UP Fintech Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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June 2, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: UP Fintech reported Q1 2026 revenue of $155 million, up 26.3% year over year, with operating profit of $47.6 million, showing solid growth despite market volatility.
  • Positive Sentiment: Client growth and asset gathering remained strong, with 28,900 new funded accounts added and net asset inflow of $2.9 billion; retail omnibus inflow exceeded $2 billion for the first time.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Management said the May 22 regulatory changes are industry-wide and do not affect overseas users, while mainland retail accounts represented about 10% of total client assets and 20%–25% of net revenue at quarter end.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company highlighted product and platform upgrades, including a major TigerAI overhaul, a new futures AI agent, integration with Claude, and new derivatives tools such as Hong Kong index options and option TWAP orders.
  • Negative Sentiment: Results were pressured by a $4.9 billion mark-to-market loss on client assets in Q1, and the company also booked an approximately RMB 410 million regulatory penalty as a one-time charge.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
UP Fintech Q1 2026
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

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Operator

Ladies and gentlement. Thank you for standing by, welcome to the UP Fintech Holding Limited first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today, June 2nd, 2026. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. Aaron Li, the Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Aaron Li
Aaron Li
Head of Investor Relations at UP Fintech Holding Limited

Thank you, operator. Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us for the call today. UP Fintech Holding Limited's first quarter 2026 earnings release was distributed earlier today and is available on our IR website at ir.tigerup.com, as well as global newswire services. On the call today from UP Fintech are Mr. Wu Tianhua, Chairman and CEO, Mr. John Zeng, our CFO, Mr. Huang Lei, CEO of U.S. Tiger Securities, and Mr. Kenny Zhao, our Financial Controller. Mr. Wu will give an overview of our business operations and discuss corporate highlights.

Aaron Li
Aaron Li
Head of Investor Relations at UP Fintech Holding Limited

Mr. Zeng will then discuss our financial results. They will both be available to answer your questions during the Q&A session that follows the remarks. Now let me cover the safe harbor. The statements we are about to make contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. For more information, please refer to our Form 6-K furnished today and our annual report on Form 20-F filed on April 24th, 2026. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law. It is my pleasure to now introduce our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Wu. Mr. Wu will make remarks in Chinese, which will be followed by an English translation. Mr. Wu, please go ahead with your remarks.

Tianhua Wu
Tianhua Wu
Chairman and CEO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

[Non-English content]

Translator

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining the Tiger Brokers first quarter 2026 earnings conference call.

Tianhua Wu
Tianhua Wu
Chairman and CEO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

[Non-English content]

Translator

In the first quarter of 2026, benefiting from our diversified offering and steady expansion of core operations, we achieved solid year-over-year growth in total revenue and key operating metrics. Our total revenue for the quarter reached $155 million, representing a 26.3% increase year-over-year. Operating profit reached $47.6 million, up 17.5% from the same period last year.

Tianhua Wu
Tianhua Wu
Chairman and CEO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

[Non-English content]

Translator

We onboarded 28,900 new funded accounts this quarter. Singapore and Hong Kong markets are the primary contributors. As of the end of the first quarter, the number of our total funded accounts reached 1.28 million, a year-over-year increase of 11.3%. In terms of client assets, we saw net asset inflow of $2.9 billion in the first quarter. In particular, net asset inflow from retail users under consolidated accounts exceeded $2 billion for the first time in our history. This fully demonstrates that our strategy prioritizing user quality has delivered tangible results, with our user profile and client quality seeing further improvement.

Translator

Due to the market turbulence in the first quarter, our client assets experienced mark-to-market losses of $4.9 billion. As a result, total client assets at quarter end slightly down 3.2% quarter-over-quarter, yet maintained robust year-over-year growth of 28.4%, reached $58.9 billion at the end of the first quarter. Looking into the second quarter, Nasdaq has started to rebound and all mark-to-market losses on client assets recorded in the first quarter have been fully recovered on a quarter-to-date basis.

Translator

Additionally, we are glad to see that despite notable market pullbacks which led to substantial mark-to-market losses on client assets, healthy net asset inflow drove a quarter-over-quarter increase in client assets across all the overseas markets. U.S. client assets rose nearly 40% quarter-over-quarter, while Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong posted high single digits and double-digit quarter-over-quarter growth respectively.

Tianhua Wu
Tianhua Wu
Chairman and CEO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

[Non-English content]

Translator

We keep rolling out features updates to enhance users' overall investment experience. This quarter, we delivered a major upgrade to TigerAI with a brand new multi-agent architecture. We split functions including market quote search, market analysis, and risk control into standalone AI agents, which has greatly boosted the accuracy of our AI-driven insights.

Translator

We also officially launched a dedicated AI agent for futures. It delivers more reliable, practical analysis and improves our user interaction with our futures tools. Besides, TigerAI has upgraded from our original dual model framework to a three model collaborative system by integrating with Claude models, marking a substantial improvement in our intelligent service capability. For derivative features, we rolled out Hong Kong index option trading and option TWAP orders, helping investors execute better trading strategies under volatile markets.

Tianhua Wu
Tianhua Wu
Chairman and CEO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

[Non-English content]

Translator

Our B2B business continued to perform well. In the first quarter, we enrolled 10 Hong Kong IPO, covering leading AI companies including MiniMax and Zhipu AI. We also successfully completed two large-scale U.S. SPAC IPOs. In addition, demand for Hong Kong IPO subscription remains robust. Year-to-date, the total subscription amount for Hong Kong IPOs on our platform has exceeded HKD 1 trillion. As for our ESOP business, we added 42 new clients in the first quarter. As of the end of March 2026, our total ESOP clients served reached 790, indicating a sustained strong market demand for professional ESOP services and digital management solutions.

Tianhua Wu
Tianhua Wu
Chairman and CEO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

[Non-English content]

Translator

To demonstrate our confidence in the company's long-term growth and our commitment to delivering shareholder value, our Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program of up to $50 million to be implemented over a 12-month period from June 1st, 2026 to June 1st, 2027.

Tianhua Wu
Tianhua Wu
Chairman and CEO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

[Non-English content]

Translator

Now I'd like to invite our CFO, John, to go over our financials.

John Zeng
John Zeng
CFO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

All right. Thanks, Tianhua and Aaron. Let me go through our financial performance for the first quarter. All numbers are in U.S. dollar. Commission income was $67.2 million, increased 15% year-over-year, and it decreased 5% quarter-over-quarter. Interest income was $64.5 million, increased 20% year-over-year, while decreased 10% quarter-over-quarter. Together, total revenue reached $155 million, up 26% year-over-year and down 12% quarter-over-quarter. Cash equity take rate was five basis points this quarter, down from 6.4 basis points a quarter ago.

John Zeng
John Zeng
CFO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

The main driver was a quarter-over-quarter increase of roughly $10 billion in trading volume in U.S. Tiger. However, this uptick didn't translate into commission revenue, as in the U.S., we offer zero commission pricing for local users. Within commission revenue, about 67% comes from cash equities, 25% from options, and the rest from futures and other products. Now on to cost. Interest expense was $18.1 million, decreased by 5% quarter-over-quarter. It narrows the decrease in interest income and increased 21% compared to the same quarter last year.

John Zeng
John Zeng
CFO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

Execution and clearing expense were $5 million, a decrease of 6% from the same period last year due to more self-clearing of U.S. and Hong Kong securities. Employee compensation and benefits expense were $46.8 million, an increase of 39% year-over-year due to the headcount increase to strengthen our R&D. Occupancy, depreciation, and amortization expense were $2.7 million, increased 25% year-over-year due to the increase in office space and the relevant leasehold improvements. Communication and market data expense were $13.6 million, an increase of 39% year-over-year due to the increase in user base and IT-related service fees.

John Zeng
John Zeng
CFO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

Marketing expense were $14 million this quarter, increased 29% year-over-year as we focus on acquiring higher quality users and accelerating the expansion of our risk management products. General and administrative expense were $7 million, increased 37% year-over-year due to an increase in professional service fees. Total operating costs were $89.2 million, an increase of 33% from the same quarter of last year. On May 22nd, we received a regulatory penalty notice totaling approximately RMB 411 million.

John Zeng
John Zeng
CFO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

We have fully accounted for this among in our first quarter results. This is a one-time non-recurring charge and will not have material impact on our core business and overall financial health. As on the result, net loss and the non-GAAP net loss were $26.9 million and $23.8 million. Operating profits were $47.5 million, increased 17% year-over-year. Now I have concluded our presentations. Operator, please open the line for Q&A. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will now go to our first question. Our first question comes from the line of Peter Zhang from JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Peter Zhang
Peter Zhang
Analyst at JPMorgan

[Non-English content] Thanks for giving me the opportunity to ask questions. This is Peter Zhang from JPMorgan. I have two questions. First is, how do you interpret the new regulatory rules released on May 22nd, and what will be the impact on your business? Also, could you share the mainland retail clients' share of your total client assets as of end first quarter, as well as their contribution to the total revenue in first quarter? Second, amendment has mentioned that the quarterly net asset inflow from retail client has reached a record high in first quarter. Can we have some color on the regional breakdown? Thank you.

Tianhua Wu
Tianhua Wu
Chairman and CEO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

[Non-English content]

Translator

I'll translate. On May 22nd, China securities regulator, together with multiple ministries, rolled out a new industry-wide regulation governing cross-border securities, futures and fund trading by mainland investors. These new rules apply to the entire industry, not only our firm. We took this new regulation very seriously with swift response. First, regarding the fine. This is a one-time penalty totaling approximately RMB 410 million, equivalent to around $60 million.

Translator

Given our current profitability and cash reserves, this fine will not materially affect our core operation or long-term development. Second, on the regulatory overhaul and its business impact, the core shift here is the regulatory approach, moving from user identity verification to territory-based oversight. Therefore, the two-year rectification period is not about closing all existing PRC client accounts, but to restrict trading activities when they are onshore in Mainland China.

Translator

This new regulation targets onshore operation of all industry players. Under this new rule, brokers and banks cannot market cross-border investment services within Mainland China, and are required to close down mainland-focused official websites and to remove relevant apps from local app stores. We've already completed all this requirement rectification back in May 2023. It is important to note that policy changes have no impact on users offshore.

Translator

As of the end of the first quarter, mainland retail investors' client assets under consolidated accounts accounted for roughly 10% of our total client assets, and contributed between 20%-25% of our total net revenue. Since the new rules were announced, we saw some uptake in asset outflow from mainland retail accounts. We believe this is a normal short-term market reaction, and we expect outflow to stabilize soon. Our retail users in other overseas markets remain unaffected and still record net asset inflow as usual throughout the period.

Tianhua Wu
Tianhua Wu
Chairman and CEO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

[Non-English content]

Translator

For the second question, roughly 90% of our total net asset inflow from Omnibus retail accounts this quarter came from markets outside of Mainland China. By region, Singapore contributed over 1/3 of the total net asset inflow, Australia and New Zealand plus U.S. combined for around another 1/3, and the remainder came from Hong Kong retail users. Thanks, Peter. Operator, move on to the next question, please.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Cindy Wang from China Renaissance. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Cindy Wang
Cindy Wang
Analyst at China Renaissance

[Non-English content] Thanks for taking my call. I have two questions here. First one is we've noticed that the first quarter taking risk sequentially especially for the stagnation rate. Can you let us know first the reason behind it? Second, this quarter the company was affected by the resulting in a quartely loss. The income tax expense, increasing sequentially for this and how should this reach the effective tax rate going forward. Thank you.

John Zeng
John Zeng
CFO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

[Non-English content]

Translator

There are two main factors. Number one is Hong Kong trading volume made up a larger share of total stock trading volume in the first quarter. We offer zero commission for Hong Kong users trading Hong Kong stock, and the take rate for Hong Kong stock is about 2 basis points lower than that of the U.S. stocks. A higher proportion of Hong Kong's trading volume would drag down the overall take rate. Another reason is Tiger U.S. onboarded some active user this quarter and saw an uptick in total trading volume. In the U.S., we follow market practice and offer zero commissions, which further compressed the stock take rate. Beyond those two factors, revenue from futures trading rose around 6% in Q4 to roughly 8% in Q1. Since future volume is calculated based on notional value, the enlarged total trading volume caused a decrease in blended commission rate.

John Zeng
John Zeng
CFO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

[Non-English content]

Translator

Based on tax rules, deductible. Out tax is given based on pre-tax profit before the penalty. The primary reason of this income tax increase was due to a non-cash tax adjustment linked to employee stock incentives. We amortize share-based compensation expense for this quarter accounting purpose, covering both vested and unvested employee stocks. For tax purpose, however, only amortization relates to vested award is tax deductible. Non-deductible amortization on unvested shares is factored in deferred tax asset.

Translator

As our share price declined in first quarter which reduced the fair value of unvested employee stock incentives. This led to a write down of prior deferred tax asset of around $4 million. This amount was recorded as an increase in income tax expense Conversely, a future share price rebound would also boost deferred tax assets and reduce tax expense accordingly. Excluding this one-time non-cash impact, we expect our effective tax rate to stay below 20% going forward. Thanks.

Aaron Li
Aaron Li
Head of Investor Relations at UP Fintech Holding Limited

Thanks. Mel, move on to the next question, please.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Yoyo Fan from CICC. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yoyo Fan
Yoyo Fan
Analyst at CICC

[Non-English content] Thanks management for taking my questions. This is Yoyo Fan from CICC. I have two questions. Could you share more on our run rate since Q2, what's the trend of the new funded clients trading velocity and clients AUM? Second question is on the net new funded accounts in Q1. What's the regional breakdown? It seems that the number of the new added clients has not met the pace required for the full-year guidance. Will you invest more in clients acquisition or adjust the full-year guidance?

Tianhua Wu
Tianhua Wu
Chairman and CEO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

[Non-English content]

Translator

That's the first question about our run rate in the second quarter. For the number of new users, we expect the number to stay stable quarter by quarter, with Hong Kong and Singapore remaining our top contributing markets. Trading activity has picked up notably in the second quarter till date. Both DARTs and commission income are higher than the Q1 level. U.S. stock trading activity saw the most significant improvement.

Translator

With Q2 to date, U.S. cash equity trading volume already matching the full Q1 total. Regarding client assets, quarter to date, we have fully recovered the nearly $5 billion mark-to-market losses recorded in the first quarter. Retail net asset inflow remained healthy so far in the second quarter. Assuming no material shifts in the market conditions through June, we expect total client assets to post a solid quarter by quarter increase.

Tianhua Wu
Tianhua Wu
Chairman and CEO at UP Fintech Holding Limited

[Non-English content]

Translator

For new funded accounts in the first quarter, Singapore and Hong Kong together accounted for over 75% of the total, split almost evenly between these two markets. Australia and New Zealand contributed around 20%, with the rest coming from the U.S. Even with the headline news on May 22nd, we are confident about our full year guidance and our global expansion. Market volatility has affected investor sentiment so far this year. We are optimistic that easing geopolitical tensions and improved inflation expectations in the second half will drive stronger user growth.

Translator

In addition, it's noteworthy to point out that when evaluating customer acquisition, while indicators like average CAC or ROI are important, our strategic priority is user quality, with client assets and net asset inflow as our core KPIs. We view the ratio of customer acquisition cost to quarterly retail net asset inflow as a more relevant measure of acquisition efficiency. In other words, it's just how much net asset inflow we can generate per $1 spent on the client acquisition. This ratio was at roughly $170 in the first quarter, compared to around $150 over the past four quarters, and approximately $120 in the year before that. This shows that our customer acquisition strategy is indeed effective in acquiring high-quality users.

Aaron Li
Aaron Li
Head of Investor Relations at UP Fintech Holding Limited

Thanks, Mel. Let's just move on to the next question.

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll hand the call back to Aaron for closing remarks.

Aaron Li
Aaron Li
Head of Investor Relations at UP Fintech Holding Limited

Thanks. I'd like to thank everyone for joining our call today. I'm now closing the call on behalf of the management team here at Tiger. We do appreciate your participation in today's call. If you have any further questions, please reach out to our investor relations team. This concludes the call, and thank you very much for your time.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.

Executives
    • Aaron Li
      Aaron Li
      Head of Investor Relations
    • John Zeng
      John Zeng
      CFO
    • Tianhua Wu
      Tianhua Wu
      Chairman and CEO
Analysts
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