Thank you all for standing by, and welcome to the Phoenix New Media second quarter 2022 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question at that time, you'll need to press star then one one on your telephone keypad. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Muzi Guo from Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator, and hello, everyone. Welcome to Phoenix New Media's second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. I'm joined here today by our CEO, Mr. Shuang Liu, and our CFO, Mr. Edward Lu. On today's call, management will first provide a review of the quarterly results and then conduct a Q&A session. The second quarter 2022 financial results and webcast of this conference call are available on our website at ir.ifeng.com.
A replay of the call will be available on the website in a few hours. Before we move on to the prepared remarks, I'd like to refer you to our safe harbor statement in our earnings press release, which applies to this call as we will make forward-looking statements. Finally, please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during the conference call are in RMB. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Shuang Liu, our CEO.
Thank you, Muzi. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today. In the second quarter of 2022, the nationwide COVID resurgence continued to exert pressure on our business. While some of our marketing executions were postponed or canceled, many of our advertisers choose to tighten their branding budget in a highly uncertain macro environment. Nevertheless, we remain resilient during challenging times. We concentrated on expanding our media presence through offering premium content, made significant upgrades to our product, and continued to explore new business opportunities to diversify our revenue streams. This year marks the eleventh anniversary of our Phoenix Finance Summit. We took this signature event online in light of the challenges of holding offline events.
This year, Mrs. Carrie Lam, former Chief Executive of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and nearly 50 other political dignitaries and business tycoons gathered at our online summit to exchange and share insights and ideas on the global and Chinese economy. The summit generated an immense number of views and discussions on social platforms with 300 million views on Weibo and was reported by more than 60 media outlets, making it one of the most high-profile events during the quarter. In terms of news event coverage, we jointly planned a two-day special coverage with Phoenix TV on the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong SAR. We invited scholars and actors to participate in featured interviews and discussions focusing on hot topics such as opportunities and challenges faced by the region in areas of politics, finance, innovation, and education.
In addition, we reacted 10 memorable moments in the 25 years of Hong Kong SAR history into digital collectibles, which were not only sought after in the digital marketplace, but also attracted more younger generations to our event coverage. Our original content continued to deliver value to our users and society. Our investigative column, Eye of the Storm, focused on unveiling and exposing relevant facts behind controversial topics and the social phenomena, ranging from financial scams targeted at seniors to the pollution caused by electric car manufacturers. The column received widespread praise for raising public awareness and seeking answers to difficult questions. Our in-depth opinion column, The Messages , function explore trending hot topics with a focus on ordinary individuals and their life stories, especially on the pandemic prevention and control.
It covered these topics from different angles, such as laws and regulations, industry standards, social economy, public policy, using an authoritative, rational, and constructive style consistent with our content strategy and differentiation. The Message attracted a group of loyal followers with a considerable number of articles, each generating over 100,000 views on WeChat. On the video content front, our newly launched original series, The Journey, 旅 途, went viral across all social platforms. The Journey is a micro video film documentary that records people around us and fitness and sweetness in their lives. Found in our spotlight was a tech company executive suffering from ALS, but is resilient and persistent. A restaurant owner struggling to support his business under the pandemic, and a mid-age coder renavigating his life after losing his jobs.
These stories resonated well among our audience. Each series episode received 10 million views across the internet and generated over 100,000 new followers on Douyin and Bilibili. In terms of our product, we continue to refine our ifeng APP during the quarter. The newly developed page integrating all news articles in the APP with audio functions allows users to listen to the uninterrupted latest update of their preferred news while performing other tasks. They can now also choose to listen to Phoenix TV's live programs instead of watching. This has resulted in noticeably improved user engagement. The average time spent by users using the audio function has increased by 26%. Meanwhile, we continue to refine our content curation strategy. On the other hand, our algorithm distributes content based on nearly 60 user profiles to fulfill their soft news and interest-based content needs.
On the other hand, by adding their own captions, our editors carefully choose and present the information they publish. A sentence or two of their own source, or calling out the quote, help highlight the content in the news feeds, which leads to more clicks and a few interactions and discussions. These enhancements have greatly improved our user experiences. As we continue to optimize our traffic acquisition costs, our user traffic remains stable while our user engagement has improved. The average click-through rate has increased by 22% year-over-year. Average time spent by user increased by 15%, and the next day retention rate increased by 15%. Lastly, I would like to share our progress in revenue diversification. For our online reading, we continue to monetize from our collection of premium IP literature.
Our audiobook, Wen Ding, jointly produced with Himalaya, reached 9 million views within 2 months since its release. Meanwhile, six of our self-produced audiobooks ranked in the Himalaya new book top. Monetization of our audiobooks also made a significant progress as we entered into a copyright sales agreement with NetEase Cloud Music. For our real estate vertical, the aftershock of the industry regulation and liquidity concerns lingered, and the macro environment remained uncertain. While driving growth in real estate advertising was challenging, our team vigorously promoted innovative solution to our clients, including selling customized appliance packages. On the content side, we put focus on reporting issues concerned by C-end home buyers, such as the quality of construction and renovations. In the meantime, our ESG index, released in the second quarter, became the first comprehensive ESG ranking in the real estate industry, highly recognized by landlords and the property developers.
Our 2B and C influence were both growing thanks to these efforts. In addition, the team optimized the sales team structure and eliminated certain city divisions that did not meet expectations for profitability to improve operational efficiency. As for e-commerce, we launched our digital collectible platform, Phoenix Artworks, during the quarter. As previously noted, we published a compilation of digital historical moments in honor of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Hong Kong SAR. What set us apart from the other platforms is our genre in art and culture and our partnership with the world's leading museums and art institutions. The first collection launched A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, a 12th-century painting in the collection of the Palace Museum, was sold out within 1 hour of release.
West interactions, such as the impressionist world series by Van Gogh, Cézanne, and Gauguin, were likewise extremely popular and quickly sold out. The digital collectible can generate considerable discussion and enthusiasm online. This is especially important for events, emerging IPs, and brands that want to increase their recognition and exposure quickly. As such, we believe that in addition to the sale of digital collectibles, they can complement our future events and marketing solutions. In summary, despite the macro headwind, we remain committed to strengthening our brand influence through breaking new coverage at our signature events, while continue to enrich our content offerings and upgrade our product. At the same time, we cautiously evaluated and invested in new business initiatives to diversify our revenue streams.
In the future, we will prudently manage our business operations while focusing on business development and emerging growth areas. With that, I will now turn the call to our CFO, Edward Lu, to provide a closer look into our quarterly financials.
Thank you, Shuang, and hello everyone. I will now walk you through our financial performance for the second quarter of 2022. Our total revenues were RMB 131.6 million, as compared to RMB 256.7 million in the same period of last year. To elaborate, net advertising revenues were RMB 160.5 million, compared to RMB 233 million in the same period of last year. The decrease was mainly due to the reduction in advertising spending of advertisers in certain industries, the intensified industry-wide competition, and the negative impact of the COVID-19 outbreak in certain regions in China in the second quarter. Paid services revenues were RMB 31.1 million, compared to RMB 23.7 million in the same period of last year.
The increase was primarily driven by increase in the content sales to certain customers. Loss from operations in the second quarter of 2022 was RMB 94.8 million, compared to RMB 34.8 million in the same period of last year. Net loss attributable to ifeng was RMB 95.8 million, compared to RMB 7.1 million in the same period of last year. Moving on to our balance sheet. As of June 30, 2022, the company's cash and cash equivalent, term deposits, short-term investments, and restricted cash were RMB 1.33 billion, or approximately $198.5 million. Finally, I'd like to provide our business outlook for the third quarter of 2022.
We are forecasting total revenues to be between RMB 197.2 million and RMB 217.2 million. For net advertising revenues, we are forecasting between RMB 179.6 million and RMB 194.6 million. For paid service revenues, we are forecasting between RMB 17.6 million and RMB 22.6 million. This forecast reflects our current and preliminary views, which are subject to change and substantial uncertainties. In summary, our advertising business experienced continued pressure due to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak during the second quarter of 2022. In response, we proactively managed our expenses, streamlined our operations, and optimized our team structure to improve operating efficiency. Going forward, we will continue to investigate new business initiatives to improve our revenue stream mix.
Despite the short-term setbacks, we believe our endeavors will sustain us through these adversities and prepare us to achieve a better margin recovery in the future. This concludes the prepared portion of our call. We are now ready for questions. Operator, please go ahead.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star, then one one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Xueru Zhang from 86Research. Please go ahead.
Good morning, management. Thank you for taking my question. I have one question about the app business. The first half of this year was tough for the app market. As we head into the second half, I wonder, does management observe any recovery trend? Also could you share some color on the growth outlook for the second half? Thank you.
Thank you. Actually, the answer is yes. You know, many companies, you know, suffered from the economic headwinds during the last quarter, and we were no exception. Our teams in Shanghai and Beijing had to work remotely from home for some time, and so did many of our major clients. With the economic growth slowing down and so much uncertainties, advertiser demand softened. Statistics showed that from January to May, the total marketing spending decreased by over about 10% year-over-year. Certain industries were affected even more. For example, the auto industry, one of our major client industries. Their marketing spending dropped by around 25% from January to May.
From June, however, as the economy gradually recovers from COVID impact, businesses once again started to invest in branding and marketing to help their sales growth. For the rest of the year, given this trend continues, we hope our advertising revenue will pick up. Having said that, we have to admit that the competition is very intense. As advertisers tighten their budget, their demand for comprehensive marketing solutions is ever-growing. We have to quickly respond to that and find our own differentiation. First, our brand image and media influence our core advantages.
Actually in the first half of this year through our breaking news coverage and original content, not only did we increase user engagement in our ifeng APP, but also our user base on the third-party platforms increased by 30%, reaching nearly 130 million. While we help advertisers to convey their brand stories and escalate their brand exposure, we can help them reach a broader customer base. At the same time, we are introducing creative marketing tools, such as digital collectibles and virtual characters to fulfill advertisers' need for creative marketing. Also, utilizing our international background and perspectives, we have created a series of products helping advertisers to expand their international exposure and conduct more overseas branding activities. Our global observer series, for example, was well-received by our advertisers.
With all this joint effort, we are hoping to see growth recovery in our advertising revenue in the second half of the year. Thank you, Xueru Zhang.
Thank you. That's very helpful.
Our next question comes from Alice Tang. Alice Tang from First Shanghai. Please go ahead.
Good morning, management. Thank you for taking my question. My question is regarding the cost side. It was mentioned earlier that the company was implementing cost control measures. Will this be a continuing trend in the future? Could you please disclose the company's long-term cost strategy? Thank you.
Hi, Alice. Thank you for your question. Actually, as mentioned on our last call, our goal is to return to profitability in the next two to three years. As such, optimizing our resource allocation and increasing efficiency is our top priority, and this will continue to be our focus in the near future. During the second quarter, we continued to drive efficiency in all areas. On day-to-day project execution level, we closely reviewed the cost structure of each project, demanding a higher gross margin. In terms of business lines, especially the new initiatives, we set clear goals and performance measurements and conduct frequent reviews. With limited resources, we have to cautious with our pilot projects.
If they have not met previous expectations, we respond quickly as to whether or not they have to be scaled down or even being closed. Also, on a higher level, we did thorough analysis on bandwidth, marketing, labor costs, and so on to drive overall cost optimization, which should pay off with better results in the following quarters. Alice, I hope I have answered your question.
Yes. Thank you. That's very helpful.
Thank you. That was our final question. I will hand back to management for closing comments.
Thank you. We have now come to the end of our Q&A session and our conference call. Your time is very much appreciated. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact us. Thank you for joining us today on this call, and have a good day.
Thank you so much. This does conclude today's conference call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.