Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to second quarter 2022 Hello Group Inc. earnings conference call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Please note this event is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Ms. Ashley Jing. Thank you. Please go ahead, ma'am.
Thank you, operator. Good morning and good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Hello Group second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. The company's results were released earlier today and available on the company's IR website. On the call today are Mr. Wang Li, CEO of the company, and Ms. Peng Hui, CFO of the company. We will discuss the company's business operations and highlights as well as the financials and guidance. They will both be available to answer your questions during the Q&A session that follows. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this call may contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Such statements are based on management's current expectations and current market and operating conditions and relate to events that involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the company's control, which may cause the company's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Further information regarding this and other risks, uncertainties and factors is included in the company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under law. I'll now pass the call to Mr. Wang. I'll translate for him. Mr. Wang, please.
Hello，大家好。感谢参加今天的电话会。年初我为大家介绍过集团今年的各项战略重点和执行规划。上半年疫情反复，给整体商业环境以及我们对这些战略目标的实现带来诸多挑战以及不确定性。但我很高兴地看到，为应对外部变化，团队及时调整产品及运营举措，并取得了不错的成果。同时我们也会根据外部环境的变化，相应调整战略目标的执行计划。接下来我为大家介绍具体的情况。
Good day, everyone. Thank you for joining our conference call today. At the beginning of the year, I outlined the group's strategic priorities and our execution plan for the year. The COVID resurgence in the first half has brought many challenges and uncertainties to the overall market environment and our execution of these goals. However, I'm pleased to see that our team still managed to deliver good results by adjusting our product and operational initiatives in a timely manner to cope with external headwinds. At the same time, we have adopted our execution plan to fit the evolving external environment. Now, I'll walk you through the details.
首先简单介绍一下财务表现。2022年二季度总营收31.1亿人民币，同比下降15%，环比微降1%。调整后营业利润4.64亿人民币，对应营业利润率15%。本季度营业利润环比增长1%，是2021年下半年疫情及外部环境变化以来首次实现的环比增长。Momo主APP营收27.8亿人民币，同比下降12%，环比微降1%。同比下降主要原因在于疫情及监管等因素对直播业务造成压力，而快速增长的新APP给VAS带来更多收入的部分，弥补了直播下滑造成的流水缺口。不考虑探探，Momo调整后营业利润5.83亿人民币，对应营业利润率21%。探探营收3.31亿人民币，同比下降36%，环比下降5%。同比下降主要原因在于2021年下半年为改善用户体验、提升留存，启动的商业化回撤，以及疫情反复对探探用户及付费转化造成的压力。本季度探探调整后净亏损1.19亿人民币，去年同期亏损为4,452万人民币。
I will start with a brief overview of our financial performance. For the second quarter of 2022, total revenue at the group level was RMB 3.11 billion, down 15% year-over-year and a slight 1% decrease quarter-over-quarter. Adjusted operating income was RMB 464 million, with a profit margin of 15%. Adjusted operating income was up 1% from the previous quarter, the first sequential growth since the pandemic and the market environment started to deteriorate in the second half of 2021. On an ex- Tantan basis, total revenue was RMB 2.78 billion, down 12% year-over-year or a slight 1% decrease quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year decrease was mainly due to pressure on the live streaming business caused by the pandemic and regulatory factors. Incremental revenue brought to the VAS business by the rapidly growing new apps partially offsets the decline in live streaming.
Adjusted operating income on an ex-Tantan basis was RMB 583 million, with a 21% margin. Tantan's total revenue for the quarter came in at RMB 331 million, down 36% year-over-year and 5% quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year decrease was due to the demonetization process to improve user experience and retention in the second half of 2021, as well as the negative impact of the COVID resurgence on Tantan's user growth and paying conversion. Tantan's adjusted net loss was RMB 119 million for the quarter, compared with RMB 44.52 million a year ago.
接下来介绍下团第二季度在各项战略重点方面的执行情况。年初我给团队设立的战略目标分为Momo、探探和新业务三个部分，我们以有限的营销预算力图实现用户规模稳中求进，同时确保现金流业务稳定产出。尽管上半年的消费和监管环境充满了不确定性，但在实现主app这两个战略目标方面，我们还是做得很出色的。这展现了团队超强的硬件和执行能力。探探的目标是通过市场绩效及产品优化推动用户规模稳定增长。在实现探探的增长目标方面，我们遇到了比较严重的外部挑战。由于上半年疫情管控持续加码，严重影响用户约会及付费意愿，大幅降低获客ROI。我们在二季度下旬决定暂时削减投放预算，降低探探推广规模。这个策略取得了不错的效果，稍后将为大家做详细介绍。考虑到未来一段时间疫情及宏观环境仍存在诸多不确定性，管理层决定将探探的目标调整为减投控本，持续收窄亏损，跑通适合亚洲市场约会文化的产品和商业模式。在实现业务正循环基础上，也就是说在盈亏平衡的前提下追求增长。稍后我会详细介绍这一决策以及实现路径。新业务方面，我们的目标是持续丰富产品矩阵，拓宽陌陌和探探之外的业务边界。在这个方面，我们本季度也取得了令人振奋的新进展。接下来给大家逐项介绍下本季度我们就以上三个重点取得的成果以及待解决的问题。
Now, I'll discuss the execution of our strategic priorities in the second quarter. At the beginning of the year, I set strategic goals for Momo, Tantan, and the new endeavors. For the Momo app, our goal is to maintain a stable user base with a limited marketing budget and seek growth on top of that, while ensuring the cash cow business remains stable. Although the consumer and regulatory environment was full of uncertainties in the first half, we still did a very good job in meeting Momo's strategic goals. This demonstrates our team's strong adaptability and execution skills. Tantan's strategic goal was to deliver solid user growth by improving marketing efficiency and the core dating experience. However, we encountered quite serious external challenges in meeting Tantan's growth goal.
In the first half of the year, the COVID situation continued to deteriorate, which largely affected users dating sentiment and the propensity to pay for that, resulting in a significant decline in channel ROI. We therefore decided to temporarily scale back channel investment in late Q2 to narrow Tantan's net loss. This strategy in fact works pretty well, as I will explain in more details later. Considering that there are still many uncertainties surrounding the pandemic situation and the macro environment in the foreseeable future, management has decided to adjust Tantan's strategic goal to focus on narrowing the net loss by reducing low-efficiency channel marketing spend. At the same time, we are accelerating the efforts on developing product and monetization models that are suitable for the Asian dating culture in order to improve retention and ARPU.
With retention and ARPU improvement, we can pursue growth on the back of a positive business cycle. In other words, we are now prioritizing growth with profit instead of growth with cost. I will elaborate this strategy and our implementation plans in greater detail later. With respect to new products and businesses, we aim to continue to enrich our product portfolio and push the boundaries beyond Momo and Tantan. We made encouraging progress on that front in the second quarter. Next, I will discuss the progress we made with the aforementioned strategic priorities and areas for improvement.
首先是陌陌app的用户增长情况及核心运营数据。陌陌二季度MAU 1.112亿，环比基本保持稳定。陌陌付费用户数量860万，环比持平。整体上说，虽然上半年因为疫情，陌陌主站的MAU出现了4%的同比下降，但排除外部不可控因素，我们通过渠道效率的提升以及产品驱动下的留存改善，仍然保持了社交基本盘的稳定健康，为现金流业务提供了坚实的基础。
Firstly, regarding Momo app user growth and key operating metrics, Momo had 111.2 million monthly actives for the second quarter of 2022. MAUs remained stable from the previous quarter. The number of paying users was 8.6 million, flat from the previous quarter. In general, although Momo's MAUs declined 4% from Q2 last year due to pandemic resurgence in the first half, excluding the impact of external factors beyond the company's control, the fundamentals of Momo as a social platform remain stable and healthy due to the improvement of channel efficiency and enhancement of overall retention driven by product efforts. This provided a solid foundation for our cash cow business.
接下来介绍下在确保现金流业务稳定产出这一战略重点上取得的进展。二季度，尽管多重外部因素给直播带来了比年初更大的挑战，但以新apps为主的VAS增长绝大部分抵消了直播流水下降对主站整体造成的压力。陌陌主app营收27.8亿元人民币，环比微降1%。VAS对直播收入比例提升至94%，已接近红线量。
Now, I'll discuss progress we made regarding the priorities of ensuring the cash cow business remains stable. In the second quarter, although multiple external factors brought challenges to our live streaming business at the beginning of the year, VAS revenue growth, primarily generated by new apps, largely offset the overall pressure on Momo's top line caused by the decline in live streaming. On an ex-Tantan basis, revenue was RMB 2.78 billion, slightly down 1% quarter-over-quarter. The revenue ratio of VAS and live streaming further increased to 94%. VAS revenue was very much close to the size of live streaming.
二季度末的直播业务营收14亿人民币，同比下降26%，环比下降5%。同比下降主要由于三个原因。一、五月监管出台对榜单设计及劈开玩法的限制政策，给高额消费产生负面影响。二、税务合规方面的调查影响公司生产。三、疫情相关的消费疲软。为应对外部环境变化，运营上以优化生态促进活跃为重点，组织小型赛事活动。奖金方面采取最低限度的保守策略，控制分成成本。流水收入监管相关的产品调整影响环比出现下滑。慢慢逐步的二季度毛利率环比保持稳定，整体生态保持健康稳定。
Live streaming revenue totaled RMB 1.4 billion for the second quarter, down 26% year-over-year and 5% quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year decrease was mainly due to three factors. First, regulators imposed restrictions on the design of the ranking system and PK competition in May, which had a negative impact on top spending. Second, the negative impact of tax compliance scrutiny on the engagement of talent agencies. Third, consumption softness due to the COVID resurgence. In response to the changes in the external environment, on the operational side, we focused on optimizing our live streaming ecosystem and driving user engagement by organizing small-scale events. In terms of event-related incentives, we continued to maintain a conservative operation strategy with a minimum budget on bonuses to better control revenue sharing costs.
Although revenue decreased sequentially due to regulatory related product adjustments, Momo's gross profit margin continued to hold steady quarter-over-quarter, and the overall ecosystem maintained healthy and stable.
接下来介绍增值业务。二季度不包含探探，VAS营收13.2亿元人民币，同比增长9%，环比增长5%。陌陌站内VAS营收11.4亿元人民币，同比保持稳定，环比增长1%。独立新APP在首次实现整体盈利的基础上保持快速增长，营收1.82亿元人民币，同比增长159%，环比增长34%，是VAS增长收入的主要来源。稍后我会对新业务做整体分析，此处先讲陌陌站内VAS。
With regards to VAS, revenue from value-added services including Tantan totaled RMB 1.32 billion for the second quarter, up 9% year-over-year, and 5% quarter-over-quarter. VAS revenue from the main Momo app totaled RMB 1.14 billion flat from Q2 last year and up 1% quarter-over-quarter. Revenue from the new apps maintained its rapid growth momentum and achieved full quarter profitability for the first time. Collectively, revenue from the new apps grew at an accelerating rate, up 159% year-over-year to RMB 182 million and up 34% quarter-over-quarter, making it the main incremental revenue contributor for VAS. I will provide an overall update for our new endeavors later. For now, I will focus on Momo app VAS business.
去年四季度以来，疫情反复压抑陌生社交意愿，叠加站内VAS成熟场景，商业化程度较深，导致营收同比增速持续放缓。二季度团队采取用户分层策略，差异化满足不同用户群体的社交偏好，对中小用户推出一系列有助于提升活跃互动及付费意愿的创新玩法，并站内VAS在疫情和消费疲软的背景下，流水环比稳中微涨。
Since Q4 last year, the COVID resurgence continued to suppress users' social sentiment, and the established VAS use cases are getting increasingly fully monetized, resulting in a continuous slowdown in year-over-year growth in core Momo VAS revenue. In Q2, we differentiated various users group and catered to their specific social preferences. Our product team brought a series of innovative features that effectively enhanced interactions among long- tail and mid-to-low-end users and their propensity to pay for VAS, driving a slight increase in VAS revenue from the previous quarter despite pandemic and consumption softness.
下面谈下探探。首先回顾用户趋势和整体财务表现。二季度前期，全国多处地区疫情管控持续加码，很大程度压抑用户约会意愿，自然链下滑，新用户留存明显降低，且付费转化率显著低于正常水平，导致LTV大幅下降，渠道获客回收期拖长。出于ROI考虑，我们临时调整为保守型投放策略，削减市场投入，收窄疫情期间探探规模。疫情叠加渠道减投对国内MAU造成下行压力。但由于海外市场增长以及六月以来疫情管控适度放松带来国内用户反弹，探探六月整体用户规模较三月小幅下降3%，至2,480万。截止二季度末，探探付费用户数220万，环比减少20万人。主要原因在于MAU下降以及疫情压抑国内用户付费意愿，令付费转化率降低。
With respect to Tantan, I will commence with user trends and overall financials. In the early part of Q2, COVID control measures in numerous regions of China continued to escalate, which largely suppressed users' dating sentiments and put pressure on organic traffic. New user retention dropped significantly, and paying conversion was much lower than under normal circumstances, resulting in a substantial decrease in LTV and a longer payback period for channel investments. For ROI considerations, we temporarily adopted a conservative marketing approach to reduce Tantan's net loss during the pandemic period by lowering channel investments.
The negative impact of the pandemic, coupled with the reduction of channel investment, put pressure on Tantan's domestic MAUs. However, due to the growth in overseas markets and a rebound in domestic users since COVID restrictions started to ease in June, Tantan's overall MAUs in June edged down only 3% from March to 24.8 million. The number of paying users for the quarter was 2.2 million, down 200,000 sequentially, mainly due to the decrease in MAUs and a decline in the paying conversion as the pandemic suppressed the users' propensity to pay in the domestic market. Now I'll briefly review Tantan's financial performance. Total revenue was RMB 331 million, down 36% year-over-year and 5% quarter-over-quarter.
The year-over-year decrease was mainly due to our demonetization strategy to improve user experience since the second half of last year. The sequential decrease was mainly due to the decline in paying user for the aforementioned reasons. The slight sequential increase in RPPU partially offset the pressure on revenue caused by the decline in paying user count. For the second quarter, MAUs revenue was RMB 214 million, down 4% sequentially. FlashChat drove membership subscription to shift towards high-end SVIP services, which in turn lifted Tantan's overall RPPU on a sequential basis. Live streaming revenue for the second quarter was RMB 116 million, down 7% quarter-over-quarter. Live streaming RPPU continued to face pressure during product transition period.
Now let's discuss Tantan's strategic priorities for the second half of the year and how these efforts will help us unleash Tantan's long-term product and commercial value. After the management changes last year, we determined that the key to achieve Tantan's long-term strategic goal of user growth is to enhance user retention by improving marketing efficiency and core dating experience. Through a year of channel optimization and product experiment, our team has had some preliminary results in achieving this strategic growth. However, in order to cope with the COVID headwind in the second quarter, we decided to temporarily adopt a cost control strategy to scale back channel investment and narrow Tantan's net loss. This initiative delivered good results in Q2. In the meantime, user experience was not negatively affected by the decrease in new users.
We believe that Tantan is the most committed and the most effective product in connecting people for romantic purposes and converting the online relationship to real life connection. Tantan's current user base is far from the size it should be. In addition, as far as dating and offline conversion are concerned, we are not seeing any meaningful competitors in the China market. Therefore, we are fully confident in our long-term goal of growing Tantan's user base. However, given that there are many uncertainties in the macro environment, and given where the smartphone penetration is. We believe that the growth model of consumer internet in China should be adjusted accordingly. As far as Tantan is concerned, it makes better sense to pursue profitable growth through a more ROI-efficient marketing approaches than simply pouring money into channels regardless of unit acquisition costs.
Therefore, management has decided to adjust the Tantan strategic priorities for the second half of the year, specifically reducing spending in low efficiency channels in order to narrow Tantan's net loss. At the same time, we are working hard to improve user retention and drive ARPU growth through algorithm and new non-membership mass products. Once ROI turns positive, we will reinvest the profits into marketing to form a self-sustaining positive cycle and pursue growth on top of that. With the reduction of the channel budget, we expect Tantan's net loss in the third quarter to significantly narrow on a sequential basis from approximately RMB 120 million in Q2 to somewhere around RMB 50 million in Q3. In Q4, we will further scale back investment in channels with low ROI.
As we do so, and with the increase in ARPU driven by non-membership mass, excluding year-end specific expenses such as annual bonuses, Tantan's monthly net loss should continue to narrow in Q4, which would lay a solid foundation for reaching breakeven and a positive business cycle next year. We expect the reduction in channel investments to cause a short-term decrease in user scale in the coming two to three quarters. Nonetheless, we expect that with the increase in retention ratio driven by improving channel efficiency and new product experience, the user base will stabilize at around 80% of the current level before it enters into a growth phase that is based on a positive business cycle. I'd like to answer these two points in terms of how we're gonna execute the strategy to achieve the profitable growth.
First, how exactly we're going to cut cost and at the same time ensure the improvement of user acquisition efficiency. Second, how we're gonna improve user retention and ARPU while cutting down the channel spending. This is the key to achieving a positive business cycle. Firstly, let's talk about how to reduce and control marketing costs and improve efficiency. Our attempt to reduce channel investment in late Q2 was mainly focused on channels with low efficiency. Our team improved the marketing efficiency of premium channels through algorithm and other technical means. In Q2, despite the seasonal increase in channel costs, Tantan's unit acquisition costs decreased by nearly 20% compared with the previous quarter. At the same time, new user retention showed a slight uptick, and the average age of new users tended to be younger.
The investment reduction experiment in Q2 not only effectively lowered marketing costs and narrowed the net loss, but also had no adverse impact on the overall dating experience. We will continue to practice our Q2 marketing approach in the second half, starting from channels and methods with the lowest ROI and retention. We will closely monitor the impact of budget adjustments on our ecosystem and user retention to ensure that decline in new user registration does not cause any negative user experience on our platform, and at the same time, control the user age and gender ratio within a reasonable scope. Now, I'll explain how to improve retention and ARPU with new product experience. In this regard, we have clarified our direction through exploration in the past few quarters.
Namely, continue to optimize the product experience of female users and those without qualified photos to improve retention. At the same time explore an effective non-membership marketing model to drive ARPU growth while improving user experience. On that front, we make chat room available to users who feel reluctant to show their real photos so they can get some initial connection with others via the real-time audio experience. We then encourage these users to upload photos to review their appearances in order to enhance their probability of getting offline dating conversions. As a commercial product, chat room allows users to send proper photo decorations or other traditional virtual gifts to the designated members to show their friendly gesture and enliven the atmosphere.
We will take virtual gifts as the basic monetization tool and continue to introduce interesting interactive features to chat room, making it a breakthrough in optimizing the experience of users with our qualified photos and improving retention and paying conversion. Based on the data seen so far, we expect chat room to have a positive impact on driving ARPU and monetization efficiency once we make it available to a wider range of content users.
我们认为达到业务正循环这一战略目标的关键路径在于提升ARPU和留存。原先高付费墙的模式虽然可以带动ARPU提升，但天花板较低，且严重影响用户体验，很难达到ARPU和留存兼顾。而更正确的做法是要以新产品体验驱动ARPU和留存自然增长。过去一年的磨砺经验告诉我们，呈现这种新的体验依靠两个关键因素：一、算法的持续提升。二、通过产品创新构建滑动匹配之外更适合亚洲文化的产品模式。近半年来，算法的提升和聊天室的初见成效让我们看到了解决问题的契机，这也将是我们未来一段时间持续耕耘的方向。
We believe the key to achieving a positive business cycle is to improve ARPU and user retention. Although the previous excessive payable model was effective in driving up ARPU, on the downside, it not only had a low ceiling, but also severely affected user's experience, making it challenging to improve ARPU and retention at the same time. The right thing to do is to drive organic user growth, organic growth of ARPU and retention by introducing new product experiences. Our research in the past year taught us that attaining such new experiences depends on two key factors. First, the continuous improvement of algorithm. Second, building a product model that is more suitable for Asian culture than the swipe and match mechanism through product innovation.
In the past six months, the improvement of algorithm and the initial success of the chat room experience have given us opportunities to tackle these issues. This will be the direction we continue to focus on going forward.
接下来介绍一下创新业务取得的进展。之前电话会上我跟大家介绍过，内部会根据ROI导向和DAU导向的区别，对新产品采取不同的管理方式。二季度创新业务中，以追求利润为目标的ROI项产品整体营收1.99亿元人民币，同比增长184%，环比增长24%。在这些Apps的产品体验逐渐稳定后，去年下半年我们开始在运营上采取降本增效的策略，加大商业化力度，提升付费转化率以及ARPU。伴随收入规模及品牌影响力的持续扩大，我们获得了更大的话语权，降低分成比例，进而提升利润水平。海外社交产品在深耕成熟市场的基础上拓展新领域，用户焦虑持续提升，以持平的预算快速扩大用户规模，流水环比加速增长，并于本季度实现盈利。自此，创新业务ROI项Apps开始整体为集团贡献利润。我们今年对这些细分领域垂直用户群体的产品预期是在保证盈利的基础上寻求稳定增长，扩大利润规模。产品方面持续探索适合新市场的社交玩法，为长期增长做好铺垫。
Next, I will review the progress we made with our new endeavors. As I mentioned on our previous calls, we undertake different approaches to managing ROI-oriented and DAU-oriented new products. In the second quarter, the total revenue of the profit-driven ROI-oriented standalone apps was RMB 199 million , up 184% year-over-year, and 24% quarter-over-quarter. As the product experience of these apps gradually stabilized, we started adopting an operational strategy to reduce costs and improve efficiency in the second half of last year and stepped up monetization efforts to improve paying conversion and ARPU. With the continued expansion of revenue scale and brand influence, we have had enough leverage to lower the payout ratio, thereby improving profitability. Our overseas social app expanded into new regions on top of deepening operation in established markets.
We continue to improve user acquisition efficiency and user base expanded rapidly with a flattish budget. Revenue growth of the overseas apps accelerated from the previous quarter while achieving full quarter profitability. In Q2, ROI-oriented standalone apps as a whole have started to contribute positively to the group's bottom line. We expect these products that target vertical user groups in niche markets to simultaneously pursue steady growth and ensure profitability this year. On the product front, we will continue to explore innovative features suitable for new markets to pave the way for long-term growth.
除了ROI项的产品之外，上次电话会我为大家介绍过新的DAU项产品贴贴。作为一款与亲密朋友或家人互动的图像社交软件，用户可以把回手机一个生活瞬间以图片或视频的形式直接同步到贴贴密友的手机桌面。非用户无需打开App也可以及时了解密友真实的生活状态。这款产品精准捕获了零零后喜欢用快乐宝冠类的表情包方式表现真实的自我，却又因为在众人面前需要顾及自我形象，因此无法很好地在现有大而全的社交媒体里得到的满足需求。因此春节上线后日流量迅速增长，团队在二季度顺势加大市场投放力度，用户规模起量期间客成本一直处于可控范围，且留存率在高位保持稳定，同时用户规模已经达到了非常可观的体量。这个增速以及整体规模在竞争的消费互联网市场是难得一见的成绩，这也是我们经过过去两三年的探索，第一次在应用上的社交产品方面取得了突破性进展。我们认为这是准确捕获了年轻一代新的社交偏好的结果。三季度产品团队将加快迭代速度，攻处公共蓝法，推出更多新奇搞笑的道具特性和互动机制，提升产品体验及留存，驱动用户分享裂变，实现裂变扩大品牌影响力。贴贴的早期成果表明，虽然长期看社交模式和体验的新契机主要依赖于技术性突破，但是用户消费时长由移动端向其他硬件转移之前，代际更替依旧可以给社交行业带来机遇，带来新的拥有大DAU产品的机遇。而挚文集团的强社交基因正是我们能够发现新市场、把握新机遇的优势所在。未来在这方面，无论是横向的探索还是纵向的深耕，我们都会走得更大胆、更坚定。
In addition to ROI oriented products, I introduced our new DAU oriented product, Tietie, on our last conference call. Tietie is a picture and video-based social app for users to interact with intimate friends and family members through documenting their daily lives in photo and video format. This content is automatically pushed to the mobile phone homepage of their predefined intimate friends on Tietie, so that users can sync with the authentic life status of their Tietie friends without loading up the app. This product accurately captures the demand of Gen Z and Gen Alpha, who like to express their true self in a fun way with amusing selfies. Such needs cannot be well satisfied on the existing large and ubiquitous social media platform, where everybody is watching, and therefore you need to worry about your perceived image.
Therefore, Tietie's organic user base grew rapidly since its launch after Chinese New Year. Following that, our team stepped up marketing efforts in the second quarter and user scale increased rapidly while unit cost remains within a controllable range and retention maintains a high level. Meanwhile, user scale has reached a very considerable point. The growth rate and overall user scale that Tietie has delivered is an achievement rarely seen in today's consumer internet market. This was also the first time that we have made a breakthrough in DAU-oriented social app after our exploration over the past few years. We believe this is the reward for accurately capturing the new social preferences of younger generations. In the third quarter, our team will accelerate product iteration to enrich features and functionalities.
We will introduce more novel and funny prop filters and interactive mechanism to enhance product experience and retention, and encourage users to share their Tietie content on other social media apps, thereby expanding our brand influence. The initial success of Tietie shows that while in the long run, new opportunities for social model and experience mainly depend on technological breakthroughs. Generational transition can still bring new opportunities to the social industry for large DAU products before user screen time shifts from mobile to elsewhere. Our strength and long-standing leadership in the social space is the advantage we can leverage to discover new markets and capture new opportunities. Going forward, we will move in a bolder and more determined way to expand our territory and explore deeper in our vertical market.
以上是本次电话会我想和大家分享的内容，接下来请Cathy给大家具体介绍财务情况。
This is what I would like to cover today. Now I'll pass the call over to Cathy for financial review. Cathy, please.
Thanks, Wang Li and Ashley. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining our conference call today. Now let me briefly take you through the financial review. Total revenue for the second quarter of 2022 was RMB 3.11 billion, down 15% year-over-year and 1% quarter-over-quarter. Non-GAAP net income attributable to the company was RMB 463.5 million, compared to RMB 551.0 million from the same period of 2021 or a 16% decrease year-over-year. Looking into the key revenue line items for the quarter. Firstly, on live broadcasting. Total revenue from live broadcasting business for the second quarter 2022 was RMB 1.52 billion, down 28% year-over-year and 6% quarter-over-quarter.
Momo live broadcasting revenue totaled RMB 1.40 billion for the second quarter, down 26% year-on-year and 5% quarter-over-quarter. The decrease was mainly due to pressure caused by the consumption softness and regulatory changes. Tantan's live broadcasting revenue amounted to RMB 116.4 million, down 46% from Q2 last year and 7% from the previous quarter. The decrease was due to our strategic decision to de-emphasize live streaming as a supplementary experience to dating. A few months ago, we made a decision to reform Tantan's live streaming business to lean more toward facilitating social interactions rather than the traditional show biz. Based on the data that we've seen so far, such strategy is bearing fruit.
Therefore, we expect Tantan's live streaming to exit the period of decline and stabilize at the current level as we head into the second half. Revenue from value-added service reached RMB 1.54 billion, up 2% year-on-year and 4% quarter-over-quarter. Revenue from value-added service on an ex-Tantan basis reached RMB 1.32 billion in the second quarter of 2022, a 9% increase year-on-year, year-over-year, and a 5% increase sequentially. The growth in value-added service on an ex-Tantan basis was primarily driven by incremental revenue contributed by the fast-growing new application. Tantan's value-added service revenue amounted to RMB 214.4 million, down 28% from Q2 last year and 4% from the previous quarter.
The year-over-year decrease was due to the demonetization process to improve user experience and retention in the latter half of 2021, as well as the pressure on Tantan's MAUs and paying conversion caused by the COVID resurgence. The sequential decrease in Tantan's value-added service was largely attributable to the latter factor. Non-GAAP cost of revenue for the second quarter of 2022 was RMB 1.79 billion, compared to RMB 2.05 billion for the same period last year. Non-GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 42.5%, down 1.7 percentage points from a year ago. The decrease was mainly attributable to the higher payout ratio to the content providers as we put more money back to the system to help the agencies as well as broadcasters navigate through the tough time. On a sequential basis, non-GAAP gross margin remained stable with a slight uptick.
Non-GAAP R&D expenses for the second quarter was RMB 214.3 million compared to RMB 232.9 million for the same period last year, or an 8% decrease year over year, which was due to continuous optimization in personnel costs since the beginning of the year. We ended the quarter with 1,825 total employees, of which 516 are from Tantan, compared to 2,092 total employees, of which 617 from Tantan a year ago. The R&D personnel as a percentage of total employee for the group was 61% compared with 57% Q2 last year. Non-GAAP sales and marketing expenses for the second quarter was RMB 600.1 million compared to RMB 619.5 million for the same period last year.
As Wang Li mentioned, improving marketing efficiency has been one of the top operational priorities of the company. Since the beginning of the year, we've been cutting down on low efficiency marketing plans across different business lines, which bears negative ROIs. For the second quarter, marketing spend for Momo and Tantan decreased RMB 74 million or 15% from the same period last year. We shifted part of the savings to promote the new application, Tietie, following its initial success in Q1. Reallocating resources from low ROI plans to higher ROI ones will continue to be an important strategy for us for the coming few quarters. On a sequential basis, non-GAAP sales and marketing expenses increased 4% from RMB 578.0 million in Q1 this year. The increase was primarily due to Tietie's marketing, partially offset by the reduction in other low efficiency marketing channels.
Non-GAAP G&A expenses was RMB 82.6 million for the second quarter 2022, compared to RMB 78.8 million for the same period last year. Non-GAAP operating income was RMB 464.1 million, a decrease of 41% from Q2 2021, but up 1% from the previous quarter. Non-GAAP operating margin for the quarter was 15%, down 6 percentage points from the same period last year. Non-GAAP operating expenses as a percentage of total revenue was 29%, an increase from 25% from Q2 2021. The increase was mainly due to the negative operating leverage resulted from the decrease in revenues. Non-GAAP operating expenses decreased 4% year-over-year due to the cost control we've been exercising since the beginning of the year.
We expect to continue to exercise cost discipline for the rest of the year in order to improve cost efficiency to navigate through the uncertain macro environment. Now briefly on below-the-line items. During the second quarter, the company repurchased $161.8 million aggregate principal amount of our convertible senior notes from certain bondholders for an aggregate repurchase price of approximately $161.6 million. The CB repurchase resulted in a gain of RMB 66.3 million. Now briefly on income tax expenses. Total income tax expense was RMB 146.0 million for the quarter, with an effective tax rate of 24.5%. In Q2, the company accrued a withholding income tax of RMB 37.7 million, which is 10% from contributed profits generated by our WFOE.
Without the withholding tax, our estimated non-GAAP effective tax rate was around 18% in the second quarter. Now turning to balance sheet and cash flow items. As of June 30th, 2022, Hello Group's cash equivalents, short-term deposits, long-term deposits, and restricted cash totaled RMB 13.95 billion compared to RMB 15.71 billion as of December 31st, 2021. In Q2, we paid an equivalent of RMB 841 million cash dividend to our shareholders, and repurchased an equivalent of RMB 1 billion of the company's convertible notes. Excluding the RMB 100 million cash payment to Chinese tax authorities to repatriate RMB 1 billion from a WFOE in China through our offshore entity, net cash provided by operating activities in the second quarter of 2022 was RMB 300 million. Lastly, on business outlook.
We estimated our third quarter revenue to come in the range from RMB 3.1 billion- RMB 3.2 billion , representing a decrease of 17.5%-14.9% year-on-year, or a decrease of 0.3% to an increase of 2.9% quarter-over-quarter. For Q3 2022, on a sequential basis, we expect the total revenue from the core Momo to increase low single digits driven by the recovery of live streaming business, thanks to the product and operational efforts of the team. On the Tantan side, we expect revenues to be flattish toward a slight decrease on a sequential basis. Tantan's membership revenue will decrease quarter-over-quarter due to the temporary decline in user base as we cut down on the low-efficiency marketing channels.
The decrease will be offset by the sequential growth of live streaming, driven by the initial success in the shift of strategy, as mentioned in the earlier part of my remarks. Please be mindful that this forecast represents the company's current and preliminary view on the market, on the market and operational conditions, which are subject to changes. That concluded our prepared portion of today's discussion. With that, let me turn the call back to Ashley to start Q&A. Ashley, please.
Thanks. Just a quick reminder before we take the questions. For those who can't speak Chinese, please ask your questions in Chinese first, followed by English translation by yourself. Thank you. Operator, we're ready for questions, please.
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 are on speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Our first question comes from Thomas Chong from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thanks management for taking my questions. My first question is on Tantan. Can management comment about the user trend in second half as well as related revenue as well as bottom line? My second question is about the development of our new apps as well as our overseas strategies. Thank you.
On the last conference call, I mentioned that Tantan's user growth depends on two factors. One is an internal factor, which is the enhancement of user experience and the improvement of channel efficiency driven by product efforts. The second factor is about external reasons, namely the extent of COVID control policy and related users' offline dating sentiment. As for internal factors, our biggest progress made after the management changes last year was that we determined that the key in enhancing user experience and improving channel efficiency is to improve retention of female users and those without qualified photos. We have found an initial solution through algorithm and new product features. We'll continue to make steady progress in this regard, and I have full confidence in this aspect.
In terms of external factors, the continuous resurgence of COVID in various regions in China and its related control measures has brought about quite a bit of challenges. In addition, there are still many uncertainties in the overall macro environment. Consequently, we've decided to adopt a strategy to reduce marketing investment, control costs, and improve efficiency.
Our plan is to reduce spending in low efficiency channels while improving retention of female users and those without qualified photos, as well as driving ARPU growth with the new chatroom experience in order to turn Tantan's channel ROI positive as soon as possible, so that we can pursue profitable growth based on a positive business cycle. Based on the current test data on the reduction of channel investment and the chatroom experience, we believe we are very much likely to achieve this goal next year. I will leave it to Cathy for the financial outlook.
Okay. Sure. Let me give you guys more color on the top line and also the bottom line of Tantan. Firstly on the revenues, it seems like the zero-COVID policy is going to sustain for a while. Actually, the recent few days are seeing a new round of tightening lockdowns in some of the big cities due to the resurgence in confirmed cases. As you guys know, Tantan's users are pretty concentrated in bigger wealthier cities in China. This is obviously gonna have a negative impact on the dating sentiment and paying conversion, which would continue to pressure the marketing ROI.
As Wang Li mentioned earlier in his speech, under the principle to prioritize growth with profits over growth at cost, we are prepared to cut down the marketing cost in order to take care of the ROI and bottom line. As we cut low efficiency channel marketing in the second half, we should expect user count to trend down, as Wang Li said, I think around 20% from the June level, ±5% and then perhaps hit a balance point around there. The ±5% really depends on how the COVID factor swings in the second half of the year.
Subscription revenue should decrease as the user count does, probably with a time lag, because of the deferrals, but it should ultimately catch up to the same magnitude of user decline. However, we do see a countering factor here for Tantan, and that is that as the year progresses, we expect a ramp up of non-subscription revenues to materialize and offset part of the decrease in subscription as a result of the cost cutting. If you piece all these different pretty dynamic factors together, I would say that for Tantan, revenue would trend down a little bit in the second half versus the first, but it would be a slight trend down before it picks up again.
The other thing I would like to sort of reiterate here a little bit is that despite the small sacrifice on the top line as we cut down the low efficiency marketing channels in the back half of the year, bottom line should see pretty significant improvement from Q2 onwards for Tantan. I think in earlier part of Wang Li's prepared remarks, we mentioned that we expect Q3 the Non-GAAP net loss for Tantan to narrow to within RMB 50 million. I think for Q4, excluding some of the Q4 specific expenses such as double pay and bonus at the end of the year, we should continue to see a narrow down in Tantan's net loss on monthly basis.
You know, that's the overall sort of financial picture of Tantan in the back half of the year. Given where we are in terms of zero-COVID policy and given the macro uncertainties, we believe it's definitely a wise choice for Tantan to perhaps sacrifice some top line growth short term wise, so we can get into a positive business cycle and grow with profit down the path. I hope that answers your question.
I've been pretty comprehensive about the new business in my prepared remarks. Here I can briefly discuss Tantan's overseas development. Since we made a foray back into the overseas market about a year ago, we have been adopting an ROI-oriented management approach and striving to achieve profit growth, thereby overcoming the previous predicament of growth without profit or profit without growth. Our execution plan consists of three parts. First, leveraging live streaming and non-membership cash monetization model to significantly increase ARPU and ROI in the Indonesian market. Currently, our team is working on replicating this business model in other markets.
Second, adopting a strategy that focuses on reducing costs and improving efficiency. We are reducing channel investments in markets such as Japan and South Korea with a low ROI, and redeploying our limited budget to regions with higher profit potentials. Third, lowering the payout ratio to increase profit level in markets with larger scale revenue. We believe that in the second half of the year, investors will see a clear growth trajectory in content over this business on the back of a positive business cycle. I hope that answers your question, Thomas. Operator, we're ready for the next question.
Our next question comes from Daniel Chen from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
I'll translate myself. Thanks, management, for taking my question. This is Henry speaking on behalf of Daniel. My question is about core Momo. Can management share more color on the second half revenue expectation for live streaming and VAS? Thanks.
Sure. Let me take these two different lines one by one because they have, I think they have very different dynamics behind them. For Momo's live streaming business, June and August have been tracking better than what we saw three months ago, and obviously that has been reflected in our Q3 guidance. Originally, we thought Q3 would see a bounce from Q2, but now it looks like we can expect an upward quarter on a sequential basis for Momo live streaming. I would say that at this point it's still too early to call that we've exited the period of uncertainties for live streaming.
Based on what we're seeing on the macro and regulatory front, we have some reasons to remain cautiously optimistic about the stability of the live streaming biz for the rest of the year. That's for live streaming. For value-added service on an ex-Tantan basis, 'cause we've already explained Tantan earlier. For VAS, ex-Tantan, we are also trying to optimize the marketing costs so that the new applications can achieve higher quality growth. Which means, by higher quality growth, I actually mean, growth with higher profit margins. That means, that we may also cut down marketing spend for new applications if the ROI of certain channels isn't good enough.
In addition, the continuing zero-COVID policy and the lingering outbreaks in different geo regions continue to weigh on the social sentiment, which could limit the growth pace of value-added service on the main application as well. Previously, I think we communicated with investors that for VAS on an ex-Tantan basis, you know, we expected to grow double-digit on a year-over-year basis. Now, due to the aforementioned factors, one being the optimization of marketing costs for the new applications and the other one being COVID lingering into Q4, we would allow that previous double-digit growth target to slow a couple of percentage points to maybe high single-digit range.
Overall, I would say that value-added service continue to be a pretty healthy growth engine for Momo for the back half of the year. That's separately for Momo live streaming and value-added service. I think in the interest of time, maybe let's just take one more question before we call it a day. Ready for the next question, operator?
Yes. The next question comes from Leo Chiang from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Speak Chinese. Thanks management for taking my question. My question is regarding to core Momo margin trend in second half. What should we expect for core Momo's growth margin and OP margin given the ongoing cost control initiative? Thank you.
I guess instead of reviewing core Momo, maybe what I'll do is just go through the cost and expenses at a company level, with some more color on Momo. I think gross margin-wise, as you guys can see, in the numbers that we put out earlier today, we've been able to maintain a pretty stable trend during the first half of the year for the non-GAAP gross margin line. Now it looks like for the core Momo business, Q3 should continue to be relatively stable as the content supply system remains pretty solid. Q4 could, I don't have full visibility into Q4, but I think Q4 could dip a little bit due to the year-end promotional events.
That should be rather one-off for the year-end gala thing, and we do it every year in Q4. Tantan's gross margin in the second half will see some decrease from first half level as the subscription revenue trends down and revenue from non-subscription service starts ramping up. With regards to operating expenses, we've been optimizing the key line items, including marketing, personnel, and infrastructures, and we'll continue to do so as we look out into Q4 and next year. I guess the biggest cost savings in OpEx in the second half will come from Tantan as we gradually cut all of the low-efficiency channels.
The other thing worth calling out here for operating expenses is that cutting marketing costs doesn't necessarily mean that we're sacrificing future growth opportunities as a sort of a defensive play in a tough macro environment. What we are really doing here is cutting down on the low ROI marketing plans and reallocating part of the savings to where marketing dollars could generate much higher yields. For example, we increased marketing spend quite substantially on Tietie in Q2, and we'll keep spending if retention continues to be satisfactory for this new fast-growing application. But such spending will be absorbed by cutting down other less efficient marketing plans. Overall marketing will still see pretty significant decrease in the back half of the year.
To sum up, although at this point it's sort of impossible to be very prescriptive about, you know, the bottom line for the second half of the year, but I think on an ex-Tantan basis, 2022 is still on track to deliver a non-GAAP operating margin north of 20%. For Tantan, due to the focus on growth with profits, we expect net loss to shrink down to less than RMB 100 million for the second half of the year. Hopefully that answers your question.
Okay. I think this is going to be the end of the Q&A session. Thank you for joining us, today, and we will see you next quarter. Ready to close. Thank you, operator.
This concludes our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.