adies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and good evening. Thank you for joining Sohu's third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a Q&A session. Today's conference call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host for today's conference call, Huang Pu, investor relations director of Sohu. Please go ahead.
Thanks, operator. Thank you for joining us to discuss Sohu's third quarter 2023 results. On the call are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Charles Zhang, CFO, , and Vice President of Finance, James Deng. Also with us are Changyou COO, Dewen Chen, and CFO, Yaobin Wang. Before management begin their prepared remarks, I would like to remind you of the common safe harbor statement in connection with today's conference call. Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed on this call may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current plans, estimates, and projections, and therefore, you should not place undue reliance on them. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. We caution you that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements.
For more information about the potential risks and uncertainties, please refer to the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the most recent annual report on Form 20-F. With that, I will now turn the call over to Dr. Charles Zhang. Charles, please proceed.
Thanks, Huang Pu, and thank you everyone for joining our call. In the third quarter of 2023, we continued to improve our product offering and enhance operational efficiency. Thanks to these efforts, we delivered both top and bottom line performance in line with our prior guide, expectations. At Sohu Media Portal, we further refined our products and upgraded our, the user experience. At Sohu Video, with our Tin Engine strategy, we focused on the generation and distribution of compelling short-form content as well as live broadcasts. These efforts helped us further boost user engagement and social interactions. Same time, benefiting from our unique content marketing campaigns, we continue to explore a diverse range of monetization opportunities that leverage our differentiated competitive advantages. For online games, with consistent release of new content updates and operational efforts, game revenues remained stable.
Before I go into more detail of our key financial results, please be reminded that the bankruptcy proceedings for Changyou's cinema advertising business concluded during the quarter. This release is related to continuing operations only, so this includes the disposal gain from the Changyou cinema advertising business. So for this quarter, for the third quarter of 2023, the total revenues were $145 million, down 22% year-over-year and 4% quarter-over-quarter. Brand advertising revenues, $22 million, down 14% year-over-year and 8% quarter-over-quarter. Online game revenues were $117 million, down 21% year-over-year and 1% quarter-over-quarter.
GAAP net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited was $14 million, compared with a net loss of $22 million in the third quarter of 2022, and a net loss of $21 million in the second quarter of 2023. Non-GAAP net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited was $10 million, compared with a net loss of $17 million in the third quarter of 2022, and a net loss of $18 million in the second quarter of this year. So now let me go through our key businesses in more detail. First, Media Portal and Sohu Video. At Sohu Media Portal, we continue to upgrade our products and strengthen operational efficiency. We actively promoted the generation and the social distribution of high-quality content through enhanced user engagement and interaction.
We also integrated cutting-edge technologies in our products, resulting in a better user experience for both audiences and content providers. At Sohu Video, our focus remains on executing the Tin Engine Strategy. We further diversified our long-term, long-form content library and continuously promoted our unique live streamings and live streamings and short-form content. We're committed to establishing a leading position in the field of knowledge and science related live broadcasting, leveraging our distinctive IP, the Charles Physics Class, and this IP has formed a multidimensional dissemination through live broadcasting, short videos, offline seminars, books, and other means, which has driven considerable traffic and engagement on various topics across our platforms.
In addition, as a video social platform, we were also proactively attracting broadcasters and users across various fields by refining our broadcaster ecosystem and organizing events centered on hot topics, such as the 2023 Sohu K-pop Dancing Festival and 2023 Sohu Broadcasters Conference. So, basically user conference. These live broadcasting events enabled users to interact with each other online and offline, and further enhanced their vitality and engagement on the Sohu Video platform. On the monetization side, despite the advertising budgets remained cautious, we closely followed the market trend and were developing synergies between Sohu's product matrix and our advanced live broadcasting technology. These efforts enabled us to execute unique high-value marketing campaigns and unlock new monetization opportunities.
During the quarter, we hosted traditional and innovative events such as Talk Under the Starry Sky, and the Boss One Plus One high-end dialogue. These events have been disseminated across various social media platforms, not only demonstrating our influence as a mainstream media platform, but also effectively attracting millions of audiences and generating significant exposure for advertisers. Now turning to the online game business. Game revenues remained stable during the quarter, driven by consistent release of new content updates and robust game operations. Within our PC games business, we rolled out promotional events for regular TLBB PC, and further optimized its character development system. With TLBB Vintage, we launched a month-long event during the Qixi Festival, which helped stabilize player engagement. The Chinese Qixi, Chinese Valentine's Day.
In our mobile game business, we introduced a new strategic plan, a new strategic clan war gameplay mode for Legacy TLBB Mobile. Next quarter, we'll launch expansion packs and content updates for the TLBB series and other titles to keep players engaged. We'll stick to our top game strategy going forward as gaming technology advances rapidly and the market demand becomes deeper and more diversified. We will explore new ideas to better meet the players' needs, allocate more resources to professional talent development, and invest in content and technology innovation in order to bring more high-quality games to the market. In terms of games pipelines, we will maintain our core competitiveness in MMORPGs, while also producing card-based RPGs or sports and casual strategy games.
So before I pass the call to Joanna to go through our financial results in detail, we are pleased to announce that on November 11, 2023, 2 days ago, our board of directors authorized a share repurchase program of up to $80 million over a 2-year period. The repurchase program underscores the continued confidence we have in our long-term growth prospects, as well as our ongoing commitment to increasing shareholder value. So with that, I will now turn the call over to Joanna, please.
Thank you, Charles. I will now walk you through the key financials of our major segments for the third quarter of 2023. All the numbers are on a non-GAAP basis. You may find a reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP measures on our IR website. For Sohu Media platform, quarterly revenues were $16 million, compared with revenues $80 million in the same quarter last year. The quarterly operating loss was $33 million, compared with an operating loss $39 million in the same quarter last year. For Sohu Video, quarterly revenues were $11 million, compared with revenues $60 million in the same quarter last year. Quarterly operating loss was $33 million, compared with an operating loss of $31 million in the same quarter last year.
For Changyou's online game business and the 17173, quarterly revenues $180 million, compared with revenues $150 million in the same quarter last year. Quarterly operating profit was $52 million, compared with an operating profit of $58 million in the same quarter last year. For the fourth quarter of 2023, we expect brand advertising revenues to be between $20 million and $23 million. This implies annual decrease of 20% to 31%, and a sequential decrease of 9% to a sequential increase of 4%. Online game revenues to be between $106 million and $116 million. This implies annual decrease of 4% to 13%, and a sequential decrease of 1% to 9%.
Non-GAAP net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited to be between $10 million and $20 million, and the GAAP net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited to be between $30 million and $23 million. This forecast reflects Sohu's management current and the preliminary view, which is subject to substantial uncertainty. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we would now like to open the call to questions.
Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A queue. Our first question comes from the line of Thomas Chong from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. Thanks management for taking my questions. My first question is relating to the advertising business. I saw our Q4 revenue guidance for brand advertising is sequential down 9% to 4% growth at the high end. So I just want to get some color from Charles if I may know about the October and so far the performance in November. Under what situation should we expect it to be down by 9%, or is that conservative guidance? And my second question is relating to AIGC. Given that everyone I think talks about how AI can help to drive the conversion, the content creation, just want to get some color from Sohu perspective our strategies in coming quarters.
Sorry, and finally, may I also ask a quick follow-up is more relating to 2024 online advertising outlook? Thank you.
All right. So, the Q4 forecast is, I think it's... We just, we are providing a range, and Q4 is quite similar to Q3, right?
Yes.
There's nothing. It's still the macroeconomic situation is really kind of bad, and we're trying to have some innovative marketing campaigns and events that attract advertisers, so that in Q4 we have about, you know, equal number of events or content activities, like the Sohu Fashion ceremony.
Mm.
and also the finance conference. And also we have a few others, like the K-pop Festival, the national contest, and all these things. So I think the Q4 is similar to Q3. We're just providing a range. The AIGC, I think it's only have some incremental improve with the application of AIGC to our content generation, and it's only have now a kind of incremental improvement of efficiency of content creation, but it's not so far, it's not getting any, you know, major impact on our business side, positive impact on business side yet. With basically like the video content, we have a better...
With the AI technology, we have better titles, words and translations, and the, you know, the voice, voice to, to, you know, words, and also for articles, we have using AIGC to summarize, to write, you know, to summarize the abstract, abstracts of, of, of the articles. So it's not, not a big deal yet.
Got it. Thank you, Charles. May I also ask a very quick follow-up question is relating to how we should think about the advertising market in 2024?
Any preliminary discussion? Yes, 2024, do we have any preliminary discussion with the advertisers yet about next year's spending? Thank you.
Yeah, I think overall, the macroeconomy is doing not that good. And so especially, for example, the auto industry, which consists of a quarter, twenty-five percent of our advertising base. The marketers are more cautious now in spending because across all the businesses, people are spending less, and because consumers have limited disposable income to spend. So in this situation, the advertisers then tend to center their budgets around some top tier user base, top tier platform.
So with Sohu's current user base, we're not in a top tier, so that we have to have this kind of innovative events and campaigns and others to attract the brand advertisers. So unless we have. So I think next year, 2024, things will be similar. And unless we have our Sohu News and Sohu Portal, I mean, Sohu Portal and Sohu News and Sohu Video have really a uptake or the social media platform, so social video, social media platform have a major rise or, you know, explosive growth of user base, I think 2024 will be similar to 2023.
But we definitely have some hope that in 2024, our social media strategy will have some positive, you know, hope, yeah, to expand rapidly.
Got it. Thank you, Charles.
Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Alicia Yap from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you. Good evening, Charles, Joanna, and team. Thanks for taking my questions. I have three questions. First, I wanted to follow up on the comment, Charles, you just mentioned for the Q4 advertising outlook. Would you say the macro situation is improving from what you are seeing in Q3 or about similar? Or is it no improvement, and is it not getting worse in Q4? So just any color as you compare to what you saw in Q3 would be great. So that's the first question.
Well, I think in Q4, the internet service will have some improvement, right?
Mm.
Because the Q3 is kind of a slow season for internet services. Like Q4, that we have this Double Eleven, right?
Mm.
And e-commerce. And, but overall, the auto industry has been contracting. I mean, people are not spending because of competition and less budget, and because the, you know, the car sales is not as robust. So they're, they are now becoming more cautious in promoting their products or sales. Well, some industries like fast-moving consumer goods industry, FMCG industry, seems to have, you know, they're spending more. It's typical of an economic downturn, right? People are drinking more, right? Drinking wines or consuming, you know, leisure time and spending smaller, you know, small items, right? So that's, that's a, that's a FMCG, is, is only, provide some bright, have some bright spots. Yeah.
I see. I see. That's very helpful. So second question is related to the games, guidance for the 4Q. I think, I thought you mentioned there will be some, expansion pack content updates for TLBB series. So just wondering, what's the reasons for, the games guidance to also, experience sequential decline?
[Foreign language] Mean ing,
due to most of our older games will have a natural decline in the fourth quarter.
[Foreign language]
Content updates in the fourth quarter are not major ones, so they cannot offset the natural declines from the game revenues.
Can I follow up on that one? Is that so when you have new games launch next year, then you would, we should assume to see some sequential growth, right, in the coming quarters beyond 4Q?
... So, after if we have 94 degrees onwards, if there are new games online, then there will be a situation where the game revenue will rise Foreign language].
Yeah. So definitely have to look at the performance of that new game, okay?[Foreign language]
Yes, typically, yes, but it also depends on the performance of the new game launched.
Okay, thank you. My last question is on your share buyback. So it is great that we are seeing this $80 million buyback that newly authorized. Just assuming if we are using finish up all the $80 million, just wondering what's the, you know, next plan that management may have? Would that be more buyback down the road if we finish that $80 million, or is that will be some other things that you are thinking? Thank you.
Well, we'll first execute this $80 million buyback, right? And then we'll think, we'll decide next. I think our focus is still on really to really make sure, you know, our business grow and our social network strategy works. So there will be. Actually, we've been refining our products, both the social video and the social news. And the battle to be, to really, you know, to grow, to really grow our user base has now started. We've been refining our products and spending. So we definitely need the war chest to continue to launch, right? To the major product.
I mean, to expand, to grow our products, the user base. So that's. And we're confident, actually, so that's why. And also, our gaming and, yeah. So once the social media and social videos, the user base grow, I would say, I hope exponentially, you know? Because social network, that's the way it grows. It stays flat, and then suddenly you got the product right, and explode or grow exponentially, and we hope that day will come. And then our advertising dollar will grow because it's all tied in, tied with this user base scale. And also, we'll hope that our game will, you know, even better in the future.
Mm-hmm. I see. All right. Good. Thank you, Charles.
Thank you. Once again, to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please stand by while we wait for further questions. Thank you. As there are no further questions at this time, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.