Yalla Group Limited

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by for YALA Group Limited's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Today's conference call is being recorded. Now I will turn the call over to your speaker host today, Ms. Carrie Gow, IR Manager of the company. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Hello everyone and welcome to YALA's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings conference call. We released our earnings press release earlier today and the release is now available on our IR website as well as on NewsBio services. Before we continue, please note that the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provision of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties As such, our future results may be materially different from the views expressed today. Further information regarding these and other risks and uncertainties is included in our earnings release and our annual report filed with the SEC. YALA does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. Please also note that the YALA's earnings press release and this conference call include a discussion of unaudited gap financial information as well as unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. Yala's press release contains a reconciliation of the unaudited non-GAAP measures to the unaudited most directly comparable GAAP measures. Today, you will hear from Mr. Tao Yang, our chairman and chief executive officer, who will provide an overview of our latest achievements and growth strategies. He will be followed by Mr. Saifi Ismayil, the company's president, who will briefly review our recent business developments. Mrs. Karen Hu, our chief financial officer, will then provide additional details on the company's financial results and discuss our financial outlook. Following management's prepared remarks, we will open the call to questions. Mr. Jeff Xu, our chief operating officer, will join the QA section. With that said, I'd now like to turn the call over to our chairman and chief executive officer, Mr. Tao Yang. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Thank you everyone for joining our fourth quarter and full year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. 2023 was a year filled with changes and opportunities. As a global enterprise, Yella faced a complex and dynamic international environment with many moving parts. Nevertheless, we forged ahead with our core business strategies and capped the year with robust results. I will begin with a brief overview of our pivotal achievements. and financial performance in 2023. We continued to grow our two flagship applications, Yela and Yela Ludo. We also deepened our engagement in the nickel and hardcore game business, building relationships with global players who are drawn to the surge of development in the MENA region. Meanwhile, we continued to improve our operating efficiency by optimizing cost and expenses through more rigorous vendor selection and management, user acquisition strategy requirements, and greater talent utilization. We sustained our robot's financial momentum as a result of this effort, ending the year with strong growth across our revenues from gaming services as well as net income. Our fourth quarter revenue were $80.9 million exceeding the upper end of our guidance, where our revenues from gaming services in the fourth quarter reached 28.5 million USD, representing year-over-year growth of 35.2%. Before year 2023, our revenues were 318.9 million USD, while our net income reached 113.1 million USD. representing a significant year-over-year growth of 43%. Our strong financial performance reflects the excellent execution of our effective quality growth strategy. Supported by our solid business fundamentals and healthy cash position, we will continue to expand our services and stretch the boundaries of our business, launching innovative social networking and entertainment products to fulfill MENA users' evolving needs online. I'm also proud to share that, thanks to our robust and consistent financial performance, Yala Group was recognized by Fortune magazine as one of the 2023 top 500 Arab companies, according to the Fortune 500 Arabian list. The Fortune 500 is a distinguished list, showcasing the 500 largest companies in the Pacific region based on revenues. This year marked the inception of the Fortune 500 Arabia. Highlighting companies in the MENA region, we'd like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to Fortune 500 Arabia for recognizing JALA Group's contributions and achievements with inclusion in this esteemed list. Next, let's turn to Yellow Games development and future strategy. Yellow Games made several crucial moves this year, including the launch of our first two hardcore games. In the process of developing and operating these games, we gained vast experiences across key aspects of MENA gaming market, including product selection, product design, and user acquisition, among others. Our comprehensive understanding of this market has proven invaluable as we continue to organize and train our professional team for this specific region. In turn, our growing expertise and capabilities strengthen our determination to expand our footprint in the midpoint hardcore game business in MENA. Moving forward, We will continue investing in mythical and hardcore games and enriching our game path. Mythical games will be a particular focus as we believe they will optimally leverage our enormous pool of experience, talent, and resources related to casual games in the region. Additionally, we are actively communicating with global top-tier gaming cities to explore potential joint monetization opportunities in the region. We will keep you posted on our progress. Notably, we also plan to enhance our social networking products this year. Iteration, including innovative new functions and a host of creative design upgrades will allow us to explore monetization while better serving media users' diverse and evolving needs. We captured and capitalized the area for growing opportunities in 2023 as MENA's role on the global stage and its digital transformation grow and evolve. We are pleased to see more and more visionary industry professionals and investors from around the world allocating more resources to MENA and participating in its searching development preparing programs across the region. As the number one media-based online social networking and gaming company, we are deeply committed to this market and thoroughly understand its unique advantages and specific user needs. We will continue to leverage our profound local insights to broaden our business horizons. as we build the most popular destination for online social networking and entertainment in MENA. Now I will turn this call over to our president, Mr. Saifi Ismail, for a closer look at our recent developments.