Sohu.com Q4 2024 Earnings Report

Sohu.com EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$0.50
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: -$0.37

Sohu.com Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $134.68 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Sohu.com Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 2/18/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, February 18, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 4:30PM ET

Sohu.com (NASDAQ:SOHU) Limited is a Chinese internet company founded in 1996 by Charles Zhang. Headquartered in Beijing, the company operates online media and entertainment businesses serving users primarily in China. Sohu was one of China’s early internet portals and has developed a range of digital products and services over time.

The company’s media business provides online news, information, entertainment content and other portal services through Sohu-branded websites and mobile platforms. Sohu has also offered online video content and digital advertising solutions, connecting advertisers with audiences across its internet properties.

Through its Changyou business, Sohu is involved in the development and operation of online games, including massively multiplayer online games and mobile games. Sohu.com Limited’s American depositary shares trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol SOHU. Charles Zhang serves as the company’s chairman and chief executive officer.

Sohu.com Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• In Q4 the company reported $135M in revenue, down 5% YOY and 11% QoQ, with a GAAP net loss of $21M versus $13M a year ago and a non-GAAP loss of $15M, widening year-over-year losses
• Brand advertising revenue fell to $19M in Q4 (down 7% YOY) and is guided to decline 13–19% YOY in Q1, reflecting ongoing weakness in advertiser budgets driven by macroeconomic pressures
• Online gaming beat expectations with $110M in Q4 revenues (down 4% YOY but above guidance) and Changyou segment operating profit rose to $48M, supported by new content launches and legacy game revitalization
• Sohu has been boosting user engagement through high-profile events (e.g., K-Pop dance tours, Hanfu festival) and proprietary IPs like Charles Physics class to expand its audience and unlock advertising potential
• The company repurchased 4.2M ADS for ~$52M in the ongoing share buyback program, signalling management’s confidence in the shares

Presentation

[Operator]

After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. 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 conference over to your host for today's conference call, Huang Pu, Investor Relations Director of Sohu. Thank you. Please go ahead.

[Pu Huang, Investor Relations Director at Sohu.com Limited]

Thanks, Operator. Thank you for joining us to discuss Sohu's Fourth Quarter 2024 Results. On the call are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Charles Zhang. CFO, Joanna Lv, and Vice President Finance, James Deng. Also with us are Changyou CEO, Dewen Chen, and CFO Yaobin Wang. Before management begins their prepared remarks, I would like to remind you of the company's safe harbor statement in connection with today's conference call. Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed on this call may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current plans, estimates, and projections. Therefore, you should not place undue reliance on them. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. We caution you that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements.

[Pu Huang, Investor Relations Director at Sohu.com Limited]

For more information about the potential risks and uncertainties, please refer to the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the most recent annual report on Form 20-F. With that, I will now turn the call over to Dr. Charles Zhang. Charles, please proceed.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

Thanks, Huang Pu. And thank you, everyone, for joining our call. In the fourth quarter of 2024, our brand advertising revenues hit the high end of our previous guidance, while both our online game revenues and bottom-line performance were much better than expected. For Sohu media platforms, including Sohu media and video, we continue to refine our products, optimize algorithms, and strictly control budgets. By integrating the advantages of the Sohu product matrix with our unique IPs and the high-energy events, we were able to promote the generation and the social distribution of premier content, effectively enhancing user experience to attract more users and further unlock monetization potential. The online games business delivered solid performance thanks to the relentless efforts to produce high-quality new games and revitalize legacy games. Before going through each business unit in more detail, let me first give you a quick overview of our financial performance.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

For the fourth quarter of 2024, total revenues: $135 million, down 5% year-over-year and 11% quarter-over-quarter. Brand advertising revenues: $19 million, down 7% year-over-year and 1% quarter-over-quarter. Online game revenues: $110 million, down 4% year-over-year and 14% quarter-over-quarter. Net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited: $21 million, compared with a net loss of $13 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 and a net loss of $16 million in the third quarter of 2024. Non-GAAP net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited: $15 million, compared with a net loss of $11 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 and a net loss of $12 million in the third quarter of 2024. For the whole year of 2024, total revenues: $598 million, flat compared with 2023. Brand advertising revenues: $73 million, down 17% compared with 2023. Online game revenues: $502 million, up 5% compared with 2023.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

The net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited: $100 million, compared with a net loss of $66 million in 2023. Non-GAAP net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited was $83 million, compared with a net loss of $51 million in 2023. Now, let me go through our key businesses in more detail. First, the Sohu media platform. We consistently focused on improving our technology and optimizing our products with cutting-edge technology. Meanwhile, we also kept improving user experience by closely monitoring their needs. We organically integrated our diverse online and offline events, maximizing the synergy of the Sohu product matrix and fostering a thriving online community. These efforts allowed us to attract more users, especially the younger generation, to our platform, actively promoted their interactions, and stimulated more content generations.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

In 2024, we held a series of K-pop dancing tour competitions in several major cities in China, from which the most outstanding contestants were selected to join the 2024 Dream Concert overseas in South Korea in October. Later in December, as a final show of the above series of dancing events, the 2024 Sohu Video Dancing Festival was hosted with great success. This dancing festival brought together a lot of top dancers in the U.S. and has become the most eye-catching annual event in the field of K-pop dancing for the year. Also, during the last quarter, we hosted the 2024 Sohu Video Guofeng Festival, the largest nationwide competition showcasing the traditional Chinese Hanfu costume. It received widespread acclaim and sparked extensive discussions and disseminations across multiple social media platforms.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

These events not only strongly strengthened our leading position and influence in the K-pop and Hanfu event verticals, but also stimulated numerous social interactions and distributions on our platform. We also continued to host our flagship events, such as the 2024 Sohu Fashion Awards and the 2024 Sohu Finance Annual Forum, which further consolidated our brand influence as a mainstream media platform and provided us with abundant premium content. These events were not only attractive for users, but also enabled us to provide unique marketing solutions to our advertisers, and this year we further persisted in broadcasting the Child Physics Class, Wuli Ke, which has been going on for three years with three books published, and also the Yingyu Ke, English Class. These classes have jointly become the leading IPs for Sohu.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

Leveraging these unique IPs and collaborations with science-related broadcasters, we were able to attract millions of viewers, popularize cutting-edge professional knowledge to them, and reinforce our core competitiveness in the field of knowledge and science-related live streamings. Benefiting from the above, we were able to combine the knowledge dissemination and brand marketing through diverse channels, delivering unique experiences to advertisers and audiences and driving advertising budgets. In 2024, we continuously enriched our content library by acquiring TV dramas, rolling out original dramas, and bringing in premium American TV series as well as introducing short dramas. For example, our TV drama, Jīn Chāi Yìng Dié, Hairpins in the Palace, and the American TV series, The Bear, and also the HBO series were well received by the audience. Yeah, we're talking about Sohu media platforms that include both the Sohu News and Sohu Video.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

Now, next, let me turn to the online game business. During the quarter, our online game business performed well, with revenues exceeding our prior guidance. In our PC games business, we launched a new plan jointly for regular TLBB PC and TLBB Vantage jointly, along with the various snow and ice-themed events and the gameplay, effectively boosting players' enthusiasm for the game. In addition, we introduced an innovative survival PvP gameplay for regular TLBB PC and refreshed some classic gameplays of TLBB Vantage to enhance player experience and renew their interest in the game. For legacy TLBB mobile, we launched a new expansion pack featuring crossover content such as themed dungeons, outfits, and rich innovative gameplays, which drove higher user satisfaction. Next quarter, we'll continue to launch expansion packs and content updates for the TLBB series and other titles to further keep players engaged.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

As market competition intensifies and user demand for quality and innovation continues to rise, we'll forge ahead with our top game strategy. Staying true to our user-centric philosophy, we'll continue to optimize our research and development process and enhance execution to improve efficiency and product success rate. Meanwhile, we will intensify our efforts to expand our international presence. While maintaining our core competitiveness on MMORPGs, we'll also actively expand our portfolio with diverse types of games, including card-based RPGs, sports games, and casual games, etc. With these efforts, we are confident that we soon can bring more high-quality games to the market. Now, I would like to give an update on the ongoing share repurchase program. As of February 13th this year, 2025, Sohu had repurchased 4.2 million ADS for an aggregated cost of approximately $52 million. So with that, I'll turn to the call to our CFO, Joanna.

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu.com Limited]

Thank you, Charles. I will walk you through the key financials of our major segments for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2024. All the numbers on the non-GAAP basis. You may find the reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP measures on our website. For Sohu media platforms, quarterly revenues were $24 million compared with $25 million in the same quarter last year. Quarterly operating loss was $69 million compared with the operating loss of $68 million in the same quarter last year. For the full year 2024, revenues were $91 million compared with $140 million in 2023. The full year operating loss was $287 million compared with the operating loss of $269 million in 2023. For Changyou's online game business and 17173, quarterly revenues were $111 million compared with $160 million in the same quarter last year.

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu.com Limited]

Quarterly operating profit was $48 million compared with operating profit of $47 million in the same quarter last year. For the full year 2024, revenues were $506 million compared with revenues of $485 million in 2023. The full year operating profit was $196 million compared with the operating profit of $203 million in 2023. For the first quarter of 2025, we expect brand advertising revenues to be between $30 million and $40 million. This implies annual decrease of 13% to 19% and a sequential decrease of 26% to 31%. Online game revenues to be between $105 million and $115 million. This implies annual decrease of 2% to 11% and a sequential decrease of 4% to a sequential increase of 5%.

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu.com Limited]

Non-GAAP net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited to be between $16 million and $26 million, and GAAP net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited to be between $20 million and $30 million. This forecast reflects Sohu's management's current and preliminary view, which is subject to substantial uncertainty. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we would now like to open the call to questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. First question comes from the line of Thomas Chong from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

[Thomas Chong, Regional Head of Internet and Media at Jefferies]

Hi, good evening. Thanks, management, for taking my question. My first question is about the brand advertising business. It seems that for the Q1 guidance, the sequential decline is a bit soft versus previous years, and the year-on-year decline is a bit also more than Q4. So I just want to get some color with regard to any reason behind the latest advertising sentiment, and on the gaming business, can management comment about how we should think about when we should expect it to have a Q1Q decline or Q1Q growth because it seems the range is a bit wide, and how is the trend so far, and then my last question is about the implication of CDC. Can management comment about how we should think about the integration with Sohu? Thank you.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

So your first question is about the advertising, right? The second question is about game.

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu.com Limited]

Game.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

Okay. All right. The third one is the application of the DeepSeek, right?

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu.com Limited]

Yes.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

Okay. The first one, I'll answer the first question. For Q1, right, decline, right? It's because of the macroeconomic situation, because people are spending less. Advertisers are spending less in marketing because of the overall economic situation. And so yeah, it's overall, overall economy, so the second question is about the game, right?

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu.com Limited]

[Foreign language]

[Dewen Chen, CEO at Changyou]

[Foreign language]

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu.com Limited]

The performance of the first quarter is expected to be flat quarter-over-quarter.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

Okay. So about the DeepSeek application, we've been actually in the last two years, we've been applying the language model to our Sohu media and Sohu network products. For example, the organization of the content, the better generation of content, and especially knowledge-based content and the text-based abstract writing and internal editing with the application of AI technology has really increased the efficiency. And in the future, we're going to also, for example, in our live streaming, our AI technology can help us to summarize basically the video content into text form and to automatically mark the different sections of the streaming video content.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

In terms of social network, people interaction will be in our product in the future will have the AI-aided interaction or and also is voice to text and also sometimes in the future probably help with a deep or DeepSeek or in large model language model to help users to generate content with the voice and word text to turn them into some pictures and videos and to have really generate some quality, really ease the production process and make it really very actually, some of the content would not be able to produce, but now we'll be able to do it. There is a wide range of application of AI technology and DeepSeek, probably DeepSeek. We haven't got DeepSeek plugged in yet, but we're looking at that possibility.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

So, basically help us with our media and social network user experience and content generation, content organization and editing, and yeah. And also, I think it's also our gaming, right? Also apply language model, right, the AI technology, right?

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu.com Limited]

[Foreign language]

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

[Foreign language]

[Dewen Chen, CEO at Changyou]

[Foreign language]

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

[Foreign language]

[Dewen Chen, CEO at Changyou]

[Foreign language]

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu.com Limited]

The AI technology application in terms of gaming development is mainly in the area of video production and two-dimension art design.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

Yeah. Okay. I hope we answered your question, Thomas.

[Thomas Chong, Regional Head of Internet and Media at Jefferies]

Got it. Thank you, Charles.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

Okay.

[Operator]

Thank you for the questions. One moment for the next question. The next question comes from Alicia Yap from Citi. Please go ahead.

[Alicia Yap, Analyst at Citi]

Hello. Good afternoon. Good evening, Charles and management. Thanks for taking my questions. I have a few follow-ups. Number one, can management maybe comment a little bit on the overall macro sentiment as related to the advertising budget sentiment? Just curious, given there's a lot of hype and talks about the technology breakthrough from China. So I'm not sure will some of these positive technology sentiment, have you seen any of these actually translate to slightly better advertiser budget spend on certain categories? And also, have you seen any change of the consumer behavior in terms of the consumption as related to some of these positive developments? So that's the first question. And then second question is, can you remind us with your $52 million buyback amount, what's the outstanding amount on the buyback currently? Thank you.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

The buyback. We bought 4.2 million, right?

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu.com Limited]

4.2 million.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

4.2 million, ADS.

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu.com Limited]

Yes.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

So we spend one-third of the $150 million, right? $52 million, yeah, already. So there's another $100 million to go, right, approved by the board. So that's 4.2 million ADS, okay? In terms of.

[Alicia Yap, Analyst at Citi]

Okay.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

As to the macroeconomic situation, I think it's just consumption. Just people have less money to consume, to spend. That's why companies or product companies that accordingly spend less in marketing. In terms, for example, most of our auto companies, their advertising budget, I can see in the year of 2024, I can see a trend of almost like cut by half. A lot of companies just, if they want to spend RMB 6 million, now they spend RMB 3 million. So instead. So it seems that because the consumption is weak, that's why marketing companies are spending less money in marketing. That's why we can feel that, right? As an advertising marketing platform, we can feel the, yeah, the decline, right? So as to DeepSeek, not only DeepSeek, but the overall AI technology has brought quite an enthusiasm, right, and excitement.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

But I don't think it can now translate into any immediate benefit of marketing or companies because it's really the problem is really people are spending less. People have less money because people bought houses, and then they have much less money left to spend, right? So especially to pay the mortgage, that's why companies don't have them. And if there's a product and sales volume drops, I think. And I don't think AI technology can help that in the short run. And sometimes the AI technology actually destroys jobs, right? Not creating jobs. That's what I can see.

[Alicia Yap, Analyst at Citi]

I see. I see. So maybe can I follow up a little bit, Charles? So any other kind of subsector that is holding up in terms of the ad budget? For example, let's say the FMCG or even have you seen, let's say, electronics like the cell phones given the trade-in and all that? Have you seen any increase in terms of the ad spending on any of the categories?

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

Yeah. I think FMCG has risen to the top sector among our advertiser, I mean, the sectors. Previously, before I remember, auto was always number one, right? Number one sector. But now FMCG is number one. And auto and IT services are becoming number three or number four. Yes, people are actually spending more on some smaller items like food, alcohol, liquor, and electronics, yes. So yeah. And also I think the trade-in policy also stimulated that to some extent.

[Alicia Yap, Analyst at Citi]

I see. I see. Okay. Very helpful. Thank you. Thanks, Charles. Thanks, management.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu.com Limited]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you for the questions. With that, we now conclude the conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.

Participants

Executives

• Joanna Lv, CFO
• Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO
• Pu Huang, Investor Relations Director

Analysts

• Thomas Chong, Regional Head of Internet and Media at Jefferies
• Dewen Chen, CEO at Changyou
• Alicia Yap, Analyst at Citi