Welcome everyone to join momo.com second quarter earnings conference call. Momo.com is hosting our conference call via live audio web chat through our website, where you can download the latest equity report and the second quarter company presentation. The format for today's event will be as follows: First, our president will summarize our operations highlights in the second quarter of 2023, followed by business outlook. Afterwards, I will discuss the financial results. Next, we will open the lines to questions from analysts and investors. You are also welcome to leave your questions to chat box during the presentation. As usual, I would like to remind you, today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to significant risk and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from this contained in the forward-looking statement.
Please refer to the safe harbor notice that appears in our presentation. As now, I would like to turn the call over to Jeff for the summary of operation and outlook.
Thanks, Manisha. Hello, everyone. Thank you for being here with us today. Let's kick things off by sharing some key highlights from the second quarter. Looking at the big picture, Taiwan retail markets showed varied performances across different operations. Department stores and convenience stores, which suffered badly during the COVID, now have experienced remarkable year-over-year growth. On the other hand, supermarkets and e stores faced challenges, mainly due to the high base effect and a shift in consumer spending towards entertainment and leisure activities. In the second quarter, the Taiwan EC market grew by a modest 0.5% year-over-year, as the reopening and the microeconomic conditions impacted the sector. Despite these challenges, we are proud to say that Momo still outperformed its peers.
Regarding the competitive landscape, there hasn't been much happening except for the newly entered foreign player, who has been launching large marketing campaigns and offer big discounts to attract customers. We believe this aggressive pricing strategy might persist for some time, and it may cause confusion among consumers and has raised concern among vendors. As a leading EC player in Taiwan, we maintain optimism about the long-term prospect of the industry. While there are current headwinds, we believe they will subside and the industry will regain its growth momentum. This optimism is driven by two key factors, the low EC penetration rate and a relative healthy competitive landscape. To ensure the sustained growth in the long run, we recognize the need to focus on innovation and strengthen our core competencies.
These efforts are a reflection of our commitment to transforming TV shopping into online streaming and investing in a robust retail marketing platform to support the advertising business. As we navigate the challenges and opportunities in the ever-evolving EC landscape, we are dedicated to maintaining our position as a front runner in Taiwan EC industry. By leveraging our expertise and continuously adapting to the changing consumer preferences, we are confident in achieving long-term success and contributing to the overall growth of the industry. Now, let's dive into some operational highlights. Our EC revenue for the second quarter increased by 5.6% year-over-year. However, the lower-than-expected momentum can be attributed to overall soft consumer sentiment amid prevailing macroeconomic uncertainties. Consumers are directing more of their discretionary spending towards travel, dining out, and entertainment.
Nevertheless, we continue to outpace the total online industry and our peers in terms of the growth. All of our major product categories reported growth, though at a more moderate pace compared to the previous year. In terms of profitabilities, our company take rate for second quarter declined to 14.4% from 14.6% last year. This decline was influenced by the less favorable revenue mix of TV and EC. However, the EC take rate improved from 13.08% to improve from 13.02% in second quarter last year, driven up by a better mix, product mix and improved bargaining power. Our second quarter company operating profit margin came in at 3.8%, compared to 4.1% last year.
This decline can be attributed to higher marketing expenses and unfavorable revenue mix of EC and the TV. Summing up the first six months of this year, our company's revenue growth was 6.8% year-over-year, lower than the previous year, but our net margin remained at 3.4%. Let's turn our attention to the new initiative. We are pleased to report that the monthly live streaming viewership in second quarter increased by 13 times compared to the last year. This significant growth rate highlights the potential of this new channel, offering an unique shopping and entertainment experience. Additionally, our new 3P operation model attracted more suppliers and expanded the product selection to our customers. Looking ahead to the second half of the quarter, of the year, we expect fashion and luxury and beauty and healthcare to maintain strong growth momentum.
However, 3C and home appliance and household categories will continue to deal with the recovering soft customer demand and the high base caused by COVID last year. Overall, we think that the market condition in second half will be gradually improved. The EC revenue growth is expected to be higher than the first half, although the second half operating profit margin may be slightly lower due to the seasonal plan and larger scale of promotions. Due to the unexpected tougher market conditions, our revenue, our annual revenue growth may not meet our original expectation of mid-teens. Now let's touch on our logistic infrastructure and the ESG efforts. Over the years, we have diligently established an island-wide warehousing and logistic infrastructure in line with our business growth. Consequently, our logistic cost has been in line with the revenue growth. With the scale increase, we have witnessed efficiency improvement.
Looking ahead, the south distribution center will be in service in first quarter of next year, and the central distribution center will begin construction works later this year. This new infrastructure development, coupled with the increasing capacity of our own fleet, will provide strong support for our future growth and serve as a long-term competitive edge. On the ESG front, we are proud to announce that our transition to ESG report is now available on our website. We are delighted with our 2022 ESG performance, having received several related awards recently. This included being recognized as a top 5% company in the corporate governance evaluation for seven consecutive years. You can find more details of these awards in the presentation file. We're committed to create substantial, sustainable value for our investors, employees, customers, suppliers, and the communities. This concludes all my remarks.
Now, I would like to hand over the microphone to Manisha.
Thanks, Jeff. Let's walk through second quarter results. Consolidated revenue grew 4.3% year-over-year, slower than previous years, impacted by overall soft consumer sentiment, amid macro headwinds and consumers discretionary spending allocation more on travel, restaurant, and entertainment out of home. Our EC revenue increased 5.6% year-over-year, continually grow faster than Taiwan EC market and our competitor. EC take rate hold well to 13.08%, driven by less low-margin product mix. EBITDA came in at TWD 1.29 billion. EBITDA margin was down to 4.9% from 5.2% a year earlier, primarily because of higher marketing expenses and unfavorable revenue mix of EC and the TV. Moving on to the balance sheet.
We ended second quarter with cash and the cash equivalent of $5.2 billion, a decrease of 40% year-over-year, as we distributed $3.27 billion cash dividend this quarter versus cash dividend paid out in third quarter last year. Regarding cash flow and CapEx, during the second quarter, we generated about $1.37 billion in cash from operations, spent $240 million in CapEx. For the first six months of this year, free cash flow was about $800 million, an increase of 17% on a Y-O-Y basis. Regarding the CapEx, year-to-date, we spent $172 million, including warehouse facilities, IT equipment, and a $71 million acquisition cost for e-magazine and eBook business. I have finished my financial summary. Now let's turn to industry dynamic and operations update.
Based on the Ministry of Economic Affairs, non-store sales as percentage of total retail sales declined to 12.7% in the first half, from 13.7% first half last year's. Given, first one, the physical store rebounded from the low base, and the consumers discretionary spending shifted more to travel leisure activities in the post-reopening. For your information, restaurant sales surged 26% year-over-year in the first half. Taiwan outbound Travelers jumped 17 times in the first half. Meanwhile, we also saw concert and festival boom here. Nevertheless, online penetration rate remained higher than the pre-pandemic levels. We can see the upper right-hand side chart. Second quarter retail sales rose 12.7% year-over-year to TWD 1.12 trillion.
General retail sales increased 14.1% year-on-year, mainly driven by department store sales, supported by relatively low comparison base last year's. While total online industry sales only increased 0.5% year-over-year. Now let me turn to e-commerce. Despite tough industry environment, our major five product categories continue to grow, but at a more moderate pace than previous years, supported by our compelling customer value proposition, including competitive pricings, faster delivery services, and widest assortment with active SKU over 4.6 million, an increase of 23% year-over-year in second quarter. Across our vast assortment, apparel, shoes, fashion accessory, luggage, and leisure related items replace consumer electronics, food, home improvement, kitchenware among the best selling.
Cosmetic, seen as an affordable luxury, also gained tractions and became a bright spot with rising unit sales as people headed back to social activity. Now, moving to the key customer metrics. Our MAU, monthly average visitors in second quarter came in at 12.5 million, versus 12.4 million in the first quarter, and increased 2% year-on-year. Number of active user continued to increase sequentially for the 69 straight quarter and each up 4%, while light. Both order frequency and the ticket size were flattish, owing to more cautious spending behaviors. On Momo and Fubon co-branded credit card, its cardholder spending contributed 34% of EC revenue, versus 28% in second quarter last year's, demonstrating a growing, growing customers loyalty and stickiness. Finally, on logistics infrastructures.
This quarter, net warehouse numbers remained 65, while we put more effort on operating efficiency, such as process improvement, automation, and supply chain optimization. Meanwhile, as just as Jeff mentions, SDC will be in service in first quarter next year, and CDC construction will be pick up later this year. With the support from these two new D.C. plus the existing NDC, along with the ongoing satellite warehouses expansion and increasing capacity of our own fleet, our competitive threshold will be further increased through the offering the best delivery services to majority of populations in Taiwan. As the largest B2C players in Taiwan, equipped with island-wide logistic infrastructure, which we have scaled up for years, we believe scale can create most around business. Sometimes size is hard to compete with and very expensive. This concludes our prepared statements. Operator, we are ready for QA session.
Thank you, Marisha. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now opening for questions. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone. Thank you. Once again, please press star one for questions. Thank you. The first question comes from Angela with Citigroup. Thank you.
Hi, Jeff and Marisha. This is Angela from Citigroup. Thank you for having me. I got a few from my end. Our first question, a quick one. In the briefing, Jeff noted our sales won't meet mid-teens growth year-over-year for this year. Wondering if you can share a rough range of the sales growth guidance this year. Like, are we aiming for 10%-15% or, like, even lower? Any color would be helpful. Thank you.
Right. Again, this year's market is very hard to predict, we tend not to give you a range. What I can say is, I think, the second half revenue growth, in terms of revenue growth, the second half will be better than the first half. Of course, with the great help of the first quarter, first quarter promotions. We think that going to help a lot on the revenue side. Because of that big promotion, we, we think the operating margin, as usual, will be lower. The revenue group will be higher than first half, and the operating margin will be slightly lower. That's probably the best estimate we can give to you.
Got it. May I just clear one, clarify one thing? On the margin, guidance you mentioned, previously we are aiming for a flattish year-over-year, and now we are looking for, maybe down on a year-over-year basis. Is that correct?
Well, first half already compared to last year, is already lower, slightly. I think it's a 4.3 and a 4.1. I think the trend will continue to the second half, yes. I think overall, the whole year, this year will be slightly lower than last year.
Got it. That's very clear. Thank you, Jeff. My second question is about the impact on Coupang. I believe we are all well aware of the aggressive promotion by Coupang from April this year. It's surprisingly, when I look at your presentation, on second quarter, MAU held up quite well and even marginally improved on a quarter-over-quarter basis. What's a better way to understand this number? Does that mean we do not lose many existing customers, instead, the strong promotions done by Coupang help drive overall e-commerce penetration so that we are also a part of the beneficiary?
I think different people have a different view. Our view is, if someone come in the market offer a deep discount, it certainly will bring attention from the customers. However, the customer doesn't necessarily just for one big discount switch to that player. They probably still shop around. Also, for things that they do not carry, they still need to go back to the place they buy, they used to, to buy from. I think probably that's the reason, and as the number one B2C e-commerce player, we continue to gain the market share, although at a slower paces. I think you probably also want to know what's the impact in the long term, we can tell from the new entry. We don't know.
I think they will continue doing what they do for, for a while to, to prove that will work or would lead what they want to achieve. There's probably not much we can do to change or, or alter their mind. I think what we need to do just run faster, which is do our things and run faster, and the market is still big and the penetration rate is still low. No matter we get a new entry or not, we, we believe we will continue to grow.
Got it. Thank you, Jeff. Just a quick follow-up. Wondering if they continue using promotion to gain attraction, are we also likely follow suit, i.e., increase the scale of promotion in second half? What would be our strategy to fend off such competition?
Well, we, we have no intention to offer things so much lower than your cost. We don't think that's a sustainable strategy. I mean, for a new entrant, want to acquire customer, they're probably one of their tactic. But we are here for the longer term. We just, we think we still stick with our strategy. We offer a good quality of the product at the competitive price. I think, just, new or temporary high discount offer probably will affect us in a very short time. However, there are still room, there are new customers you can win from. We just, we are, as I said before, we just need to run faster and to uncover this haven't been served market.
Right. Got it. Thank you, Jeff. That's very helpful. That's all from me. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from Phil with JP Morgan. Thank you.
Hi, Jeff and Marisha. Thank you for taking my question. I just want to understand if we are looking into a three-year framework.
What is the growth CAGR that the company management is targeting at? We understand you are going to launch the distribution center next year. Will there be other strategy or drivers you will use to push and, and to lead to the growth target you are thinking of?
We are sorry, we don't have that three-year CAGR to share with you. We believe this market we're going to grow and the growth momentum going to resume sometime. As our tracker, track record, we always outperform the market. Let's do our strategy, and we just need to get through this period of the time, which get impacted by the pre, post, pre opening and also the macro e-economics push consumers to reallocate their spending.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. One second, ladies and gentlemen, please press star one for questions. Thank you. Once again, please press star one for questions. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please press star one for questions. Thank you.
There's a question online. Let's have a look at the question, see what we can answer.
Okay, there's some questions from the chat box. This is from the White Oak Capital Partners. Could you please comment which categories are seeing most competitive advantage and also the pressures?
I think for online players, standardized product always is more easy to get a customer to accept to buy online. But I think the entire market has already passed that stage. 'Cause people tend to buy almost anything from online. I think it's just needed to give them the selection. That's the reason why we are gradually pushing to our own 3PL operation model that will bring in those long tail product selections. Also there's a question asked about the Momo Card. Momo Card, we think by the end of the year, we're going to approach around 1 million card issued, and all the cardholder currently account for around 30% of the total credit card spending on Momo.
Anything else we can find on the online?
Okay, operator, this conclude our QA session. Before we conclude today's conference, please be advised the replay of the call will be accessible within one hour from now through the momo.com website. Thank you for your participations today, and we hope everybody continue to stay well. Have a good rest of the summer, and we hope you to join us again next quarter. Thank you. Bye.