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spk09: And welcome to the NETI's 2021 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Margaret Shee, IR Director of NETI. Please go ahead.
spk08: Thank you, Operator. Please note the discussion today will contain four statements. relating to future performance of the company and are intended to qualify for the safe harbor from liability, as established by the U.S. Private Security 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 lists are beyond the company's control and could cause the actual results to differ materially from those mentioned in today's press release and its discussion. A general discussion of the risk factor that could affect NetEase's 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 the 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 for 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 second quarter earnings news release issued earlier today. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. In addition, an investor presentation and a webcast replay of this conference call will be available on the NETE corporate website at ir.nete.com. Joining us today on the call from NETE's senior management team is Mr. William Dean, our chief executive officer, and Mr. Charles Yan, our chief financial officer. I will now turn the call over to Charles, who will read the prepared remarks on behalf of William.
spk05: 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 calculated based on renminbi. Our growth momentum continued in the second quarter with total net revenues of RMB 20.5 billion, representing an increase of 13% year over year. For our online games, in the second quarter, Total revenue was RMB 14.5 billion, up 5% year over year, despite a high comparable base in 2020. Our PC and mobile games remain our dual growth engines for online games. On the PC side, Naraka Blade Point, our next generation battle royale game, is one of the hottest games in the market. First launched in China in July, followed by the global launch on August the 12th, Narrator BladePoint quickly became the best weekly seller on Steam, winning the enthusiasm of Chinese and overseas players and marking a new breakthrough for us in the global market. With captivating gameplay and state-of-the-art graphics, Narrator BladePoint's debut was very well received among hardcore players in Western markets. We will continue this positive trend by introducing more content from different cultures around the world and start to work on other formats of the game, including console game and mobile versions, as we look to tap into these large market opportunities in China and abroad. Our legacy flagship PC titles, particularly FWJ, New Westward Journey Online, and Tianxia, continue to show remarkable longevity with strong year-over-year growth after nearly two decades of operation. We have created a strong and sophisticated social community within each game, and we continue to keep our users engaged with regular introductions of high-quality expansion packs. This type of longevity has also been extended to the mobile side. Fantasy Westward Journey mobile game Westward Journey online mobile game and their spin-offs continue to demonstrate strong performances during the second quarter. Touching on some highlights from a few other mobile games this quarter, Life After remains an iconic title, holding strong appeal with young users. We introduced a major annual expansion pack, The Revenant, in August, offering players a new category of characters new maps, and more gameplay options. These innovations allow our gamers to explore the doomsday world in an unprecedented and exciting way, bringing life after back to the top of China's iOS download chart. Omioji Arena, our mobile game based on our proprietary Omioji IP, has progressively built strong appeal among the young generation of players Leveraging our strength in art design, Omyoji Arena has impressed users with its widely acclaimed skin art across various themes, including Chinese traditional culture, cyberpunk, and Japanese anime. Some of the skin designs have even become high-trending topics, bringing us a continuous stream of new players. The original flagship game is another NetEase game that continues to shine and frequently leads China's iOS top growth chart. During the second quarter, we rolled out a new version that greatly enriched the Amioji world. The update features a fascinating new storyline and two popular new characters that thrilled our player community. again, fortifying Army OG's standing as a top AGC-themed game in China. During the second quarter and more recently, we have also expanded our offerings in new genres as we continue to diversify our game portfolio. We launched Ace Racer in July, our very first self-developed racing game, leveraging our industry-leading art and graphic capabilities Ace Racer features trap designs based on real urban landscapes of Chinese cities such as Hangzhou and Chongqing. Shortly after its release, Ace Racer topped the iOS download chart and reached the top 10 on China's iOS growth chart. Two weeks ago, Infinite Lagrange, our space-themed SLG game, made a strong debut in China. climbing up into a top 30 title on the iOS growth chart in less than a week. As a new game of this genre we introduced to the Chinese market after Invincible, we hope Infinite Lagrange will also earn the respect from game players and a good share of SLG market through its content innovation. Other new games that we recently launched in China include Pokemon Quest, Marvel Super War. These games further enrich our dynamic domestic game portfolio genres, and many of them quickly reached the top of the iOS download chart following their releases. Moving to overseas markets, we are very excited to see our games keep reaching new milestones outside of China. Over three years ago, Knives Out made its name in Japan and became one of the highest-grossing games ever made by a Chinese game developer to go overseas. Knives Out has held its leading position and continues to take its place in the upper echelons of Japan's iOS top-grossing charts, particularly when following various collaborations with well-known local Japanese IPs such as Eva and One Punch. Today, Naraka BladePoint has emerged as our next breakthrough on the international stage, which further boosts our global expansion efforts by opening the door to mainstream Western markets. On Steam alone, Naraka BladePoint has achieved the milestone of 100,000 peak concurrent users, and the number will be even higher when we include players who play the game on our official channels. As one of our global initiatives, Naraka Blade Point starts off with Chinese martial art culture and then substantially broadens its concept to Eastern fantasy by introducing universal elements more familiar to Western players, such as new characters like Persian warriors and new weapons such as muskets and cannons. These elaborate designs have greatly helped build strong mind share amongst hardcore player community in the Western market. Furthermore, for Harry Potter Magic Awakens, one of the market's most anticipated titles, we closed the final round of beta testing in June with very encouraging user feedback. It is now set for launch on September the 9th across Chinese mainland Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, and will be successfully launched to various other regions globally. We look forward to seeing eager global players become Hogwarts freshmen, meet diversified wizard partners, learn spells, gain magic knowledge, and experience the amazing life of wizardry. The Lord of the Rings Rise to War is another exciting title coming soon. Pre-registration for this game has been available since August 25th. With engaging and thought-provoking gameplay, as well as a strong appeal of the Lord of the Rings IP, we see great potential for this release and look forward to impressing players with its global launch, which is now confirmed to be on September 23rd. For Diablo Immortal, In July, we had our first beta testing in China, and we are very excited with the strong feedback from the user community. We will keep working to bring our worldwide players engaging game experiences. The list goes on. We have a handful of other exciting titles in our pipeline as well. A few other pre-announced names include Nightmare Breaker, a PC game, and Ghost World Chronicle. Our mission to create world-class games for players has never wavered. We are relentlessly scaling new heights in terms of game development technology. Our game engine is one of the key assets within our R&D infrastructure. Recently, we've made a significant step forward with one of our flagship game engines, Messiah, in which we are proud to have implemented the world's first high-quality, real-time global illumination algorithm on mobile devices. This is a major breakthrough with our in-house engine technology, helping us to greatly speed up the pace of our artistic development and bringing world-class visual effects into our games. Turning to Youdao, our net revenues in the second quarter were RMB 1.3 billion, representing a 108% growth year-over-year. As an intelligent learning company, Youdao is and has always been committed to enhancing its competitiveness for the young generations through advanced technology. In line with evolving national guidelines, Our aim is to explore new strategic opportunities in non-academic businesses, such as STEAM courses, adult learning, and smart learning hardware devices. In the second quarter, we further expanded our STEAM course offerings. For example, net revenues from Youdao Go, Youdao Weiqi, increased by nearly 180% quarter over quarter, and we launched more advanced level courses to further meet our users' growing learning needs. Back in March, with an eye towards the growth opportunities in adult education sector, we established a dedicated division on adult education by integrating our Youdao premium courses for adults, China University MOOC, and NetEase Cloud Classroom. In terms of premium courses for adults, Its net revenues accounted for around 22% of total net revenues in the second quarter. Meanwhile, we launched an upgraded version of our Practical English course to provide adult users with more immersive and effective learning experiences. In addition, 137 courses on the China University MOOC platform have been certified by the Ministry of Education as recommended courses for academic studies and continued career development. Learning devices remain another major revenue source for Yodal with a mission to improve learning efficiency. This segment generated net revenues of RMB 206 million in the second quarter, increasing 139% year over year. We also introduced a new version of our dictionary pen, Youdao Dictionary Pen K3, designed to be more friendly to elementary school and pre-K kids, more affordable, and supportive of learning arithmetic in addition to English and Chinese. With that said, we expect Youdao to be somewhat less affected by the recent regulations as it has other high-growth businesses in addition to existing K-12 academic after-school tutoring classes, whose revenues accounted for around 41% of Yodao's total revenue in the second quarter. Looking ahead, Yodao will continue to strictly comply with national guidelines, and we are confident in Yodao's future development, as Yodao has one of the most talented R&D and teaching skill sets in the industry. Looking at our cloud music business, we have successfully maintained our user growth momentum over the past quarters, despite an industry-wide slowdown. While DAU over MAU ratio remained above 30% in the second quarter, owning to our advanced social networking functions and promotions like 88 VIP program in second quarter our membership paying ratio almost doubled year over year. In terms of margin, we continue to see improvement with our cloud music business as it increases its scale. In the past quarter, NetEase Cloud Music achieved positive gross margin for the first time ever, marking a new milestone with our music operations. We believe that our ongoing top-line growth in this segment will position us to continue driving margin expansion over time. We keep our users engaged through constant innovation and product improvement. Earlier this year, we gave our prize-winning function, Listen Together, another new touch, allowing users to listen to music together not only with friends but also with other users, providing additional social networking opportunities. Furthermore, our newly launched function Playlist Sharing has been very well received by our users, allowing multiple users to co-create and manage playlists at the same time. On the content side, we are pleased to see the changes that the music industry is currently undergoing which paves the way for strong and sustainable growth over the long term. We hope to work together with other industry players to ensure quality music is accessible to a wider audience at a more reasonable cost, which will ultimately benefit music lovers and the industry as a whole. Now turning to Yanshan, as our private label consumer brand, We continue to focus on building Yanshan's brand equity. Primarily, we are introducing highly popular products with proprietary award-winning product designs and strictly controlled product quality. In April, Yanshan Healthcare Series and Mooncake Gift Box won the German IF Design Award 2021. Working with major channels, including Taobao, Tmall, and JD, Our recognition from the broader public is actively growing. During the June 18 promotion period, Yanshan topped JD's household daily sales list, and our cat food category recorded the highest domestic cat food sales on both Tmall and JD for the first day of the June 18 promotion. In June of this year, we published our 2020 ESG report outlining our ESG policies, achievements, and improvements we made throughout the year. We started our ESG efforts as early as 2018 and issued our first ESG report last year. As a company deeply committed with social responsibilities, we will be keeping our efforts to being a responsible public company, and we will continue to pursue the ESG initiatives and will forge ahead with our strength to create greater value for our stakeholders and the community at large. Finally, during the quarter, we celebrated our 24th anniversary. As we review our past and look toward our future, we know innovation is key. Innovation has been at the heart of our journey and will continue to be the driver for our future growth. It empowers us to create amazing products and services that are adored by hundreds of millions of people. As we move forward, we will be dedicating even more time and resources to identifying and training talent and fostering innovation that creates a more promising and exciting future in each of the verticals we operate. This concludes William's comments. I will now provide a very brief review of our second quarter 2021 financial results. Given the limited time of 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 second quarter were RMB 20.5 billion, or USD 3.2 billion, representing a 13% increase year-over-year. Our net revenue from online game services were RMB 14.5 billion, up 5% year-over-year despite of last year's high base benchmark. The year-over-year increase was primarily due to newly launched games, revelation mobile games, and existing games such as Fantasy Westwood Journey Online. Net revenues from our mobile games accounted for roughly 72% of total revenue, and overseas revenue accounted for roughly 10% of total revenue in the second quarter. Yeodao's net revenues reached RMB 1.3 billion, up 108% year over year, driven by fast growth of both Yeodao online courses and the sale of intelligent learning devices. Net revenues from innovative businesses and others were RMB 4.7 billion for the second quarter, up 26% year-over-year, mainly due to the increased contribution from NetEase Cloud Music. For Cloud Music, both membership and streaming revenues maintained solid growth momentum, driven by robust paying user expansion. Overall total gross profit margin was 54.5%, with a breakdown as follows. Gross profit margin for game services was 66.1%. As a reminder, this number is generally stable, with some narrow fluctuations based on the revenue mix of PC versus mobile games, as well as self-developed and licensed games. Gross margin for Yeodao was 52.3%, compared with 45.2% in the same period of last year. The significant year-over-year growth was mainly attributable to the improved learning services growth margin, which was due to improved economies of scale and continuous optimization of its faculty compensation structure. Substantial sales growth of smart learning hardware, such as your DAO dictionary PAN 3.0, also contributed to these gains. as this line carries a higher GP margin than other product lines. Gross profit margin for innovative businesses and others was 19.3% compared with 18.5% last year. The improvement was mostly driven by NetEase Cloud Music as its gross margin turned positive for the first time during the quarter. For the second quarter, total operating expenses were RMB 7.4 billion, or 36 percent of our total net revenue. Our selling and marketing expenses as a percentage of net revenue were 14.7 percent. If we exclude Yodal, our selling and marketing expenses as a percentage of net revenue were 10.6 percent, compared with 10.7 percent in the second quarter of last year. R&D expenses were RMB 3.4 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 accounted for 16.6% compared with 14.9% in the previous quarter. The effective tax rate was 24.3% for the second quarter. As a reminder, the effective tax rate is presented on an accrual basis, and the tax credits differ from each of our entities at different time periods, depending on applicable policies and our operations. Non-GAAP net income attributable to our shareholders for the second quarter totaled RMB 4.2 billion, or U.S. dollars 655 million. Our non-GAAP basic earnings for ADS were U.S. dollars 0.89 or 0.20 per share. Our cash position remains strong. As of June 30th, our total cash and cash equivalents, current and non-current time deposits, and short-term investment balance totaled RMB 1.8 billion, compared with RMB 100 billion as of the end of 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. dollar 0.048 per share, or U.S. dollar 0.24 per AES. Lastly, Under the share repurchase program approved by our board on February 25th, approximately 4.6 million ADS had been repurchased as of June 30th for a total cost of approximately $0.5 billion U.S. dollars. Today, our board announced the approval of an amendment to further increase the total authorized repurchase amount from the previously approved US dollar 2 billion to a new cap amount of 3 billion US dollars. Additionally, our board has also approved a share purchase program of up to US dollar 50 million of Yodao's outstanding ADS for a period not to exceed 36 months, beginning on the 2nd of September. Thank you for your attention. We would like now to open the call to your questions. Operator, please go to Q&A.
spk09: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, 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 our equipment. Again, press star 1 to ask a question. And for the benefit of all participants on today's call, If you wish to ask your question to management in Chinese, please immediately repeat your question in English. Please limit your questions to one at a time. If you wish to have follow-up questions, please rejoin the queue. And we will now take the first question from Alex Yao from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
spk03: Thank you, Mr. Ding. Charles, I would like to ask a question about supervision. Mr. Ding, can you give us an introduction of some of the measures that we can take to counter the addiction of teenagers? And how should we look at the recent new policy? Thank you, management, for taking my question. I have a question on teenager in-game indulgence and the new policy introduction. Can you share with us your policies on teenager in-game indulgence protection? And also, how should we think about the impact from the recently introduced new policy that minors cannot play game during the weekend. They can only play game at a specific time, i.e. 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. from Friday to Sunday. How should we think about the financial and operational impact to your gaming business? Thank you.
spk04: China. You could just say something. Yeah, I got lost. So you have to be. You should. You should. You should. You should. You should. You should. You should. You should. You should. You should. We also hope that all the companies in the entire industry can actively implement this decision, so that the underage people in China can grow in a healthier environment. So we think this is a very good measure. As for the impact on us from the biological point of view, Yes, I'm sure many of you have read on news about the new anti-addiction protection measures that the government has issued on the teenagers, underage kids.
spk08: student requirements such as only three hours a week is allowed to play on games. As one of the largest gaming companies in China, we're in full support of this decision. Over the past years, we have noticed there are certain games around industry that have had a negative impact on children. So we think that the new requirements, the new regulations will keep teenagers away from or keep the teenagers away from games for as far as possible. So we want companies in this industry together to support this regulation and requirement. And also, financially, we would like to share with you that less than 1% of our revenue actually comes from underage children. Thank you.
spk05: Alex, just to clarify, when we say less than 1%, we are defining minors as age below 18. Different companies might have disclosed different data. But according to China law, minus definition is for people below the age of 18. For that category of population, it accounts for less than 1% of our total gains gross billing financial implication.
spk09: Thank you, Alex. And we will now take our next question from Kenneth Fung from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
spk02: Ding Zhong, Charles Nagren. 你们好,谢谢接受我的提问。 我有两个问题,第一个就是也是follow up一下Alex上上问的问题。 在新的政策以下,微型能源接触游戏现在的机会小了。 短期来讲,我也同意了,对我们的financial的影响会比较小。 Thank you for taking my question. I have two questions. One is the new regulation for online games will significantly limit the exposure for the underage, while the short-term financial impact will be limited. How should we think about player cultivation going forward? And will it limit the longer-term or medium-term potential for game growth? The second question is, with no more exclusivity for the music copyright, how should we think about our direction pays as well as the investment in the music copyright and content going forward. Thank you.
spk04: This is to make a more elite entertainment game. Not only in China, but also in the global scope. I simply say that we will not play this idea of unadulterated games. The second is that we can see that Tencent Music has given up the announcement of the copyright of music. We are looking forward to This is a sincere and honest decision. We also call on the record companies to use the concept of open, fair, and co-creation of industry health and development, and open authorization. We will be most sincere. We also have enough funds to cooperate with various record companies in a wide range of authorizations to build China's
spk08: Yes, to answer your first question, we think that the healthy, wholesome growth of our children is a top priority for the nation, for the government. And as a company, we need to think about our social responsibility. We need to think long-term and for the greatness of the society. So we are interested in making positive, high-quality gains that appeal to adults and appeal to audience around the globe. We are not as interested in making profit through miners. And to answer a second question, as you might have just noticed that TME has just announced their made announcement about relinquishing their exclusivity and we certainly hope that is a that is a sincere announcement from TME it's not a decision they're not going to be saying one thing and doing another and here we want to we want to appeal take an opportunity to appeal to every to the label companies and every stakeholder and partners in industry to to co-create a wholesome balanced news industry. And NetEase, with ultimate sincerity and sufficient funding, we want to work together with everyone in this industry.
spk04: I would like to add one more thing. We are very grateful to the anti-monopoly punishment decision made by the State Market Control Department, which gives a very clear, positive and inspiring signal to the entire industry.
spk08: I would also like to add that we are very thankful for the right decision that the regulatory bodies have made relating to the antitrust regulations and policy. The antitrust policy sends a very clear and positive and a very exciting signal to the entire industry, which is widely anticipated and warmly welcomed by users. Thank you.
spk02: Thank you.
spk09: Thank you, Kenneth.
spk08: Next question.
spk09: And we will now take the next question from Alex Poon from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
spk01: Mr. Ding, Charles, Margaret, good evening. Thank you for accepting my question. Congratulations on your very good performance and the layout of the game in the second half of the year. I have a question that I would like to ask. I translate myself. My question is related to The strong game pipeline in the second half, including a lot of the rings, Naraka, Bladepoint, Harry Potter, and Nightmare Breaker, etc. All of these games are very strong titles. How should we think about the game revenue growth and the contribution from these games, especially starting in the fourth quarter? Thank you very much.
spk05: Thank you, Alex. I'll answer your question directly in English. As you may know, Bladepoint was already launched in the summer, and we have made another major breakthrough on Steam platform. This, again, this is not only a new genre game, but also a new achievement. I think very excited to witness next month is going to be busy Harry Potter Lord of the Rings and a few other games are all set to launch in September with a few others in the later half of this year the one thing though I want to reiterate is that NetEase, here at NetEase, we always emphasize on the quality of the games, the longevity of the games and the user appreciation and receptivity of these games. We are not so much interested in the financial ups and downs in one particular quarter or two, but rather we are very confident that our relentless effort in launching these new games will continue to diversify our game genre offerings, continue to advance our global expansion initiatives, as well as gaining more market share across different categories of the games. And to echo what William commented earlier on, we really think the open secret of winning the heart of the gamers is through the quality and the content rather than any other tricks or measures. So Alex, hopefully that answers your question.
spk01: Thank you, Charles. Thank you.
spk09: And we will now take the next question from Natalie Wu from Hightong International. Please go ahead.
spk07: Let's say we're going to buy a ticket and a gun. I don't know if this is going to affect the future of our income. Will the two of us be in a different place when it comes to other games? The two of us may have a bigger contribution to our income. And what do you think of the life cycle of this game? Thank you, Ms. Ding, Charles, and Marguerite for taking my question and congratulations on another solid quarter. My question is regarding the game Naraka. So just wondering what's management's expectation for the game regarding the revenue model? What kind of the revenue will come from, what percentage of the revenue will come from the copy-based and item-based revenue models? And also, how should we see the longevity of this game? And will there be more derivative versions of other genres of Naraka coming out in the future? And also, will this success have any potential shifts of our strategic focus and investment in the future? Thank you.
spk05: The first question is about the game's payment model. Currently, we are using the payment method to combine the payment method with the payment method to combine the payment method with the payment method to combine the payment method with the payment method.
spk02: Uh,
spk05: uh uh We have a very comprehensive plan for the future, including a new hero, a new weapon, which will expand the content so that players can experience new things. So I am very confident about its life cycle. In the future, we will launch different versions of the game for different platforms. After the launch of the mobile version, we are also working on the mobile version. At the same time, we will continue to operate it outside the sea, and then develop various different competitions, and then let this game continue to generate new popularity and topics in the players' community. This is a plan for the future.
spk08: Thank you. Thank you, Natalie. The answer comes from . Yes, so the game right now, we've got a mix of copy-based sales and also in-game purchase. As of today, the items, the in-game items that we created have been very attractive to our players, which have caused a very encouraging sale of in-game items. So today, our in-game purchases actually contribute more than the copy-based sales. Going forward, we'll continue to create more in-game items and functions that appeal to our worldwide users. In terms of longevity, we have a long-term plan for this game. Today, we have arranged a number of very exciting esports campaigns in China and abroad. We'll continue to introduce and launch new characters, new gameplays to keep the content interesting to our users. So we're very confident with the longevity of this game. In terms of the strategy going on to different formats of entertainment, well, we're actually going to launch this game on consoles around Christmas time. And we also have a team working on the mobile version of this game. And at the same time, we host esports campaigns around the world to keep the interest high around the game and that we keep creating viral discussions of the game. So we have a very holistic plan for America's Playpoint. Thank you.
spk05: And Natalie, to your last part of the question, whether there is any inspiration for our overall game strategy, I think with the breakthrough achieved by Naraka BladePoint, it gives us extra confidence in terms of diversification, not only in game genres, but also in different distribution platforms. For instance, Naraka BladePoint is a very successful a game that has tapped into the global, particularly the Western gamer community via Steam platform. I think that gives us more experience and know-hows of developing and publishing future games, especially towards the global market. Operator, next question please.
spk09: Thank you. We will now take our next question from Thomas Chong from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
spk00: 晚上好,謝謝管理層接受我的提問。 我的一個問題是想先問一下就是我們很快就會出《Hammer Reporter》。 請管理層可不可以分享一下我們對這 款遊戲在國內跟國外的 What do we expect? From the KPI perspective, will this game be more successful in China or abroad? In addition, regarding the recent monitoring environment, we have seen that FunTrain and live streaming have improved monitoring. My first question is about Harry Potter. Given the game is going to be launched worldwide, just want to get a sense about our expectation for this game in the domestic market versus an overseas market. Any color about our marketing strategies, the way that we attract users, any strategy can be shared, would be grateful. And then my second question is about the reasons of regulatory environments. Given the government is having a stringent measure about the fandom culture in China and more regulations on the live streaming these days, just want to get a sense about how the fandom culture would affect our music business and also our live streaming outlook. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you Thomas. I will answer your first question on Harry Potter directly in English and William will comment on your second question. For Harry Potter, it is set to launch in greater China area on the 9th of September, which is about nine days from now, highly anticipated. Given the strong popularity and global appealingness of the Harry Potter IP, we are very confident that this high-quality game will be a huge success both domestically and in the international market. With this game launch, we are hopeful that it can further reinforce the NetEase game brand image. amongst the global gamer community. That's the answer to your first question.
spk04: Yeah.
spk08: We are actually in support of the recent regulations on the entertainment industry. For NetEase Cloud Music, we think the impact for us is somewhat minimal because for us, the priority, the strategic goal is about creating original music. So our focus is about helping independent musicians to create music. And those are talented individuals in China. Thank you.
spk09: Thank you.
spk05: Okay. Operator, next question, please. Thank you, Thomas.
spk09: Thank you. We will now take the next question from Eddie Leung from Bank of America, Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.
spk06: Hello. Good evening, management team. Two questions. The first one is about the tax rate. We all know that in the Internet industry, some companies can't get the 10% tax rate of the key software companies. So let's ask if this will have an impact on our future tax rate. The other one is about our development in the overseas game industry. Does the management team plan to add more development teams overseas? What is the timetable? We have two questions. The first one is on the tax rate. We understand that certain internet companies couldn't get the approval to enjoy a preferential tax rate of key software subsidiaries recently. So just a wonder if NetEase would see any impact to the tax rate. And then secondly, regarding the overseas game markets, should we expect NetEase to set up more overseas studios? And if so, any more color on the future plan? Thank you.
spk05: Thank you, Eddie. Well, in the interest of time, let me answer your two questions directly in English. Firstly, on the tax rate. This is in fact not a new development. In our 20F issued earlier this year, we have already disclosed that there will be certain tax policy changes As announced by the Tax Bureau earlier this year, certain industries, including e-commerce, games, et cetera, are no longer eligible for the key software qualification. As a result, we can no longer enjoy the 10% preferential tax rate. However, specifically for net ease, for game businesses, we are still entitled to the high-tech qualification, which grants us a 15% preferential tax rate. Net-net, we believe these tax rate changes will have, roughly speaking, about 3% implication to us. So 2020, our overall effective tax rate is around 19%. I think this year, for 2021, a full year level, our tax rate will be somewhere in the low 20s neighborhood. Secondly, for our overseas game expansion, we've previously announced our ambition to achieve at least 30% of of our game gross billing contributed from the overseas market in three to five years' time. We are very well on track to achieve that. Narrative Bladepoint is another big, exciting achievement that we have achieved this year. For the overseas market, market we are now very proactively setting up overseas studios in Canada in Japan and in Europe our the format of our collaboration or rather the format or strategies for us to tap into the international market can be very diversified, doesn't necessarily require us to set up our own standalone studios. We are also very active in collaborating with the world class around the world, supplementing each other's strengths in some cases jointly develop or co-develop hit games that's targeting for the global gamer community. So I think NetEase remains very open-minded, very practical, and very, very active in this regard. Thank you, Eddie. Operator, in the interest of time, let us conclude. the call today. Thank you all very much.
spk08: Thank you. Well, thank you once again. Maybe I'll just finish with the concluding mark. Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us directly. Have a great day. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you.
spk09: And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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