Leju Holdings Limited

Hello, and thank you for standing by for Leju's first half 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Please note that today's conference call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's conference, Ms. Michelle Yuan, Leju's Deputy CFO. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to LeJu's first half 2021 earnings conference call. Today, we'll update you regarding our financial results for the first half year-end June 30, 2021. If you would like a copy of the earnings press release or would like to sign up for our email distribution list, please go to our IR website at ir.leju.com. Leading the call today is Mr. Jeffrey He, our CEO. We will review operational highlights for the first half of 2021. I will then discuss the financial results in more detail. We will then open the call to questions. Before we continue, please allow me to read you Le Ju Safe Harbor Statement. Some of the statements during this conference call are forward-looking statements made under Safe Harbor provisions of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. Potential risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to those outlined in our public findings with the SEC. You are encouraged to review the forward-looking statement section of our annual report filed with the SEC for additional information concerning factors that could cause those differences. The AG does not undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. Our earnings press release and this call include discussions of unaudited gap financial information, as well as some unaudited non-gap financial measures. Our press release contains a reconciliation of the unaudited non-gap measures to the unaudited most directly comparable gap measures. Please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during this conference call are in U.S. dollars. I will now turn the call over to Leju CEO Jeffrey He. He Zong, please go ahead.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us on today's call. In the first half of 2021, amid tightening regulations in China's real estate industry, the pressure on real estate developers' operations and sales continued to increase. Against this challenging backdrop, our overall business was able to maintain steady growth. However, due to the deterioration of credit status of one of our real estate developer clients, our bad debt provision for the first half of this year increased by $48.9 million compared to the same period of 2020, resulting in a loss for the first half of this year. With the support of the strategic cooperation between our controlling shareholder e-house China Enterprise Holding Limited and the Alibaba Group Holding Limited, we held a series of online promotional events including the second online real estate fair and the June 18 Topic House Festival on the luxury housing platform and the luxury flagship store on Timor-Halfang. Subsequently, we jointly supported We joined hands with T-Mart Haufang to create a new smart transaction ecosystem for the real estate sector and launched four project series, including our smart coupon, smart verification, smart project opening, and smart subscription services to help real estate enterprises conduct efficient project field service, project opening services, and transactional services. The success of this event and the launch of our luxury flagship store on Timor-Haufang have greatly improved the operational capabilities of luxury advertising business and e-commerce business. At the same time, our top-down approach has pioneered a new model based on developed clients' official flagship stores on Timor-Haufang, helping them kick off their digitalization from zero to one. In the second half of this year, we will firmly seize the opportunities created by the digitalization of the real estate marketing and the deep incorporation with developers as we strive to expand our entire business and develop new e-commerce business models. At the same time, we will continue to focus on platform construction and the content creation and make efforts to improve user growth, optimize user experience, and the stiffness and further consolidate religious influence among industry media. We will also continue to strengthen our team, further optimize our organizational structure, and improve operational efficiency in order to lay a solid foundation for our future development. Now I'll turn the call over to our Deputy CFO, Mr. Michelle Yuan, who will reveal our financial highlights for the first half of 2021.