we are still hoping that it will take time to recover. Even if we are having a fully open market after the COVID control, still it will not generate the recovery immediately. I believe that is going to be the case and still takes time to recover. The next point.
The next point I would like to talk to you about is, you know, talking about the first half of the next year. Still, we are gonna experience some of the stress in terms of the advertisement market. In 2022, in Q1, we did not have any impact actually from the COVID-19. However, if you're talking about the marketing activities and also some of the allocation of the budget and in terms of the product promotion, for example, we're gonna see a very good situation in the Q2 of 2023 and even in the second half of 2023. There will be an upward trend. Okay.
Lastly, I would like to say that if you're talking about the next year, so you can see that more people and also more customers are going to allocate their budget, especially on the performance-based ads. Also even if we are seeing that the slowdown of the new product launch, but still we are seeing that more customers are actually choosing our platform as their kind of, you know, platform to launch their new product. The new product launch, you know, percentage against the rest of the other, you know, budget is increasing, especially that is quite obvious in the industry of luxury products and also the automotives as well.
Third point is that, you know, in the next, you know, several quarters and also the next year, we're gonna still focus on the cost reduction as well as the efficiency improvement. We're gonna have a very better situation in that. Thank you. Questions.
Next questions comes from the line of Thomas Chong of Jefferies. Please proceed. Thomas, your line is now open. Please proceed with your question.
晚上好，谢谢管理层接受我的提问。我的问题是关于我们的降本增效的执行都非常的不错，尤其是看到了很好的运营的利润率。想问一下，我们看明年是否会继续采取这个降本增效的一个战略？还有就是我们应该怎么去理解第四季度，还有明年，我们这个利润率的一个展望，还有就是我们降本增效的一些具体的战...
Thanks management for my questions. We have been seeing the cost optimization strategies and emphasis on ROI is executing quite well. In particular, we are seeing that reflect in our operating margin. May I get some more color about our strategies in 2023, our strategies in cost optimization, and how should we think about Q4 margin trend as well as next year margin outlook as well as the measures that we will be undertaking next year? Thank you.
谢谢。我刚才在script也简单说了，就是三季度来讲的话呢，其实营销费用一个是市场营销，我们继续执行了营销费用优化，同时在探研和运营方面也做了优化。那同时我觉得三季度还有一些季节性的因素，是因为二季度跟三季度我们都原计划有一些线下活动，可能因为疫情的原因，那这部分会转在四季度和明年会举办。那这些活动其实ROI来讲的话呢，基本上可以保持一比二这样一个水平。但是来讲的话呢，就是这也是三季度的一些margin会比二季度提升的一个原因吧。因为三季度这类活动很多，因为疫情的原因，没有举办，这是一个三季度的一个情况。Go ahead。
All right, thanks for this question. Actually, I've been stated quite briefly in the script. That is to say that in Q3, we've been keeping optimizing some of the expenses, for example, marketing and then related to R&D and also operation as well. We've been had a lot of optimizations. In Q2 and Q3, due to the COVID management and control policy, a lot of our offline events actually did not have or did not successfully hold. We are going to move and delay them into Q4. The ROI of this offline events will be around one to two or so. That is the reason why we're having a slight higher margin in Q3 than that of Q2.
从Q4或者说是明年的利润率展望吧，就是说目前这样一个市场环境里面，刚才也说了，在明年上半年，因为经济政策和这种疫情的情况，我们认为还是存在比较大的不确定性的。所以说我们还会更加坚决地执行这种降本增效的这个方案，特别是我们对于整体成本结构会进行一些调整，将我们的这种尤其是市场营销和人力成本方面的配置，会根据回向公司的平台核心竞争力做一些集中，这也对于我们强化微博的这样一个市场竞争力至关重要。那大家如果跟踪微博比较久的话，大家会知道在过去的五年里面，其实我们在十七年到二十年，我们基本上运营成本都可以控制在运营成本费用控制在60%左右。那2021年呢，因为我们做了一些新的业务的投入，这个比例上升到了65%。那在今年上半年呢，受疫情的影响，因为收入下降，所以说这样一个成本比例其实进一步上升。这与微博的这样一个我们讲的社交媒体平台定位，其实我们认为还是有所不符的。未来一段时间呢，我们会聚焦在突出微博平台的特性和我们的运营优势，那提升微博竞争力，发展新业务的同时，我们优化我们的成本结构，让我们的经营效率回到一个我们认为合理的水平。Go ahead。
Also, if you are talking about the next year and also Q4 as well. There are a lot of uncertainties in terms of the control policy of COVID, as well as the economic policies as well, so especially in the first half of next year, so that, of course, we're going to further reduce the cost and also optimize the cost as well as improve the operational efficiency and also do a lot of works in terms of the optimization of our cost structure. For example, we're going to further concentrate and also doing more optimization works related to the expenses of marketing and also labor and human resources as well. That's how we're going to improve our core competence by doing that.
If you are, you know, a very senior investors been following Weibo for a very long time, you should be knowing the story about five years before. From 2017-2020, well, we had about the operational cost which was about 60% against our revenue. In 2020, because of launch of new operational, you know, events and also businesses, this particular figure improved to about 65%. In 2022 first half, because of the reduction of the revenue, this particular figure is going up further. We don't think that this is actually quite in line with the positioning and also the cost trend of Weibo as a social media platform.
In the future, we're going to really focus on advantages and also the key characteristics as well as, you know, further improve our core competence and then having a better-off situation by doing a lot of further more works on the optimization of our cost and also cost structure. As to improve our operational efficiency further.
所以我觉得从四季度的情况看，因为我们有些二季度、三季度的活动会放在四季度举行，所以我们可能四季度的利润率不会像三季度达到36%这么高，可能跟上上个季度差不多。但是2023年我们希望相比2022年来看的话，我们可以保持一个运营利润率的稳步提升。这个提升来讲的话，是在我们还是会保持我们核心竞争力方面的投入，同时也保持我们一定对新业务的拓展性。从长期来看的话，我们在市场波动阶段，我们还是要平衡好我们的增长和我们的投入的关系，我们尤其会关注保持一个更加稳健的现金流的产生能力，来加强我们在财务上的灵活性。谢谢。
Lastly I'd like to say that in Q4, as I have already stated, that you know most of the offline events should have been happening in Q2 and Q3 will be moved to Q4 so that we are not going to see as high operational margin as the previous quarter.
I think that this should be quite similar to Q2. In 2023, of course, we're going to have a very stable plan for the growth of our operational margin and also really emphasize more, of course, on the you know investment to improve our core competency as well as launch most of our new businesses. In the long run, while the market is fluctuating and also uncertain, definitely speaking, we have to keep a very good balance in terms of our development and also investment as well, and also generate quite robust cash through all those means and also having a very good flexibility on our financial performance.
谢谢。
Thank you for the questions. In the interest of time, the last question comes from Timothy Zhao from Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.
好的，感谢管理层接受我的提问。那我的问题是关于VAS，因为我观察到微博从今年下半年以来，在会员电商业务，包括微博小店上面有一些新的动作，那想请教一下管理层关于拓展收入多元化的这个想法，那我们应该怎么展望非广告收入，包括VAS这边的收入的一个未来增长的潜力。Uh, could management share your thoughts on the strategy to further diversify the revenue stream beyond advertising?
What are the key initiatives the company is investing to? What is the management outlook for VAS revenue potential going forward? Thank you.
那，我首先在变现方面来看，我们虽然有VAS业务，但是对于微博在社交媒体领域的影响力和我们的流量规模而言，那广告模式是我们当前变现效率最高的一个产品机制。那尤其是刚才我也提到，像微博这样一个广告产品，其实在我们的客户市场，特别对于新媒体发布来讲，是一个必需品的情况下。那但是我们确实也看到，广告模式有时候会受到竞争跟客户市场波动的影响，让我们流量的这种变现价格其实会有一些负面的承压。那这个时候其实我们就需要有一些更多元化的变现方式来提升我们平台流量的这个变现的极限。那所以说目前微博的VAS的收入占总收入的比重13%，这个比例不高，但是对我们保持我们流量的整个的底部的变现价格其实是至关重要的。Go ahead。
Thank you for the question. I have to say that even if you can see that now in the advertisement module here in Weibo, we do have actually a VAS. You know, if you are talking about the first of all, the positioning and also the market influence of Weibo as a big social media platform, and also, you know, because of the importance and also the product of advertisement itself as a kind of a necessity or necessary product for the customers to actually launch their new products, we can see that the efficiency of the monetization by using the advertisement is actually the highest. Of course, that still, if you are talking about a fluctuated market, still we do see a lot of pressure on the pricing of this particular advertisement.
That is the reason why we have to diversify the monetization method. Even if you know currently speaking, we have our VAS accounting for the total revenue, which is about only 13%, not very high. Actually I think that is significantly important for us to maintain the fundamental line for our monetization itself, and especially based on the traffic.
那关于这个电商、电商和小店方面来看，我们主要还是做平台再加广告的模式，那这方面我们跟淘宝、京东联盟都有很好的合作关系，这方面大家以往也都是有所了解。那确实我们今年选择部分高ups的领域开展了一些闭环电商的变现，因为这个在我们现，我们会看到在现金流包括对用户服务方面的效率会更高。对于一些线上线下结合的这些社交电商领域，我们这样的话可以把微博平台的红人优势，包括我们这个企业蓝V的服务商、线下机构，能整合在一起，为用户提供高质量的一个内容种草、在线下单、旅游保障等服务。那目前这块的规模不是特别大，但是保持了一个不错的增长，那这部分我们还会继续坚持。
Second thing, in terms of our E-commerce and also the mini shop of Weibo. Actually we are having a model of combining the platform with the product. As you all know that we always keep a very good relationship with JD and also Taobao and also the other alliances as well. In terms of this one, we are always, you know, keeping a very good, you know, collaboration with those very good, you know, E-commerce with a very high output. This is very efficient for us to generate enough cash flow and especially for those, you know, scenarios of online plus offline as well.
We can see that, you know, this is especially important for us to leverage the capability and also the advantage of Weibo as a platform and especially, you know, helping those offline organizations to actually have a very good select of the versions, and also helping to improve the quality of the users by guaranteeing a very good, you know, model of placing order within this particular, you know, station and also having to guarantee a very good agreement fulfillment and also the performance. We've been having a very good growth on this particular segment. Okay. Further for talking about the members. As you can see that, during the past development, we have been actually having a very stable and also mature membership system.
On one hand, this is actually very good to guarantee a benefit that is specifically unique to those, you know, loyal members of our Weibo platform. Also this is very good for us to actually bring a lot of our monetization capabilities and opportunities for those content creators as well. This is actually, you know, even going to further boost the activity and also enhance the ability of the monetization. Also, you know, previously in the last year, we had, you know, a lot of restrictions from the entertainment industry. Also that was a little bit impact to our total business.
Actually you can see that while we are upgrading the benefits that we are providing to the users and also the members in specific in Q3, we are seeing that the revenues and also the loyalty of the members actually improved in Q3. If you are sharing some of the colors on the V+ membership system, we are having a kind of a year-over-year growth on this area, and especially in the area of healthcare, internet and also the other segments. We are keeping a very good growth year-over-year. Also this is giving us a more space, of course, in the future to further enhance this particular segment of the V+ Membership System.
You know, Membership System is a very important revenue, which we regard as a non-advertising revenue to Weibo, and this is really significant. In the future, we're gonna further enhance, you know, more functions and also dedicating ourselves into, for example, first of all, SVIP. Second is the V+ system, which is targeting in specifics those content creators. This is a very good way, you know, for us to, you know, improve the monetization and also the revenue of the content creators. This is going to be very beneficial to Weibo in the long run as well. Thank you.
Thank you for the questions. With that, ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.