I'd like to hand the conference over to your host today, Jane Xie, the company's Senior Manager of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Jane.
Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone. Welcome to JOYY's 4th quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call. Joining us today are Ms. Ting Li, Chairperson and CEO of JOYY, and Mr. Alex Liu, the Vice President of Finance. For today's call, management will first provide a review of the quarter, and then we will conduct a Q&A session. The financial results and webcasts of this conference call are available at ir.joyy.com. The replay of this call will also be available on our website in a few hours. Before we continue, I'd like to remind you that we may make forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to the future development of our products and businesses, the expected future financial performance of the company, our share repurchases, and other future events, which are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from our current expectations.
For detailed discussions of the risks and uncertainties, please refer to our latest annual report on Form 20-F and other documents filed with the SEC. We will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. They are included as additional clarifying items to aid investors in further understanding the company's performance and the impact that these items and events had on the financial results. The non-GAAP financial measures provided above should not be considered as a substitute for or superior to the measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. You may find a reconciliation of differences between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures in our earnings release. Finally, please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during this conference call are in U.S. dollar. I will now turn the call over to our Chairperson and CEO, Ms. Ting Li. Please go ahead.
Hello, everyone. I'm Ting Li. Thank you for joining us today. In 2025, our group revenue and social entertainment business regained growth momentum since Q2. We saw meaningful progress in our second growth curve of AdTech and other emerging areas. Together, these results are shaping our clear strategic framework as a global technology company with multiple growth engines. Let me start with the overview of our results. In Q4, live streaming maintained its sequential recovery trend, while our advertising platform saw accelerated top-line growth. Meanwhile, non-GAAP operating profit and cash flow remained robust. In the 4th quarter, total revenue reached $581.9 million, up 7.7% QoQ and 5.9% year-over-year, representing our fourth positive year-over-year growth since the second half of 2024.
Live streaming revenue was $394.4 million, up 1.5% QoQ. Marking three consecutive quarters of sequential growth. BIGO Ads, including both first and third-party ads, generated $128.1 million in revenue, up 61.5% year-over-year, with third-party audience network revenue growth accelerating to 82.5% year-over-year. Overall, non-live streaming business contributed 32.2% of total group revenue. non-GAAP operating profit stood at $40.8 million, and operating cash flow totaled $116 million. For the full year, total revenue was $2.12 billion. Live streaming contributed $1.53 billion, while BIGO Ads contributed $398.5 million, up 38.5% year-over-year. In particular, BIGO Ads third-party ads revenue audience network delivered 56.3% year-over-year growth.
Non-live streaming businesses represented 28% of total revenue, an increase of 7.9 percentage point compared with 2024. In 2025, non-GAAP operating income and non-GAAP EBITDA were $150.8 million and $189.8 million, up 10.8% and 10.9% year-over-year respectively. As of December 31, we held $3.26 billion in net cash. Our strong operating cash flow and balance sheet continue to support consistent shareholder returns. In 2025, we returned $332 million through share repurchases and dividend. With improved business visibility and ongoing operational optimization, we are confident we will continue to deliver solid performance.
In light of our strong performance and continued double-digit non-GAAP operational profitability improvements in 2025, the board has approved additional cash dividend of approximately $20 million, representing approximately 10% of the total cash dividends declared for the year of 2025. On top of company's regular quarter dividend schedule, this demonstrates our ongoing commitment to drive operational improvement and enhance shareholder returns. Next, let me share our strategic forecast on outlook. We are currently evaluating refinements to our segment reporting structure, and we are considering to report our result on the three major business segments, social entertainment, ad tech, and e-commerce service beginning since the 1st quarter of 2026. This new structure will make it easier to see and understand the progress we make within each business. Our social entertainment business remains the cornerstone of our profitability and cash flow.
Meanwhile, BIGO Ads and SHOPLINE are fueling our next stage of growth with improving mid to long-term economics and expanding profitability potential. Together, these businesses position JOYY for a return to sustainable and profitable growth. From a long-term perspective, their combined strengths and synergies will serve as the unfailing engine through which we can eventually penetrate addressable market beyond what would be possible for each business individually. We believe 2026 will be a landmark year for JOYY, marking the resolute beginning of our renewed growth journey and the defining step toward becoming a global diversified multi-engine technology company. Now, let's turn to our operating update. In Q4, our core social entertainment business achieved its third consecutive quarter of sequential recovery. Global social MAUs reached 272.1 million, up 2.2% quarter-over-quarter.
Traffic from our instant message increased 4.5% QoQ, driven by high user thickness and user organic growth. Both average user time spent and retention improved year-over-year. On the revenue side, live streaming revenue rose to $394.4 million, up 1.5% QoQ. The American market recorded a strong recovery, with revenue climbing 3.4% QoQ. BIGO's total paying users rose 1.5% QoQ. Okay, on our current four flagship products, we further enhanced our streamer incentive structure and integrated AI-driven features across critical stage of the user journey, boosting both engagement and payment efficiency. For example, by integrating LLM architecture and incorporating multi-model information into our recommendation system, we improved our ability to understand both live streaming content and user interest.
The optimized recommendation precision and distribution efficiency led to a 5.6% QoQ increase in BIGO LIVE's average viewing time per user in Q4. Furthermore, user adoption of AI-generated vertical gifts continues to grow. As of January 2026, the consumption of AI interactive gifts on BIGO LIVE has surpassed 30% of total vertical gift consumption. We are making solid progress on our new product lineup, leveraging our established capability in product development, content, payments, infrastructure, and local operations. We are expanding new product incubation and growth. In Q4, revenue from new products increased 37.9% QoQ, setting new monthly record. In 2026, we expect continued recovery with paying users of apps for our flagship products, driven by ongoing operational refinements. Meanwhile, we anticipate our new product lineup will sustain robust growth and bring further incremental live streaming revenue.
We are confident our social entertainment segment will regain growth momentum, delivering healthy profitability and cash flow for the group. Turning to BIGO. In Q4, BIGO delivered $128.1 million in advertising revenue, up 61.5% year-over-year and 23.3% QoQ. Third-party ad revenue Audience Network grew 82.5% year-over-year and 27.3% QoQ, demonstrating accelerated growth momentum on a sequential basis for the third consecutive quarter. We fueled this growth through broader traffic coverage, multi-vertical advertiser expansion, and ongoing algorithm optimization. First-party traffic expanded steadily, supported by higher MAUs and ad fill rates that drove sequential revenue and profit growth. Third-party traffic also increased, with SDK requests growing by 166% year-over-year and 23% QoQ.
Our diversified vertical strategy across insurance, e-commerce, and IAA games broadened market coverage and allowed us to capture seasonal advertising demands more effectively. Q4 was a peak season for U.S. insurance, advertising, and primarily for e-commerce campaigns such as Black Friday. Web-based demand, primarily from insurance and D2C e-commerce advertisers grew 20%, contributing to a boost in revenue. Enhanced placement performance led the IAA vertical, primarily casual games, to a 39% sequential increase. Overall, the number of key cohorts increased by 29%, and the total spending of key cohorts climbed 34%. By region, we believe the market continued to be our priority, with North America up over 21% QoQ and Western Europe rising 46% QoQ. To take advantage of existing momentum, we will deepen our presence in key verticals, including lead generation ads, e-commerce, and games.
This multi-vertical approach will serve as our structure and a differentiated competitive edge over the mid to long term. Concurrently, we will expand our advertiser base and penetrate deeper into developing countries, while continuously optimizing our algorithm. We have established a three-year roadmap for the BIGO Audience Network, targeting a revenue milestone of $1 billion by 2028, accompanied by steady improvements in economics. Finally, a word on SHOPLINE. Beginning in 2026, we are considering to report SHOPLINE as a separate business segment to reflect our confidence in its growth prospects. Over the past year, SHOPLINE maintained double-digit revenue growth, driven by the cross-border merchant base year double-digit expansion and its rising contributions to revenue.
While we have normalized SHOPLINE's R&D spending, backed by steady top line and growth profit gains, we see a clear and achievable path for SHOPLINE to reach breakeven while sustaining a double-digit revenue growth trajectory. Turning to capital return. In Q4, we repurchased 67.4 million shares. For the full year, total repurchases reached 134.6 million, with momentum accelerating in the second half. We believe our current valuation does not fully reflect our intrinsic value. We remain committed to actively utilizing our buyback programs. Looking ahead, as we continue to scale our business and strengthen our operating profitability, we will work closely with the board to explore possible measures to further enhance our shareholder return mechanism. In summary, our strategic blueprint and ecosystem potential are only beginning to unfold. We view 2026 as a fresh start toward our next phase of growth.
We remain focused on execution, and we are confident that sustained growth and profitability improvements will demonstrate our true value. Leveraging our integrated ecosystem, we remain committed to strengthening joint positions and delivering long-term value for our shareholders. Now let's begin from Alex Liu.
Thanks, Ms. Li. Hello, everyone. In the 4th quarter of 2025, we recorded total net revenues of $581.9 million, securing a year-over-year growth of 5.9% and quarter-over-quarter growth of 7.7%. This marks an inflection point of our top line trend on a year-over-year base since the 3rd quarter of 2024. Our live streaming business delivered its third sequential recovery, with its live streaming revenue increasing by 1.5% quarter over quarter. Our advertising business, in particular BIGO Ads, continued to deliver exceptional growth, with its revenue up by 61.5% year-over-year and 23.3% quarter over quarter. Our operating cash flow remained strong at $160 million in Q4, and we ended the quarter with roughly $3.26 billion in net cash.
As previously communicated, we accelerated share buyback during the quarter, buying back $67.4 million worth of our shares, nearly doubling our Q3 share repurchase volume. For the full year of 2025, we booked total net revenues of $2.12 billion. In particular, BIGO Ads booked $398.5 million in total revenue, delivering 38.5% year-over-year growth. Third-party BIGO Audience Network achieved impressive growth of 56.3% while sustaining profitability. Our non-GAAP operating income was $150.8 million, up by 10.8% year-over-year, and our operating cash flow was $305 million. After the year of 2025, our total cash return to shareholders, including cash dividends, reached $332 million, which represents 108.8% of our operating cash flow.
I will now dive deeper into our detailed financial performance. Looking at our live streaming business, our total live streaming revenues was $394.4 million for the 1st quarter, $331.8 million of which was from BIGO segment, both up quarter-over-quarter. Our refined streamer initiatives and continued AI-driven optimization of our content distribution and paying user experience have contributed to improved paying sentiment, with BIGO's total paying users increased by 1.5%. Live streaming revenue from developed countries increased by 3.4% quarter-over-quarter. Our total non-live streaming revenues were $187.5 million during the 1st quarter. up by 47.6% year-over-year.
Non-live, non-live streaming now contributes 32.2% of our total Group revenues, up from only 23.1% contribution in the same period last year. BIGO's advertising revenues increased by 61.5% year-over-year and 23.3% quarter-over-quarter to $128.1 million. In particular, our third-party ad revenue, BIGO Audience Network, delivered exceptional results recording 82.5% year-over-year and 27.3% sequential growth. On the traffic front, SDK network ad request was up by 166% year-over-year and 23% quarter-over-quarter in Q4. We continued to train and optimize our algorithms to further improve our campaign performance with strong advertiser spending. In Q4, the number of key cohorts was up by 29% quarter-over-quarter, with total spending from key cohorts up by 34% quarter-over-quarter.
Our multi-industry strategy has helped us capture broader market opportunities. Web-based demand was up by 20% quarter-over-quarter. Mobile-based demand continued to be strong, with ad spending up by 39% quarter-over-quarter. We have outlined our three-year strategic goal for BIGO Audience Network, which is maintaining high velocity growth and reaching three-year revenue milestones of $1 billion. In the near term, this means that we need to invest in the expansion of our R&D and sales capabilities, as well as our network and computing infrastructure. Given the healthy economics of BIGO Audience Network at this stage, we are confident that as we scale, we will remain profitable and potentially further enhance BIGO Audience Network economics in the mid-term. Group's gross profit was $205.6 million in the quarter, with a gross margin of 35.3%.
BIGO's gross margin was down quarter-over-quarter due to a shift in our revenue mix, which saw an increased contribution from our lower-margin network ad revenues. Our other segments' gross margin was up by 5.1% year-over-year to 46.7%, primarily due to growth in high-margin non-live streaming revenues. Our group's operating expenses for the quarter were $187.8 million. Our operating expenses were higher last year due to certain non-cash goodwill impairment charges. Sales and marketing expenses were higher year-over-year as our ROI-focused user acquisition returned to normalized level following one-off advertising savings associated with temporary App Store interruption in Q4 last year. For our R&D and G&A expenses, we maintained prudent and disciplined in our total spending through enhanced resources sharing and operating synergy across different business units.
While strategically allocating incremental share of our R&D resources towards BIGO Ads, our Group's non-GAAP operating income for the quarter was $40.8 million. Our non-GAAP operating income was lower this year, primarily due to the impact of one-off advertising savings last year. Non-GAAP net income attributable to controlling interest of JOYY in the quarter was $30.3 million. The Group's non-GAAP net income margin was 12.1% in the quarter. Our non-GAAP net income was lower due to the impact of one-off advertising savings last year and higher FX loss due to weakening US dollar this year. For the 4th quarter of 2025, we booked net cash inflows from operating activities of $160 million. Our balance sheet remains healthy, with a strong net cash position of $3.26 billion as of December 31, 2025.
Shareholder return continued to be an important component of our capital allocation strategy. We have returned $197.3 million to our shareholders through dividends, and we repurchased $134.6 million worth of our shares during the year. We believe we are still sustainably undervalued. We will continue to actively utilize our buyback program in 2026. Additionally, in light of our strong performance and continued double-digit non-GAAP operating profitability improvements in 2025, the board has approved an additional cash dividend of approximately $20 million, representing approximately 10% of the total cash dividends declared for the year of 2025 on top of the company's regular quarterly dividend schedule. This demonstrates our ongoing commitment to drive operational improvement and enhance shareholder returns. Turning now to our business outlook.
At the group level, we expect our net revenues for the 1st quarter of 2026 to be between $538 million and $548 million. This implies an 8.8%-10.9% year-over-year growth for the group's revenue in quarter one, with live streaming revenues back to positive year-over-year growth, while BIGO Ads delivers mid-double digits year-over-year growth in the 1st quarter despite the impact of seasonality. As Ms. Li just mentioned, beginning in the 1st quarter of 2026, we are evaluating certain refinements to our segment reporting, and we are considering to report our results under three business segments, which includes social entertainment, BIGO Ads, and e-commerce SaaS. We believe the new segments will make it easier to see and understand our operational progress, particularly our new initiatives.
Looking ahead, we are extremely excited about their tremendous synergy potential and the powerful flywheel momentum that our business segments will deliver in the medium to long term. That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we would now like to open up the call to questions. Thanks.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. When asking a question, please state your question in Chinese first, then repeat your question in English for the convenience of everyone on the call. Your first question today comes from Thomas Chong with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks management for taking my question. I have two questions. The first one is about the live streaming business. Can management talk about the key factors for recovery, and how should we think about the long-term trend? My second question is about the 2026 outlook. Can management talk about the full year and revenue and profit guidance? Thank you.
Good morning. Thanks management for taking my question. I have two questions. The first one is about the live streaming business. Can management talk about the key factors for recovery, and how should we think about the long-term trend? My second question is about the 2026 outlook. Can management talk about the full year and revenue and profit guidance? Thank you. Good morning. Thanks management for taking my question. I have two questions. The first one is about the live streaming business. Can management talk about the key factors for recovery, and how should we think about the long-term trend? My second question is about the 2026 outlook.
Can management talk about the full year and revenue and profit guidance? Thank you. Good morning. Thanks management for taking my question. I have two questions. The first one is about the live streaming business. Can management talk about the key factors for recovery, and how should we think about the long-term trend? My second question is about the 2026 outlook. Can management talk about the full year and revenue and profit guidance? Thank you.
Thank you, Thomas. This is Ting Li. I will take your first question. In the 4th quarter, our live streaming business continued its sequential recovery with both paying users in our pool up sequentially. On operational side, we continue to make progress across several areas, including refining our streamer incentive system, strengthening our content offerings, and also applying AI optimizations across content distribution, content consumption, and also the overall paying experience of our VIP. These AI-driven optimizations have continued to translate into meaningful and sustainable improvements in our paying conversion efficiency.
Geographically speaking, this recovery has been primarily driven by the developed market. Our new product lineup continue to grow at a healthy rate and deliver solid QoQ growth, and we expect these products to continue to bring in incremental revenue as well. Looking ahead, as we have mentioned, these one-off operational adjustments had been fully implemented, and we no longer expect they to have any negative impact on our performance for the new year. We will continue to advance our refined user segmentation, and also incentive upgrades, expand our high-quality content, global content offerings, and also better strengthen our global payment infrastructure. We also expect growing incremental contributions from our new product lineup. On these basis, we expect our live streaming revenue to be back to steady, positive year-over-year growth in the year 2026.
Hi, 大家好, Thomas.
对于您的第二个问题，我来回答一下。四季度其实我们可以看到集团收入实现了同比、环比的双增长。直播业务延续了环比增长的势头，已经连续三个季度环比增长。广告业务的增长呢是进一步加速的。展望2026年的一季度，目前我们的集团收入指引是实现同比8.8%到10.9%的增长。首先，直播业务侧我们预期一季度将恢复同比的正增长。但从环比角度来讲，今年的农历新年和三月都集中在一季度，和去年Q1情况是比较类似的。我们预期今年Q1还是会有季节性的影响。另外，Q1同样是广告业务的传统淡季，但我们仍然预期BIGO Ads将表现强劲，继续实现中双位数的同比增长。展望全年的话，我们对2026年的收入增长是非常有信心的。三条业务线的增长路径都非常清晰。首先，直播业务，正如我们前面提到的，去年一次性的调整已经基本到位了。我们预期直播业务会重新回到同比稳健增长的趋势上。其次，在广告业务方面，进入到2026年，流量规模在持续扩张，多个垂类的广告主的覆盖也是在持续加深。算法模型也在不断迭代优化。这几个维度的改善其实是相互叠加的，会让我们BIGO Ads全年保持强劲的两位数的同比增长。那么电商SaaS方面，随着产品能力的持续完善，重点市场跨境商户的快速渗透以及新市场的逐步拓展，SaaS业务也将维持两位数的营收增长，共同推动集团收入重回稳定的同比增长的轨道，并打开更广阔的赛道空间。利润方面，直播业务增长的同时，其实我们的成本结构也在持续优化。直播整体的利润将保持平稳的增长，但我们也会把其中一部分的利润投入到新的产品矩阵中来。第三方广告目前是处在一个高速扩张的阶段。今年在研发和销售团队的建设以及基建、带宽的投入上都会更加持续、更多的投入。但考虑在当前阶段，我们的盈利模型其实已经非常健康，我们有信心在保持盈利的基础上，随着规模的进一步提升，三方广告的盈利能力在中期可以持续增加。电商SaaS在收入增长的驱动下可以持续缩窄亏损，这个健康的趋势也是清晰可见。所以综合来看，我们预期2026年集团non-GAAP经营利润和EBITDA将延续2025年的改善趋势，实现同比近10%的稳步提升。
This is Alex. I will take your second question. Let's first take a quick recap of Q4. Our group revenue in Q4 delivered a very solid growth, both year-over-year and QoQ, with live streaming continuing its sequential recovery for third consecutive quarters, and our AdTech business continuing, like, accelerating its year-over-year growth. For Q1, our current guidance implies a year-over-year growth rate of 8.8%-10.9% for group total revenue. Looking at live streaming, we expect live streaming revenue to be back to positive year-over-year growth since Q1.
On a sequential basis, considering that the Lunar New Year and Ramadan both fall into one this year, similarly as last year, we expect there will be a similar, seasonal softness for live streaming, on a sequential basis. For advertising, Q1 is also usually a softer quarter for advertising as well, but we still expect very robust performance from BIGO Ads. Our current guidance implies, mid-double-digit year-over-year growth for BIGO Ads. For the full year, based on the current momentum that we're observing across the three business units, we are very confident that we'll be able to achieve positive year-over-year revenue growth for the group in 2026.
On live streaming, as we previously mentioned, those one-off adjustments from last year have been fully implemented, and we expect our revenues to return to steady year-over-year growth.
On AdTech, entering into the year 2026, we continue to see traffic expansion, deepening penetration across multi verticals and also ongoing model optimization to drive our revenue growth in 2026. These drivers are mutually reinforcing, and together we believe that they support our expectation for a very strong double-digit year-over-year growth for BIGO Ads for the full year of 2026. On our e-commerce SaaS business, with continued product capability development, rapid penetration in cross-border merchants in key markets and also our gradual expansion into certain new markets in the new year, we expect our SaaS revenue to sustain its double-digit growth as well.
Taken together, we believe that these three engines will put our top line back to a very stable and positive year-over-year growth trajectory, and enabling us to tap into the massively broader long-term market opportunities as well. Looking at our profitability outlook for the year 2026, we expect stable operating profit contribution from live streaming, with live streaming now returns to growth, along with continued cost optimization, we expect live streaming continue to generate a stable, improving profit.
Although we do expect to selectively reinvest some of our incremental profits into the new social product lines. Our AdTech business, particularly our third-party ad revenue audience network, is still in a high velocity growth phase. In the near term, this means that we will need to invest in the expansion of our R&D and sales capabilities in addition to our network and computing infrastructure. Given the healthy unit economics of audience network at this stage, we are very confident that we will remain profitable. As we scale, we believe that we can potentially further enhance audience network's economics in the midterm. Looking at our e-commerce SaaS, we expect, as its revenue continue to grow, we can continue to narrow its operating losses and that its loss reduction trajectory is very clear on track.
Putting it all together, we expect the group non-GAAP operating income and EBITDA to continue our improving trend similarly as 2025 and deliver a steady year-over-year growth in the teens in 2026.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Your next question comes from Yuan Liao with CITIC Securities. Please go ahead.
感谢管理层接受我的提问，也恭喜这个季度取得非常强劲的业绩。那我的问题其实是关于广告的。我们也看到了，我们在上个季度，我们的一方和三方广告也实现了一个加速的增长。那同时，刚才CFO也指引了26 Q1，也有望实现一个中双位数的增长。那我想请问一下，这个我们26年的一季度的增长的驱动主要来自于哪些方面？Thanks for taking my questions.
Congratulations on the strong results. My question is regarding your advertising business. In last quarter, both our first party and third party advertising business achieved accelerated growth. You also guided that in the 1st quarter 2026, you will realize a mid-double digit growth rate in your advertising business. Could management elaborate on the key drivers of your advertising growth rate in the 1st quarter 2026? Thank you.
好的，谢谢您的问题。那这个问题先由我来回答。正如在prepared remarks里边所提到的，我们的广告预算组，它的预算结构是多元化的，包括保险为主的线索类广告、垂类的独立站电商垂类的、II垂类的这些客户。那这样的一个结构其实使我们的广告业务呈现了更加明显的季节性特征，所以体现在Q4的电商线索广告环增其实更强，而Q1的环比对比Q4来讲，其实是有一定的这个基数压力的。但是我们持续升级了我们整个广告系统的核心算法。在Q4的时候，我们重点优化的是ROAS、CVR等核心模型，融入了AI的标签、全渠道的用户行为等多元特征，并且加速了优化的投放策略。在这个同时，我们还推进了线索类、II、电商等多场景的算法适配，提高了算法效率，算法和策略的优化，使得Q4的广告主在留存和平均的投放预算上都不断地增加，并且不断地吸引了更多的新进的广告主。在这个同时，也使得我们的流量触达和变现效率有了持续的提升，形成了飞轮效应。所以这使得我们在淡季的时候依然可以期待比较好的表现。那目前我们的指引隐含了BIGO Ads将保持中双位数的同比增长。
Thank you for your question. This is Ting Li. As we mentioned in the prepared remarks, our advertiser mix is well diversified across different industries, including lead generation ads for insurance, direct to customer e-commerce, and also IAA, et cetera. Our current advertiser mix means that seasonality patterns could be very obvious, as shown in our sequentially very robust ad spend from e-commerce and insurance lead generation ads in Q4. While Q1 is typically sequentially softer, particularly due to our Q4 high comparison base. That said, we kept upgrading our core algorithms in Q4. We focused on improving our ROAS and CVR models by adding additional AI signals and also multi-channel user behavior data while refining our targeting and delivery strategies.
We also expanded our algorithm optimization across specific industries, across lead gen, IAA, and also e-commerce to boost efficiency. These improvements have lifted our advertiser retention rate, our average ad spend per advertiser, and also attracted new advertisers during the quarter. Such optimizations also enabled us to effectively reach more traffic and also increase our monetization capability for publishers, which creates a flywheel effect. We believe that that creates a solid foundation for Q1. That's why even in a seasonally softer quarter, we still expect BIGO Ads to deliver mid-double-digit year-over-year growth, as implied in our current Q1 guidance.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Your next question comes from Brian Gong with Citi. Please go ahead.
Uh.
I will translate myself. Thanks, management, for taking my question, and congratulations on solid results. I think management mentioned that, 3P Ads scale is expected to reach over $1 billion in 2028, which is a very positive number. What are drivers behind these numbers, and how should we think about long-term profitability of 3P Ads business? Thank you.
谢谢您的问题，那我还继续回答这个部分。是的，我刚才有明确提到我们广告的这样一个长期的目标，因为在刚刚展望一季度业绩的时候，我有提到飞轮效应、流量、预算以及广告技术和策略的相互之间的促进，它们之间的相互的持续的优化和增长，这些都将贯穿BIGO Ads业务发展的全周期。所以具体来看，在流量侧，首先是需要接入更多的SDK流量和聚合平台，将推动我们整个流量规模内生性的这样的增长。同时我们将持续地拓展多渠道流量以及iOS流量的扩张。再其次呢，我们也会加速在美国、欧洲、日本市场的渗透以及潜在新市场的拓展。在整体的预算侧，除了现有的垂类外，我们还会持续探索更多的线索类广告的细分垂类，IAP和电商等，进一步提升各个垂类客户的数量和密度。在平台侧呢，随着流量和预算侧的扩张，我们将持续地迭代算法和数据，细化垂类的模型，优化投放策略。那所有上述的这些措施都在并行地推进，而且相互推动和相互之间有所促进。同时这也是我们第一次对外公布公开我们对BIGO Ads的中期战略目标。团队非常的优秀，那公司也集中了合力，都一起在努力。所以在2025年的交付，我们的成绩非常好。那现在的团队和公司正在为2026年以及后续的增长目标全力地推进中。我们对BIGO Ads的3P Ads业务持续保持高速增长，非常有信心。Thank you, Brian.
This is Ting Li. I will take your question. Yes. I just mentioned our midterm strategic goal for BIGO Ads. As we were talking about our Q1 outlook earlier, I mentioned the flywheel effect and the mutual reinforcement and continuous improvement across traffic, advertiser demand, and algorithm, and also our monetization strategies will continue to be long-term drivers throughout the entire development of BIGO Ads. To be specific, on traffic side, first, we expect further organic traffic growth as we are being integrated with a rising number of SDK publisher partners and also mediation platforms. We'll also continue to expand multi-channel traffic and also iOS traffic. Second, we'll accelerate our penetration into U.S., Europe and Japan, and also potentially other new regions.
On demand side, in addition to our current verticals, we're simultaneously exploring new verticals, including sub-verticals of lead generation ads, IAP and e-commerce. We expect to further increase both the number of clients and also our customer density within each vertical. On platform side, with the rapid expansion in traffic and also in demand, we are continuously iterating and optimizing our algorithm and data capabilities, driving more vertical specific optimizations and enhancing our bidding and delivery strategies. We believe that all of these initiatives are moving forward in parallel, and they reinforce each other. This is the first time we're disclosing our midterm strategic goals for BIGO Ads. The team is exceptionally talented, and also the company has dedicated additional resources to work together to that goal as well.
We deliver outstanding results in the year 2025. Right now, the team and the company is fully committed and pushing forward aggressively toward our strategic targets for the year 2026 and beyond. We remain highly confident in the continued high velocity growth of BIGO Ads, particularly the third-party audience network proportion. Thank you. Next question, please.
The next question comes from Xueqing Zhang with CICC. Please go ahead.
Thanks, management, for taking my question. My question is on SHOPLINE. Can management provide more color on the current business momentum of SHOPLINE and the key drivers behind its growth? How should we think about the path towards narrowing losses and eventually achieving breakeven, both in terms of strategy and the timeline? Thank you.
It is our value to empower our merchants to capitalize on GMV growth, and our monetization is based on the take rate of that growing GMV. In the past several years, SHOPLINE's core mission has been product excellence, and we've made substantial investments in our R&D to evolve from a storefront builder to a full stack e-commerce ecosystem, seamlessly combining SaaS infrastructure, payment, and also integrates the marketing tools into one powerful closed loop. Since last year, our R&D investment has greatly stabilized. Our cross-border merchants, particularly brand customers, have grown rapidly, and our revenue and gross profit growth have driven improving operating leverage, resulting in our significant reduction in SHOPLINE's operating losses.
We believe that we are past the stage of business model validation, and now our rising gross profit has put us on a clear and sustainable path to breakeven. We look forward to and remain fully committed to achieving break even for SHOPLINE in 2028. One last question, please. Thank you.
Your final question today comes from Raphael Chen with BOCI Research. Please go ahead.
We noticed that the Company distributed an additional cash dividend this quarter. Could management share the underlying considerations behind this? Also, given current valuation, does the Company intend to further accelerate share buyback? Thank you.
Alex.
Thank you, Raphael. This is Alex. I will take your question. First, looking back at 2025, our capital return execution has been very robust. Under our current shareholder return program, we paid out approximately $197 million in dividends, and repurchased approximately $135 million worth of shares throughout the year, bringing our total shareholder returns to surpassing $330 million. That represents around 10.9% of our current market cap, which we believe is a very competitive level within the industry. Additionally, in line with our strong operating performance and double-digit improvement in our non-GAAP OP in 2025, the board has approved an additional cash dividend of approximately $20 million on top of our regular quarterly dividend schedule.
This demonstrates our strong confidence in operating performance and also our ongoing commitment to drive operational improvement and enhance shareholder returns. On buyback, we nearly doubled our repurchase execution in Q4, buying back additional $67.4 million in one quarter, in Q4. We believe we are still undervalued and we will continue to actively execute our buybacks going forward. Looking forward, we are entering into the new phase of growth with our revenue back to growth and also operating profits continuing to improve. We believe that our shareholders can look forward to sharing even greater returns. Okay, that was the last question. Thank you so much for joining this call. We look forward to speaking with everyone next quarter. Thank you.
This conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.