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spk01: Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by for 51 Talk Online Educational Group's fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Mr. David, Investor Relations for the company. Please go ahead, David.
spk03: Thank you, Anita. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the fourth quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call 5.1 Talk. The company's results were issued by Newswire Services earlier today and are posted online. You can download the earnings press release and sign up for the company's distribution list by visiting the IR section of our website at 5.1talk.com. Mr. Jack Huang, our CEO, and Ms. Cindy Tang, our CFO, we'll begin with some prepared remarks. Following the prepared remarks, there will be a Q&A session. Before we continue, please note that the discussion will contain forward-looking statements made under the State Harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, the company's results may be materially different from the views expressed today. Further information regarding this and other risks and uncertainties is included in the company's Form 20F and other public filings as filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under the applicable law. Please also note that earnings press release and this conference call include discussion of unaudited GAAP financial information as well as unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. 5.1 Talk's press release contains a reconciliation of the unaudited non-GAAP measures to the audited, most directly comparable GAAP measures. I'll now turn the call over to our CEO, Jack Wang. Jack, please go ahead.
spk02: Jack Wang Okay, thank you, Kevin. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining our conference call today. On September the 30th, our board approved our legal name change to 511 Online Education Group. This signifies our new journey and the current focus on the Asian markets and beyond from our headquarters in Singapore. In fact, since starting the international business in the second half of 2021, we derived revenues from over 50 markets as of now. As we continue to invest in localization in markets where we see a good population of middle-class families who value education, we expect further penetration into specific markets as well as the identification of new markets to drive growth in the short and medium term. Based on the feedback from our customers, we believe we have a price competitive product with a best-in-class value proposition. We believe our students learn more than less and are more motivated and enjoy classes more than students of competitive products. Specifically, our one-on-one live curriculum class is taught by well-trained Filipino tutors is a unique proposition in the market. Unlike many of our local competitors, we are working on a much larger and proven technology infrastructure, which gives us significant capacity to grow. In terms of technology, we believe AI-powered tutors will transform online education. The combination of tutor and AI will significantly improve user experience and greatly promote personalized education, specifically adaptive learning or the creation of personalized teaching content and the provision of customized teaching tools for teachers and customized lesson feedback based on students' learning situations, among others. We have already begun integrating CHESS GPT into our products and operations and continue to strategically build around our vision of personalized education. Finally, we have continued the trend of positive operating cash flow since May through the third and the fourth quarter. This reflects the strong execution of our sustainable growth strategy. With that, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Cindy.
spk00: Thank you, Jack. The momentum of our business continued into Q4 as net revenues were $5.1 million, representing 10% sequential growth. Growth margin for the fourth quarter was 79.0%. Growth filling was $7.5 million U.S. dollars. And we will continue on our pathway of sustainable growth and focus on delivering strong value propositions to our students in the development of the international markets. Q4 operating expenses were 6.2 million U.S. dollars, sluggish compared to the last quarter. Specifically, this has been driven by Q4 sales and marketing expenses of 4.0 million U.S. dollars. a 7% sequential increase from Q3 due to increased branding and localization investments, such as increased local marketing and operations personnel and localized marketing efforts. Q4 product development expenses was $0.4 million, a 31% sequential decrease due to a reduction in research and development projects. Finally, Q4 general and administrative expenses were $1.7 million, a 5% sequential decrease compared to Q3. Overall, Q4 operating loss was $2.2 million, while net loss was $2.0 million, a 29% sequential decrease from Q3. And in March, the second consecutive quarter, in which the company has managed to decrease the net loss. Q4 GAAP and non-GAAP earnings per ADS were both negative 0.36 U.S. dollars and 0.34 U.S. dollars, respectively. The company's total cash equivalents and time deposits were 23.1 million U.S. dollars at the end of the fourth quarter. Advances from students. were $15.2 million at the end of the fourth quarter. For more of our 2022 full-year financial results, please refer to our earnings press release for further details. Looking forward to the first quarter of 2023, we currently expect the net gross billings to be between $8.0 million and $8.2 million. The above outlook is based on our current market conditions and reflects the company's current and preliminary estimates of the market and operating conditions and customer demands, which are all subject to change. This concludes our prepared remarks. We will now open the line for questions. Operator, please go ahead.
spk01: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your touch-tone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. For the benefit of all participants on today's call, please limit yourself to two questions. If you have additional questions, you may re-answer the queue. Please ask your question in Chinese first, then follow up with an English translation. Translation. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Again, if you have a question, please press star, then 1. Since there appears to be no questions, I would like to turn the call back over to David for any closing remarks.
spk03: Thank you. So thank you once again for joining us today. If anyone has further questions, please contact Fibonacci Investor Relations through the contact information provided on our website. Thank you.
spk01: This concludes this conference call. You may now disconnect your line.
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