Good day, and welcome to the iQIYI fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023 earnings conference call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on a touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I will now like to turn the conference call over to Ms. Shen Yu, IR Director. Ms. Yu, the floor is yours, ma'am.
Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining iQIYI's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023 earnings conference call. The company's results were released earlier today and available on the company's investor relations website at ir.iqiyi.com. On the call today are Mr. Yu Gong, our Founder, Director, and CEO, Mr. Jun Wang, our CFO, Mr. Xiaohui Wang, our CCO, Chief Content Officer, Mr. Wenfeng Liu, our CTO, Chief Technology Officer, Mr. Youqiao Duan, Senior Vice President of our Membership Business, and Mr. Xianghai Yang, Senior Vice President of Movies and Overseas Business. Mr. Gong will give a brief overview of the company's business operation and highlights, followed by Jun, who will go through the financials. After the prepared remarks, the management team will participate in the Q&A session.
Before we proceed, please note that the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those outlined in our public filings with the SEC. iQIYI does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law. I will now pass the floor to Mr. Gong. Please go ahead.
Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. After an iconic turnaround in 2022, we continued our success in 2023, delivering the best performing year in the company's history by focusing on high-quality growth. Both total revenues and the non-GAAP operating profit in 2023 increased double digits year-over-year, and reached historical highs, despite macro headwinds. More importantly, our growth in profit substantially surpassed that of revenues. This demonstrated the resilience of our business and our operational excellence. Let's take a closer look at the key metrics in 2023. Total revenue reached CNY 31.9 billion, up 10% annually. Non-GAAP operating profit reached over CNY 3.6 billion, up 68% annually. And the non-GAAP net profit exceeded CNY 2.8 billion, up 121% annually.
We generated a sizable total free cash flow of CNY 3.3 billion in 2023, which improved our liquidity position, allowing us to make investments to drive future growth. All four above mentioned key metrics hit record this time. It become very clear that the company was following the right course, offering a sustainable value growth for our stakeholders. Our exceptional financial results mirror our solid leadership in China's long-form video industry. Our capacity for consumer engagement, viewership market share, creative content production, and technology innovation is second to none. Indeed, in consumer space, iQIYI stood out as a signature brand for providing top-tier content. This was supported by viewership market data as well. According to Enlightent, we were ranked number one in drama viewership share for three consecutive years.
Notably, in 2023, we broadcasted seven out of the ten most viewed new dramas in the market. In addition to drama categories, we also dominated the online movie streaming segment with a total viewership share of 47%. Our market share leadership is deeply rooted in our unique capacity to produce original premium content. In 2023, iQIYI originals accounted for over 65% of our key dramas released and an annual record in our history. The original production capability not only guaranteed us a steady, inclusive supply of premium content, it also optimized our time, our cost efficiency measured by an operational metric known as the content-related cost ratio. For drama category in 2023, this ratio improved 12 percentage points compared to 2022.
The notable increase in efficiency translated directly into an increase in our profits. This is why our original capability is often recognized as the most important defensive barrier protecting our business. Meanwhile, we are also the leader driving technology innovation in long-form video industry. In the streamlining, industrializing the content production process and upgrading users' entertainment experience. For example, we developed IT content production management system, a highly efficient data-driven system that we call it, have a crucial aspects of the iQIYI content production process. This system, together with generative AI, will meaningfully improve the hit ratio while enhancing the production and operation efficiency. One more example of our technology leadership is iQIYI MAX. We pioneered to deliver the ultimate cinema, cinematic-like experiences on certified TV devices, covering more than 19,000 episodes of content across 157 TV models.
Being a leader means constantly having our eyes on what's ahead, not the past, and thinking more about long-term strategies rather than short-term gains. As a management team, what really matters to us is the potential returns of iQIYI content portfolio overall in the next several years, and whether we can find a systematic approach to improve the ROI, either by analogous advancement or by upgrading our content creation and management process. This perspective is a sharp departure from the public's conventional way of measuring our success by the number of key titles in a specific quarter. But we firmly believe that this perspective best upholds our long-term leadership in the industry.
Likewise, when we notice suddenly a fluctuation in our subscriber members, it motivates us to boost the quality of our content and better our services to further engage underserved demographics, like senior and young, so as to improve long-term retention and ARPU. We firmly believe that by addressing these fundamental long-term challenges, we will be able to grow our value to user, partners, and investors in a sustainable manner. Looking forward to 2024, we remain committed to our long-term vision and a continuous focus on high-quality growth.
Our key priorities include strengthening our current market position in core content categories, such as dramas and movies, improving our competencies in additional vertical genres, such as kid cartoon and animation, to enhance our capabilities in incremental areas, integrating cutting-edge technologies to increase efficiency in content production and operational execution, enriching the user experience, and last but not least, exploring new markets and business opportunities. Now, let me walk you through the details of our core business segments, starting with membership services. Our goal for the membership services business is to drive long-term and sustainable membership revenue growth, and our focus extends beyond more than the quarter net addition. Membership revenue is driven by three components, namely ARPU, subscriber lifetime, and subscriber base. ARPU and subscriber lifetime are our currently key focus in driving the long-term economic value of membership services....
In 2023, our membership services revenue exceeded RMB 20 billion, up 15% compared to 2022, driven by increase in both ARM and the subscriber base for Q4. Membership services revenue reached RMB 4.8 billion, up slightly year-over-year. ARM maintained sequentially growth for 5 consecutive quarters and hit record high of RMB 15.98 in Q4, up 17% annually and 3% sequentially. We believe our ARM has ample room to grow in the future. First, the monthly membership fee for the industry is still very affordable compared with other affordable, discretionary, spending, such as movie tickets, coffee, and a happy meal in quick service restaurants. With more premium content and a higher perceived value, users' willingness to pay will increase, allowing us to strategically scale back on discounts.
Additionally, our innovative value-added services, including Express Package, offline events, and merchandise benefits, show promising potential. In Q4, we launched Express Package for 6 drama series and saw a nearly 58% sequential increase in the number of participants. Members redeeming points for access increased by 40% sequentially, and the cash purchase by members increased by 250% sequentially. Furthermore, our premium membership options are designed to entice users to higher tiers, tapping into greater monetization potential. For example, in Q4, events like The Story of Kunning Palace, Ning Ru Meng, Fan Meeting, and the 2023 iQIYI Screen Nights provided opportunities for loyal long-term members, and particularly those on the SMS plan, to win event tickets from exclusive draws.
This has led to a shift with members upgrading from the standard Gold plan to the higher-end Platinum and the SMS plan, which although more expensive, offer enhanced privileges. The average daily subscribers for Q4 was 100.3 million, with the quarter-end membership higher than the daily average for the quarter. Our content continued to captivate subscribers. The subscriber mix have improved compared to the same periods last year, with a substantial increase in the proportion of annual plans. With a strong content slate for 2024, we are confident that the number of dramas breaking the 10,000 popularity index threshold will surpass that of 2023. Premium content will naturally help to fuel our revenue growth.
For 2024, we are taking a number of steps to strengthen our membership service business. First, we will offer more differentiated products tailored to different user cohorts and provide value for many member experience. And second, to optimize content discovery, marketing and operations to attract new members while increasing member retention. Third, keep improving the loyalty program to incentivize user to choose long-term premium and auto-renewing plans. Such initiatives will further boost member signals and increase lifetime value. Moving on to content. Our consistent market leadership in core content genres has solidified our reputation as a diversified and high-quality premium content powerhouse. Original programming remains the cornerstone of our content strategy and a key revenue driver. We have made a remarkable advancement in the quality of our original production.
In 2023, original content contributed 80% of the total revenue from key new dramas during the new release period. That's not all.... For seven straight quarters, over half of the revenue for new key dramas has come from original titles. Additionally, our content efficiency has largely improved. Our content-related cost ratio for dramas has improved for the third consecutive years, decreasing by 12 percentage points since last year. That's a clear mark of progress in enhancing our cost structure and ultimately our bottom line. This is underpinned by our sophisticated content production and operation mechanism, which maximize the efficiency of our content investments while sparking the creation of innovative new titles.
Our AI content production management system lies at the heart of the programs, empowering our teams to deliver top-tier programming with remarkable efficiency, and with effective resource allocation and program management at every step. In addition, we give our creative talents enough flexibility to grow and push the envelope with their innovative ideas. The blend of robust content management and creative liberty allows us to consistently deliver high-quality content so efficiently. It's the secret sauce for our content strategy. Accordingly, we have seen a consistent flow of premium content, and hit ratio for our entire content portfolio improved. For example, in 2023, there were more titles with popularity index score of 9,000 and above, up 71% compared to 2021, reflecting a steady improvement in content quality.
Additionally, over 70% of our key drama releases in 2023 met all the types of expectation. Moving on to detailed content performance in Q4 2023. For dramas, Story of Kunning Palace, Ning An Ru Meng, was a great success as our first fully in-house produced original to reach a popularity index score of 10,000, leading the industry viewership term as well. Another drama that also reached a popularity index of 10,000 was A Journey to Love, Nian Guan Shan, which set the record for the best opening day viewership in 2023.
During the quarter, the new season of Mist Theater with Chen, the success of Lonely Warrior, another consolidated leadership in the suspense genres, reaching a peak popularity index of more than 9,800, a record high for the Mist Theater and the 24-episode short drama category. Other premium titles in Q4 included The Fearless, Wu Sou Wei Ju, Romance of the Farm, Tian Geng Ji, and The Tiger Queen, Hu He Yao Shi Lu, showcasing the diverse range of our drama portfolio. For movies, we maintained a leading viewership share in Q4 as per Enlightent. Our movie channel featured 20 major releases, many topping the box office charts.
Additionally, we are happy to see the recovery of the offline movie markets, and four of iQIYI's original theatrical films garnered box office revenue of over CNY 100 million in 2023. Our original strategy extends across all content genres. In animation, we largely scaled up original content in 2023, doubling the number of original titles launched and posting a 90% increase in revenue contribution compared to 2022. For kids cartoon, we now have 11 original IPs, eight of which were multi-season. Notably, Princess Doremi Season Three was named the Best 3D Animated Program at the 28th Asian Television Awards, which is one of the largest entertainment content and broadcast awards in the Asia Pacific, demonstrating our expanded influence in overseas market.... Next, let's take a look at our content pipeline in 2024.
For Dramas, our goal is to deliver diversified and high-quality content on continuous basis. We are increasing investments in premium programs while keeping the total number of titles relatively stable. Our content slate includes Asian costume dramas, such as the highly anticipated Fox Spirit Matchmaker, Huyao Xiaohongniao, Burning Flames, Lie Yan Zhi Wu Geng Ji, Fuyao Yuhua Yanxing Ji, Born in Blizzard, Baiyue Fanxing, the second season of Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty, Tang Chaogui Shu Er, and others. In addition, Mist Theater will debut new titles in 2024, with Tell No One, Bu Ke Gao Ren, Breaking the Shadows, Wu Yun Zhi Shang, and Lost in the Shadow, Kan Bu Jian Ying De Shao Nian.
In the reality genres, the premium of Always on the Move, Nana Beiba, known as its top-notch production and a strong audience, appear as its peak popularity score reached as high as 9,959. Another example showcasing our strong content capability. Viewers can also look forward to the upcoming City of the City, Chengdou Zhicheng, Ball Lightning, Qiulang Chenbian, adapted from the famous science fiction novel written by Liu Cixin, as well as In the Name of the Brother, Ha Er Bin Yi Jiu Si Si . For movies, we expect several IP originals to hit theaters in 2024. Our line up includes the action comedy, Raw and the Raw, Lin Shi Jie An, which premiered in January and garnered a total box office of RMB 236 million.
Also, we anticipated to release the eagerly awaited Twin Suspects, San Da Dui, adapted from the renowned novel written by Keigo Higashino, Dongye Guiwu. For our online movie segment, Cloud Cinema, we have introduced Action Master, Action Master, our new brand that brings together, the lineup of action movies for our viewers. We have debuted three titles so far and earned high praise from audiences. Additionally, we are looking forward to the upcoming release of The Wide Blade of Strangers, Mo Lu Kuang Dao, the latest addition to our Action Master catalog. For variety shows, in addition to new seasons of established IPs, like The Detective's Adventure 2024, Meng Tan Tan Tan An, and The Rap of China 2024, Zhongguo Xin Shuo Chang.
We will continue to develop new programs, spanning different themes, such as Player One in Wonderland, called Shi Tian Zhi Hou Hui Dao Xian Shi, Young Trail, Qingchun He Changtuan, and others. For kids cartoon and animation, we are actively expanding our production coverage capacity. We will introduce brand new IPs and new seasons of classic IPs of original kids cartoon. For animation, we are planning to release around 20 seasons of original animation, with enhanced quality and thematic diversity. To sum up our 2024 content strategy, we aim to reinforce our drama leadership and achieve breakthroughs in other genres. Our focus will remain on premium titles, increasing their supply, quality, and monetization.
We'll also optimize our content scheduling to cater to our diverse user base and their varied preferences. Moving on to the advertising business. In 2023, we recorded an annual increase of 17% in our advertising revenue, both brand and performance ad, both in healthy growth over the previous year. In Q4, advertising revenue increased by 6% annually to CNY 1.65 billion, beating our expectation, thanks to our growing content influence among brand advertisers. Revenue from content-targeted ads accounted for over 50% as advertisers flocked to top dramas and the show like The Story of Kunning Palace, A Journey to Love, and We Never Stop. A breakdown by factors, the annual growth in Q4 came mainly from the recovery of brands in industry, including food and beverage, communications, and healthcare.
Performance ads continued to show annual growth despite the high baseline that in Q4 last year. We expanded our customer base to attract new advertising budgets, such as new e-commerce platforms and short form dramas. Our solid performance also capitalized on our technology upgrades as we made effective use of generative AI to improve ad creation and ROI. Looking ahead to 2024, we remain cautiously optimistic about the ad market, and we are closely monitoring the dynamics of macroeconomic and advertisers segment. With that said, our performance in 2023 once again proved that we remained as the go-to platform for advertisers, thanks to our unmatched content quality, extensive user profile, and a strong sales ability. For brand ads in 2024, we will return key clients in food and beverage, cosmetics, and toiletries.
And communications, we are striving for growth soon in healthcare, entertainment, and other promising sectors. We expect that, domestic brands will experience a faster recovery compared with their international peers. Furthermore, we are positioned to tap into more opportunities as we observed a high demand for ad visible to subscribers and on, on key dramas. For performance ads, our strategy is to strengthen our offering for key clients in established areas like internet services, e-commerce, and gaming. Meanwhile, we are set to boost revenue in new growth areas such as, live streaming, e-commerce, and short form dramas. Technological innovation is our priority. We need to provide a cutting-edge ad solution to maintain our privileged edge, competitive edge. Moving on to technology and the product.
Our commitment is centered around fostering technology innovation to push the industrialization of content production, improve the user experience, and boost operating efficiency. We have integrated the latest technology into our top original production. For example, our major original drama, The Story of Mystics, and we leverage virtual production to achieve remarkable results, capturing over 3,000 minutes of footage. This pioneering technology marks as a paradigm shift in filmmaking, enabling immersive, efficient, and creatively boundless storytelling for the future. Another example, for many iQIYI original productions, on-set footage could be immediately uploaded to our proprietary cloud, enabling remote production, oversight, and content quality check, as well as a swift real-time editing to expedite the post-production phase. This boosts our efficiency in both production and program management.
We are leveraging technologies to refine our products and enhance user experience, user experience as well. Our deployment of AI to filter out poor quality comments and spoilers creates a better community environment and boosts user engagement. In addition, we are broadening the reach of technology to allow more audiences to engage in, indulge in the ultimate viewing experience soon on XR MAX. In terms of generative AI, we are advancing every stage of content creation from planning, development, to promotion, enhancing both efficiency and creativity. These efforts not only improve content production and operation efficiency, but also unleash creative potentials. Over the past year, we used AI for mass-producing quality marketing materials, which outperformed the manual designs in collecting zoom rates and viewership.
Additionally, AI's capability to comprehend video content at minute level enables detailed plot summaries for each playlist, now available for over 3,000 dramas. Finally, for our business performance in regions outside of mainland China, we achieved our first full year operating profit in 2023. Additionally, we continue to expand the influence of C-pop, with C-dramas contributing more than 50% of revenue. In Q4, membership revenue and ad revenue both recorded double-digit annual growth, driven by the growing popularity of premium content among users and advertisers. Membership revenue increased by over 80% in Japan, Hong Kong and the UK, and over 50% in Mexico and South Korea. Ad revenue grew 30% annually and 49% sequentially. Our C-dramas have continued to captivate international audiences.
Story of Kunning Palace leads rankings in many markets, setting records, high metrics for Chinese content on our overseas platform. Meanwhile, A Journey to Love also dominated many charts in Southeast Asia, North America, and Australia during the broadcasting period. We are also exploring ways to bring overseas local content to the domestic Chinese market. In January this year, we debuted our original Malaysia drama, Rampas Cintaku: Tou Zou Wo Xin, in China, making a solid step in further amplifying the synergy between domestic and overseas content. Our pursuit of collaborative opportunities remains strong. We have introduced bundled plans through partnership with telecom, telecommunications providers in Thailand and Hong Kong. We also worked with tourism authorities in Thailand, Singapore, and Hong Kong to craft specialized commercial content and advertisements.
Looking into 2024, we have prepared an exciting slate of C-pop to key markets, while ramping up our resource production of premium content for local users. Mostly, we are set to debut an international version of the iQIYI original music show, Youth With You. Meanwhile, we will continue our efforts to promote C-dramas and the local content in partnership with Southeast Asia TV station. Alongside increasing our brand influence in key markets, we also aim to explore diverse IP monetization opportunities. In summary, the year 2023 marked a milestone for iQIYI. It's exciting to see that the transformation we started back in 2022 really paid off. We celebrated the record high revenue, profits, and cash flow. In 2024, we aim to sustain the high-quality growth trajectory and further growth of revenue and profit.
We are confident that our efficient content production and robust operations will drive further success. We also continue to integrate advanced technologies to increase productivity and support our strategy of long-term sustainable growth. We are enthusiastically about collaborating with our stakeholders for a prosperous 2024. Now, let me pass on to Jun for go through of financial performance.
Thanks, Mr. Bo, and hello, everyone. We maintained our strong momentum in 2023. The impressive financial results once again demonstrated the resilience and the scalability of our business models. With increased profit and enhanced liquidity, we have an even greater capacity to sustain a long-term value creation of our stakeholders. Now, let me walk you through the key numbers. In 2023, total revenues increased by 10% from 2022 and reached RMB 31.19 billion. The revenue growth was driven by membership and online advertising services, as both recorded double-digit annual growth. Membership services revenue hit RMB 20.3 billion, up 50% annually. The growth was driven by the increase in average revenue per membership, i.e., ARM, and a rise in average daily subscribers. Online advertising revenue grew by 17% annually and reached RMB 6.2 billion.
The rise was primarily fueled by the growth in performance-based ads and, to a lesser extent, the brand ads. Notably, performance-based ads revenue actually reached a historical high in 2023. Turning to our overall performance in Q4, total revenues increased 1% annually to CNY 7.7 billion. Membership services revenue was CNY 4.8 billion, up 1% annually. Our ARM strategy proved highly successful, achieved sequential growth for five consecutive quarters. Online advertising services revenue was CNY 1.65 billion, up 6% annually, and exceeded our expectations. The growth was largely driven by the growing attractiveness of our premium content among advertisers. Now moving to the costs and expenses. For 2023, content cost was CNY 16.2 billion, down 2% annually. Total operating expenses was CNY 5.8 billion, up 8% annually.
For Q4, the current cost was CNY 3.7 billion, down 5% annually, mainly driven by our improvement in the content strategy and operating efficiency, and a few number of major variety shows launched in the quarter as well. The total operating expenses was CNY 1.4 billion, down 1% annually. Turning to profits and cash flows. For 2023, we successfully delivered what we promised for profit growth earlier in the year. Our non-GAAP operating income surged to over CNY 3.6 billion, up 68% annually. For Q4 alone, the non-GAAP operating income was CNY 928 million, positive for eight consecutive quarters. Furthermore, our free cash flow in 2023 totaled CNY 3.3 billion, achieving its first full year positive, with Q4 contributing CNY 614 million.
Strong cash flow improved the healthiness of the balance sheet and leading to value creation from deleveraging and de-risking. As of the end of Q4, we had cash, cash equivalent, restricted cash, short-term investment, and long-term restricted cash, including the prepayment and other assets, totaling RMB 6.2 billion. In terms of the future use of the cash, the company has a total of $396 million on convertible bonds puttable on August 1, 2024. After meeting this potential repayment obligation, the management will be able to actively explore various shareholder value enhancement initiatives, such as the common use of share buyback, on top of our investment for future business growth.
The implementation of such plan is contingent upon the financial condition of the company, the market conditions at that specific point of time, and is subject to our board discussion approval. To conclude, echoing what Mr. Gong earlier remarked, we are now with substantially strengthened fundamentals, remain deeply committed to creating enduring value for all stakeholders and to continue leading in the industry evolution. As we just celebrated the Chinese New Year, I would like to take this moment to extend our sincere thanks to all investors and analysts for your consistent support throughout our path. For detailed financial data, please refer to our press release on our IR website. Now we will open the floor for Q&A.
Thank you, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed, and you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. We please ask that you state your question in Chinese first, and then translate the question into English. Also, please limit yourself to one question at a time. However, you may reenter the question queue for further questions, time permitting. At this time, we'll just pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question we have will come from Xueqing Zhang of CICC.
Thanks management for taking my question. Given that other players have strong pipelines this year, what's your strategy and KPI for 2024? And what indicator you're most concerned about?
In the long term, is there anything can become a new driver? Thank you.
我是龚宇，我来回答这个问题。2024年我们的主要目标是高质量增长，也就是收入和利润同时增长，利润的增长幅度高于收入的增长幅度，这个目标是2023年季度确定的，到为止，连这个方向在具体的数字都没有发生变化。
Our CEO Gong Yu is answering this question. So our target for 2024 is to maintain high quality growth, which is that revenue and profit will both grow, and the profit will outpace the growth of revenue. And this target was set by 2023 Q4, and that hasn't changed.
关注的点有几项，第一点跟内容相关。在内容相关的里面，重点是必须得吸引更多的优秀人才，让他们能够创造出更好的更多的内容。第二点是继续建设跟优化我们的科学的评估机制，里面包括人为的规则，也包括这个系统的优化，让做出的预测、做出的判断更加准确。然后第三点是我们的制作系统，就是智能制作系统更加优化，就是提升这个工业化的程度，内容制作的工业化程度。
It comes in different aspects. Three points so far. The first is related to content. First, is we're recruiting the top-notch talent, and producing a very high quality content. That's the first one. And then the second one is by using very effective evaluation and decision-making process, and also the management process to systematically increase the hit rate of our entire content offerings. And third, is to utilize our content management program to really to improve the efficiency of our content production and operation.
这个常规的内容业务之外，我们也专注新的这个业务，争取新的业务，能培育出那个第二增长曲线。这些新的业务大概的方向包括海外业务，然后跟IP增值服务有关的线上或者线下业务，还有这个生成式AI带来的可能的技术创新。
In addition to what I just mentioned, we're also focusing on new business areas. Hopefully that will become our second growth core curve in the future, include but not limited to, first, overseas business and also IP derivatives, and including both online and offline segments, and also to utilize generative AI to really improve our operating efficiency and content capability.
关于财务方面的问题，我们CFO汪俊补充一下。
In terms of financial aspect, we'll invite our CFO Wang Jun to add on.
Sure, I will answer the question in English, and thanks a lot, Xueqing, for the question. I think that when we are looking at our financial numbers for 2024, we always focus on two keywords, which are: growth and health. Then, the pursuit of the high quality growth has been repetitively mentioned during our comments, and it is self-evident. Due to the time constraint, we will not get into details on this call, but we'll be happy to share color in future occasions. But in this call, we'd also like to highlight that in 2024, what you will observe is a further improvement of the financial healthiness, because we have a very solid growth in our operating cash flow, which deleverages our balance sheet and actually offers two critical benefits. And first, in my view, I think it gives us a clear roadmap to decrease the average cost of the capital. The steady, stable cash inflows actually gives us the ability not only to pay down existing debt, but also to tap into the low cost capital pool, such as long-term loans or investment-grade credit products, which will otherwise not be available. And such low cost capital could be used gradually to replace the previous high cost debt, and mathematically, it is translating to a possible decrease of the total discount rate for the long-term DCF model. So if our shareholders and analyst agree with such an argument, and I think starting from 2024 and going forward, you should probably increasingly pay reference to our net income and the operating profit to check the progress, because our net income will be able to capture and reflect this positive valuation from the derisking and deleveraging. And on top of that, as we previously discussed, it also offers us more tools, I think, to enhance the shareholders' returns, and this is the second critical benefit. I will not expand in this call, and it will be myself.
So as a result, in summary, I think our goal, our financial goal for 2024 is to deliver a healthier balance sheet and a stronger PNL to our investors. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question we have comes from Lincoln Kong of Goldman Sachs.
Thank you, Mr. Gong and Mr. Wang, for taking my question this evening. That is, congratulations on the company's solid 2023 performance. I would like to ask a question about the AIGC aspect. Could management share how we view the latest generative AI technology, including the newly launched Sora? What kind of impact might it have on the overall film and television industry's industry chain, and what kind of impacts will it have on the iQIYI side? For the company's investment in AIGC, how is it currently planned?
So, my question is about AIGC. How would you mention the latest generative AI technology, especially like Sora, how would the implication it will have to movie or drama industry as well as to iQIYI themselves? And what's company's plan in terms of the investment and the strategy in this front? Thank you.
请我们的CTO刘文峰来回答一下这方面的这个问题。
We'll invite our CTO, Wenfeng Liu, to answer this question.
好的，我们非常看好生成式 AI 的技术发展对影视产业带来的机会。我们相信积极运用这个技术可以大幅度提升创作的效率，和决策的水平，以及在内容 的 ...
我们会在内容的策划、开发、制作和宣发过程中，让这技术发挥明显的作用。甚至AI的技术快速发展，可以让艺术家利用它更高效地创作出更高质量的作品。尤其我们看到生成式AI赋能进化内容创作生产，是有机会打破历史以来的产能壁垒，使得可以以创意的水平驱动产业格局的变化。
We are very bullish on the opportunities that the development of generative AI technology can bring to the long-form video industry, and believes that actively applying this technology can significantly enhance great creative efficiency and elevate the levels of creation and decision making. It can also play a very important role in the planning, development, production, and promotion of content. In addition, the rapid advancement of generative AI technology enables artists to use this technology to create higher quality works with greater efficiency. This is particularly true for the creation and production of animated content powered by generative AI, which has the potential to break through the long-standing capacity barriers and drive changes in the industry landscape based on creative levels.
我们一直在关注生成式AI行业的最新的进展，也积极与国内外头部的生成式AI公司建立合作关系，将最新的生成式AI技术应用在影视制作的流程之中，特别是将爱奇艺的庞大影视资料数据与大模型结合进行训练和微调，为影视产业场景开发生成式AI的垂直应用。未来呢，我们将加大在这方面的研发和应用的投入，利用生成式AI的开发和全面升级，来服务爱奇艺影视制作的智能制作系统，从而赋能爱奇艺专业影视内容创作。
We have been keeping a close eye on the latest development in the generative AI industry and actively establishing cooperation with market-leading companies in China and abroad. We are implementing the latest generative AI technologies in the content production process, especially by combining iQIYI's extensive long-form video trunks data with large language models for training and fine-tuning. Our aim is to develop generative AI-powered vertical applications tailored for long-term video scenarios. Going forward, in the future, we will step up our investment in the R&D and application of generative AI technology. We plan to use this technology to develop and comprehensively upgrade our in-house intelligent production system, thereby empowering the creation of iQIYI's professional video content.
好，谢谢。
Thank you.
Next, we have Lei Zhang of Bank of America Securities.
Ah, hi, good evening, management. Ah, thank you for taking my question. My question is about content. We have noticed that in 2023 the entire industry's content generally has improved, especially some top premium content that everyone is relatively focused on. Then I want to ask, uh, how does management now view the overall content competition? Also, how should iQIYI maintain its advantage in content in 2024? Uh, I'll translate it myself, uh, thanks management for taking my question.
We noticed that major players are more focusing on the top content last year, and can you share with us your view on content competition, and how should we stay competitive in terms of content in 2024? Thank you.
好，谢谢。请我们首席内容官王晓晖回复一下这个问题。
We'll invite our Chief Content Officer, Xiaohui Wang, to answer this question.
大家好，我来回答这个问题。其实市场的激烈竞争是一直存在的，但是始终大家比拼的是优质内容供给的持续性，以及内容质量和商业收益的平衡双赢。
The competitive market dynamic is an ever-present reality. While where the ultimate out-competition we think lies in the substantial sustainability of high-quality content supply, as well as achieving a balance and a win-win situation in terms of content quality and also commercial returns.
Uh,
And in addition, capital is not the only sole barrier to competition. iQIYI's ability to maintain a market-leading position in the industry is actually underpinned by the accumulation of, talent, control of industry resources, and effective content, review, and management mechanism, and a support from our business intelligence system. And we believe all of which are indispensable. Our content creation values and objectives actually focus on three areas. First is to produce content with high public recognition and market returns. Second, is to create innovative, high-quality content. And third, is to continuously focus on content efficiency and the number of key premium titles and social insight.
Uh,
In terms of the core drama category, there has been a clear improvement in the quality of our content inventory, actually. As key premium content is critical to maintaining a high competitive edge in the market, we maintain a market-leading level of inventory reserve for premium titles. For 2024 lineup of our iQIYI originals and exclusive licensed dramas, the premium key titles are expected to account for over 50%. Thank you.
This will conclude today's question and answer session. I will now like to turn the conference call back over to management for any closing remarks.
Thank you everyone for supporting us and joining the call today. If you have further questions, feel free to contact our team. Thank you.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
We thank you for your time also today. The conference call is now concluded. Again, we thank you all for attending today's presentation. At this time, you may disconnect your lines. Take care.