Hello Group Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
September 3, 2024

There are 6 speakers on the call.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Second Quarter 2024 Hello Group Incorporated Earnings Conference Call. All participants are in a listen only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. Please note this conference is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Ms.

Operator

Ashley Jing. Thank you. Please go ahead, Nan.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Good morning and good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Hello Group's Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call. The company's results were released earlier today and available on the company's IR website. On the call today, we have Mr.

Speaker 1

Tang Yan, CEO of the company Ms. Jiangsu Quan, CEO of the company and Ms. Tong Hui, CFO of the company. They will discuss the company's business operations and highlights as well as the financials and guidance. They will all be available to answer your questions during the Q and A session that follows.

Speaker 1

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this call may contain forward looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are based on management's current expectations and current market and operating conditions and relate to events that involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the company's control, which may cause the company's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward looking statements. Further information regarding this and other risks, uncertainties and factors is included in the company's filings with the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Speaker 1

The company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under law. I will now pass the call over to our COO, Ms. Jiang Sichuan. Ms. Jiang, please?

Speaker 2

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining our call. I will now walk you through the progress we make in the Q2 against our strategic priorities across all businesses. I will start with a brief overview of our financial performance. For the Q2 of 2024, total group revenue was RMB2.69 billion, down 14% year over year, but up 5% sequentially.

Speaker 2

Adjusted operating income was RMB477 million, down 33% year over year and 7% sequentially. Profit margin was 17.7%, down 4.9 percentage points year over year and 2.4 percentage points sequentially. In terms of business segments, total revenue from the normal app and standalone app was RMB2.46 billion, down 30% year over year, but up 6% sequentially. The year over year decline was mainly due to the decline in revenue from the normal app, resulting from spending softness amidst the weak macroeconomy and our proactive product and operational adjustments to maintain a healthy community ecosystem since the end of last year. The sequential decrease increase was due to seasonality.

Speaker 2

In quarter 2, standalone new apps maintained their growth momentum on both year on year and sequential basis. Driven by our overseas business, adjusted operating income from the Momo app and standalone new app was RMB456 1,000,000, down 33% year over year and 6% sequentially, mainly due to the revenue decline. Adjusted operating margin was 18.5%, down 5.5 percentage points year over year and 2.4 percentage points sequentially. For Tantan, total revenue for the quarter was RMB234 1,000,000, down 27% year over year and 3% sequentially, mainly due to the decreased number of paying users. Adjusted operating income was RMB20.6 million, compared with RMB 31,900,000 a year ago and RMB 28,800,000 a quarter ago, representing a margin of 8.8%, down 1.1 percentage point year over year and 3.1 percentage points sequentially.

Speaker 2

Now I will walk you through the progress we have made against our strategic priorities for Momo, Tantan and new endeavors since the beginning of the year. Our main goal for the Momo app this year is to maintain the productivity of the CashCall business with a healthy social ecosystem. Tantan's goal is to continue improving the core dating experience and view an efficient business model that drives profitable growth. As for our new endeavors, our goal is to further enrich the brand portfolio, push the business boundaries beyond normal and Tantan and build a long term growth engine. I will now walk you through the details of our execution.

Speaker 2

First, on the product and operational front of the mobile app. In the Q2, our product team focused on optimizing the community ecosystem, improving the female user experience and increasing the volumes of effective social interactions. To improve the experience of female users receiving content, Our product team applied AI technology to help male users to generate greeting faces, which increased the success rate of ice breaking chats and led to the growth of 2 way chats. In terms of algorithm strategy, we increased the matching rate of active female users to improve the experience for users with unmatched social needs. Our optimization of product and recommendation strategy plays a positive role in increasing both the number of matches and the number of 2HS.

Speaker 2

In addition, for the finding partners or jiaodazu, a pilot program for our online to offline interest group, which has been running for a year, In the Q2, we focused on expanding the coverage of our young user base to improve Momo's social brand perception. Our efforts to further improve and make breakthroughs in products and algorithms based on brand tone, voice and user preferences are important foundation for normal cash cow business to maintain sustainable productivity. On the channel front, our user acquisition team continue to implement ROI OEMs and strategies and work with our commercial product team to recommend interactive features to users from channels that match their spending capabilities to improve paying conversion. In order to increase the proportion of female users, we adjusted our advertising materials and channel strategies to focus on female users and work with our product team to specifically recommend interactive email friendly features to improve their onboarding experience on our platform. After several years of optimizing channel strategy, the room to further reduce unit expense is relatively limited.

Speaker 2

Accordingly, we have been working with KOLs to leverage new channels to bring in incremental traffic, thereby increasing brand exposure with a limited budget and controlling user acquisition cost within a reasonable range. In the second quarter, the Momo app had 7,200,000 paying users, an increase of 100,000 driven by the return of long term BaaS users after the quarter 1 low seasonality. Now let's talk about the productivity of our Momo cash cow business. In the Q2, Momo's live streaming revenue was RMB1.22 billion, down 50% year over year, but up 6% sequentially. The year over year decline was mainly due to our strategy to proactively reduce revenue oriented large scale competition events in order to maintain a healthy social ecosystem and spending softness amidst the macro economy.

Speaker 2

On the sequential basis, revenue increased after the seasonal low, but the growth rate was lower than the previous years. This was mainly due to the adjustment to our event operating policy, which resulted in lower profits for agencies and broadcasters, which in turn caused them to be less motivated. To address this issue, we have moderately increased the incentive for non event operations, and the revenue sharing ratio has increased slightly quarter over quarter. Our product team also introduced specific interactive features for users at different levels, increasing daily revenue and reducing reliance on event revenue. Moreover, we have introduced products such as privilege functions and host costumes in live streaming showrooms, which do not require revenue sharing.

Speaker 2

This not only enriches the variety of features and keeps user engaged, but it also plays a positive role in improving the profit level of live streaming. In Q2, revenue from live added services, excluding Tantan, totaled RMB1.21 billion, down 9% year over year, but up 5% sequentially. WaaS revenue from the Momo app was RMB850 1,000,000, down 20% year over year, but up 5% sequentially. Revenue from the standalone apps was RMB 355 1,000,000, up 36% year over year and 4% sequentially. The year over year declines in VAS revenue from the Momo app was mainly due to our proactive product and operational adjustments to mitigate the regulatory risk, which puts pressure on a number of normal VAS paying user and ARPU.

Speaker 2

Additionally, macro factors also weighted on consumer sentiment. The sequential growth was mainly due to seasonality. On the product operational front, we launched new gifting features in the audio and video based commercial channels to help broadcasters effectively interactive with medium and long term users. We also tested interactive light games such as Xiaozhia Le and new categories such as love fortune telling in our chat room features, which have the largest user base. Our data shows that the paying conversion of the new features was higher than the one existing features.

Speaker 2

Turning to Tantan. Let me first talk about its user trends and financial performance. Although our cost reduction and efficiency improvement strategy implemented over the past 2 years has effectively driven Tantan to profitability, The continued reduction in channel investments has put significant pressure on Tantan's user base. Meanwhile, the lack of investments in branding over the years has led to a continuous decline in organic users. At the same time, we haven't been able to find an effective product level solution that can significantly improve user retention.

Speaker 2

The combination of the growth mentioned factors has resulted in Tantan's MAU decreasing by 6% sequentially to 12,900,000 in June. As of end of the Q2, Tantan had 1,000,000 paying users, down to 100,000 sequentially. The main reason were the decline in MAU. The short term negative impact on new user on new paying user conversions from the UI upgrade and the regulatory related redesign of the new renewal page. Turning to Changan Financials.

Speaker 2

Total revenue for the quarter was RMB 234 million, down 27% year over year and 3% sequentially, mainly due to the reduction in the number of paying users. Overall, ARPU was flat year over year, among which the ARPU of the live streaming business decreased significantly as a result of our strategy to emphasize live streaming, which has a lower correlation with the dating experience. While the wild A PPU saw a significant year on year increase, thanks to our efforts to promote relatively high priced products such as WACO, SVIP membership and additional pay as you go privilege for members. Enabling the sustainability of the overall ARPU. In terms of business lines, RAS revenue was RMB140 1,000,000, down 80% year over year and 4% sequentially, while last year revenue was RMB83 1,000,000, down 43% year over year and 5% sequentially.

Speaker 2

Now I would like to walk you through the efforts we make on Tantan product and user acquisition front and the challenges we face. 1st, on the marketing and user acquisition front. To address the issues of weak awareness among E. ON users and a significant decline in organic users due to the NerdKris brand promotion, We conducted branding events during the quarter in cooperation with offline venues such as bars and clubs in metropolitan cities with a high density of young people. We also leverage new media channels for online promotion to increase awareness of Tantan among young people and overall brand popularity.

Speaker 2

We believe that compared with user acquisition through channels, driving user growth by improving brand awareness is a relatively long term initiative that can take time to bear reasonably. So over time, it plays a positive role in the continuous and stable growth of our organic users, especially as Tantan has gradually refocused on the court's dating experience by de emphasizing the community oriented and entertainment oriented experience in recent quarters. This is important for us to strengthening young people's awareness of Tantan's value for the dating through long term brand investments and product improvements. Therefore, continuous increasing the opportunities for brand exposure with a controllable range of marketing investments will be a long term direction for our branding strategy in the future. On the user acquisition front, factors such as the e commerce festival in June led to fierce channel competition, resulting in a sequential increase in unit acquisition cost, which combined with the pressure on the new user ARPU from the UI upgrade led to a sequential decrease in channel ROI.

Speaker 2

Through adjusted, our user acquisition and membership product teams work together to recommend relatively high end membership product to high value users from channels, which help increase the user output. Now let me give you an update on the progress Tantan has made on product and operational sites. In the Q2, we worked on an upgraded version to improve the dating experience for users. Preliminary user interviews and surveys review 2 major pain points in user experience. 1st, uncertainty about authenticity of picture profiles and users' identity and second, lack of response to chat after matches.

Speaker 2

Since the issue of spamming has been effectively controlled since the beginning of the year, User feedback on inauthentic experience stem primarily from issues such as incomplete profile information, lack of view person authentication and photos that look too good to be true. The first phase of our redesign in Q2 focused on guiding users to complete their profile information and encouraging them to spend more time learning about potential matching before swiping. Early data shows that user with a richer profile content has significantly higher post match conversation rates than those just picture profile picture and basic information. However, this improvement in matching experience and different tech interaction conflicted with our existing business model, which rely largely on users' quick swiping decisions based solely on looking at postcard picture. The negative impact of this redesign on new user paying conversion was one of the reasons for the sequential decline in Tantan's number of paying users.

Speaker 2

Nevertheless, we believe that making short term commercial sacrifices to improve long term user experience is a critical foundation for Tantan to ultimately achieve the strategic goals of profitable growth. We should monetize product features that improve user experience and add value to them rather than do so at the expense of user experience, which can only get us into a downward cycle. During the ongoing product upgrade and optimization, our commercial product team will continue to optimize paying experience to increase new user ARPU, which should potentially offset the negative impact on revenue caused by the product upgrades. Lastly, in terms of our new endeavors, in the Q2, total revenue of the new apps reached RMB365 1,000,000, up 36 percent year over year and 4% sequentially, mainly driven by our overseas business. With a stable channel ROI, we modestly increased channel investments, driving steady growth in MAU and paying users.

Speaker 2

On the product and operational front, our team has been accelerating the localization process of overseas business since the beginning of the year. After strengthening the localization research on virtual gifts and props, our commercial product team introduced hot sales gifts that better match local user preferences. Meanwhile, our local operation teams refining our services for high paying users and standardized supply side collaboration and KPIs. This combined effort led to a significant increase in number of top tier paying users, which in turn drove the ARPPU growth. The simultaneous increase in paying users and APP people has laid a solid foundation for sustainable and stable growth in our overseas business.

Speaker 2

Regarding our expansion in the MENA region, we are focusing on 2 key tasks: regional expansion and expanding our offering from voice base to live streaming. These initiatives are taking longer than we participated at the beginning of the year as we realize that both efforts require a highly localized service team at the previous crisis. We do not have done enough in the past couple of years in terms of localization, and we are now accelerating our efforts to make up the shortcomings. Overall, we remained confident in our growth potential in the MENA region. Compared to 6 months ago, we now have a clear understanding of what we must do to continue to grow and we will continue to invest in this region.

Speaker 2

This concludes my remarks. Now let me pass the call over to Kathy for the financial review. Kathy, please.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Sigg. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining our conference call today. Now let me briefly take you through the financial review. Total revenue for the Q2 2024 was RMB2.69 billion, down 14% year on year, but up 5% quarter over quarter.

Speaker 3

Non GAAP net income attributable to the company was RMB449.2 million compared to RMB632.1 million for the same period of 2023 and RMB59.9 million from the last quarter. In Q1, we had a one off non cash tax provision. Excluding this non cash tax item, non GAAP net income would have been RMB508.5 million for last quarter. Looking into the key revenue items for the quarter. Firstly, on live broadcasting, total revenue from live broadcasting business for the Q2 of 2024 was RMB1.30 billion, down 18% year over year, but up 5% quarter over quarter.

Speaker 3

The year over year decrease was largely attributable to a decline in the core Momo live streaming business and to a lesser degree, the decrease in Tantan. The sequential growth was driven by the core Momo live streaming service. In terms of segments, Momo app live broadcasting revenue totaled RMB1.22 billion for the quarter, down 15% year over year, but up 6% quarter over quarter. The year over year decrease was due to our proactive product and operational adjustments to deemphasize revenue oriented competition events and weak consumer sentiment. The sequential growth was due to a rebound after negative seasonality.

Speaker 3

Tantan's live broadcasting revenue amounted to RMB83.0 million, down 43% year over year and 5% quarter over quarter. The decrease was due to our strategic decision to pivot away from Celeste dating centric service. Revenue from the value added services for the Q2 of 2024 was RMB1.35 billion, down 10% from Q2 last year, but up 4% sequentially. The Y o Y decrease was due to a decline in both Momo and Tantan. However, the growth of standalone new apps partially offset the downward revenue pressure.

Speaker 3

Value added service revenue grew sequentially, driven by the recovery from Momo VAS and continued growth of new applications. Revenue from VAS on an ex Tantan basis was RMB1.21 billion in the Q2 of 2024, down 9% from Q2 last year, but up 5% from the previous quarter. Momo app value added service revenue decreased from Q2 last year due to our proactive product adjustments to manage regulatory risks as well as the weak standing sentiment and the sequential revenue growth was driven by seasonal recovery. Revenue from the standalone new apps continue to grow both on a year on year and quarter over quarter basis, driven by the steady improvement of the overseas business. Tantan's value added service revenue amounted to RMB 100 and 39,900,000 down 18% year over year and 4% sequentially.

Speaker 3

The decrease was due to a decline in paying users, which was in turn due to a reduction in channel investment, the UI upgrade and the adjustments to subscription renewal policy. Now turning to costs and expenses. Non GAAP cost of revenue for the Q2 of 2024 was RMB1.59 billion compared to RMB1.82 billion for the same period last year. Non GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 40.8%, down 1.3 percentage points from the year ago period. The year over year decrease was partially due to a number of different factors.

Speaker 3

Number 1, higher payout ratio in our overseas endeavors as we expand into new regions and try to launch new video service, as well as the change in revenue mix toward higher payout businesses. Number 2, deleverage where direct personnel and infrastructure costs take up a higher percentage of revenues. Number 3, payment channel costs represent a higher percentage of revenues as revenue mix shift toward overseas business. The payout ratio of the core Momo app remained stable with a slight downward trend due to the reduction in event related bonuses. Non GAAP R and D expenses for the Q2 was RMB179.9 million compared to RMB200.8 million for the same period last year or an 11% decrease year over year.

Speaker 3

The decrease was due to the continuous optimization in personnel and infrastructure costs. Non GAAP R and D expenses as a percentage of revenue was 7% compared with 6% from the year ago period. We ended the quarter with 1364 total employees, of which 282 are from Tantan, compared to 14 70 total employees, of which 339 from Tantan a year ago. The R and D personnel as a percentage of total employee for the group was 62% compared with 63% Q2 last year. Non GAAP sales and marketing expenses for the Q2 was RMB360.6 million or 16% of total revenue compared to RMB349.7 million or 11% of total revenue for the same period last year.

Speaker 3

The year over year increase in absolute renminbi amount was mainly due to an offline gala for Momo live streaming service, which in 2023 was held in Q1. Non GAAP G and A expenses was RMB89.5 million for the Q2 of 2024, compared to RMB83.2 million for the same period last year, both representing a 3% of total revenue. Non GAAP operating income was RMB476.5 million, a decrease of 30 3% from Q2 2023, down 7% from the previous quarter. Non GAAP operating margin for the quarter was 17.9%

Speaker 2

17.7%,

Speaker 3

down 4.9 percentage points from the same period last year and 4.2.4 percentage points from the previous quarter. Non GAAP OpEx as a percentage of total revenue was 23%, an increase from 20% from Q2 2023 and up from 22% in Q1 this year. Now briefly on income tax expenses. Total income tax expense was RMB102.6 million for the quarter, with an effective tax rate of 19%. In Q2, the company accrued withholding income tax of RMB17 300,000, which is 5% of undistributed profit generated by our royalty.

Speaker 3

Without the withholding tax, our estimated non GAAP effective tax rate was around 16% in the 2nd quarter. Now turning to balance sheet and cash flow items. As of June 30, 2024, HELLO Group's cash, cash equivalents, short term deposits, long term deposits, short term investments and restricted cash totaled RMB14.32 billion compared to RMB13.48 billion as of December 31, 2023. In Q2, we paid an equivalent of RMB716 million cash dividends to our shareholders. In the current quarter, we bought back RMB395 million or RMB54 million worth of shares in the open market.

Speaker 3

Net cash provided by operating activities in the Q2 2024 was RMB475.2 million. Lastly, on business outlook. We estimated our Q3 revenue to come in the range from RMB2.58 billion to RMB2.68 billion, representing a decrease of 15.2% to 11.9% year over year or a decrease of 4.1% to 0.4% quarter over quarter. At segment level for Q3 2024 on a sequential basis, we expect Momo revenue to decrease mid to low single digit. On the Tantan side, we expect revenue to decrease high single digit.

Speaker 3

Please be mindful that this forecast represents the company's current and preliminary view on the market and operational conditions, which are subject to changes. That concluded our prepared portion of today's discussion. With that, let me turn the call back to Ashley to start Q and A. Ashley, please?

Operator

Thank you. Your first question comes from Sooking Zhang with CICC. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thanks management for taking my question. My question is about Komono. And considering the current macro and the regulation environment, how to view the revenue and the profit of the half of the year? And what's your strategy for live streaming and bus business in the next few years? Lastly, does Momo have a chance to achieve top line growth in 2025?

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Okay. Let me translate first.

Speaker 1

At the end of our last year, we adjusted our operating strategy for live streaming and audio and video based value added service experiences to reduce revenue oriented competition events. The decline in competition events related revenue in the past few quarters has indeed had a negative impact on the core Momo app revenue. But our live streaming and VAS team managed to partially offset the revenue decline by introducing new interactive gamify features. For example, as Sigg just mentioned, we have introduced personalized costume probes in the live streaming showrooms and also added new categories such as lost fortune telling in our value added service chat room experience, which has played a positive role in improving paying conversion. And overall, the impact of the operating strategy adjustment on WOMAN revenue is pretty much in line with our expectations.

Speaker 1

And the impact on the profit side is actually indeed better than our expectations for the first half of the year. Therefore, we have decided to continue the operational adjustments to the ecosystem in the second half and further deemphasize agency dominated experiences and features and particularly various competition events. On the product front, we will leverage Momo's social attributes to introduce richer interactive gamify features for paying users at different levels. Although this will cause some short term financial sacrifice, we believe it will create a positive ecosystem for the stable and healthy development of the cash cow business in the long run. As for whether our revenue can grow in 2025, it depends mainly on macroeconomic and regulatory changes.

Speaker 1

It's a bit too early to tell now. As for the revenue and profit guidance for the second half, I will leave that to Kathy. Kathy, please. Okay.

Speaker 3

On the financial outlook of the cash cow business, for top line, last quarter, we said Q2 would be a good basis to think about the back half of the year. What that means is that if you take the 18% year over year decrease in Momo application live streaming and value added service in Q2, you can apply that same weight for the back half of the year as well. Originally, we thought that second half might be a little bit better because the Y o Y comparison could get a little bit easier as we entered into the back half of the year. However, since the cash cow over actually over delivered on the bottom line for the first half, we decided that we should continue our we should use this opportunity to continue our operational adjustments to push the ecosystem more toward social entertainment rather than competition driven events. That decision could dip the revenue slightly for the second half of twenty twenty four, but overall the cash cow is on track to deliver the annual profit target we internally set for it at the beginning of the year.

Speaker 3

So that's how to think about the cash cow. Other than the cow within Momo segment, we also have the new applications, mainly the overseas apps. This piece will continue the robust Y o Y growth momentum. So that could partially offset the Y o Y decrease from the CAL. I think for the whole year for the Momo segment revenues, we will likely to fall into the 10% to maybe 12% range in terms of Y o Y decrease.

Speaker 3

With regards to 2025, as Tang Yan said, it's still too early to tell, but the 2 biggest determining factors here are still going to be macro and regulatory environment. Profit wise, our view remains pretty much the same as last quarter. We're still well on track to hit the same adjusted operating margin as high teens for the year. Also internally, we are actually trying to deliver the same annual profit target in absolute dollar amount. We do have the flexibility and are also prepared to control the spending more tightly if top line is under a little bit of a pressure down the road.

Speaker 3

On the other hand, if things turn out to be more positive on the revenue front, we will perhaps invest a little bit more for the future. In other words, we are trying to manage the cost against the top line, so we can deliver the annual profit target we set for ourselves at the beginning of the year. So I guess those are the colors I can give at this point on the outlook for both top line and bottom line. Other than that, I don't want to pin ourselves down too much by promising a bottom line number at this point at this time of the year. So hopefully that helps.

Speaker 1

Back to Ashley for next question. Hi, operator, ready for next question please.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Jenny Yuan with UBS. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

So I will transfer myself. So thanks for taking my question and congrats on the solid results. My question is regarding our overseas business. With the good revenue growth momentum in the new apps, could management update us with overseas progress so far? And do you have any like financial outlook or guidance for this year that you can share with us?

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 1

As I mentioned before, we believe that the growth in our overseas business depends on 3 main factors. Number 1, strengthen localized operation. Number 2, expand product offering from VoIP based to live streaming services. And number 3, expand our businesses in wealthy GCC region and other countries in the Middle East. As Siv just mentioned, we have accelerated the localization process since the beginning of the year.

Speaker 1

And in the first half, we have made some good progress in feature design. We find services offering for high paying users and supply side collaboration. This is certainly far enough enough for a group company that pursues a global expansion. We have we need to continue to expand our overseas personnel pool, strengthen localized operations and improve our cross border personnel management practices. And improving the international awareness of our team will help us more deeply understand and better meet the social preferences and needs of users from different culture backgrounds.

Speaker 1

The rollout of the live streaming experience in the first half was slightly slower than our expectations at the beginning of the year. This is mainly because it took longer to resolve localization and agency cooperation issues on the product and operational front. Recently, key members of our product and tech team at the Beijing headquarters visited several key social markets and worked with local teams to sort out user feedback and optimize the product and technical solutions. And the growth of the overseas team has laid a solid foundation for upgrading localized virtual gift design and user's interface and speeding up testing of our live streaming features to enrich gamified experiences and deepening our exploration in GCC countries and Turkish markets. After this round of visits and joint work with the overseas team, we are more convinced of the revenue growth opportunity in the Middle East market and the strategy of achieving growth through enhanced localization.

Speaker 1

As for the financial part, I will leave that to Cassie. Cassie, please. Sure.

Speaker 3

As Tian mentioned, now it looks like we need to spend some time beefing up our local operations before we could pursue larger scale revenue growth in the broader MENA area. We've been lagging behind on that front in comparison with some of our I mean, we've been lagging behind on localization front in comparison with some of our peers who are early into the Middle East markets. For example, the senior management paid our 1st visit to our major markets in MENA only last month. It was not until then did we realize that there is still some basic level of the infrastructures we need to put in place in order to take the revenue to the next level. So I guess we are going to spend the second half of the year playing some catch up in those areas.

Speaker 3

The good news is that after the trip, we are even more convinced that there are still a lot of growth opportunities in MENA. So revenue will continue to grow. But before we go full force into, for example, live streaming service, the YY growth will likely to slow down a little bit from Q1 level as we spend time laying the groundwork for a strong localization. In Q2, the overseas piece achieved 40 something percent year over year growth. It could further slow to maybe mid-thirty in the back half before our initiatives in Gulf countries and the live streaming start bearing fruits.

Speaker 3

So that's the color that I can give in terms of financial outlook

Speaker 1

for the overseas business. Okay. Operator, next question please.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Thomas Chong with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Thanks management for taking my question. My question is about Tantan. Just in the prepared remarks, management talks about the revamp of Tantan is still in progress. Can management talks about the current situation and our ultimate goal as well as how is our revenue and profitability will be impacted by this revamp? Thank you.

Speaker 1

Panda has achieved a good result over the past 2 years in terms of reducing our channel investment, improving channel efficiency and driving our people growth and resulting in 6 consecutive quarters of profit. However, its user base has not yet stabilized and revenues have also shown a slow downward trend due to the impact of user scale. And we believe the fundamental reason for this is that Tantan has not made significant breakthroughs in the core dating experience. And we need to be bolder at the product level to find product solutions that can significantly improve retention and drive organic user growth. In this round of version upgrade, we aim to fully return to the user experience by adjusting the interface and optimize the user guidance strategy.

Speaker 1

For example, to enhance a sense of authenticity of users, we will encourage them to upload real pictures and text information by issuing trial membership benefits and guide users to complete real person authentication in the chat session after matching. And another prominent issue is that in order to improve DAU, our algorithm tries to take care of the experience of some AI users who don't easily get matching opportunities. As a result, a small number of high quality female users got excessive exposure, resulting in a large number of matches that could not be converted into chat interactions. Therefore, our algorithm team will make it easier for women to make up their minds by reducing low quality matches, thereby improving chat conversions. To encourage more exploration on the product side, management does not want the team to be constrained by short term operational and financial targets during the pilot phase of the upgrade.

Speaker 1

Therefore, we are allowing some fluctuations in user scale and revenue in the short term. We believe this is the right decision for Tantan in the long run. I'm very pleased to see that the team is maintaining the spirit of innovation and adoption in a challenging environment. The redesign of Tantan demonstrates not only our insight into evolving user needs, but also our strong commitment to improving user experience. As for the financial part, I will leave that to Cathy.

Speaker 3

Okay. For Tantan, I guess there are 3 things worth calling out on the financial side. One is what Sikantan Yen pointed toward in their comments. After a long period of trial and error, we figured that the only way out for Tang Tan is to not worry about short term KPI numbers and do whatever we believe is the right thing to do in order to give the users the best dating experience. So for the coming 6 months or so, we are going to allow the Tantan team to put financial targets aside and set top priority on the dating experience.

Speaker 3

While I do not have full clarity at this point on where the revenue would land for the rest of the year, I guess Q2's YOY decrease could be a good reference point to project the back half of twenty twenty four. The second point I'd like to call out here is, while Tantan is still not ROI positive in terms of user acquisition, we believe we need to keep the marketing spend at the Q2 level for the coming couple of quarters, so that the scale of Tantan will be maintained. And the third thing I would like to mention here is that if you put the first thing and the second thing I mentioned just now together and try to think about the bottom line for Tantan, I think the profit will likely to decrease from the first half of the year. But for the whole year 2024, our view is that Tantan is still going to be profitable. So that's Tantan's financial outlook.

Speaker 3

Now I'm handing back to Ashley to make the call.

Speaker 1

I think, yes, this is perfect timing. So thank you for participating and we'll see you next quarter.

Operator

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

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Key Takeaways

  • Q2 2024 group revenue was RMB2.69 billion, down 14% YoY but up 5% QoQ, with adjusted operating income of RMB477 million (-33% YoY, ‑7% QoQ) and a profit margin of 17.7%.
  • The Momo app live‐streaming revenue fell 50% YoY due to reduced competition events aimed at a healthier social ecosystem, yet rose 6% QoQ after introducing new non‐event interactive features and incentive adjustments.
  • Tantan revenue declined to RMB234 million (-27% YoY, ‑3% QoQ) with MAU down 6% QoQ; management is revamping its UI and matching algorithm to improve profile authenticity and retention, accepting short‐term revenue impacts for long‐term user growth.
  • “New endeavor” standalone apps achieved revenue growth of 36% YoY to RMB365 million, driven by overseas markets; the company is accelerating localization and planning to expand live streaming and services in the MENA region.
  • For Q3 2024, revenue is guided at RMB2.58 billion–2.68 billion (down 15.2%–11.9% YoY and 4.1%–0.4% QoQ), with Momo expected to decline mid‐to‐low single digits QoQ and Tantan down high‐single digits, while macro and regulatory trends will influence 2025 growth.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Hello Group Q2 2024
00:00 / 00:00