JOYY Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, positive results despite the providing micro changes. First, our relentless optimization of operational efficiencies generated enhanced profitability for the third consecutive year. In 2023, our non-GAAP net profit reached 293 million, increased by 46.8% year-over-year. Our non-GAAP net margin was 12.9%, up by 4.6 percentage points year-over-year. Because non-GAAP operation profit reached 288 Milling representing a non-GAAP operation margin of 15%, higher than our expectation. Notably, all social products under the Beagle segment include Beagle Live, Lighty, and others will pro-phosphate in 2023. Additionally, hardware under all other segments generated a positive operation cash flow for the year. Second, our global average mobile MAUs have now resumed year-over-year growth for the three consecutive quarters, even as we adhere to a disciplined marketing spending strategy. In the first quarter, our global average mobile MAUs increased by 2.6% year-over-year to 275 million. Third, we solidified our relationship position within the global social entertainment industry. According to Data AI's state of mobile report released in January 2024, BeagleLive retained its position as the world's second-largest social app based on consumer spending on 2023. Out of the 29 countries and regions spanning the Americans, Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia Pacific, covered by Data AI. BeagleLive ranked among the top five social apps in 18 countries and regions, and among the top 10 social apps in seven countries and regions. In terms of customers spending, Other social products also achieved a significant breakthrough in key market in 2023. In terms of customer spending, Leike claimed the third place among social apps in Saudi Arabia, while Hargo secured a top ten position in both Indonesia and the Philippines. Despite this progress, the group And the Beagle segment revenues were down by 6% and 3.6%, respectively, year over year. The decline was primarily due to two facts. First, despite middle single digital growth in Beagle's pay users throughout the first quarter, Beagle's AR pool was still down year over year. primarily due to high inflation, which negatively affected the users' payment segment. Second, to strengthen our global positioning and foster sustainable growth, we proactively made proactive adjustment to certain non-core live streaming operations starting in the second quarter. Those adjustments had a negative impact on our live streaming revenues in certain regions. However, by fine-tuning our operations and focusing resources on the mall resilient developed countries region, we saw Bigel's AR posts stabilized and a recovery in Bigel's revenue in the two most recent quarters. With our more focused operational strategy, we believe Bigel will continue to recover and the growth steadily during the 2024. Looking ahead, we believe there is a sample room for growth. To capture such potential, the key is to deliver unique experience and value to users. Stay relevant and achieve sustainable growth, such as our priorities for 2024 are as follows. First, we remain committed to our globalization strategy while we acknowledge inquiries regarding the potential impact of YY Live's transaction on our future strategies. We are currently in discussion with Baidu on the next step following the termination of the SPA. and we are unable to disclose any further information at this time. However, we can confirm that our globalization strategy will remain unchanged. Globalization through localization has been our foremost strategy and our strong localized optional operational capabilities are the cornerstone of our global success. In 2024, we will double down on our emphasis on local talent and drive innovative operations to further build our brand's global influence. elevate collaborations with KOLs and local partners for instrumental and enhancing product awareness and catalyzing user growth in 2023. Building on these successes, we will uphold our efforts to drive further steady growth of our global user community. Second, we will continue to strike a balance between growth and efficiency. In 2024, while we anticipate the sustained recovery of Beagle, we also expect to maintain profitability and our positive cash flows at the group level. This year, we remain committed to these dedicated resources to build our core strengths, which encompass both our global operational capacity and our technology. At the same time, we will prudently explore long-term growth opportunities by driving innovations at the products and operational levels. We have been exploring new monetization models and beyond live streaming and achieved meaningful progress. In 2023, revenue from our non-live streaming business made up to 12.7% of our total revenues, up from 5.4% in 2021. We expect this upward trend to continue in 2024, further expanding the diversifying our revenue streams and ultimately fortifying a multi-level growth engine for our long-term development. Let's take a closer look at our products. We will start at BeagleLive. BeagleLive maintained its user growth momentum in the fourth quarter with MAUs increased by 4.5% year-over-year to 38.4 million. We saw growth across several regions with year-over-year MAU increased of 10.9% in Europe, 8.4% in East Pacific region, and 12.6% in the Middle East. Ecolife's revenue and paying users sustained their recovery chain and sequential growth. The first quarter is typical, the peak reason of local operation activities worldwide. To capitalize on this, BeagleLive organized a series of events to discover both outstanding creatures across various domains and inspire new and diverse content creation. In October, BeagleLive hosted the second season of Figo's most talented creature content in North America. This event attracted talented dancers, musicians, comedians, and more. Figo Live also introduced a brand new creature incentive program across major regions around the world. While Figo Live continues to support its experienced professional streamers and PUGC as the program places a stronger emphasis on mature streamers and UGC. As well as generous economic rewards, Big O'Lives provides comprehensive training course for amateur streamers, helping newcomers to develop their skill and learn the ropes of successful streaming. As of the end of 2023, the UGC incentive program has already attracted over 300,000 amateur streamers. In January, we hold our annual year-end flagship event, the Beagle Award Gala in Las Vegas. The online live streaming of the event attracted over 1.2 million viewers from across the globe. This year, we also hosted supplementary region galas in various locations, including Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Both the flagship and regional gala saw Big O Line recognize the most outstanding streamers and families of 2023, and talented creators were invited to give captivation, diverse performance, The Beagle Awards Gala established training of the beagle life has helped a number of exceptional creatures enhance their influence and gain exposure on the global stage. Our galas remained essential component of our committee to support our creators in their growth journeys and help them maximize their value creation. On the fourth quarter, our family-based activities encourage the user to further explore and engaging in family events. Families provide robust social contributors and with users, and we amplified this to drive user acquisition, nurturing long-tail streamers, and convert free users to paying users. On a experiential basis, revenue contributed by family members increased by 5.7 percent. The number of contracted streamers in families rose by 16.5%, and average de-use in families increased by 5.5%. Throughout the first quarter, we personalized the user experience by refining recommendation algorithms for our diverse user base. Recommendations will continuously fine-tune based on user behavior, ensuring each user receives the most relevant feeds. As a result, user engagement, user retention, and average viewers' time spent per live session all improved. The next-day user retention rate in the first quarter rose by 2.3% sequentially, while average waiver time spent per session surged by 6.4%. EgoLife's real match feature continues to foster high-quality social connection among users. By refining and optimizing the overall matching progress, including user profiles and matching strategies, we successfully leveraged the real match to cultivate a great number of stable user connections. In the first quarter, the total number of connections increased by 23.3%. sequentially, and the number of direct chat message between matched the user growth by 14.8%. Next, let's take a look at Liky. Liky maintains its strategy focus on its core Middle East and Europe markets. In recent quarters, Liky implemented a series of targeted operational and product optimization to drive user recovery and simulate monetization growth in its core regions. Although, like its overall MAUs turned down sequentially during the first quarter, its DAO in the core developed countries, especially Europe, have maintained high single digital growth for the past four quarters. In terms of monetization, Likert's revenue for the full year was up year over year in 2023. The recovery of DAUs in its core region and involving creators' services ecosystem and more established business and creators' marketplace all contributed to Likert's advertising revenue growing by nearly 2.4 times for the full year of 2023, despite a decline in its live streaming ARP, ARP, ARP, ARP, which was a negative effect by microeconomic uncertainties. The number of like this pain user has grown for force consecutive quarters. Thanks to its progress on monetization and disciplined spending, Nike maintained its profitability during the first quarter. This means that Nike achieved the first four-year profitability in 2024, another significant milestone. Product front, Leckie continues to focus on delivering comprehensive creator services, incentivizing diverse content creation, and fostering community interactions. In the fourth quarter, Leckie introduced text and image posting features alongside. New monetization options enable user subscription for both video collections and individual videos. Those features offer creators greater flexibility in terms of content formats and open up new opportunities for monetization. Leckie also rolled out variety of interactive games in the fourth quarter to better alien with users involving entertainment preferences during the fourth quarter like it continued to enhance its content production quality quality leading to 2.7 percent sequential growth on in average user time spent. Thanks to upgrade interactive features, overall user engagement as measured by the ratio of DUs and MUs improved by 2.2% in the same period. Now turning to HAGO, the first quarter, HAGO innovative year-end events and new operational features strong middle single digital sequential revenue growth. Pago continued to generate positive operation cash flow in the quarter and therefore achieved its first four-year operation cash flow breakeven in 2023. Pago's user social interactions also improved during the first quarter. Average time spending per user in social channels increased by 4%. Sequentially surpassed 99 minutes. Average time spending per user in multi-guest voice room saw similar change increase by 4.9% Q over Q. Finally, let me provide some updates on cash flow and capital return. We continue to generate robust positive operational cash flow, reaching $97.2 million in the fourth quarter. Our commitment to create and retain value to our shareholders remains an important property. priority, and our check record is a testament to our long-term dedication. Over the course of 2023, we repurchased the share and distributed cash dividends in an aggregate amount of $355 million, equivalent to 121.5% of our annual non-GAAP net profit. From 2020 to 2023, we have in total distributed approximately 38 billion in capital returns. As of the end of the fourth quarter, we still have had approximately 530 million utilized quarter under our current share repurchase program. We intend to steadily execute additional share buybacks under the program in 2024. Looking ahead, we will continue to cultivate our content and social ecosystem to steadily grow our thriving user community and reinforce our leadership in core geography regions. At the same time, we will further dedicate our resources to build our core strengths and carefully explore long-term growth opportunities. By driving innovations in both our products and operations, we expect to further diversify our revenue streams and capture long-term sustainable growth. This concludes my presentation. prepared remarks. I will now turn the call to our Vice President of Finance, Ax Liu, for our financial updates.

Thanks, David. Hello, everyone. Before I go into our financial details, I would like to remind you that despite the latest development in the show of VAVA Live, to the date of this press release, they have not obtained control over VavaLife and therefore have not consolidated the business. The financial results presented in our press release and this conference call primarily consisted of Beagle, excluding VavaLife. Now, let me go through the details of our financial results Despite the ongoing macro uncertainties, they ended 2023 with another strong quarter. Our total net revenues were $569.8 million in the first quarter. Revenues from Beagle segment were $491.3 million, up by 3.1% year-over-year. driven by a strong annual increase of 7.9% in legal, quarterly paying users and a stabilizing up, which was down by 2.6%. Geographically speaking, as we prioritized our operational resources towards developed countries and regions, Revenues from developed countries was up by double digits year over year, outperforming other regions. Cost of revenues for the quarter decreased to $368.4 million, among which revenue sharing fees and accounting costs decreased to $242.2 million. Eagle's cost of revenues was $309 million, which was up year over year, consistent with a rebound in live streaming revenue and elevated creator support during the quarter. Gross profit was $201.5 million in the quarter, with a gross margin of 35.4%. Eagle's gross profit was 182.3 million, with a gross margin of 37.1%. Our group's operating expenses for the quarter were 199.4 million, compared with 231.2 million in the same period of 2022. Among the operating expenses, Sales and marketing expenses decreased to 92.3 million from 100.8 million in the same period of 2022, primarily due to the optimization of overall sales and marketing strategies across various product lines to be more focused on ROI and the effectiveness of user acquisition. R&D expenses was 72.6 million compared with 73.6 million in the same period of 2022. General and administrative expenses decreased to 34.6 million from 41.9 million in the same period of 2022, mainly due to the company's efforts to improve management efficiency during the year. Beagle's operating expenses for the quarter were $131.3 million compared with $127.8 million in the same period of 2022. Our group's GAAP operating income for the quarter was $4.8 million. Our non-GAAP operating income for the quarter, which excludes SBC expenses, amortization of intangible assets from business acquisitions, loss of consolidation and disposal of subsidiaries, as well as impairment of goodwill and investments, was $27.9 million in the quarter. With a non-GAAP operating income margin of 4.9%. Beagle's gap operating income for the quarter was $53 million, and Beagle's non-gap operating income was $67 million, representing a non-gap operating income margin of 13.6%. Our group's GAAP net income attributable to Controlled Interest of Joy in the quarter was $45.8 million compared to net loss of $377.5 million in the same period of 2022. GAAP net income margin was 8% in the fourth quarter of 2023. compared to net loss margin of 62.4% in the same period of 2022. Our net loss last year was primarily due to an impairment loss from an equity investment recognized in that quarter. Beagle's gap net income in the quarter was $52 million, with a gap net margin of 10.6%. Non-GAAP net income attributable to controlling interest of Joy in the quarter was $64.2 million compared to $50 million in the same period of 2022. The group's non-GAAP net income margin was 11.3% in the quarter compared to 8.3% in the same period of 2022. Eagle's non-GAAP net income was $63.5 million with a non-GAAP net margin of 12.9%. For the fourth quarter of 2023, they broke net cash inflows from operating activities of $97.2 million. They remain a healthy value state with a strong cash position of $3.7 billion as of December 31st of 2023. Now, I would like to briefly walk through the four-year financial highlights. Our total net revenues for the four-year were $2,267.9 million compared to $2,411.5 million in 2022. Bigger revenues for the full year were $1,924.3 million. We have enhanced profitability at the group level for the third consecutive year. Our non-GAAP net income, attributable to controlling interest and common shareholders of Joy for the full year of 2023, was $292.5 million. up by 46.8% from 199.3 million in 2022. Non-GAAP net income margin for the fall year of 2023 was 12.9%, up from 8.3% in 2022. Notably, Beagle's non-GAAP net income expanded to 302 million in 2023, with its non-GAAP net income margin improved to 15.7% from 14.4% in the prior year. Importantly, we have continued to enhance returns to shareholders through dividends and share repurchase. In the fall year of 2023, we have retained an aggregate amount of $355.4 million, to our shareholders through share buybacks and cash dividends, which altogether represents 121.5% of our non-GAAP net income. As of the end of 2023, we still have around $530 million utilized quarter under our current share repurchase program. we intend to proceed with a steady execution of additional share buyback in 2024. Turning now to our business outlook, we anticipate continued top-line recovery in the Beagle segment. However, due to the ongoing uncertainty in the global macro landscape, we recognize that the pace of recovery may vary across different markets, and there may be short-term fluctuations in users' payment sentiments. Separately, as we have implemented some proactive adjustments to certain operations in the previous quarters, we have had and will continue to have a negative impact on our revenues. At group level, we expect our net revenues for the first quarter of 2024 to be between $543 million and $560 million. This forecast reflects our preliminary views on the market and operational conditions and business adjustments, which are subject to changes. In conclusion, Balancing between growth and efficiency remains a priority in 2024. We remain committed to dedicating resources to building our core strengths and prudently explore long-term growth opportunities. With our proven execution capabilities and robust financial presence, we are confident that we are well-positioned to chase growth opportunities. and deliver sustainable value to our shareholders. That concludes our prepared remarks. We would now like to open up the call to questions. Thanks.

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press the star key followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star 2. When asking a question, please state your question in Chinese first, then repeat your question in English for the convenience of everyone on the call. Your first question comes from Yiwen Zhang from China Renaissance. Please go ahead.

So thanks for taking my question. Question regarding our 2024 use and monetization growth trend. Could you discuss why people like our work respectively? Thank you.

Okay, thank you for your question. First of all, let's take a look at the change in the trend in the fourth quarter. Due to the adjustment of year-end celebrations and other operating activities, our revenue performance is more than expected. The second quarter of the B-Goal version has returned to the same growth. Among them, the three core overseas social product revenue of B-Goal has reached the middle number. This is mainly due to the growth of the paid users of these three products, and the AR pool is gradually stabilizing. From the market point of view, because our operating strategy is more targeted towards high-end users and developed countries, the recovery of developed countries is still ongoing. Q4, Bigelow developed country, the revenue of the big area is equal to 2%. I think in 2024, we will still maintain this flexible and targeted operating strategy. According to ROI and the pace of global market recovery, priority investors to Hi, thank you, Yiwen. This is David. I will take your question. First of all, let's look back at the monetization trend in Q4. Thanks to elevated

operational activities such as our year-end gala, our revenue came in line with our expectation, with Beagle sustaining its top-line year-over-year growth for the second consecutive quarter. And in particular, Beagle's three core social global products achieved mid-single-digit year-over-year growth in terms of revenue. And this was mainly attributed to a strong growth in their number of paying users and a stabilizing our pool. And geographically speaking, considering that we have a more targeted operational strategy with prioritizing high-end users and the developed countries, we can see a continued recovery in the developed countries region. In Q4, the top line growth rate from developed countries actually reached double digits year over year for the Beagle segment. In 2024, we expect to maintain our nimble and targeted operational strategy dependent on ROI and also the recovery pace of the global markets. we will continue to prioritize our resources towards regions with stronger growth, and we expect the ego segment to continue its top-line recovery trend in 2024.

In addition, in terms of the growth structure, we have also mentioned that in the past two years, we have been steadily advancing the multidirectional transformation strategy. The proportion of non-直播收入集團的比例明显提高, In 2024, in order to meet the needs of business development, we made some strategic upgrades and adjustments to the non-live broadcast business. Through this digging and deepening transformation model, in 2024, we expect the overall proportion of non-live broadcast revenue to gradually increase, and the growth of the group business will be driven by the diversified engine. Then in terms of user growth, in the case of relatively limited market sales and spending, In terms of our growth drivers, as we mentioned earlier,

In the past two years, we've been exploring new monetization models beyond live streaming and achieved meaningful progress. Revenue contributed by our non-live streaming businesses has contributed a higher percentage of our group's revenue in the year 23. And for the coming year of 24, to better satisfy the development needs of our non-live streaming business. We've made some business upgrades and strategy upgrades to these non-live streaming businesses and we expect our non-live streaming business to further grow and to take up a higher percentage of the group's revenue in the year 24. eventually would like to fortify a multi-level growth engine for our long-term development. And in terms of user growth, our group's MAU has resumed positive year-over-year growth for three consecutive quarters. Going forward, even as we continue to adhere to a disciplined marketing spend strategy, and going forward into the year 24, We expect to continue to adopt a balanced and sustainable growth strategy at all products, focusing on the quality of user growth and continue to enhance our overall user acquisition efficiency. Next question, please.

Thank you. The next question comes from Alex Poon from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Thanks management for taking my question. My question is related to our margin trend for Beagle and overall group levels in 2024. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your question, Alex. Let me answer it. In 2023, our overall profit performance is actually better than expected, especially in the Beagle segment. We can see that the net profit of Nungap increased from 37.6% in 2022 to 38.3% in 2023. The net profit of Nungap also increased from 14.4% to 15%. In terms of cost and fee structure, the cost of the payment channels, the cost of the devices, and the cost of the market sales have also been further optimized. These have driven an increase in the profit and loss ratio. In 2024, we will continue to optimize the cost structure, further enhance the operation and management efficiency. At the same time, we will put some resources into the business direction of promoting revenue growth and compliance with the strategic planning of the period. including cooperation and rewards with QoR, etc. So for the Beagle version, except for the impact of the active adjustment of some non-core live business in the second half of 2023, in 2024, we expect the core business of Beagle to be stable. The net profit margin of the whole year, that is, the scale of the net profit, will remain stable in a large direction. For the All-Other version, In addition to the impact of the active adjustment of some non-core live broadcast businesses since Q2 of 2020, we expect the OR version to continue to stabilize and reduce business losses. In general, in the new year, we will continue to strive for the balance of growth and efficiency at the group level. We will continue to promote the improvement of operating efficiency in the direction of profit and positive cash flow. This is Alex.

I will take your question. If you look at our results for the full year, we actually deliver better than expected profits. In particular, if you're looking at Beagle segment, the non-debt gross margin of Beagle segment has been with 38.3% up from 37.6% in 22. And the non-GAAP operating margin has been improved to 15% up from 14.4% in prior year. And that was mainly due to our continued optimization of our payment channel expenses, server, depreciation expenses, and also our sales and marketing expenses. And looking forward to the year 24, we will continue to optimize our cost structure and improve our operational and management efficiency. At the same time, we expect to prudently reinvest some of our operating profits into operational activities that can drive further revenue growth and also businesses that align with our long-term strategy. For example, we intend to prudently expand our collaboration with KOL and their incentives. Therefore, specifically for the Beagle segment, while excluding the impact from the proactive adjustment to some non-core live streaming business that we made since the second half of the year 23, we expect to continue its top line recovery and with its non-GAAP operating profit, the amount of non-GAAP operating profit to be roughly stable compared to the year of 23. And for the all other segments, also excluding the impact from the proactive adjustments that we made, to certain non-core live streaming businesses since the second quarter of 2023. We expect to continue to narrow the amount of non-GAAP operating loss of this segment for the year of 2024 as well. So all in all, at group level, we will continue to strike a balance between profit and growth, and we will value profit and cash flow self-sufficiency and drive further improvement of our operational efficiencies. All in all, at group level, we expect to maintain profitable, maintain a positive operating cash flow and drive a long-term sustainable growth of the group's business. Thank you. Next question, please.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Brian Gong from Citi. Please go ahead.

Thank you.

I think it's been nine years since we established a global strategy. We have gradually formed a global and more balanced pattern in the distribution of our business. In 2023, the company's live income is 38% in developed countries and 22% in the Middle East. China is 14% and the remaining 25% is from Southeast Asia and other countries and regions. The distribution is very diversified and very balanced. In this large region of developed countries, we can further divide into North America, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia and other sub-regions. The contributions of these sub-regions are also quite scattered. For example, in the case of North America,

Thank you, Brian. This is David. I will take a question. So since we established our globalization strategy, it's been nine years, and you can see that we have actually built a very global business with a diversified and balanced revenue mix across different regions. Looking at our group's live streaming revenue for the year 23, developed countries and regions actually contributed around 38 percent, Middle East around 22 percent, mainland China around 14 percent, and the remaining 25 percent came from Southeast Asia and other areas, which you can see is very, very diversified and balanced. And even within the developed countries region, We can further break it down into second-tier sub-regions such as North America, Europe, Eastern Pacific, and others. And the contribution among these second-tier sub-regions are also very dispersed. Taking North America as an example, it only accounts for low teens in terms of percentage contribution to the group's overall revenue.

For a globalized business, due to the full range of differences in various markets, such as politics, economy, culture, and development stages, we often face very complex operations, and the uncertainty of the public relations challenge and geopolitical politics is much greater than the single market operation. However, for companies that are deep in global operations, after establishing a certain business scale and mature business model in the strength of global local operations, the strategic layout of global balance will greatly reduce the risk of any single market operation. There is also a greater potential for growth, so we will continue to follow the global strategy of continuous balance development to maintain flexible and targeted operations. Therefore, you can see that due to the comprehensive differences across the markets, either in terms of politics, economics, cultural and industry development differences,

A multinational company will definitely encounter more operational complexity and greater macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties in terms of business operation than those who operate in a single market. However, as we have established our own global operational capacity, and accumulated a business of scale and also have a relatively proven business model, a globalization strategy with a balance mix can actually significantly lower the concentration risk of operating in a single market. And it also enables us to tap into a much greater growth opportunities at the global level. Therefore, moving forward, we will continue to pursue a balanced globalization strategy and remain nimble and targeted in our operational strategy. We will continue to prioritize our resources investment into regions with a stronger growth potential dependent on ROI and also market recovery. Thank you. Next question, final question, please.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Henry Sun from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Thank you for taking my question. My question is about shareholder return. Could you share any new thoughts and outlooks in this area? Thanks a lot.

Thank you for your question.

Let me answer it. Actually, as we just mentioned, in 2023, our group's overall shareholder return rate is very positive. The total amount of shareholder return invested throughout the year has reached $3.55 billion. is more than the profit of our non-GAAP in the whole year of 2023, and then accounted for 121.5%. In 2024, shareholding return is still the focus of our entire group management. By the end of 2023, we still have a return of $5.3 billion. Since 2024, until March 15, we have already repurchased about $25 million. This is Alex. I will answer your question. In the year 23, we remained very active in returning value to our shareholders for the full year. We have dedicated around US$355 million in shareholder returns.

which is equivalent to around 121.5% of the group's annual non-GAAP net profit. And for the year 24, we would say that creating and returning value to our shareholders remains an important priority for the management. As of the end of 23, we still have around 530 million unutilized quotas under our share repurchase program. And actually, from January to March 15, we have already repurchased an additional 25 million of our shares. And for the year 24, we expect to continue to execute additional share buybacks and strive to improve our execution consistency in the new year. So that was the end of this conference call. Thank you so much for joining today, and we expect to be speaking with everyone next quarter. Thank you.

Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.