Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the JOYY Inc.'s second quarter 2023 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After 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.
Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone. Welcome to JOYY's second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Joining us today are Mr. David Xueling Li, Chairman and CEO of JOYY; Ms. Qin Li, our COO; 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. A 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, 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.
Finally, please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during this conference call are in U.S. dollars. I will now turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Mr. David Xueling Li. Please go ahead, sir.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to our second quarter 2023 earnings call. Let's begin by reviewing our overall performance for the second quarter. During the second quarter, we delivered a strong performance that was in line with our expectations. Our group revenue came in above the high end of our guidance to $547.3 million. We hit a non-GAAP net profit of $97.3 million and 89.1% year-over-year increase with a non-GAAP net margin of 17.8%. Importantly, we maintained a positive operating cash flow of $61.8 million, which boosted our already solid financial position. The Bigo segment recorded a revenue of $471.1 million, slight quarter-over-quarter increase, demonstrating further signs of stabilization.
Its non-GAAP operating profit reached $75.1 million, and it further expanded its non-GAAP operating profit margin to 16%. In the second quarter, our global MAUs grew to 275.6 million, a quarterly increase of 1% and a slight annual increase, showing continued recovery and our effective product strategy, even as we had it through our disciplined marketing spending. In particular, Bigo Live's MAU sustained its strong growth momentum, increasing by 18% year-over-year to 38.1 million. This was a fifth consecutive quarter in which Bigo Live recorded a double-digit year-over-year MAU growth. Our performance in the second quarter was largely driven by our effective product strategy, as we continue to enhance our users' content and social experiences through cultivation of diverse premium content, product feature innovations, and localized operations.
On the product front, we constantly develop and strengthen our platform's content and the social interaction features. For instance, we have harnessed AI to refine our understanding of user profiles on Bigo Live. This helps us optimize our recommendation algorithm and deliver personal content that better suits users' individual interests. At the same time, we add interactive tools and social scenarios to enhance interaction between users as we enable user interaction in a range of virtual elements, such as live streaming sessions, interest-based communications, and Swipe to Match channels, where users meet and chat with new people... We cater to broader and much more diverse set of social needs. We also actively piloting and testing some new AIGC-related features to facilitate content creation and streamer fan communication.
Heading into the second half of 2023, we will explore new ways in to further improve users' content and social experience through product upgrades. We believe continuous efforts to improve product experience and facilitate engaging social interactions are fundamental elements for sustainable user growth and paying user conversion. On the operational activities front, we partner with diverse spectrum of KOLs and distributors during the quarter. This has increased our diverse, high-quality, localized content and successfully enhanced our brand influence within local communities. Meanwhile, as a global tech company dedicated to enriching lives and delivering value to our users and the local communities, we are actively and progressively embedding social responsibility into our day-to-day operations.
During the remainder, we launched a wide range of online campaigns across the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and other regions, encouraging users to participate and share their acts of kindness to embracing to Festival 3. We raised the funds through multiple online campaigns on our platforms, and extend our support to various programs under several international charities, such as the Tunisia Cancer Foundation, the Children Cancer Center of Lebanon, and Jordan's TUV. Being a community-driven platform, giving back to society crucial part of our values, such as we remain committed to operational innovation with an emphasis on creating positive social impact. Looking ahead to the second half of 2023, while there have been some continued signs of recovery, we remain cautiously optimistic regarding industry outlook, given that ongoing macroeconomic uncertainties may still pressure consumer spending.
We will continue to drive effective, high-quality growth through ongoing product and operational innovations. Moreover, as communicated in the previous quarter, globalization remains a key drive of our business growth and our top priority. We intend to further concentrate our resources on building our core strength and global business that aligned with our long-term strategies and actively pressure growth opportunities, pursue growth opportunities. Before we move on to the detailed product updates, I would like to provide an update on capital return. We significantly stepped up our share buyback during the second quarter, and about that additional 214.3 million of our shares. Since 2020, we have distributed around $1.32 billion of capital to our shareholders through share buybacks and dividends.
This represents 5.4x our total non-GAAP net profits, excluding discontinued operation over that period. A substantial amount, especially when compared to our market cap. This demonstrates our ongoing dedication to reward our shareholders' long-term support. We remain committed to create and return value to our shareholders, and we will continue to actively utilize our share buyback program ongoing going forward. Now, let's take a closer look at our product. We will start with Bigo Live. In the second quarter, Bigo Live remained its double-digit user growth momentum for the fifth consecutive quarter, with MAUs increasing by 80% year-over-year to 38.5 million.
We observed growth across several key regions, with year-over-year growth rates of 10.3% in Europe, 16.9% in Middle East, and 20.8% in South Asia and other emerging markets. Bigo Live, the revenue continued to stabilize during the quarter, and we saw recovery from developed regions, especially Europe, Japan, and Korea. Bigo Live launched a series of standard activities across various regions in the second quarter, delivering a continuous stream of the diverse, local, and premium content to users. In April, Bigo Live partnered with social media influencer Group Kwai, and launched a reality dating show in North America. This innovative content provided extremely popular, drawing over 2.3 million in viewership. This was the second original Bigo Live reality show following the successful launch of its previous series, In Touch, back in February.
The production process for both shows included script writing, artist management, filming, production, and marketing were carried out by Bigo Live local team. The success of these series showcases our ongoing dedication to cultivating diverse, high-quality content to our local user communities. Similarly, in June, Bigo Live partnered with Ravolution Music Festival in Vietnam to provide users with an eight-hour live broadcasting of event. This gave user the ultimate music festival experience and attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers worldwide. We actively encourage the user engagement on Bigo Live social communities through a number of organized events. Our family feature, launched in 2019, brings together streamer fans and other united, unity by similar interests to uphold the honor of their respective families. It has become a vital founding element of our user community. In May, we introduced the Family Month to further strengthen these bonds.
During this event, Bigo Live had held a number of activities and contests with family brand and award based on participation and interaction levels. In the Middle East, Bigo Live had an offline meetup for the top local families, which created a unique opportunity for family members to build offline connections. Family Month generated significant user interest and attention, and fostered rapid, rapid growth in family sizes. The number of contracted streamers who are members of a family grew by 1.1% from the first quarter, and the daily paying user with family membership rose 3.8%. On the content development front, Bigo Live retained its focus on incentivizing the creation of video content in the BAR channel. Our introduction of newly refined video creation tools and the implementation of reward system to encourage creation, consumption, and share on, sharing on BAR.
Those add 26.5 sequential increase in the amount of BAR video content product produced in the second quarter, with the total number of video shares and downloads doubling over the same period. During the quarter, we also upgraded our user interface and optimized our content recommendation algorithm. These initiatives further improved users' overall viewing experience in BAR, and average impressions per user increased by 5.7% sequentially in the second quarter. At the same time, we enhanced the social interactions by introducing the ability to send messages, images and links within live sessions on Bigo Live. This fulfilled 1% sequential increase in the number of users going live in multi-guest rooms, along with 15.1% sequential increase in the number of users actively engaging per live session. Next, let's move on to Likee.
Likee's focus remains set on improving product monetization efficiency and organic user acquisition capabilities. During the second quarter, Likee increased its revenue by 11.2% sequentially, and it continued to deliver profitability at the product level. This marks its second consecutive half year of achieving breakeven. After initially doing so in the second half of last year, despite a sequential decline in Likee's MAUs this quarter, its DAUs saw a slight increase quarter-over-quarter, and its DAUs even grow by double-digit in some core regions. In the second quarter, Likee further developed its creator services and improved user content and social experience. To increase the creators efficiency, Likee roll out a video collection feature to streamline the video production process.
Likee also furnished the creators with data and analytic tools to help them fine-tune their content and better align it with the interest of their audience. Likee has also supported its content creators by connecting them with e-commerce platforms and brand merchants to generate additional monetization channels. In June, Likee hosted its first-ever summer party. The event aimed to acknowledge outstanding creators from the past year and boost their visibility on the platform. It brought together hundreds of top talents and brand representatives, encouraging in-person interactions and networking. As a result, the number of official creators on Likee increased by 4% sequentially in the second quarter. It also further enhanced user interactions within its community. In the second quarter, IM penetration rates continued to grow, increased by 6.8% sequentially.
Overall, user engagement, as measured by the ratio of DAU to MAU, grew by 4.2% sequentially, while average user time spending increased by 15.8%. Finally, let's turn to Hago. In the second quarter, Hago's revenue increased by 6.4% sequentially, and it further narrowed its operating loss through the continued cost optimization. Importantly, Hago's operation cash flow turned positive during the quarter, reaching another milestone on the road towards self-sufficiency. During the quarter, Hago upgraded a number of features for further enhance its monetization efficiency and improve user social engagement. To improve user paying segments and enhance monetization, Hago launched a celebration room, a new kind of multi-guest room, designed for specific occasions, such as birthday parties.
We also introduced a multi feature to multi-guest rooms and enabled additional decoration and communication privileges to Hago couples. Hago also optimized the distribution of multi-guest real-time interactive rooms across different regions, and effectively upgrade the users interactive social experience through the gaming specific-specification of the dressing up 3D avatars. These product development efforts resulted in a 1.2% sequential increase in the penetration rate of Hago's social channels. Average user time spent on Hago per day rose as well, growing by 5.2% from the first quarter. To summarize, despite ongoing macroeconomic uncertainties, our strong execution enabled us to deliver a solid financial performance in the second quarter. Through continuous product improvements and operational enhancements, JOYY successfully navigated the headwinds and improved its operating margin. Bigo Live sustained its strong user growth momentum.
We also significantly stepped up our share purchase, repurchase, during the quarter, underscoring our confidence in our future growth perspective, prospects, and our commitment to reward the long-term support of our shareholders. Looking ahead to the second half of 2023, we will continue to drive effective, high-quality growth through ongoing product and office operational innovations. We will further concentrate our resources on building our core strengths and global business that align with our long-term strategies and actively pursue growth opportunities. With our proven execution capabilities and robust financial position, we are well positioned to size growth opportunities and generate value for our shareholders. This concludes my prepared remarks. I will now turn the call to our Vice President of Finance, Alex Liu, for our financial updates.
Thanks, David. Hello, everyone. Despite macro uncertainties, we achieved solid results in the second quarter. Our revenues in the second quarter exceed the higher end of our guidance, and we continued to deliver better profits. Thanks to our strong execution to enhance our product experience and improve operational efficiency. Notably, Bigo segment showed more signs of stabilization by delivering a slight positive sequential growth in its revenue, while further improving its non-GAAP operating margin to 16%. Our operating metrics are also continuing on its growth track. We booked a positive year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter growth for our total global MAU, even as we adhere to our disciplined marketing spend. Importantly, Bigo Live maintained its strong user growth momentum, increasing its MAU by 18% year-over-year to 38.5 million in the second quarter, achieving double-digit year-over-year growth for fifth consecutive quarters.
Those demonstrated our effective product strategy and enhanced user acquisition efficiency. Next, let me walk you through our group performance for the second quarter of 2023 in detail. Our total net revenues were $547.3 million in the second quarter. Revenues from Bigo segment were $431.1 million. Cost of revenues for the quarter decreased to $349.6 million, among which our revenue sharing fees and content costs decreased to $222.6 million. Bigo's cost of revenues were $287.6 million, down by 7% year-over-year. Gross profit was $197.8 million in the quarter, with a gross margin of 36.1%.
Bigo's gross profit was $183.5 million, with a gross margin of 38.9%, up from 38.5% in the same period last year. Our group's operating expenses for the quarter was $191.7 million, increased from $185 million in the same period of 2022. Among the operating expenses, sales and marketing expenses decreased to $87.2 million from $98.4 million, due to our effective control over marketing expenses and optimization of overall sales and marketing strategy. R&D expenses increased to $75.5 million from $62.9 million in the same period of 2022, primarily due to increased R&D personnel-related expenses, as we prioritize the resources into building our technological capabilities.
Bigo's operating expenses for the quarter were $125 million, down by 8% year-over-year. Our group's GAAP operating income for the quarter was $9.4 million. Our non-GAAP operating income for the quarter, which excludes SBC expenses, amortization of intangible assets from business acquisitions, as well as impairment of goodwill and investments, was $34.4 million in this quarter, with a non-GAAP operating income margin of 6.3%. Bigo's GAAP operating income for the quarter was $60.4 million, and Bigo's non-GAAP operating income was $75.5 million, representing a non-GAAP operating income margin of 16%, up from 15.5% in the same period last year.
Our group's GAAP net income attributable to controlling interest of JOYY in the quarter was $155.1 million, compared to net income of $18.7 million in the same period of 2022. GAAP net income margin was 28.3% in the second quarter of 2023, compared to net income margin of 3.1% in the corresponding period of 2022. Our group's GAAP net income was larger in the second quarter this year, mainly due to the realized gains from the disposal of certain equity investment, increased interest income driven by higher market interest rates, and foreign currency exchange gains during the quarter. Bigo's GAAP net income in the quarter was $83.7 million, increasing by 26.6 year-over-year.
Bigo's GAAP net margin was 17.8%, up from 13.1% in the same period last year. Non-GAAP net income attributable to controlling interest of JOYY in the quarter was $97.3 million, compared to $51.5 million in the same period of 2022. The group's non-GAAP net income margin was 17.8% in the quarter, compared to 8.6% in the same period of 2022. Bigo's non-GAAP net income was $99.7 million, increasing by 15.5% year-over-year. Bigo's non-GAAP net margin was 21.2%, up from 17.2% in the same period last year. For the second quarter of 2023, we booked net cash inflows from operating activities of $61.2 million.
We remain a healthy balance sheet with a strong cash position of $3.8 billion as of June 30, 2023. Our cash position decreased quarter-over-quarter as we repurchased $432 million of our 2025 convertible note and our accelerated share buyback, partially offset by proceeds received from the sale of certain equity investment during the quarter. In the second quarter, we continued to enhance returns to shareholders through dividends and share repurchase. We have substantially accelerated our share buyback and repurchased approximately $214.3 million of our shares, and declared cash dividends in an aggregate amount of $34.2 million, which altogether representing 255% of our non-GAAP net income. We will continue to actively utilize our share repurchase program in the coming quarters.
As communicated last quarter, in line with our global positioning and commitment to high quality, sustainable growth, we have strategically streamlined and implemented certain proactive adjustments to some of our non-core business since last quarter, so that we can concentrate our resources towards building our core strengths and business that align with our long-term strategic goals, and further enhance healthiness of our ecosystem. Therefore, partially as a result of these adjustments for our business outlook, we expect our net revenues for the third quarter of 2023 to be between $537 million and $567 million. This forecast reflects our preliminary views on the market and operational conditions and business adjustments, which are subject to change.
In conclusion, we have made meaningful progress in the past several quarters in our efforts to enhance our efficiency, expand our profitability, improve our user experience, and re-accelerate user growth. We have also strengthened our execution capabilities and improved the healthiness of our global ecosystem. Going forward, we will continue to cultivate our global user community and provide better interactive experiences to our users through constant product innovation and operational enhancements. We expect to continue to prioritize our resources into high potential business that align with our long-term strategic, and build our core capabilities, while maintaining self-sustained in our cash flows. With our robust financial position, we are confident that we are well-positioned to seize growth opportunities and generate sustainable shareholder value. 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 comes from Mr. Chong with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thanks, management, for taking my questions. My question is on the Bigo Live. Can management comment about the trend across different regions in the second half? How should we think about the overall user base as well as the monetization trend? Thank you.
Oh, 谢谢你的问题。首先呢，这个我想大家最关注的就是营收方面，目前呢，这个发达的国家和这个大区域，呈现逐步恢复的这个趋势。第二季度，欧洲和日韩的表现要好于其他国家。发达国家的率先恢复，一方面跟宏观经济有关，因为发达国家的整体的宏观经济比较强韧。另外一个也跟我们的运营策略有关。最近几个季度，我们整体的运营策略，包括投放运营资源、产品优化这些方面，都有意识地向高端用户倾斜。与此相应的呢，就是发达国家和大区的收入复苏就会快一点。看今年下半年，随着进入市场运营活动的旺季，我们预期BIGO LIVE的收入会恢复环比增长。目前在我们那个Q3 guidance里面，隐含的BIGO LIVE的环比增速是......
低的一个位数到中高个位数的这个，这个速度。因为当前宏观经济还有一些不确定性，所以我们仍然抱着这个谨慎乐观态度，我们会密切地关注宏观环境的变化，灵活地调整运营策略，稳步推动这个增长。对。
Thank you, Thomas, for question. This is David. I will answer your first question. So first, let's look at the recent monetization trends across different regions. The developed countries/regions have shown a gradual recovery trend in the past quarters, and in the second quarter, we saw that trend continue, with Europe, Japan, and Korea deliver a better QOQ growth than other countries and regions. The fact that the developed countries that are first recover is related to the macro environment, which turned out, with macroeconomy turned out to be much more resilient, and it's also related to our operational strategy.
In recent quarters, we consciously tilted our operation strategy, including our user acquisition spending, operational resources, and product optimizations, towards users with higher paying potentials. The developed countries generally have more users with the higher paying potential, therefore benefited from such operational strategy and enjoy a faster revenue recovery. Looking ahead to the second half of the year, we expect Bigo Live's revenue to return to positive growth as we enter into a peak season of operational activities. The implied QOQ growth for Bigo Live in our current Q3 guidance is in the low single digits to mid and high single digit range. Given the current macro uncertainties, I believe we, we still need to remain cautiously, cautiously optimistic regarding industry outlook.
We will continue to closely monitor the changing environment, flexibly adjust our operational strategy, and steadily drive high quality growth.
对，另外一个在用户增长方面呢，我们这个季度集团的MAU实现了这个同比、环比的双增长。Bigo Live的用户增速呢，也比较持续的亮眼，保持了18%的增速，这个增速对比去年的同期还有加速的趋势。我们还是在我们整体市场和销售的这个marketing的这个领域呢，投入非常节制的情况下实现的。表示整体产品的有机增长其实得到了进一步的加强。总的来说呢，主要归因于大概几个方面：第一个是我们对各区域的用户画像进行了深入的分析，推出了更精细的内容分层政策和差异化的这个推荐算法。对于同在一百多、五十多个国家运营，同时容纳三十多个语种的用户社区来讲，构成极其多样性的Bigo Live的内容，精细化和差异化的这个空间很大。在这个方面呢，我觉得运营优化是没有止境的，我们每做细一个维度，都可以针对性的提高用户的体验和留存。第二个呢，是市场运营活动的创新，比如说通过各垂直领域的KOL开展合作，让KOL再量保持比较好的势头。然后在东南亚地区，我们Q2也举行了一系列的活动，包括刚刚提到的自制的综艺节目和越南音乐节，这样帮助我们触达了更广泛的用户。最后一个呢，在一系列的这个产品优化和用户体验下呢，我们在应用商店的评分也得到了提高。所以呢，我们相应地也获得了更多的这个官方推荐的这个曝光资源，给我带来了更多的这个organic的流量增长。我认为当下呢，Bigo Live的产品策略还是比较有效的，我们会继续通过产品优化和功能创新，精细化运营，来提升用户体验，推高增长。
For your second question on user growth, in the second quarter, you can see our group's MAU realized positive growth both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. Importantly, Bigo Live sustained its strong user growth momentum, with its MAU increasing by 18% year-over-year. And that was actually accelerated, especially when compared to the same period last year. This was achieved even as we adhere to our disciplined marketing spend, and it means that we have a larger contribution from organic growth. We attribute the enhanced user growth efficiency to several aspects.
First of all, we conducted in-depth analysis of user profiles in each region and introduced a more refined content segregation and differentiated recommendation algorithm on Bigo Live, which we believe improves user experience and retention. And for Bigo Live, this is a product that operates in more than 150 countries with content in 30 languages, and a very diverse user community. We believe there is plenty of room for refined and differentiated operation of content, and technically, there is no end to the continuous optimizations of operations in this regard. So we'll continue to work on that, and we expect that to continue to drive better user experience and also retention. And second, our innovative local operations, we believe, have successfully brought increased amount of organic traffic.
During the quarter, we continued to work with a diverse spectrum of KOLs, and those events continued to bring abundant traffic, especially in Southeast Asia. As I've just mentioned in my prepared remarks, our local campaigns such as the original variety show in North America, the Revolution Music Festival in Vietnam, all help us reach a wider user base. Lastly, as a result of our enhanced user experience, our ratings in the app stores have indeed improved, and therefore we obtain greater traffic due to the recommendations by these app stores. To conclude, given our performance in the past few quarters, I believe Bigo Live's user growth strategy has been effective.
We will continue to enhance our user experience, through product optimization, feature innovation, and refine operations, and drive efficient user growth. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Henry Sun with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thanks, management, for taking my question. Could management share more details on deployment of AIGC application into the product planning? What are the current progress and application? Thank you.
Oh, thanks, management, for taking my question. Could management share more details on deployment of AIGC application into the product planning? What are the current progress and application? Thank you.
This is David. I will answer your question on AI and AIGC. Actually, we have been having a huge commitment in AI and heavily invested into our AI team as well. As we've shared in our previous quarters, our team mainly leverages AI for in-depth user profiling, differentiated intelligent recommendations, and content quality management. AI has enabled us to identify user interest and direct users towards a more relevant and personalized content. It has also improved our users' social and content experience. We believe that AI has been very valuable for developing our interest-based community. We're also actively exploring other applications, especially on improving user interactions and also helping users to freely express their digital personality.
For example, Hago's previously launched 3D space feature empowers users to create their own 3D virtual avatars and interact with each other in various virtual scenes, and it actually enables users to engage in an immersive social experience. By simply uploading a photo or videos of those users, users can easily create their personalized 3D digital avatar. You could drive the movements of mouth, facial expressions, body gestures of the avatar in real time with the input of text and audio. We can also recreate the voice of a real person through the 3D avatar as well.
Recently at Bigo Live, we are testing our AI-enabled chatbot, which can serve as an assistant to streamers and interact intelligently with their fans, improving the efficiency of streamer-fan communication and potentially helping the KOL to further expand their fan base. Currently, these AIGC-related features are still in the early stage of development, and therefore we need to continue to iterate and optimize based on user feedback. We remain committed to bring innovative, interactive experiences to our users. Thank you. Next question, please.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Thomas Chong with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thanks, management, for taking my questions. My question is about the cost side. Can management comment about our cost optimization strategy, as well as the trend in operating expenses and as well as margin outlook in the second half and 2024? Thank you.
This is Alex. I will answer your question. So for the second quarter, we actually deliver better-than-expected profits, especially for Bigo segment. It achieved a non-GAAP operating margin of 16%, up by 2.4 percentage points from 13.6% in Q1. Bigo's non-GAAP gross margin was improved from 37.4% to 39%, and that was mainly due to optimization of content cost, our server depreciation expenses, and payment channel expenses. In addition, Likee continued to deliver profitability in Q2, and contributed to profit improvement in the Bigo segment.
As I've just mentioned in my prepared remarks, starting from Q2, in line with our global positioning, we have strategically streamlined and implemented certain proactive adjustments to some of our non-core operations, so that we can concentrate our resources towards our core, core global business and further enhance the healthiness of our global ecosystem. We expect these adjustments would have adverse impacts on our top line and bottom line in Q2 and the following quarters. Looking ahead to the second half of the year, we expect Bigo's revenue to resume positive QOQ growth. As we enter the peak season of operational activities, we expect Bigo's sales and marketing expenses to increase QOQ as well.
Therefore, Bigo's non-GAAP operating margins in the second half will likely be lower as compared to the first half of the year. However, given how much we have already achieved in the first half of the year regarding operational efficiency improvement, for the full year of 2023, we still expect the non-GAAP operating profit margin of Bigo to remain roughly stable compared to last year. To sum up, we'll continue to value profit and cash flow self-sufficiency, and we will drive further improvement in our operational efficiency. And at group level, we expect to remain profitable and continue to generate positive operating cash flow. Thank you. Next question, please.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Yiwen Zhang with China Renaissance. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I have a question about shareholder return. I would like to ask about our current share repurchase plan, including how we should look at the strength and pace of the repurchase in the future. Will there be any adjustments? Thank you. My question is on shareholder return. So, can you update us on our latest progress on share buyback? And how should we think about future buyback pace? Thank you.
Thank you for your question. This is Alex. In Q2, as mentioned last quarter, we substantially accelerated our share repurchases and buyback approximately 214 million of our shares during the quarter. So for the first half of this year, in total, including our share buybacks and dividends, we have returned around $300 million to our shareholders. You may also infer our commitment to reward the long-term support of our shareholders from that number. As of the end of Q2, we still have around $570 million unutilized quota under our current share repurchase program. We will continue to actively utilize share buyback in the following quarters to reward support of our shareholders. Thank you.
So, that was the end of our call.
Thank you so much for joining today. We look forward to speaking with everyone next quarter. Thank you.