JOYY Inc. (JOYY)
NASDAQ: JOYY · Real-Time Price · USD
77.26
+2.43 (3.25%)
At close: Sep 11, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT
77.20
-0.06 (-0.08%)
After-hours: Sep 11, 2026, 7:45 PM EDT
← View all transcripts

Earnings Call: Q2 2021

Aug 18, 2021

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to JOYY Inc.'s Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the management's prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your host today, Jane Xie, the company's Senior Manager of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Jane.

Jane Xie
Senior Manager of Investor Relations, JOYY

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone. Welcome to JOYY's second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Joining us today are Mr. David Xueling Li, Chairman and CEO of JOYY, Ms. Ting Li, our COO, and Mr. Alex Liu, the General Manager 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 second quarter 2021 financial results and webcasts of this conference call are available at ir.joyy.com. A replay of this call will also be available on our website in a few hours. Before we continue, I refer you to our safe harbor statement in our earnings press release, which applies to this call as well, as we will make forward-looking statements. Finally, please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during this conference call are in US dollar.

I will now turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Mr. David Xueling Li. Please go ahead, Sir.

David Xueling Li
Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO, JOYY

Hello, everyone. Welcome to our second quarter 2021 earnings call. We maintained our growth momentum in the second quarter despite the negative impact from local holidays in certain regions. During the second quarter of 2021, we grew our total revenues by 39.7% year-over-year to $662 million, while BIGO's revenue increased by 38.4% year-over-year to $598 million. Notably, this quarter, on a non-GAAP basis, we almost achieved breakeven at a group level for the first time after we deconsolidated YY Live as BIGO's non-GAAP net margin continued to improve to 3.3% from 1.6% quarter-over-quarter, and its non-GAAP net profit increased to $19 million. Before we go into the detailed development of our product, we would like to share with you the latest progress in the further enhancement of our localized content offerings.

As discussed on last quarter's call, we view our content ecosystem as one of our strategic cores that determine the long-term competitiveness of our products. During the quarter, we have made great strides on expanding our product content variety and enlarging our premium content library. Based on our thorough insights into local users' content preferences, we partner with gaming entertainment companies and local talent agencies and brought in a multitude of high-quality streamers and content creators in categories such as gaming, variety shows, music, lifestyles, and many others. In the entertainment content category, partnering with local entertainment agencies and celebrities, we achieved meaningful progress in further expanding our premium content and assembling top local talents in the music and variety show category.

In the U.S., BIGO LIVE hosted the BIGO IDOL talent competition in May with an all-star lineup of judges such as Tamar Braxton, Chris Turner, and DJ Wreckx, attracting over 300,000 unique views. In Turkey, our platform attracted the king of pop music, Serhat, and the iconic new generation singer, Ramy Djanny, to become star streamers on BIGO LIVE. In Thailand, Mai, one of our Thai country music streamers on BIGO LIVE, participated in Bonus Karaoke, a top music variety show, and debuted to great fanfare. To provide a stage of other country music singers to showcase their talents, BIGO LIVE's team in Thailand launched a country music competition, bringing celebrity advisors and professional judges in collaboration with a renowned local talent agency. After test running our gaming streaming channel on BIGO LIVE and officially launched our own esports activities called BIGO FUN in the Middle East region in 2020.

We have organized a variety of events, including video creation, challenges, and contents covering multiple hit games. In the second quarter, we partnered with a number of gaming companies and further enriched the gaming content on our platform to better suit our users' enthusiastic demands. In June, we reached a strategic cooperation agreement with King of Avalon: Dragon Warfare, a mobile strategy multiplayer role-playing game. We launched in France and Germany a series of medieval-themed online gaming events, during which virtual treasure chests were released randomly to the audience without tuning into the live streaming channel while local top gaming live streamers played games and interacted with their local fans. In Indonesia, BIGO LIVE became the exclusive partner of the Free Fire tournament and the live stream playoffs among 137 teams, bringing an immersive esports experience to the local audience.

In addition to our continued expansion of content categories, we have pursued seamless integration of content with the rich and diverse local culture. As mentioned previously, our mission is to cultivate an inclusive and global community where everyone can be heard and seen. Diversity and inclusiveness manifest not only in the number of regions in which we operate or the variety of content categories we have made available, but also in the degree at which we have integrated our content with local culture, user behavior, and social elements. For example, during Ramadan, BIGO LIVE launched the Good to BIGOod campaign in Indonesia. The campaign motivated local youths to express their creativity by showcasing Ramadan's unique culture and customs through music or stand-up comedy shows thus winning endorsements from Indonesia's Ministry of Tourism and other government agencies.

As content creators served as the foundation of our success in creating and maintaining a vibrant and engaging content community, we have implemented extensive programs to identify, develop, and motivate talent creators. In the past quarter, in addition to hosting local culture-themed competitions and talent challengers to better identify talented content creators, Likee also worked with external partners to help creators improve their public exposure, expand their social influence, and pursue content creation as a lifelong career. For example, in the second quarter, Likee hosted the third season of the Likee Star Idol talent show in Indonesia. In collaboration with a local entertainment company, Likee selected five top participants to form a pop girl group called DREAMGIRLS, which debuted soundcheck, and a music video garnered playback on more than 116 Indonesia radio stations, attracting a slew of offers for touring content and commercial advertising.

That was Likee's pilot project to test drive its ability to identify, develop, and motivate professional content creators. Going forward, Likee will launch more supporting programs to direct more user traffic to creators, help creators monetize their content, and thus creating a friendly, engaging, and dynamic content community. With a combination of more diverse, high-quality content from an increasing number of talented content creators, we believe that we will be able to build a richer and more lively content ecosystem, and further expand our platform's user base. Now, let me share with you the quarterly updates of our core product lines. For BIGO LIVE, despite the negative impacts from local holidays in certain regions, its overall MAU grew by 0.3% year-over-year to 29.5 million, while its MAU outside of India increased by 27.8% year-over-year, thanks to its progress in localizing its content ecosystem.

Meanwhile, its playing user increased by 10.7% year-over-year, contributing to a year-over-year revenue growth of 31.8%. Geographically, BIGO LIVE maintained its well-diversified growth. Developing countries continued to outperform, as its regional revenue grew by 47.6% year-over-year. In particular, revenues from Europe grew by 104.6%. The revenues from Eastern Pacific region grew by 52.5%. Revenues from Southeast Asia and other emerging countries grew by 31.7%. Through product upgrades, BIGO LIVE continued to improve its user live streaming experience, as evidenced by the 1.6% sequential increase in average duration of live streaming sessions this quarter. By optimizing its content recommendation algorithm, BIGO LIVE improved the average viewer time spent among its new user by 4.4% sequentially. Furthermore, by introducing more gaming contents, BIGO LIVE improved its overall user engagement during the quarter, and prolonged its average viewer time spent in gaming streaming sessions by 40.9% sequentially. Next, about Likee.

As mentioned in last quarter's call, because we prioritize our long-term growth, we have placed a greater emphasis on the health and sustainability of our ecosystem and growth model. That's why we have adjusted Likee's marketing strategy, and focused our investment on content and social ecosystem since the first quarter. As a result of our marketing strategy adjustment, combined with Indian government bans since the third quarter of last year, Likee's MAU contracted by 38.6% year-over-year to 92.3 million. MAU outside of India increased modestly by 6.8% year-over-year. Despite the temporary user base fluctuation, Likee's total revenues in the quarter continued to increase by 136.7% year-over-year, mainly driven by strengths in developed countries and the Middle East. Revenue from developed countries increased by 106.3%, and revenues from the Middle East multiplied by 4x year-over-year.

Product-wise, Likee upgraded its subtitle function based on TTS technology to provide automated subtitle and dubbing but also updated features which enable the video upload up to three minutes and post-production recording, thus providing more efficient content production tools to content creators, especially those in the informative content category. Furthermore, Likee updated its user traffic allocation and content distribution mechanism to drive more traffic to creators' private domains. As a result, creators' private traffic increased by 25%, strengthening the social connection between creators and their followers. To motivate users and creators to participate in live streaming, YY Live made multiple updates to its fan engagement features and achieved a 7.7 x increase in the daily number of users joining fans group, which in turn motivated creators to host more streaming sessions.

By updating social interaction features, YY Live improved its user experience in live streaming sessions and achieved a 22.3% sequential increase in its average duration of streaming sessions, as well as a 30.9% increase in its average streaming time per user in multi-user chat rooms. About Hago. Due to marketing strategy adjustments and the Indian government bans since the third quarter of last year, Hago's MAU fell by 62.9% year-over-year to 11.8 million in the second quarter. MAU outside of India increased by 25.5% year-over-year. Hago continued to make meaningful progress in its user interactivity and product commercialization. Its revenue grew by 54.3% year-over-year, and its non-GAAP operation loss narrowed further on the sequential basis. In the second quarter, Hago launched its version 4.0 product to better satisfy users' needs for interest-based social entertainment.

In this version, the feature channel enable user to engage with friends and community members and freely communicate with one another in the form of real-time text, voice, video, and interactive games. Users can also publish posts in their virtual family, thus fulfilling their real-time, as well as non-real-time social desires. As a result, the penetration rates of Hago's featured channel increased by 7.4%, and its 30-day user retention rates increased by 5.5% sequentially. During the quarter, Hago launched in Party Game, a number of popular games, which feature multi-user audio chatting and gaming functions, as well as upgrades of user experience in real-time interactive games. As a result, the penetration rate of Party Game increased by 10.7%, and the average user time spent increased by 30% sequentially.

To conclude, despite the negative impact from local holidays in certain regions, we maintained the growth trajectory of our global business and achieved significant progress in further enriching our localized content offerings. With the enhancement of our product monetization, improvement in our operation leverage, and execution of more prudent marketing strategy, we almost reached breakeven on a non-GAAP basis at the group level for the first time after we deconsolidated YY Live. Despite the recent volatility in the macro environment and the increasing uncertainty due to COVID-19, we remain committed to our long-term vision and corporate mission. We will continue to deploy our resources to areas that can sharpen our competitive edge, including further optimization of our localized content and social ecosystems, as well as enhancement our research and development abilities, so that we can create greater value for our shareholders.

With that, I will now turn the call to Alex Liu, General Manager of Finance, for a more detailed explanation of our quarterly financial results.

Alex Liu
General Manager of Finance, JOYY

Thanks, David. Hello, everyone. As JOYY Finance General Manager, I will talk about the financial results. Since a majority of our revenues and expenses are now denominated in USD, starting from January 1st, 2021, we have changed our reporting currency from RMB to U.S. dollar to better illustrate our operational results. Please note that the financial information and the non-GAAP financial information disclosed in our second quarter earnings press release is presented on a continuing operating basis, unless otherwise specifically stated. Starting from the second quarter of 2020, the company deconsolidated HUYA and accounts for our investment in HUYA as an equity-measured investment, and applied the equity-measured accounting one quarter in arrears to enable us to provide financial disclosures independent of the reporting schedule of HUYA.

As the sale of LIVE was substantially completed on February 8, 2021, with certain customary matters to be completed in the near future. The historical financial results of LIVE are reflected in the company's consolidated financial statements as discontinued operations accordingly, starting from the fourth quarter of 2020. During the second quarter of 2021, despite the negative impact from local holidays in certain regions, we maintained our strong growth momentum and delivered robust financial results. Our total net revenues for the second quarter increased by 39.7% year-over-year to $661.7 million from $473.5 million in the same period of 2020. Primarily attributable to BIGO's continued paying users growth and enhanced monetization capabilities. In particular, our live streaming revenues for the second quarter increased by 79.7% year-over-year to $629.6 million, driven by live streaming revenues growth from BIGO.

Other revenues in the second quarter increased by 40.3% to $32.1 million. Cost of revenues for the second quarter increased by 32.2% year-over-year to $458.3 million. Revenue sharing fees and content costs increased to $289.1 million in the second quarter from $198.2 million in the same period of 2020, which was in line with the increase in live streaming revenues. Bandwidth cost decreased to $27.5 million from $32.7 million in the same period of 2020, primarily due to the company's improved efficiency and the reduction of bandwidth usage for India users after the India government ban of Chinese apps in late June 2020, partially offset by the continued user base expansion outside India. Gross profit increased by 60.4% year-over-year to $203.4 million.

Gross margin in the second quarter of 2021 improved to 30.7% from 26.8% in the same period of 2020. Operating expenses for the second quarter increased to $340 million from $247.6 million in the same period of 2020. Among the operating expenses, general and administrative expenses increased to $101.1 million in the period from $51.5 million in the same period of 2020, primarily due to the impairment loss arising mainly from an investment made in the prior years. Our GAAP operating loss for the second quarter was $101.1 million from $119.9 million in the same period of 2020. Operating loss margin for the second quarter was narrowed to 15.3% compared to 25.3% in the same period of 2020, primarily due to the increase of operating income of BIGO.

Our non-GAAP operating loss for the second quarter, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, amortization of intangible assets from business acquisitions, as well as impairment of goodwill and investment and gain on disposal of subsidiary and business, decreased by 80.3% to $30 million, compared to $65.7 million in the same period of 2020. Non-GAAP operating loss margin for the second quarter was narrowed to 2% from 13.9% in the prior year period. GAAP net loss from continuing operations attributable to controlling interest of JOYY in the second quarter of 2021 was $109.3 million, compared to $28.5 million in the same period of 2020. Mainly due to the impairment loss arising mainly from our investment made in the prior years. Net loss margin was 16.5% in the second quarter of 2021, compared to 6% in the corresponding period of 2020.

Non-GAAP net loss from continuing operations attributable to controlling interest of JOYY was $0.5 million in the second quarter, compared to $50.5 million in the same period of 2020. Non-GAAP net loss margin was significantly narrowed to 0.1% in the second quarter of 2021, from 10.7% in the same period of 2020. This means that we have almost achieved breakeven at group level for the first time since we consolidated HUYA Live. Notably, BIGO has achieved a positive non-GAAP net income for the second quarter of $19.4 million, with non-GAAP net margin improved to 3.3% from negative 3.8% in the prior year period. Diluted net loss per ADS in the second quarter of 2021 was $1.43, compared to $0.39 in the same period of 2020. Non-GAAP diluted net loss per ADS was narrowed to $0.01 from $0.63 in the same period of 2020.

In addition, in accordance with our quarterly business plan approved on August 11, 2020, and on November 16th, we will be distributing a dividend of $0.51 per ADS for the second quarter of 2021. This is expected to be paid on September 29, 2021, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on September 10, 2021. We would like to provide an update to our execution of the share repurchase program announced on May 2020, under which the company may repurchase up to $300 million of its shares till August 2021. As of June 13th, 2021, the company has repurchased approximately $296.8 million of its shares. We will continue to invest in business development initiatives to further expand our global market reach, cultivate our highly engaged user community, and enhance our high-quality content offerings.

We will also actively explore other ways to maximize shareholder value. Beginning in the second quarter, we have anticipated some negative impact on users' online social entertainment activities from the gradual lift of pandemic-related lockdowns in certain countries. We expect our net revenues for the third quarter to be between $608 million and $635 million, representing a year-over-year increase between 13.7%-18.7% on a constant currency basis. Excluding the revenue contribution from HUYA and YY Live in the same period of last year. We currently have limited visibility surrounding the COVID-19 epidemic's long-term impacts and geopolitical uncertainties on our business and the markets in which we operate. Therefore, this forecast only reflects our current and preliminary views on the market and operational conditions, which are subject to change. That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we would now like to open up the call to questions. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you need to cancel your request, please press the pound or hash key. Our first question comes from Thomas Chong at Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Thomas Chong
Analyst, Jefferies

[Non-English content]

Can management comments about the paying ratio, the ARPU trend, as well as the live streaming revenue performance across different countries? Thank you.

Alex Liu
General Manager of Finance, JOYY

[Non-English content]

Speaker 10

This is Alex. I will answer your question. Regarding Q3 guidance, starting from the end of the second quarter, some countries are gradually lifting lockdown bans during the pandemic. We have anticipated some negative impact on users' social entertainment activities online, which may reduce time spent on online entertainment and therefore affect some users' paying behavior, et cetera. We have limited visibility into the precise impact of the lockdown removals. We have provided a relatively conservative estimation for our Q3 revenue, which implies a year-over-year growth of 13.7%-18.7% at group level, mainly due to short-term fluctuation of BIGO LIVE paying ratio and ARPU. We will provide further updates once we have better visibility. In terms of revenue growth for the whole year, we do expect BIGO segment to remain a decent growth.

Alex Liu
General Manager of Finance, JOYY

[Non-English content]

Speaker 10

The revenue distribution across different regions, the group's revenue growth in the second quarter was mainly driven by developed countries and Southeast Asia region. The Middle East region underperformed, mainly due to the Ramadan season. In terms of revenue distribution, our revenue is well diversified across the above-mentioned regions. For BIGO LIVE in the second quarter, the MAU growth, paying ratio, and ARPU expansion together drive the growth of revenue. In terms of future trends, in the long run, we are positive about the potential of developed countries, including U.S., Europe, and Eastern Pacific regions, as well as the Middle East, considering that users in these regions have better paying capability and also better payment habits. We are also expanding our localized operation and content efforts in Southeast Asia and also other developing countries.

Considering the huge user base and also that as we continue to cultivate users' behavior and habits in these regions, we believe that the monetization potential of these regions is also promising.

Thomas Chong
Analyst, Jefferies

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Alex Poon at Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Alex Poon
Analyst, Morgan Stanley

[Non-English content]

Recently we have noted increasing penetration into game segments and also some casual games like Ludo, also want to get an update around e-commerce strategy. My second question is related to the use of cash and the status of the Baidu transaction. We have almost used up the share buyback program of $300 million. Do we have plans to initiate new buyback program and the use of cash on other purposes? If you can share. Thank you very much.

David Xueling Li
Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO, JOYY

[Non-English content]

Speaker 10

This is David. In terms of the new contents related to game live streaming and Ludo games, because throughout our operation, we found that users in certain regions, especially in Europe, Middle East, and South America, are very interested in gaming content. Therefore, in the past few quarters, we have gradually introduced more gaming content in these regions. As the global mobile game market has a very huge user base, that BIGO LIVE diverse content offerings and social interactivity fits mobile games naturally. In the long run, we believe that gaming contents will be an important part of our diverse content offerings. We will continue to partner with leading mobile game companies to create active and lively gaming content community.

The Ludo game, this is a small attempt by us to encourage users to establish connections and interact with other users, enabling users to engage in social interactions, not only through live streaming, but also by playing casual games. We have seen positive impacts on BIGO LIVE user activity and engagement level from these newly introduced gaming contents and the Ludo games, but we might need longer time to draw any conclusions. The revenue contributions on gaming and Ludo games is still relatively small. Cash usage, I believe that you could see from our earnings release that in the second quarter, we have repurchased around $100 million of our shares, and we are still executing our quarterly dividend payout program.

As for the remaining cash, as the sale of YY Live has been substantially completed, but still with some customary matters during progress. We would love to wait till the full completion of the deal to determine the remaining cash usage, then we would be able to give you a clearer update. Thank you.

Alex Poon
Analyst, Morgan Stanley

[Non-English content]

Operator

Our next question comes from Yiwen Zhang at China Renaissance. Please go ahead.

Yiwen Zhang
Analyst, China Renaissance

[Non-English content]

The first thing regarding the content ecosystem. You mentioned a few times during the prepared remarks. Can you share more color in terms of how the localized content could help user acquisition, engagement, and also the retention, and how that could help differentiate us from the peers? Secondly, on the monetization, can you talk about the progress on non-live streaming monetization for example, the advertisement. Thank you.

David Xueling Li
Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO, JOYY

[Non-English content]

Speaker 10

This is David. I will answer your question. At this stage, the priority of Likee is still about content development, especially the motivation and cultivation of content creators and the development of the content creation community. This quarter, we have taken the first step. We've already seen positive impact on user retention rate, user time spent, and frequency of user on our platform. In the coming second half of the year, we will continue to launch more programs to better identify, cultivate creators, and also bring more conducive updates regarding traffic allocation and provide diversified monetization tools for creators, especially talented and those who have outperformed. That we'll be able to enable creators to play a greater role on our platform. What we love to say is that compared with advertising, the cultivation of content ecosystem does not happen overnight.

The improvement of content offerings and user experience is a gradual process. With you in the progress of adjusting advertising, we believe that there will be time spent to gradually change the users using experience. We believe that it will have a positive impact on the health and sustainability of the product. Regarding diversify monetization, currently speaking, our revenue stream mainly includes live streaming, advertising, and membership subscription. As of today, live streaming is still our biggest revenue stream, contributing around 95% of our revenue. Other revenues, although growing at 40% year-over-year and close to 11% quarter-over-quarter this quarter, in terms of the size, it's still relatively small.

We're gradually progressing diversified monetization plans. We'll launch some new monetization features in the second half, which we believe will be beneficial to the content creators as it will better connect the fans and content creators and cultivate users' paying habits, and therefore driving the further growth of our revenue. Thank you.

Yiwen Zhang
Analyst, China Renaissance

[Non-English content] , thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Lei Zhang at Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Lei Zhang
Analyst, Bank of America

[Non-English content]

Two questions here. Can you give us more color on our regulatory environment in different overseas markets and any concern like data privacy, content or the tipping behavior? I want to follow up on the sales and marketing adjustments since last quarter, since we have a good cash position and monetization remain good, while our competitor are actually investing in overseas. I want to know your thoughts; do you have any concern on the user growth from the dynamic competition change? Thank you.

David Xueling Li
Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO, JOYY

[Non-English content]

Speaker 10

This is David. Regarding your first question about regulation. After the sale of YY Live, which has been substantially completed with certain customary matters to be completed, the majority of our business is located in non-PRC regions, but we do have R&D team located in China as there are lots of experienced talents here. As for our global overseas market, as you can see, since 2020, as we penetrate into multiple markets such as Europe, Eastern Pacific region, the Middle East, and other emerging countries, our revenue is actually well distributed across different regions. The risk of any single region has been greatly reduced. What we love to emphasize is that since the incorporation of JOYY, we have been strictly complying with local policy and laws, no matter in which countries we operate our business in.

We will continue to execute our global strategy, reduce geopolitical risk to any particular region through further diversifying our revenue across multiple regions.

David Xueling Li
Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO, JOYY

[Non-English content]

Speaker 10

Regarding your second question, we understand that previously for any internet product, the usual logic of expansion is that at the early stage, product might choose to excessively invest in advertising to grab a relatively sizable user base. Therefore, it could actually leverage on the advantage in terms of its user base to gain other competitive advantages in terms of attracting more creators, attracting more advertising vendors. In the third stage, via all of these advantage lead to further user base expansion. That is the common logic of internet products. We don't see that applicable for short-form video, and it's not applicable to JOYY. What we can see is that our main competitor right now is actually investing in dollar amount ways more than what we can afford.

From what we know is that one of our key competitors has been investing billions or even 10s of billions of U.S. dollar into user acquisition. In such circumstances, if we invest $200 million or $1 billion into user acquisition, it will not actually make any difference. I think that like you like to be more practical and take a relatively more balanced growth strategy whereby we love to ensure the health and sustainability of the product, therefore we will be more able to obtain an established position from a longer-term perspective. We believe that we still have opportunity to change or to obtain competitive advantage in the longer term. Thank you.

Lei Zhang
Analyst, Bank of America

[Non-English content] Very helpful, thank you.

David Xueling Li
Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO, JOYY

[Non-English content]

Operator

Our next question comes from Tian Hou at TH Capital. Please go ahead.

Tian Hou
Analyst, TH Capital

[Non-English content]

[Foreign language] YY has been doing live streaming for a long time. It was the first one in China. What in your mind, what's the difference between doing live streaming in China and overseas? That's number one. Number two, we have been doing overseas live streaming for a while, and what's the management outlook in terms of the growth margin and net margin going forward? Thank you.

David Xueling Li
Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO, JOYY

[Non-English content]

Alex Liu
General Manager of Finance, JOYY

Non-English content]

Speaker 10

First, regarding difference of operating live streaming business in PRC and let's say, other areas of the world. There are quite significant differences. First of all, if you operate in global markets, because there are so many different regions, so many different culture, you're actually operating multi-language, multicultural markets, while if you operate in China, there is only one single market. That's why, for BIGO LIVE, currently we have operating capabilities and teams in over 30 regions. Our local team operates based on very thorough understanding of local culture, law regulation, and the maintenance and the development of local content and content creators are also maintained by these localized operational teams. Secondly, I believe that there is another difference in terms of user acquisition channels. In China, actually every user acquisition channel, all of these companies are doing live streaming themselves.

For live streaming platforms, it's actually very difficult to obtain additional user and to continuously expand their user base. As for the overseas market, the main user acquisition channel and advertising platform is Google and Facebook, and they themselves do not actually heavily rely on live streaming as a business. The public pool of user traffic is available, and the source of user traffic channel is also more abundant for global live streaming business. Regarding margin trend, what we would love to say is that we've seen improvement of our net margin non-GAAP wise in the second quarter, mainly due to three factors. The first is continued revenue expansion with diversified monetization progress of multiple product lines. Second, improved operating leverage, lower bandwidth cost and payment channel cost. Third, as mentioned, the decrease in Likee's advertising cost.

For the second half of this year, we believe that we will continue to improve operating efficiency. Although gaming content has been introduced into BIGO LIVE, we do not foresee content cost margin to be increased significantly and will likely remain relatively stable in the future. For marketing activities, as more marketing activities will roll out in the second half of the year, sales and marketing expense will be higher, but sales and marketing expense margin will likely to be slightly lower than the first half. In conclusion, we believe that BIGO segment will enter into a new era of sustained profitability, and from the full year perspective, we believe that BIGO segment will achieve a positive non-GAAP net margin for the full year.

From a longer perspective, considering that the standalone operating profit of BIGO LIVE has remained around 20% and other products are gradually moving towards breakeven, we believe that the overall profit margin will be gradually increased. Thank you. That's the end of our call, and we look forward to speaking with everyone next quarter.

Operator

Thank you, management. This does conclude today's conference call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.