Sohu.com Limited

Relations Director of SOHU. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thanks, operator. Thank you for joining us to discuss SOHU's fourth quarter 2024 results. On the call are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Charles Zhang, CFO Joanna Liu, and Vice President for Nest Gemstone. Also with us are Chang-Yu Seo, Do Wen Chen, and CFO Bin Wang. Before management begins their prepared remarks, I would like to remind you of the Cambridge State Harbor Statement in connection with today's conference call. Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed are to call me content for looking statements. These statements are based on current plans, estimates, and projections. Therefore, you should not place undue rights on them. For looking statements involved in huge risks and uncertainties, we caution you that A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those containing any forelooking statements. For more information about the potential risks and uncertainties, please refer to the committee's findings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the most recent annual report on Form 20F. With that, I will now turn the call over to Dr. Charles Zhang. Charles, please proceed.

Thanks, Huangpu, and thank you, everyone, for joining our call. In the fourth quarter of 2024, our brand advertising revenues hit the high end of our previous guidance. Well, both our online game revenues and the bottom line performance was much better than expected. For Soho Media platform, including Soho Media and video, we continue to refine our products, optimized algorithms, and strictly controlled budgets. By integrating the advantages of the Soho product matrix with our unique ITs and high energy events, we were able to promote the generation and the social distribution of premier content, effectively enhance user experience to attract more users and further unlock monetization potential. The online games business delivered solid performance thanks to the relentless efforts to produce high quality new games and revitalize legacy gains. Before going through each business unit in more detail, let me first give you a quick overview of our financial performance. For the fourth quarter of 2024, total revenues $135 million, down 5% year-over-year and 11% quarter-over-quarter. Brand advertising revenues $19 million, Down 7% year-over-year and 1% quarter-over-quarter. Online game revenues $110 million. Down 4% year-over-year and 14% quarter-over-quarter. Get net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited. $21 million compared with a net loss of $13 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 and a net loss of $16 million in the third quarter of 2024. Non-GAAP, net loss attributable to Sova.com Limited, $15 million compared with a net loss of $11 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 and a net loss of $12 million in the third quarter of 2024. For the whole year of 2024, total revenues $598 million flat compared with 2023. Brand advertising revenues $73 million, down 17% compared with 2023. Online game revenues $502 million, up 5% compared with 2023. Gap net loss attributable to SOHO.com Limited, $100 million, compared with the net loss of $66 million in 2023. Non-gap net loss attributable to SOHO.com Limited was $83 million, compared with the net loss of $51 million in 2023. Now let me go through our key businesses in more detail. First, the social media platform. We consistently focused on improving our technology and optimizing our products with cutting edge technology. Meanwhile, we also kept improving user experience by closely monitoring their needs. We organically integrated our diverse online and offline events. maximizing the synergy of the SOHO product matrix and fostering a thriving online community. These efforts allowed us to attract more users, especially the younger generation, to our platform, actively promoted their interactions, and stimulated more content generations. 2024, we held a series of K-pop dancing tour competitions in several major cities in China, from which the most outstanding contestants were selected to join the 2024 Dream Concert overseas in South Korea in October. Later in December, as a final show of the above series of dancing events, the 2024 Sohu Video Dancing Festival was hosted with great success. This dancing festival brought together a lot of top dancers in the US and has become the most eye-catching annual event in the field of K-pop dancing for the year. Also, during this quarter, we hosted the 2024 Sohu Video Guofeng Festival. the largest nationwide competition showcasing the traditional Chinese Hanfu costume. It received widespread acclaim and sparked extensive discussions and disseminations across multiple social media platforms. These events not only strongly strengthened our leading position and influence in the K-pop and Hanfu event verticals, but also stimulated numerous social interactions and distributions on our platform. We also continued to host our flagship events, such as the 2024 Sohu Fashion Awards at the end of the year, and the 2024 Sohu Finance Annual Forum, which further consolidated our brand influence as a mainstream media platform and provided us with abundant premium content. These events were not only attractive for users, but also enabled us to provide unique marketing solutions to our advertisers. And we further persisted in broadcasting the child physics class, ,, which has been going on for three years with three books published, and also the English class. These classes have jointly become the leading IPs for SOHO. Leveraging these unique IPs and collaborations with science-related broadcasters, we were able to attract millions of viewers, popularize cutting-edge professional knowledge to them, and reinforce our core competitiveness in the field of knowledge and science-related live streaming. Benefiting from the above, We were able to combine the knowledge, dissemination, and brand marketing through diverse channels, delivering unique experiences to advertisers and audiences, and driving editing budgets. In 2024, we continuously enriched our content library by acquiring TV dramas, rolling out original dramas, and bringing in premium American TV series as well as introducing short dramas. For example, our TV drama, Jin Chai Ying Die, Hairpins in the Palace, and the American TV series, The Bear, and also the HBO series were well received by the audience. Yeah, we're talking about social media problems include both the, you know, social news and social video. Now next, let me turn to the online game business. During the quarter, our online game business performed well with revenues exceeding our prior guidance. In our PC games business, we launched a new clan jointly for regular TLBB PC and TLBB Vantage jointly. Along with the various snow and ice themed events and the gameplay, effectively boosting players' enthusiasm for the game. In addition, we introduced an innovative survival PvP gameplay for regular TLBB PC and refreshed some classic gameplays of TLBB Vantage to enhance player experience and renew their interest in the game. For Legacy TLBB Mobile, we launched a new expansion pack featuring crossover content such as themed dungeons, outfits, and rich, innovative gameplays, which drove higher users' satisfaction. Next quarter, we'll continue to launch expansion packs and content updates for the TLBB series and other titles to further keep players engaged. As market competition intensifies and user demand for quality and innovation continues to rise, we'll forge ahead with our top game strategy, staying true to our user-centric philosophy. We'll continue to optimize our research and development process and enhance execution to improve efficiency and product success rate. Meanwhile, we will intensify our efforts to expand our international presence. While maintaining our core competitiveness on MMORPGs, we will also actively expand our portfolio with diverse types of games, including card-based RPGs, sports games, and casual games, etc. With these efforts, we are confident that we soon can bring more high-quality games to the market. Now, I would like to give an update on the ongoing share repurchase program. As of February 13th this year, 2025, SOHO had repurchased 4.2 million ADS for an aggregated cost of approximately $52 million. So with that, I will turn to the call to our CFO, Joanna.