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Operator
Good day and welcome to the NetEase 2021 First Quarter Earnings Conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Margaret Shi, IR Director of NetEase. Please go ahead.
Margaret Shi
Thank you, Operator. Please note the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements relating to future performance of the company, and are intended to qualify for the safe harbor from liability, as established by the US private securities litigation reform act. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors. Some of these risks are beyond the company's control and could cause actual results to differ materially from those mentioned in today's press release and this discussion. A general discussion of the risks risk factors that could cause NetEase business and financial results is included in certain filings of the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual report on Form 20S, and the announcements and filings on the website of Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company does not undertake any obligation to update this forward-looking information except as required by law. During today's call, management will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures with comparison purposes only. For a definition of non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial results, please see the 2021 First Week Earnings News Release issued earlier today. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. In addition, An in-depth presentation and a webcast replay of this conference call will be available on the NetEase corporate website at ir.netease.com. Joining us today on the call from NetEase Senior Management is Mr. William Ding, our Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Charles Yang, our Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Charles, who will read the prepared remarks on behalf of William.
William Ding
Thank you, Margaret. And thank you everyone for participating in today's call. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that all percentages are based on Remedy. We began the year with a record quarter, exceeding RMB 20 billion in revenue for the first time. And net income attributable to the company's shareholders increased 25% year over year to RMB 4.4 billion. Our games business also reached a new record of RMB 15 billion in net revenues, up 11% year-over-year in the first quarter, despite a high comparable base last year. In Q1, our flagship titles continued to demonstrate strong growth after nearly two decades of operation, with revenues from Fantasy Westward Journey Online and Westward Journey Online Mobile all growing at double-digit rates year over year. 3 is another exemplary case. It is one of the rare instances where a legacy PC MMORPG game has regained growth after reaching maturity. Leveraging our growing knowledge and more recent successes in both MMO and non-MMO genres, we added some casual flavors to this legacy MMORPG giving our players a fresh feel and creating new content for users to consume and enjoy. We also crafted an in-game event at the end of last year, which quickly generated strong interest and discussions in the players' circle, leading to a large inflow of returning users who rejoined the game. Other games in the spotlight during the first quarter included Life After, Omioji, Identity V, and Invincible. Life After has remained an iconic title with strong appeal among young users. The new collaboration with the movie Godzilla vs. Kong in the first quarter was well-received by players as they fought off doomsday monsters. Tomioji also showed remarkable longevity, remaining at the forefront of China's iOS top-grossing charts. During the first quarter, we rolled out a highly anticipated IP collaboration with Diamond Slayer, a classic Japanese anime, further strengthening of Omioji's position as a top ACG game in China. Celebrating its third year anniversary in April, Identity V continues to draw the attention of young players, bringing them a thrilling competitive experience with a distinctive Gothic art style Between January to May, we hosted our annual global championship tournament, Call of the Abyss, with its finale being set in Hangzhou, attracting close to 2 million game players globally to participate in this event. Invincible remained steady in the first quarter with strong user engagement, holding unwavering loyalty from its fan community. Despite numerous Invincible-like games popping up in the market, Invincible has proven to be a trendsetting pioneer in this game genre. This also echoes well with our corporate DNA in product innovation. In terms of new games, we have launched a few new ones since the beginning of this year. We started with Revelation Mobile Game in January. As we discussed last quarter, This is our self-developed RPG game based on our flagship PC title, capturing both returning fans and brand new MMO players. We then launched Elysium of Legends in March, a self-developed card RPG game that brings together legendary figures in Chinese history. Shortly after these releases, both games reached the top of the iOS download chart in China. On the licensed front, In January, we introduced Yu-Gi-Oh! Duolink, a competitive card game based on the nostalgic IP that we licensed from Konami. And more recently in May, we brought the highly anticipated casual game Pokemon Quest to our domestic audience. Featuring cute-shaped Pokemon, the game invites players to be friends and create their Pokemon team to tap and battle through tumble cube islands Shortly after its release, Pokemon Quest quickly climbed to the top of the iOS download chart in China. In overseas market, we continued our efforts to expand our offerings while maintaining steady operation of our existing titles. Knives Out once again reached the number one spot on Japan's iOS top-grossing chart a couple of times during the first quarter Following a collaboration with well-known Japanese IP, The Promised Neverland, in February, Identity V was also crowned number two on Japan's iOS top pricing chart. The success of these games has helped us to gain a much better understanding of Japanese users and their preferences, allowing us to be more sophisticated in localization efforts. For instance, we found that Japanese users greatly value the sense of occasion. Users want to feel the grandness and ceremonial appeal in each game event. Take Knives Out as an example. Knives Out Day, the widely anticipated annual celebration officially recognized by the Japanese Anniversary Association since 2019, marks the start of the game's annual carnival on May the 5th. which includes the biggest esports championship tournament in Japan, as well as other exciting activities. We invited all of our users, brought millions of them online on that day, and the event has become one of the top trending topics on Krita in Japan for the past two years. With a couple of titles gaining popularity and recognition already in the overseas market today, we are hopeful that our upcoming releases will bring the next generation of games to the world stage and further expand our footprint in more regions, particularly in the US and Europe. In April, we launched Infinite Lagrange in Europe. Similar to Invincible, we expect Infinite Lagrange, our first globally targeted SLG game, to ramp up its revenue gradually and show a similar upward trend and longevity with time. This game will be next available in the US and other overseas markets over the coming months. As our very first next-gen SLG, we have been under development for a number of years. We hope that this title will extend our success in SLG into overseas markets. The highly anticipated Harry Potter Magic Awakens is also on track to meet eager audiences. We are thrilled to bring this game to Wizard fans soon, taking players around the world on a magical adventure. Earlier this month, we announced that we joined hands with our Polish partner, 11bit Studios, to develop and publish the mobile version of the world-renowned IP Frostpunk globally. Later this year, players will be able to access this elaborately crafted post-ecoclipse social survival game on mobile platforms. In addition, we have a handful of other exciting titles in our pipeline. Adding to those we just mentioned, our pipeline also includes The Lord of the Rings, Rise to War, Nightmare Breaker, Diablo Immortal, and Ghost World Chronicle. For more details on these titles, please join our annual product launch event on May 20, two days later, which will be hosted online this year and will have a dedicated English section for our global game players and business partners for the first time. We are proud of our world-class R&D infrastructure, which has been pivotal in maintaining a competitive edge in this market and delivering long-term value. The most important element is our people. With that in mind, we encourage our talents to share and exchange ideas with industry veterans worldwide. We just hosted the 2021 NetEase Game Developers Summit in April with a three-day forum covering topics like game design, art, and technology. The event brought together our internal developers as well as external industry partners including gurus in the Western game industry and developers community to share their in-depth game development philosophies and experiences, sparking wide attention from developers, game players, and many others in the industry. Now turning to our education business, Youdao achieved strong and sustainable growth in the first quarter, Total net revenues from Yodao increased by 147% year-over-year to RMB 1.3 billion, and overall gross margin significantly improved to 57%, reaching a new record since its IPO back in 2019. Gross billings from Yodao's K-12 segment was up 130% year-over-year, despite a high base last year due to the outbreak of COVID-19. K-12 paid student enrollment doubled year-over-year to 306,000. In order to match the growing scale and ensure the optimum teaching quality, we continued to strengthen our servicing team, which comprises 197 instructors and over 4,000 well-trained tutors by the end of the first quarter. Given that different syllabus is used in different parts of China, one of the most important agenda for us is to ensure localized content for courses we offer. We took our junior high school Chinese as the pilot case. During the past spring semester, we launched up to 31 versions of junior high school Chinese, meeting the needs of students in 31 different provinces. The localized courses has turned out to be very effective and very welcomed by our students. Net revenue of Yeodao's learning devices also continued a year-over-year growth of 280%. In March, we introduced the Dictionary 10 3.0 Pro version, further supporting bilingual translation of Chinese and Korean languages to meet the demand of a wider range of language learners. Yodao also further integrates the functions of our dictionary pen and the Yodao dictionary app, making the offline online transition even more efficient and effortless. Looking ahead into 2021, we are confident that Yodao will continue to grow its position as a leading provider of intelligent learning services and products, and our diversified business models products and technologies will give us the upper hand in the evolving after school tutoring and ad tech market. For our cloud music business, we have come a long way. Celebrating its eighth year anniversary last month, we are proud to say that we have sought and created new possibilities for music in this digital era. Our platform, which features a vast and highly interactive content community, has become a widely recognized household name that is seen as a cultural emblem amongst particularly the post-90s or younger generation. With a large base of young music lovers on our platform who are more willing to explore and discover music, we have been the creative outlet and a natural stage for independent musicians to shine. We strongly believe independent artists are a crucial driving force for the music industry, and our platform uniquely positioned us to nurture them in the modern era. In April, we held our annual signature event, the Indie Music Artist Ceremony, for the third time, celebrating the past year of their music and encouraging independent musicians to continue creating their remarkable work. In addition to our original music, We want to continue bringing together a library of new, unique, and influential music pieces from around the world and providing music fans with the ultimate audio experience. We have just announced a direct digital distribution partnership with Sony Music Entertainment, one of the world's three largest recording companies. Following UMG, this is the second direct licensing arrangement we have signed with the big three labels, and we are proud to see these positive changes happening in the music industry in China. Moving on to Yanshan, as a private label consumer brand, we further strengthened our brand appeal among the young middle class, developing products that revolve around their needs, centered around this notion, and along with Yanshan's fifth year anniversary, we developed a new value proposition, Live the Way You Like, through a promotion intended to express the voice of the new middle class. This campaign resonated strongly with its intended audience, sparking lively discussions. During the last year, we rolled out a range of highly popular Yanshan products, which have sold well since their introduction. Our strategy to incubate more hit products has paved a smooth path for us to strengthen Yanshan's product portfolio. We recently introduced a number of new style products, such as our proprietary laundry pods, wireless earbuds, bathroom fragrance, which quickly became top-selling products on multiple platforms, and some of the most recognized products in those emerging categories. We see potential in many of our proprietary products, and we are working to introduce a greater number of signature products this year. Additionally, we continue to optimize our operating efficiency in the first quarter. During the quarter, both our inventory turnover days and the fulfillment efficiency were improving. In summary, we are off to a strong start in 2021. Our game portfolio is getting ready for exciting new titles for both domestic and global players, while our existing games continue to hold strong. Our online education, music, and e-commerce businesses are each on solid footing as well. Premium and diverse content creation across our businesses continue to be our primary objective as we move forward, entering a new phase of growth and generating additional value for all of our users and stakeholders. This concludes William's comments. I will now provide a very brief overview of our first quarter 2021 financial results. Given the limited time on today's call, I will be presenting some abbreviated financial highlights. We encourage you to read through our press release issued earlier today for further details. Total net revenues for the first quarter were RMB 20.5 billion, or US dollar 3.1 billion, representing a 20% increase year-over-year. Our net revenues from online game services will remain be 15 billion, up 11% year-over-year. This year-over-year increase was primarily due to increased revenue contribution from newly launched Revelation mobile game, Fantasy Westward Journey H5, as well as PC games such as Fantasy Westward Journey Online. Net revenues from our mobile games accounted for approximately 73% of net revenues from online game services in the first quarter. Yeodao's net revenues reached RMB 1.3 billion, up 148% year-over-year, driven by fast growth of both its online courses and sales of intelligent learning devices. Net revenues from innovative businesses and others were RMB 4.2 billion for the first quarter, up 40% year-over-year, mainly due to increased contribution from NetEase Cloud Music, as well as Yanshan and CC live streaming. Our total gross profit margin was 53.9% in the first quarter, with a breakdown as follows. GP margin for our online game services was 64.6%. As a reminder, this number is generally stable, with some narrow fluctuations based on the revenue mix of mobile and PC titles, as well as self-developed and licensed games. Growth margin for Yodao was 57.3%, compared with 43.5% in the same period of last year. The significant growth was primarily attributable to the improved growth margin from learning services due to the economies of scale and the continuous optimization efforts of its cost structure. It is also due to the substantial sales growth of the smart learning hardware, such as Yodal Dictionary 10, which carries a higher growth margin than other hardware product lines. GP margin for innovative businesses and others was 14.4% compared with 15.8% in the first quarter of last year. While the margins for NetEase Cloud Music and Yanshan have improved year-over-year significantly, the impact was partially offset by the decrease in GP margin from the rest of the business segments in this line. For the first quarter, total operating expenses were remaining 6.8 billion, representing 33% of the total net revenues. Our selling and marketing expenses as a percentage of net revenue were 13.5% in the quarter. If excluding Yodao, our selling and marketing expenses as a percentage of net revenue were below 10%, lower than the previous quarter. As a reminder, fluctuation in selling and marketing as a percentage of revenue largely depends on the number of new games launches in a particular quarter, the genres they are in, and the most suitable marketing plans adopted for each new game launches. R&D expenses will remain 3.1 billion, largely stable from the previous quarter. We remain committed to investing in content creation and product development which is core to our revenue growth. As a percentage of net revenue, R&D expenses were 14.9% compared with 15.3% last quarter. Effective tax rate in this quarter was 22%. The effective tax rate represents certain estimates by the company regarding the tax obligations and benefits applicable to it in each quarter. Non-GAAP net income, attributable to our shareholders for the first quarter, totaled RMB $5.1 billion, or US$776 million. Our non-GAAP basic earnings per ADS were RMB $7.58, or US$1.16. Our cash position remains strong. As of the quarter end, our total cash and cash equivalents, current and non-current time deposits, and short-term investment balance totaled RMB $106 billion, compared with $100 billion as of the year end last year. In accordance with our dividend policy, we are very pleased to report that our Board of Directors has approved a dividend of U.S. $0.06 per share, or U.S. $0.03 per AVS. Lastly, under the Share Repurchase Program approved by our Board, Approximately 3 million ADS had been repurchased in the first quarter for a total cost of approximately US dollars 330 million. Thank you for your attention. We would like now to open the call to your questions. Operator, please go ahead to Q&A.
Operator
Thank you, sir. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach your equipment. For the benefit of all participants on today's call, if you wish to ask your question to management in Mandarin, please immediately repeat your question in English. Please ask one question per time. If you would like to ask more questions, please join the queue by pressing star one again. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. We'll take our first question from Alex Spoon with Morgan Stanley.
spk11
Thank you for accepting my question. I want to ask about the future of online gaming. I saw in the press release that in the next few months, these big products will be online. 所以想问一下具体的一些这几个 Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Diablo 这几款游戏的一些事件在上线时间 然后这个发布的方式, testing 等等,谢谢 My question is regarding the press release We have mentioned these big titles Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Diablo Immortal will be coming in the next few months In the coming months, so what I'd like to understand about the launch schedule and details around these Three big titles.
William Ding
Thank you very much Thank you Alex, I'll answer your question directly in English we do have very very strong visibility and confidence for a rich pipeline including highly anticipated games like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, Diablo Immortal, and a few others that I mentioned just now. And many of these games have already obtained the license approvals already from the regulators. Most of these games will be launched in the second half of this year. In fact, two days later on our annual gala, Game Day May 20th event, we will be disclosing more details on existing games as well as some of the exciting new titles. I would encourage you and the investor community to join our event online to get more details just in two days' time. So a little bit more patience, please.
Alex
Thank you, Charles. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you. Thank you.
Operator
We'll take our next question from Jialong Shi with Nomura.
Jialong Shi
Thanks. Good evening, management. Thanks for taking my questions. I will ask my question first in Chinese. I will translate myself later. Thank you for accepting my question. And congratulations on your very strong performance. I have a question about the game industry. I would like to ask you a question. In recent years, we have seen some new game developers that have grown rapidly in the Chinese gaming industry, such as Nelis and Mihayo. These small game development teams have made some very successful works in China and abroad. And just like NetEase, these relatively small teams they don't rely on big game publishers, but choose to publish their own games, and they get good results. So I want to ask the management, how do you see the competitive environment in the Chinese game industry? Will the rise of these small game teams make the competition more intense? If so, as an old-fashioned game developer, So I will translate my questions. In recent years, there have been some independent game studios which were able to launch very successful self-developed titles. Just like NetEase, these new game studios also publish their games on their own instead of going through third party publishers. So my question is, do you think in China's mobile gaming space, the competition is becoming more intense? And if that is the case, how does NetEase plan to cope with the challenges from these small but quite competitive game studios?
Ding
OK.
Margaret Shi
The companies that you mentioned have had great success in recent years. It means that the overall environment for creativity, especially in games, is very good in China. NetEase, we have been a business for over 20 years. We will continue to innovate to thrive. We are happy for the success that the smaller gaming companies have achieved. and we will continue to thrive and continue to exceed. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Thank you. We'll take our next question from Thomas Chong with Jefferies.
Thomas Chong
Hi, management. Thanks for taking my questions. Can you comment about our online music strategies, in particular subscription and live streaming, and any thoughts about the long-form audio strategies? Thank you for answering my question. My question is about our music. Will you share about the income from the subscription and the income from the live broadcast and the future growth rate? Thomas, do you want to translate your question in English?
William Ding
Thomas, I will answer your question directly in English. Yes, there are, as we've been mentioning in the past couple of quarters, there are plenty of possibilities in terms of product innovation, in terms of monetization streams that's centered around this music vertical. And we are very encouraged to see strong, continued, and robust growth in both subscription, live streaming, advertising, and new possibilities as we continue to innovate and try out. So right now, NetEase Cloud Music, despite the fact that it's been eight years old now, it is still in its relatively early nascent stage, so lots of possibilities. revenue growth in the multiple formats that you mentioned have all been very strong. And specifically you asked about long format audio. That's a very important vertical. In fact, we are a forerunner and a pioneer in this particular long format audio. Majority of our live streaming revenues actually come from long format audio. And there are more players that have been following SHIELD and coming into this vertical. It has just proven one more time the potential upside of this vertical. And I think NetEase Cloud Music just like many other product lines under the NetEase brand umbrella, we focus on unique product features powered by product innovations target specifically to this vibrant, younger generation of music enthusiasts. With that, we are actually very confident on multiple fronts, both in terms of product features as well as monetization potential. Thomas?
Alex
Thank you. Yeah, I'll put the next question, please.
Operator
Thank you, ma'am. As a reminder, please press Start 1 to ask a question. We'll take our next question from Eddie Leung with Bank of America.
Eddie Leung
I also want to ask a question that may be a little bigger and a little longer. First of all, congratulations, you are also a few old IPs, or that series did very well. For example, Dreamer, DaHua, and YinYangShi. But we see that global gaming companies, whether it's a console game, a PC, or a mobile game, it feels like it's easier to use some IPs that are five or ten years old, or even longer, to develop a new version or a new game. It seems that some new companies have the opportunity to create other long-term IPs. So I would like to ask, as a leading game company, when we are developing, do we have such a question? So my question is actually a bit of a follow-up on the game industry. So number one, congratulations on the continuous success of Fantasy Westworld Journey and our Westworld Journey series. But it seems to be interesting to observe that globally, no matter whether it's a successful PC, mobile, or console game developers, It seems to be relying, to some extent, new versions or new games on some of the old IPs, very big IPs, while it's actually some of the new companies are able to come up with big, iconic IPs. So just wondering as a leading global game company, you know, how we think about these kind of like issue and is there any indication when we developed our game strategy? Thank you. 我觉得这个观点不一定对嘛,新的公司
Margaret Shi
We do not entirely agree with your comments. We think obviously it's important for new companies to create new IPs, new titles, but we think more importantly, it's a long-term operation of good flagship titles. From NetEase's perspective, we will continue to do what we are doing. Over the past years, we've launched a number of very great innovative industry-leading titles, including, you know, Omioji, Justice, and Naraka Bladepoint, to name a few. So we think, you know, we will continue to do what we're doing and to create new games, as well as maintaining a long-term stability of our existing titles. Thank you.
William Ding
And, Andy, just to add one more point, As you can witness in the past couple of quarters, when there are fewer new games launched in a particular quarter or two, NetEase's financial performance has been steady. It is again something we talked earlier in the past. NetEase is a very, very unique combination of continuous innovation to come up with new titles as well as the operational know-how to extend the longevity and effective monetization of the old titles. It is because of this combination that we are able to deliver very steady and gradually improving financial profile for over two decades.
Eddie Leung
Yes, that's very true. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. As a reminder, please press star 1 to ask a question. We'll take our next question from Alicia Yap, MidCity.
Margaret Shi
Hi. Because we saw that today, like us and Sony also signed, so that is to say, the three big video companies, we all signed separately. I don't know if there are any changes from the content of this section or from the content of the users. And then the other thing is that in the subscription side, will it actually promote some of our growth? And then there will be some major changes in the horsepower rate. And then about music, I would like to ask Guan Yicheng if we have any cooperation with the car factory, such as IoT, and then some development in music. Thank you for taking my questions. My question is related to the cloud music. So with NetEase now currently signing directly with all the three major music labels, will that change the overall attractiveness of the content selection for users, and also will that help on driving the music subscription growth? Any material change on the gross margin impact? and also can management elaborate the music strategy into the IoT partnership, any interest that you are or extending the partnership with the OEM. Thank you. As the streaming platform or social community for music enthusiasts, NetEase Cloud Music has always been actively seeking partnerships with content providers or label companies in order to help them promote their music in China. That's the answer to the first question. And in terms of IoT or home furnishing, again, it's another important growth area for Netflix app music.
Guan Yicheng
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Elsie Chang with Goldman Sachs.
Elsie Chang
Hey, Mr. Ding, Mr. Chang, Margaret, good evening. Thank you for accepting my question. I have two questions here. The first one is about the development of international games. We just shared a lot of exciting titles this year. Maybe I want to understand it a little bit more. It seems that when we enter different international markets, there may be different types of games that will dominate this market. I don't know if we actually have a game type that is relatively different from that of international markets. The second question is also related to new business. We just talked about some progress in music and other aspects. Actually, I want to understand, for example, when we were in the last quarter, the ratio of new business was higher. In the first quarter, the ratio of e-commerce may have fallen down. Good evening My first question is about international games. We noticed that there are a lot of exciting titles for this year, and it seems that for different international markets, we actually have different genres. That's the first of the key points to touch base with the audiences over there. So I just want to follow up a little bit more here that when we think about different international markets, do we actually have the sort of differentiated competitive strategy And then, you know, if there are any further, like, detailed color on how we're positioning ourselves, that would be great. And then the second question is innovative businesses. And we noticed the seasonal fluctuation in contribution to the revenue of the innovative businesses. And the fourth quarter could be a good year, sorry, a good quarter where, you know, maybe e-commerce is contributing more and the first quarter is low. I just want to understand a little bit more, so, you know, in terms of the growth curve of the two major lines. One is e-commerce, one is the cloud music. How would we describe the growth curve and where they are currently on that growth curve for these two? And in the long term, do we have any targets for them to sort of potentially become another major growth driver for the company? Thank you.
Ding
In fact, the cultural difference between each country and the difference between hardware and equipment, we also found that in the process of opening up the international market, there are different types of products that need to be used by these users. I believe that Wang Yi will have the ability to use different products in the future We have noticed that because there are different cultures and different devices that are used in different parts of the world,
Margaret Shi
we need very different products targeted to particular regions and countries that resonate with the user set. And we are confident we will figure this out. For example, in Japan, we already have a number of very successful titles, including Life After. Recently, we have launched a new PC game, Naraka Bladepoint, on Steam, and that has resonated very well with the users during the testing phase. It's a melee combat type of game based on oriental Chinese martial art, and we are very pleased to see that it has responded well by the global users. Thank you.
William Ding
And Elsie, for your second question, I'll answer that directly in English. Our newer businesses, whether it's online education, online music, NetEase, Yanshan, all of them are in a relatively younger phase comparing to our game businesses. So by and large, we think these younger business verticals have a very promising growth trajectory. They should grow faster than my game BU in general. When you look at each quarter, however, different BU's might experience different seasonality. For instance, Q1 is a traditional peak season for game performance specifically because of the Chinese New Year, whereas it's a relatively low season for instance, for e-commerce. Likewise, education also witnesses strong seasonality in the different semester courses throughout the calendar year. So all in all, don't be overly concerned about a quarterly fluctuation, but generally speaking, when you look at on an annual trend basis, for instance, my innovative businesses and others line as well as my in 2020, both lines has been growing very strong and much faster than my online game services. What we want to achieve down the road eventually is that all of our deeply incubated and cultivated verticals will have a very robust and sustainable growth. And as they continue to grow and emerge, what we want to appeal to the users is what NetEase holds in common, a premium product and services offering with elevated user experience. That is the corporate DNA in common across the board.
Alex
Operator, next question please.
Operator
Thank you, sir. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1. It appears there are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back to the management for closing remarks.
Margaret Shi
Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us directly or TPG Investor Relations. Have a great day.
Operator
This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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