Sohu.com Q1 2025 Earnings Report

Sohu.com EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$0.55
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Sohu.com Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $135.65 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Sohu.com Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2025
• Date: 5/19/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Monday, May 19, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 7:30AM 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 Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• In Q1 2025, total revenues fell 3% year-over-year to $136 million driven by a 15% drop in marketing services, while online game revenues remained flat y/y and rose 7% sequentially.
• Reported GAAP net income of $182 million was driven by a one-time $199 million tax benefit, leaving a non-GAAP net loss of $16 million, modestly better than the prior year but still negative.
• Online game revenues exceeded guidance thanks to holiday and content updates for key titles, and the company plans to diversify its game portfolio and optimize R&D to boost future growth.
• For Q2, management forecasts marketing services revenues down 14%–19% y/y (up 17%–24% q/q) and online game revenues down 28%–35% y/y (down 10%–18% q/q), with a non-GAAP net loss of $20–$30 million.
• As of May, Sohu repurchased 5.5 million ADS for approximately $67 million under its share repurchase program, signaling confidence in its long-term outlook.

Presentation

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and good evening. Thank you for joining Sohu's first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a Q&A 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. Please go ahead.

[Huang Pu, Director of Investor Relations at Sohu]

Thanks, Operator. Thank you for joining us to discuss Sohu's fourth quarter 2025 results. On the call are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Charles Zhang, CFO Joanna Lv, and the Vice President of Finance, James Deng. Also with us are Chairman and CEO Dewen Chen and CFO Yaobin Wang. Before management begins their prepared remarks, I would like to remind you of the Commerce Safe Harbor statement in connection with today's conference call. Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed are the common content for looking statements. These statements are based on current plans, estimates, and projections, and therefore, you should not place undue reliance on them. For looking statements involving key risks and uncertainties, we caution you that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any for looking statements.

[Huang Pu, Director of Investor Relations at Sohu]

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 foreign contents. With that, I will now turn the call over to Dr. Charles Zhang. Charles, please proceed.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

Thanks, Huang Pu, and thank you everyone for joining our call. In the first quarter of 2025, both our marketing services revenues, this is formally known as the brand advertising revenue, and the non-GAAP bottom line performance reached the high end of our previous guidance, while our online game revenues were well above our expectations. For the social media platform, in addition to devoting efforts in product refinements and technology improvements, we continue to concentrate on strengthening the distinctive social features, social network features of our platform. Through various unique events, we were able to engage with more users while promoting vigorous social interactions and distributions on our platform, and generating massive premium content at the same time. Leveraging our competitive advantage as a mainstream media platform and our unique IPs, we proactively explored greater monetization opportunities.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

Online games business also achieved a satisfactory performance thanks to the high-quality content updates and continual improvements to our games. Before going into each business unit in more detail, let me first give you a quick overview of our financial performance. For the first quarter of 2025, total revenues: $136 million, down 3% year-over-year and up 1% quarter-over-quarter. Marketing services revenues were $14 million, down 15% year-over-year and 27% quarter-over-quarter. Online game revenues: $117 million, flat year-over-year and up 7% quarter-over-quarter. GAAP net income attributable to Sohu.com Limited was $182 million, compared with a net loss of $25 million in the first quarter of 2024 and a net loss of $21 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. In this quarter, the company reversed a tax expense that had been previously recognized as an uncertain tax position and its related accrued interest expense at approximately $199 million.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

Excluding this, non-GAAP net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited was $16 million, compared with a net loss of $22 million in the first quarter of 2024 and a net loss of $15 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Now, I will go through our key businesses in more detail. First, Sohu Media platform. We continuously optimized our products and with cutting-edge technologies while further strengthening the social features, social network features. By strategically integrating resources across our platforms and leveraging the synergies created by our unique offline events, we successfully attracted a wide range of broadcasters who are also our users from diverse fields and greatly increased their engagement. These helped to generate more high-quality content, further promote online social interaction and distribution, and ultimately build a vibrant and dynamic social community on our platform.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

In April, we successfully hosted the 2025 Spring Convention of the Sohu Video Influencers in Beijing, where we gathered hundreds of pop stars, KOLs, and broadcasters and users in diverse verticals such as K-pop and Chinese customers, Hanfu, among others. This event offered a chance not only for enthusiastic participants with similar interests to connect and share in person, but also for them to get to know and interact with those in different fields, and thus further boosted the vitality of our platform. This quarter, we also hosted our traditional flagship event, the 17th Sohu News Marathon, Sohu Zheng Marathon in Weihai City. As an influential cross-border marathon in China, this season's event continued to be presented through immersive live broadcasting, attracting both online and offline participants.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

This event not only generated a large amount of content from real-time updates posted by runners during the marathon and other curative content after the race. They also promoted continuous social dissemination of related content and were supported by the active social atmosphere on our platform. We continue to attract users and audiences as well as advertisers with a distinctive physics class, Charles Physics Class IP. In April, I was invited to give a physics lecture at Beijing Planetarium, Beijing Tianwen Guan, reflecting a wide recognition of the class of the physics class brand and Sohu's leading position in popularization of physical sciences. At the same time, we continue to explore the monetization potential of this IP and its derivatives, such as everything has physical principles, in various scenarios.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

For example, we combined the physics class with famous exhibitions such as the 2025 China AWE, the Appliance and Electronics World Expo in Shanghai, and also 2025 Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition, Shanghai Chojang. In these exhibitions, we provided audiences with live explanations of the physics principles involved, integrated in the exhibited products, and which effectively built up connections between advertisers and audiences. Through these efforts, we were able to provide advertisers with customized marketing solutions and further demonstrated our unique monetization value. Besides the content generated from the above events, we also proactively expanded our content library. During the quarter, we released several original dramas and American TV series while introducing a large number of short dramas, among which Mystic Tales, Gu Siyi, Zhi Guan, and other American TV episodes like Mandalorian, were well received by our audiences. Next, turning our online game business.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

During the quarter, our online game business performed well with revenues exceeding our prior guidance. In our PC game business, we rolled out various holiday events around Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day, as well as promotional events for regular TLBB PC. In addition to holiday events, we upgraded a character development system for TLBB Vintage to give players a whole new game experience. For Legacy TLBB Mobile, we launched an expansion pack to celebrate the Chinese New Year, featuring a variety of festival themes, gameplay, and rich benefits for players. Thanks to these efforts, both player engagement and revenue for this game remained stable on a sequential basis. Next quarter, we will 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]

As market competition intensifies and user demand for quality and innovation continues to rise, we will forge ahead with our top game strategy, staying true to our user-centric philosophy. We'll continue to optimize our R&D process and enhance execution to improve efficiency and product success rate. With these efforts, we look to bring more high-quality games to the market. Specifically, in terms of product development, we are actively exploring opportunities to unlock the potential of our TLBB IP. Meanwhile, as we maintain our core competitiveness in MMORPGs, we will diversify our portfolio with multiple types of games, including card-based RPGs, sports games, and casual games, and expand our portfolio for global markets. Now, let me give the update on the ongoing share repurchase program. As of May 15 this year, 2025, Sohu had repurchased 5.5 million ADS for an aggregate cost of approximately $67 million.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

With that, I will now turn to our CFO Joanna, please.

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu]

Thank you, Charles. I will now walk you through the key financials of our major segments for the first quarter of 2025. All numbers on a non-GAAP basis. You may find a reconciliation for non-GAAP to GAAP measures on our website. For Sohu Media platform, quarterly revenues were $70 million, compared with $20 million in the same quarter last year. Quarterly operating loss was $70 million, compared with an operating loss of $74 million in the same quarter last year. For Changyou, quarterly revenues were $180 million, compared with $190 million in the same quarter last year. Quarterly operating profit was $55 million, flat with the same quarter last year. For the second quarter of 2025, we expect marketing services revenues to be between $60 million and $70 million. This implies annual decrease of 14%-19% and a sequential increase of 17%-24%.

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu]

Online game revenues should be between $96 million and $106 million. This implies annual decrease of 28% to 35% and a sequential decrease of 10%-18%. Both non-GAAP and GAAP net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited should 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, Management. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one in the window to be announced. To cancel a request, please press star one one in the window. First question comes from Thomas Chong of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

[Thomas Chong, Analyst at Jefferies]

Hi, good evening. Thanks, Management, for taking my question. My first question is about our marketing services. Can Management comment about the recent trend in advertising sentiment, and how does it across different categories such as FMCG, IT, auto, food, and electronics? How should we think about the second half advertising outlook? Should we expect a recovery trend in advertising momentum in the second half? My second question is about AI. Can Management comment about how AI benefits our advertising and online games operations? Are we seeing our ECPM or traffic benefits from better recommendation? Also for gaming, are we seeing efficiencies or productivity increase in our gaming business? Thank you.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

Okay. The first question is about the marketing services, which is formerly called advertising. This quarter, sectors-wise, auto is doing better, and yeah, until 26th. Auto is doing better, and IT services stay stable, and FMCG is stable, but luxury goods and alcohol is not, the spending is dropping a little bit. That is the overall situation. Yeah. We have auto advertising or marketing services 26%, IT services 17%, and FMCG 16%. For the second half, I think probably similar, right? The economy is still not doing well, and we will only expect to look forward to the social network platform to have an accelerated growth so that we have a much larger platform so that we can get a larger market share of the advertising market. Your second question is about the AI impact, right?

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

First of all, AI and DeepSeek development. First of all, since our media platform now takes the social network as our center strategy, and the social network is really people-to-people interaction. It has relatively less exposure to AI and large model or DeepSeek, large language model and DeepSeek. Unlike those information retrieval services like search engines or the recommendations, yeah, we do have recommendations on our Sohu News app and Sohu Video, but now those video and news app, the strategy is centered around the social network, so it has less exposure or less impact by this.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

Of course, we can take advantage of the AI development or the advent of AI to improve some efficiency, but it's kind of like a generation of content or some abstract of the articles and also for the live streaming and video tools to do live streaming and the subtitles or the digital image or those kinds of things to help our users with better tools. That's kind of beneficial, but it's marginal. It's not that big. What I'm saying is that the AI development poses as kind of a threat or kind of impact to certain companies that mainly depend on information retrieval, but for us, now with the social network strategy, we have less exposure to this kind of threat. Yeah, online game, I think AI impact is beneficial, right? It's better, right? It's helped.

[Foreign language]

[Company Representative at Changyou]

[Foreign language]

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu]

In Changyou, we have largely applied AI technology in terms of art design, art production, UI design, the audio effect design, and the material for marketing.

[Company Representative at Changyou]

[Foreign language]

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu]

It has greatly improved our efficiency.

[Company Representative at Changyou]

[Foreign language]

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu]

We've also achieved some progress in terms of the planning through the ways to make AI learn by themselves.

[Company Representative at Changyou]

[Foreign language]

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu]

Thank you.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

Thank you.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

Thank you for the questions. Okay. One more for the next question.

[Operator]

Okay, next question comes from Alicia Yap on Citigroup, please go ahead.

[Alicia Yap, Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup]

Hello. Thank you. Good evening, Charles and Management. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two, three questions. First is that I wanted to follow-up on the AI. Just wondering which AI model Sohu is currently integrating or incorporating into your gaming? Are you using DeepSeek or other comparable AI large language model? I understand you mentioned about social network on your media, which is less impacted, but if you were to incorporate that into your search and recommended functions within your Sohu portal, again, which AI models or tools that you will be using? I assume you're not going to develop your own large language model. This is the first question. Thank you.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

Yeah, both in our Sohu Video app and the Sohu News app, both now are social network-centered applications, but it also has these recommendation channels and also search box. Both of them are integrating some DeepSeek and also some open. We actually developed based on some open-source language model. We develop ourselves based on some open-source language model.

[Foreign language]

[Foreign language]

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu]

For online gaming business, we've employed different kinds of AI tools, a lot of different AI large language models to be used in the production of different aspects, for example, for the art design, for the audio, for music, for video production.

[Foreign language]

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu]

We also developed our own AI agent that can very conveniently, based on our own needs and demand, integrate different AI tools to automatically finish the job.

[Alicia Yap, Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup]

Okay, thank you. My second question is I actually not quite understand the tax reversal, so can you elaborate again which business is that is related to that tax reversal that you have to gain this quarter?

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

Tax reversal.

[Alicia Yap, Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup]

The tax gain that you actually have.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

Oh, tax. Oh, okay. Tax. Oh, next tax. Okay. Tax. I think it's an accounting issue, so let me try not to expand.

[Alicia Yap, Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup]

This is mainly accounting treatment. The nature is an uncertain tax matter, which is calculated by weighted average basis according to different possibilities. Now, the uncertainty is gone, so in this quarter, we totally reversed the expense. I see. Is that related to the Sohu Media business or is it a gaming business?

[Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu]

Sohu.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

The Sohu company.

[Alicia Yap, Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup]

The Sohu.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

The Sohu company.

[Alicia Yap, Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup]

Oh. Oh, okay. I see.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

It's accounting.

[Alicia Yap, Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup]

And then.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

Yeah, it's accounting issue, so it's not just the uncertainty now become a certainty, so there's no actual cash flow or real money flowing, so it's just accounting.

[Alicia Yap, Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup]

I see. Okay. Last question, I know, I mean, maybe now we have less risk, but obviously this whole ADR, delisting risk is on and off, right, as the heavens or the noises. Just in the event that risks go up again, is the management or are we thinking about any of the alternatives, like for example, coming back to Hong Kong for the secondary listing? Appreciate any comment on that.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

It's still up in the air, basically. It's not we will just when anything happens, we will have a now we don't have any because it's not happening, right? It's just a kind of speculation.

[Alicia Yap, Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup]

I see. If that's really, really coming, then you obviously have an alternative plan that you actually are already thinking about.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

Not thinking about it. When it happens, we'll start thinking about it.

[Alicia Yap, Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup]

Okay. All right. Great. Thank you.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

Because we are, yeah, we always have time, right? We are not in a, we are not a company that has to be listed, right? We can have a period of time that is not listed, right? We always have time to think about those things, right?

[Alicia Yap, Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup]

Okay. All right. Okay. Great. Thank you so much, Charles. Thank you for the answer.

[Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you for the questions. Once again, to ask questions, please press star one one. There are currently no further questions at this time. That concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your lines.

Participants

Analysts

• Alicia Yap, Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup
• Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO at Sohu
• Huang Pu, Director of Investor Relations at Sohu
• Joanna Lv, CFO at Sohu
• Thomas Chong, Analyst at Jefferies
• Company Representative at Changyou