36Kr Holdings Inc. (KRKR)
NASDAQ: KRKR · Real-Time Price · USD
3.075
+0.054 (1.80%)
Sep 21, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT - Market closed
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Earnings Call: Q2 2021

Aug 24, 2021

Operator

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by for 36Kr Holdings Inc.'s second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After management's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Today's conference call is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the call over to your host, Yang Li, IR Manager of the company. Please go ahead, Yang.

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

Thank you very much. Hello everyone, and welcome to 36Kr Holdings second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. The company's financial and operational results were released earlier today and have been made available online. You can also view the earnings press rel ease by visiting the IR section of our website at ir.36kr.com. Participants on today's call will include our Co-Chairman and CEO, Mr. Dagang Feng, and our Vice President of Finance and Capital Markets, Ms. Lin Wei. Mr. Feng will start the call by providing an overview of the company and performance highlights of the quarter in Chinese, followed by an English translation. Ms. Lin Wei will then provide details on the company's financial results before opening the call for questions. Before we continue, please note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, the company's results may be materially different from the views expressed today. Further information regarding this and other risks and uncertainties is included in the company's prospectus and other public filings as filed with the U.S. SEC. The company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law. Please note that 36Kr's earnings press release and this conference call include discussion of unaudited GAAP financial measures, as well as unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. 36Kr's press release contains a reconciliation of the unaudited non-GAAP measures to the unaudited GAAP measures. Also, please note that all amounts are in RMB. I will now turn the call over to our Co-Chairman and CEO, Mr. Dagang Feng. Feng, please go ahead.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

Thank you. Hello, everyone. Thank you for participating in our 2021 second quarter results conference call.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

In the second quarter of 2021, we continued to enhance content quality and influence while strategically focusing on enterprise services as our growth driver. These efforts broadened our New Economy-focused content offerings and value-added services, further developing our core competencies and spearheading business innovation. We have made robust progress in content arrangement with diversified presentation formats to meet the needs of varied user groups. We are also exploring possibilities for innovative services. Moreover, our progress in products and technologies is paving the way for us to empower the growth of new economic participants, as well as the digitalization of traditional industries, creating a compelling value proposition for more customers, users, and investors in this new era of fresh opportunities and challenges.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

Our second quarter user traffic volume reached a new high of average monthly page views of 846.3 million, up 70% year-over-year. The second quarter of 2021 marks our 17th consecutive quarter of PV growth, reaffirming our content's strong user resonance and our growing brand awareness. The rising popularity and recognition of 36Kr's content and platforms largely stems from our continuing innovation in flexible content formats, omni-channel content distribution, and our ingenuity in broadening our horizons. Let me walk you through our progress and our strategy in each of these areas. First, with respect to content strategy, we present content in various formats across a wide range of business sectors to address the full spectrum of user demand. Our powerful proprietary platform delivers comprehensive reports and insights across both professional and user-generated content for PGC and UGC.

In addition to traditional text and image formats, we have expanded our offerings to audio, short video, and live streaming, et cetera, covering diverse user groups. User feedback regarding each of these information dissemination channels has been quite positive.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

We continue to make progress with both traditional and innovative content formats during the second quarter. Not only the number of articles published on our primary WeChat account with readership of over 100,000 grew to 180, a new record. Other exciting content initiatives include our audio program Kr Walkman, which provides users with the latest business highlights in short segments that take just a few minutes to digest. Meanwhile, our short-form video covering various topics including tech business, current public affairs, economics and finance, and personal growth, also gained popularity among a variety of groups of consumers and users. In terms of content general diversity, besides our 36Kr main account, we also have a full scale of content matrix that covers different topics.

For example, our 36Kr Pro targets professional groups with in-depth industrial insights, and Oh! Youth targets the younger audience and covers lighter business and more complex topics. It is rapidly becoming popular and gaining growth momentum among younger generations.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

Second, we continue to execute our omnichannel distribution strategy. In addition to becoming a top content provider in the finance and economics vertical on WeChat, Weibo, TouTiao and other comprehensive traffic platforms, 36Kr has also been building business cooperation with top-tier short video platforms such as Douyin, Bilibili, Kuaishou, Zhihu, Xiaohongshu and WeChat Channels. Leveraging our progress in short-form video content, these collaborations enable us to reach more diversified individual user communities and provide them with a variety of business insights and analytics content. Our initiatives to promote short video and live streaming content are crucial for us to diversify our C-end user base to further tap into B2C service offerings.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

Now I'd like to talk more specifically about our short-form video content. It has been exactly a year since we embarked on our short-form video initiatives, and we've witnessed its rapidly growing popularity across diverse demographics. We are very pleased to see that we have attracted more than 4 million followers on Douyin and more than 800,000 followers on Bilibili, among other platforms. Based on multiple criteria including follower base, content depth, virtual performance, and trend tracking, 36Kr has been recognized as one of the top-tier short-form video business verticals across all major social media platforms. We had a notable success in the second quarter with our blockbuster video, The Meaning Behind Chang'e , which we published on Douyin, Bilibili, and several other platforms. This current affairs content attracted a record-setting viewership of over 13 million total views, occupying the top list for three consecutive days.

We are also excited to share that our recent video clips on interpretation of the Olympic Games economy set new highs, receiving more than 100 million total views and 1.42 million likes, and adding 2,200,000 new followers. By the middle of August 2021, 36Kr short-form video had already achieved its annual target of gaining 2 million new followers. This astounding number further validated an increasingly broad individual user community is enjoying and consuming our content. This in turn, drives B2C business marketing spending on our platform. Looking forward, we believe our short video content initiatives will continue to attract a wider range of user communities and boost our commercialization capabilities.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

We continue upgrading our product offerings for public equity markets. Our secondary market products are a natural extension of our rich experience and expertise in serving startup companies over the past 10 years, and are quickly gaining traction. For instance, in July, we joined forces with Industrial Securities to host an investor forum covering topics around both the private and secondary markets. We also collaborated with CICC to co-create 36Kr Capital Pie, a new program focusing on individual investor education, which greatly enhanced our influence and recognition in both institutional and individual investor circles. They were used by our customer base and laid a solid foundation for customer expansion in the secondary market.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

We celebrated the grand opening of our new dual headquarters in Shenzhen, a move to capitalize on opportunities in the Greater Bay Area. The Greater Bay Area is drawing attention as a fast developing innovation and technology hub that offers exciting opportunities to startups from around the world. We noticed that a multitude of non-negligible hard and core technology startups have emerged in Guangdong Province. A considerable number of investment institutions have set up branches in Shenzhen. Given that industrial Internet and hardware technology are extremely popular and valuable skills supported by both clients and investment community, strategically selected for its central location, Shenzhen will supervise our Hong Kong reach. We can gain access to surrounding startups and investment institutions in South China's Greater Bay Area.

The establishment of our 36Kr South China headquarters will enable us to better meet the needs of local customers and respond to them in a more efficient way, further contributing to our commercialization capabilities.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

Last but not least, we are actively building 36Kr's international presence. We are excited to report that Bloomberg Terminal began including 36Kr articles in its newsfeed during the second quarter, making our latest coverage available to global readers. At the same time, our overseas business is making steady progress and gradually become profitable. We have seen a significant increase in revenue during 2021, and our presence in Japan and Singapore has continued growing. We are pleased that 36Kr's brand influence is gaining traction worldwide.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

Now let's take a look at our commercialization progress. Thanks to our cultivation in content and products. In the second quarter, all of our three different segments achieved strong year-over-year growth on a comparable basis. Let me walk you through each of them. Our advertising revenue increased by 65% year-over-year this quarter. We grew in both the number of advertising customers and average revenue per advertising customer.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

We continue to harness our capability in video content creation to provide customized and innovative short form video marketing solutions for traditional enterprises, improving their brand image and upgrading their marketing. Take the automobile industry for example. Volkswagen Group China joined hands with 36Kr and launched a short video titled 'What will the future car look like?' to describe future automobiles from a brand new perspective. This marketing campaign helped Volkswagen effectively reach more potential customers. It was also an important branding and publicity plan for Volkswagen to position itself from a traditional car maker to a mobility service provider. Further validation of our efforts to broaden and surpass the boundaries of conventional marketing through seamless content integration.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

Short-form video is also enabling us to develop new marketing solutions and penetrate more into the C-end brands and advertising clients. For example, we helped Ambrosial promote its new product, AMX, with a short-form video that was well received by younger generations. Ambrosial took this opportunity to break away from the stereotype of direct marketing, and was very satisfied with its publicity cooperation with 36Kr. We believe that by creatively reshaping marketing programs for the future, we can empower more brands with effective D2C solutions.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

Our secondary market product has also started initial commercialization this quarter. We have entered into cooperation with Alibaba, Trip.com Group, Tongcheng-Elong, and Zhihu, and will provide in-depth analysis from 36Kr's unique perspective, showcasing a holistic, cooperative image for our customers.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

I want to share with you some updates in the enterprise service business space. Supported by our high-quality content, brand influence, as well as expansion of innovation verticals, gross transaction value for our enterprise value-added services grew by 66% in the second quarter year-over-year.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

Of course, we continue to explore various new application scenarios and distribution channels for our financial content. For example, on the audio content front, we collaborated with NIO to broadcast our podcast program, Kr-Intelligence , on the NIO Radio playlist. We also cooperate with several financial institutions, including China Merchants Bank, serving as an agent to help them operate their app content, covering a range of topics such as finance, financial planning, and career-related issues. Through this new partnership, we effectively expand our content distribution and commercialization opportunities.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[ Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

In addition, organizing online and offline summits and forums is also an important component of our enterprise value-added services. This quarter, we partnered with Google to create google.36kr.com website, helping Google host multiple online forums on gaming, brand marketing, and brand transformation of cross-border e-commerce. The joint site also demonstrates the deep bonds between Google and 36Kr, allowing each company's users to better interact with each other and providing a trendy approach for both companies to attract new users and increase user loyalty. Google's global online activities broke geographical barriers and surpassed time differences, giving participants access to leading industry pioneers' experience and insights at any time from anywhere.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[ Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

On the offline event front, we co-hosted an Unknown City of the Future event with leading real estate enterprises to building a visionary and imaginative art world. The event showcased our capabilities to interact with each user in creative and interesting ways, and further strengthen our brand image among the broad audience from younger generations to middle-aged groups, as well as other user demographics.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[ Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

Moreover, the continuous progress of our enterprise value-added service has laid a solid foundation for 36Kr's regional expansion. We have been working proactively to expand our cooperation with local governments to serve municipalities and regional business. During the second quarter, we opened business branches into new provinces, Henan and Guizhou, bringing our total regional offices to 12. Building on 36Kr's brand influence and local business presence, we help enterprises and governments build deep relationships, connecting both parties' needs and solutions. In June, we held the Science and Technology Innovation Conference for the government of Jinshui District in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. The event attracted coverage from more than 100 leading media outlets, including CCTV, and greatly improved visibility of the Jinshui District's innovative stance in technology sectors, as well as 36Kr capabilities in the enterprise and government service area.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[ Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

We also recently started commercialization of our 36Kr enterprise account service, a self-service product. 36Kr enterprise account is an efficient introductory window for an enterprise to increase brand awareness, exhibit products, share its business progress with a wider audience, and appeal to economy sectors. As 36Kr has grown with generations of entrepreneurs and enterprises, we are now leveraging our brand influence to build a platform where a wider range of companies can exhibit their skills, services, and accomplishments. In the new economy era, we hope to empower more high-quality enterprises and help them gain market recognition amidst their customers. We were very pleased to see the 36Kr enterprise account service begin to generate revenue in August, and we believe that with our brand influence, this new service has a promising future.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[ Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

Now, I'd like to particularly introduce our progress in the enterprise service review business. In recent years, the government has been actively advocating for the integration of the economy and the Internet, as well as digital transformation in various industries. At the same time, the investment community is witnessing a slowdown in the C-end market and declining marginal return of customer acquisition. Therefore, we believe the industrial Internet economy with enterprise service at its core will soon usher in huge development opportunities as new economy enterprises and traditional enterprises have intrinsic needs for digital upgrades and digital transformation respectively.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[ Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

With this background, in October 2020, 36Kr launched an enterprise service review portal, the first comprehensive enterprise service procurement decision-making platform in China. It's a one-stop platform solution aiming to facilitate service providers to acquire customers and demand sites to make informed procurement decisions. The platform delivers information emerging from the three layers, service, interaction, and data. On service layer, we provide customers with one-on-one consultation, self-helping learning tools, and social community functions. On the interaction layer, we help customers search for and filter information in multiple dimensions with horizontal comparison services and decision-making reports. At the data layer, we provide customers with industry data and category information, prices, features, real-name reviews, and commentaries, as well as successful case studies and supplier credit information, etc.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[ Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

Over the past 10 years, 36Kr has accumulated in-depth expertise and unique advantages in providing enterprise services. For example, supported by proven content capabilities, we have built a database of over 800,000 new economy enterprises, and accumulated numerous top experts and key opinion leaders, KOLs. We can also help users gain access to relevant industry association resources and enhance their understanding of the industry. 36Kr Enterprise Service Review Platform is the first domestic enterprise service platform providing real name comments, and is widely recognized as the of the 2B market. Our professional breadth of enterprise service software is far more sophisticated than that of our peers providing similar services. Our detailed classification of the SaaS industry is sorted into a main category and subcategories, which has become the industry benchmark and standard.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

As the first enterprise service review platform in China, 36Kr Enterprise Service Review Platform has become the most comprehensive and standardized enterprise decision-making platform. By the end of the second quarter, the review portal had showcased over 4,000 enterprise service applications, covering software across 15 industries and 200 categories. Meanwhile, we have received thousands of real user comments, invite dozens of industry experts to join the platform, and offer their opinions to help the demand side make better decisions. Moreover, building on our own in-depth understanding of the industry, we are able to further enhance our enterprise service with rich content support. Recently, we start initial commercialization of the review portal service. In May, by introducing its products in a more expressive and logical way and improving user interaction, we successfully helped a SaaS service provider obtain more sales leads.

These leads have an estimated conversion rate as high as 20%, while the cost of conversion was greatly reduced. We believe that as we continuously refine our product and formulate strong pre-sale commercialization, we believe our enterprise service review portal will become a new driver of the company future growth, and will unlock tremendous value on our way to expand the boundary of medium and tap into more enterprise services.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

Turning to our subscription service. In the second quarter, we revamped our subscription service model and witnessed a revenue growth of 124% year-over-year. Our subscription membership service available through both online and offline channels. Online subscription will focus on the Kr column within our 36Kr app for paid knowledge products and author career training program, helping college students and new recruits to improve their professional skills.

For offline subscription service, we offer membership programs such as Entrepreneur STAR and C-Level STAR Classes, bringing opportunities for practitioners in various fields to engage in deep communication and interaction with industry leaders and experts face-to-face. In the second half of this year, we will continue to expand the breadth and depth of our subscription offerings for our users to better satisfy their needs and further improve user stickiness.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

In summary, in the second quarter of 2021, 36Kr continued to enhance its influence on new economy-centered content offerings, driven by achieving growth in both user track value and the number of total followers on all platforms. We are pleased to have delivered strong financial results in the second quarter, exceeding analyst expectations on all key financial metrics. Led by our steadfast devotion and investment in our enterprise service review business, the company has delivered several initial results by innovating and exploring the commercialization opportunities of our new business initiatives. Looking ahead, we believe that 36Kr is well poised to capitalize on the rapid rise of real economy, industrial internet, and hard-core technologies to create brand new development opportunities.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

I will now turn the call over to our VP of Finance at Capital Markets, Ms. Wei, who will discuss our key financial results. Please go ahead, Lin Wei.

Lin Wei
VP of Finance and Capital Markets, 36Kr

Thank you, Feng, and hello everyone. We are pleased to have achieved a set of solid financial results in the second quarter of 2021, with a strong year-over-year growth across all of our business segments on a comparable basis. Notably, as Feng just mentioned, our advertising revenues increased by 65.1% this quarter compared to the same period of last year, demonstrating the continued user engagement and customer interest in our premium content and service offerings. Also, thanks to our continued efforts to provide customized and innovative services, revenues from our enterprise value-added services more than doubled sequentially, and its gross transaction value increased by 35.9% year-over-year. In addition, our commitment to maintaining efficient operations with an increased focus on higher margin businesses is paying off, with our gross margin expanding to 57.4% from 29% in the same period of last year, and net loss narrowed by 56.8% year-over-year.

Looking ahead, we believe we are well positioned to continue on this growth trajectory, serving new economy participants more effectively, and expand our monetization channels to seize the vast opportunities ahead of us. Now, I'd like to walk you through more details on our second quarter 2021 financial results. Online advertising services revenue increased by 65.1% to RMB 51.7 million in Q2 2021, from RMB 31.3 million in the same period of last year. The increase was primarily attributable to the strong recovery of market demand as well as more innovative marketing solutions we provided to our customers. The number of advertising customers and the average revenue per advertising customer both achieved strong growth in Q2 2021. Enterprise value-added services revenue was RMB 14.3 million in Q2 2021, compared to RMB 42.6 million in the same period of last year.

The decrease was primarily because we continuously shifted our focus towards higher margin businesses, and starting from Q1 2021, we ceased to act as a principal in certain low gross margin businesses and only acted as an agent. As a result, revenues of such businesses were recognized on a net basis from the first quarter onward. To increase comparability of operating results and help investors better understand our business performance and operating trends, we introduced the gross transaction value as a supplemental metric to describe our business. Gross transaction value of enterprise value-added services was RMB 37.9 million in Q2 2021, increased by 35.9% from RMB 42.6 million in the same period of last year. Subscription services revenues increased by 124.1% to RMB 6 million in Q2 2021, from RMB 2.7 million in the same period of last year.

The increase was primarily attributable to high-quality subscription products we offered to our institutional and individual subscribers. Total revenues were RMB 72.1 million in Q2 2021, compared to RMB 76.7 million in the same period of last year. Taking into consideration of the aforementioned change in revenue recognition for our enterprise value-added services, which involved RMB 43.6 million variance between net revenues and gross transaction value, you will actually find that we maintained our overall upward business trend and demonstrated solid year-over-year growth.

Cost of revenues was RMB 30.7 million in Q2 2021, compared to RMB 34.1 million in the same period of last year. The decrease was primarily due to our continuous cost control measures to improve our operational efficiency and our shift of focus towards higher margin businesses, as well as the recognition of certain revenues on a net basis, which we discussed earlier in the enterprise value-added services section.

Gross profit increased by 86.1% to RMB 41.4 million in Q2 2021, from RMB 22.2 million in the same period last year. Gross profit margin was 57.4% in Q2 2021, compared to 29% in the same period last year. Operating expenses were RMB 75.3 million in Q2 2021, compared to RMB 99.4 million in the same period last year. Sales and marketing expenses were RMB 33.4 million in Q2 2021, compared to RMB 39 million in the same period of last year. The decrease was primarily attributable to the decrease in marketing expenses and share-based compensation expenses. G&A expenses were RMB 29.9 million in Q2 2021, compared to RMB 50.9 million in the same period of last year. The decrease was primarily attributable to the decrease in the allowance for credit losses and share-based compensation expenses. Research and development expenses were RMB 12 million in Q2 2021, compared to RMB 9.6 million in the same period of last year.

The increase was primarily attributable to the increase in payroll-related expenses as we beefed up our research and development capabilities. Share-based compensation expenses recognized in cost of revenues, sales and marketing expenses, research and development expenses, as well as G&A expenses totaled RMB 3.3 million in Q2 2021, compared to RMB12.6 million in the same period of last year. Net loss was RMB 34.3 million in Q2 2021, compared to RMB 79.3 million in the same period of last year. Non-GAAP adjusted net loss was RMB 31 million in Q2 2021, compared to RMB 66.7 million in the same period of last year. Net loss attributable to 36Kr Holdings ordinary shareholders was RMB 4.1 million in the second quarter of 2021, compared to RMB 17.5 million in the same period last year.

Basic and diluted net loss per share were both RMB 0.033 in the second quarter of 2021, compared to RMB 0.078 in the same period of last year. As of June 30th, 2021, the company had cash equivalents, and short-term investments of RMB 149.6 million, compared to RMB 174.1 million as of March 31st, 2021. The decrease was mainly attributable to the share repurchase as well as cash used in operating activities. Lastly, let me provide some updates on our share repurchase program. On May 6th, 2020, the company announced that its board of directors authorized a share repurchase program under which the company may repurchase up to a total of 1 million of its American Depositary Shares, each representing 25 Class A ordinary shares. As of June 30th, 2021, the company had repurchased approximately 786,000 ADS for approximately RMB 17.5 million under this program. This concludes our prepared remarks today.

We will now open the call for questions. Operator, please go ahead.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, 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 wish to cancel your request, please press the pound or hash key. For the benefit of all participants on today's call, if you wish to ask a question to management in Chinese, please immediately repeat your question in English. Once again, that's star one for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Vincent Yu from Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

Vincent Yu
Analyst, Needham & Company

Thanks, management, for taking my question. I have three questions. The first question is, can management help us understand the impact on our client base as a result of the recent regulatory crackdown on sectors such as online education platforms? My second question is, in terms of our video content initiative, do we see any potential impact also from regulation on our video that could pose negative impacts on our ability to monetize these contents? Third question is, can management help us break down our top three customers in terms of their respective industries? Thank you.

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

We embark on our short-form video initiative because there's great potential in this market. Short-form video enable users to acquire massive amounts of information efficiently acro ss scenarios in a timely manner. They are best received and more popular, especially among young people. Short-form video as an efficient dissemination channel will empower us to expand our CM user base, distribute high-quality content, improve user mental capabilities. Regulations on short-form video are mainly focused on inappropriate content themes. While our short-form video content focus on finance, business, and personal growth in line with national guidelines. Regulations on short-form videos have no impact on us. We believe our content will always be vigorously supported by the country if it strictures the provision of short-form video overall in the future.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

In the second quarter, our top three customers for our advertising business were in the e-commerce and internet industry: Alibaba, JD, and Baidu. Revenue generated from each of them didn't represent a significant proportion of the total advertising revenue. Actually, revenues generated from our top 10 customers only accounted for 37% of total ad revenue. In addition to the internet and e-commerce industries, our customers also include top-tier companies in industries such as artificial intelligence, entertainment and media, automobiles and transportation, and consumption and lab sales industries. Please, can you repeat your first question?

Vincent Yu
Analyst, Needham & Company

Okay. The first question is about the impact from the regulation crackdown on online education platforms.

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

About the education industry impact on our advertising business. Revenue from the education industry represents only a small proportion of our total advertising revenue. The education industry contribution to advertising revenue is 0.7% in the second quarter of 2021. For 2020 Q2 is 1.7%. Therefore, the fluctuations in the education industry have a limited influence on our overall advertising revenue.

Vincent Yu
Analyst, Needham & Company

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Shan Zhao from CICC. Please go ahead. Shan, your line is open. Please go ahead. Shan, please unmute and go ahead. All right, we are not getting response. I'll move to the next question from Peip ei Qiu from Industrial Securities. Please go ahead.

Peipei Qiu
Analyst, Industrial Securities

[Non-English content] I will translate for my question. Could you share some of your main strategies or specific approaches to improve your ARPU of the online advertising business? How lo ng should we expect ARPU to return to the pre-COVID level? Thank you.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

Actually, the ARPU of our advertising has increased this quarter compared with the same period last year. For the following half year, we may improve ARPU through two ways. First, due to our content influence and brand premium, our publication price is rising slightly every year, which is conducive to improvement of the ARPU. Therefore, we will continue to improve the quality of content and attract more customers from various industries. Second, the rise of short video has greatly increased the growth potential of ARPU. For example, our recent technology enterprise customer, or a single short video advertisement, and cost RMB 2.25 million.

Last quarter, we only have a advertisement that cost RMB 1 million. Short-form video content has natural advantages that its customer unit price has matched or even exceeds the commercial value of our video official account in a short time. In the future, we will continue to use various modes to help customers operate an innovative marketing. In that case, the customer ARPU will rise accordingly with the brand influence and marketing quality and return to the pre-pandemic situation, even higher the level before the pandemic.

Operator

All right, thank you. Once again ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone. Our next question comes from Shan Zhao, from CICC. Please go ahead.

Shan Zhao
Analyst, CICC

[Non-English content]

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Shan Zhao
Analyst, CICC

[Non-English content] I will translate myself quickly. What is the potential monetization space for the new product such as corporate service view product? And what our strategies of this product in this year and in the long term? Thank you.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

[Non-English content] Okay. Towards 2020, we launched our Enterprise Service Review Platform, the first comprehensive platform in China. As of today, the review platform has showcased over seven enterprise service applications covering softwares across 13 industries and 20 categories. Additionally, we have received thousands of real user comments and invite dozens of industry experts to join the platform. Making the industry most comprehensive and standardized enterprise service decision making platform. We plan to start with three monetization models. The first one takes commission fees from lead generation, which will account for the most significant part of all revenue. We believe our enterprise services review platform will provide our traffic, but funnel that helps acquire customer more precisely. Meanwhile, we expect the cost of customer acquisition to decrease by at least 30%. This business model is similar to Autohome of the automobile industry and So-Young of the medical and beauty industry.

The second is to provide marketing management services, such as helping manage enterprise accounts, ranking lists, analytical reports, follow management tools on our review portal. The third builds the membership service system covering buy side and sell side that offers regular research reports. This will have a fixed membership fee will be charged. For this May, we already have a try on the commercialization. We have a SaaS company that gets some leads, and we have a really high conversion rate that is 20%. This is a really good result for us, and it's better than the competitors in the same industry. Also we acquire the customer leads much more cheaper than the others. We recently will refine the product system or try some better way of the commercialization path. The true commercialization path is finally will be launched at 2022.

Operator

Right. Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Jay Dong from TH Capital. Please go ahead.

Jay Dong
Analyst, TH Capital

[Non-English content] Congratulations on the strong earnings. How have offline events progressed in the second half of 2021, and how are you reaching to about the epidemic impact on offline events? Thank you.

Dagang Feng
Co-Chairman and CEO, 36Kr

[Non-English content]

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

In the second half of the year, we will have a lot of the offline events. We have already signed some collaboration agreements for offline meetings, and the epidemic will have a certain impact on the holding of offline activities. We will take national policies and epidemic prevention control as the primary consideration. We will negotiate with our partners for delays. This impact of recent epidemic will have a great impact on the third quarter. Some activities may be delayed to the fourth quarter, but it will not be canceled. However, from the perspective of the six months or the next half year, the impact will not be that much great. The epidemic will also have some impact on some real economic entities to a certain extent. Probably the online advertising revenue will fluctuate a little bit.

Jay Dong
Analyst, TH Capital

[Non-English content]

Operator

Thank you. As there are no further questions now, I'd like to turn the call back to the company for closing remarks.

Yang Li
Investor Relations Manager, 36Kr

Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact 36Kr Investor Relations through the contact information provided on our website.

Operator

This concludes this conference call. You may disconnect your line now. Thank you.