Futu - Earnings Call - Q3 2025
November 18, 2025
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Futu Holdings' third 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 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, Daniel Yuan, Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR at Futu. Please go ahead, sir.
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
Thanks, Operator. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter 2025 earnings results. Joining me on the call today are Mr. Leaf Li, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Arthur Chen, Chief Financial Officer, and Robin Xu, Senior Vice President. As a reminder, today's call may include forward-looking statements which represent the company's belief regarding future events which, by their nature, are not certain and are outside of the company's control. Forward-looking statements involve fear and 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. For more information about the potential risks and uncertainties, please refer to the company's filings with the SEC, including its annual report. With that, I will now turn the call over to Leaf. Leaf will make his comments in Chinese, and I will translate.
Leaf Li (Chairman and CEO)
[Foreign language] 3.13 million, [Foreign language] 43%, [Foreign language] 25.4 [Foreign language] 65%，[Foreign language]25%. [Foreign language]。
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
Thank you all for joining our earnings call today. We concluded the third quarter with 3.13 million funded accounts, marking a 43% year-over-year and 9% quarter-over-quarter increase. During the quarter, we acquired 254,000 net new funded accounts, up 65% from a year ago and 25% sequentially. We're encouraged to see accelerated client acquisition in all markets.
Leaf Li (Chairman and CEO)
[Foreign language] 2021，[Foreign language] Philly [Foreign language].
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
In the third quarter, Hong Kong posted the highest quarterly net client ask since the first quarter of 2021 and remained the largest contributor to new funded accounts among all markets for four straight quarters. We effectively sparked and captured clients' trading interest amid a quarter of strong equity market performance and busy IPO schedules. With a new IPO Philly framework, retail investors in Hong Kong increasingly consolidate their brokerage accounts to increase their chances of getting IPO allocation, and they tend to pick a trusted platform with the best overall user experience as their main brokerage account.
Leaf Li (Chairman and CEO)
[Foreign language] Moomoo [Foreign language] Moof Fest, [Foreign language]。
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
In Singapore, new funded accounts again posted steady sequential growth, and we led our peers in DAUs by an even wider margin, further solidifying our position as the number one retail broker in Singapore. Following seven quarters of rapid expansion in Malaysia since launch, we still see huge runway for future client growth as equity ownership continues to go up. In the third quarter, we further strengthened product localization by launching Versa Derivatives and SGX Futures and upgraded AI tools to support Malay language and local stock analysis. Our annual flagship offline investor event, Moof Fest, was held in Singapore in July and in Malaysia in October, altogether attracting over 28,000 investors to sign up and further elevating our brand image in the region.
Leaf Li (Chairman and CEO)
[Foreign language].
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
Thanks to our growing brand recognition and product experience, our U.S. business delivered another quarter of high-quality growth. We achieved high double-digit sequential increase in new funded accounts. We also observed another quarter of more active derivatives trading activity as both the number of option traders and option contracts traded recorded double-digit sequential growth.
Leaf Li (Chairman and CEO)
[Foreign language] HKD 1.24 trillion, [Foreign language] 79%, [Foreign language] 27%, [Foreign language] IPO [Foreign language] 23% [Foreign language] HKD 63.1 billion。
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
At the quarter end, total client assets reached HKD 1.24 trillion, up 79% year-over-year and 27% quarter-over-quarter. The growth was driven by another quarter of robust net asset inflow, while the appreciation in client stock holdings also contributed meaningfully to the overall asset expansion this quarter. Average client assets locked double-digit sequential increases and hit new highs in every market. Bullish sentiment on Hong Kong and U.S. equities prompted more leveraged positions. A buoyant Hong Kong IPO market also boosted financing demand. As a result, margin financing and securities lending balance climbed 23% quarter-over-quarter to HKD 63.1 billion.
Leaf Li (Chairman and CEO)
[Foreign language] 9%，[Foreign language] HKD 3.9 trillion.[Foreign language] 43% [Foreign language] HKD 1.19 trillion [Foreign language] 31%, [Foreign language].
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
Total trading volume rose 105% year-over-year and 9% quarter-over-quarter to HKD 3.9 trillion on the back of favorable market dynamics and upbeat investor sentiment. Elevated trading velocity in technology names lifted overall Hong Kong stock trading volume by 43% sequentially to HKD 1.19 trillion, which accounted for 31% of total trading volume, the highest percentage since 2023. U.S. stock trading volume remained elevated at HKD 2.6 trillion, as many technology and crypto names posted new highs.
Leaf Li (Chairman and CEO)
[Foreign language] 161% [Foreign language] Solana [Foreign language]。
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
Crypto trading volume surged 161% sequentially, driven by a 90% quarter-over-quarter increase in crypto asset balance and accelerated trading velocity. Ethereum trading volume quadrupled during the quarter, overtaking Bitcoin as the most popular coin on our platform. In Hong Kong, the launch of Solana for retail investors was well received. Solana contributed meaningfully to the growth of crypto turnover this quarter. We believe that as we continue to broaden coin selections, strengthen product capabilities, and deepen investor education, there is significant potential to further drive crypto trading penetration among our client base.
Leaf Li (Chairman and CEO)
[Foreign language] 8%, [Foreign language] HKD 1,756 billion. [Foreign language].
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
Period-end wealth management assets rose 8% sequentially to HKD 175.6 billion. During the quarter, clients increasingly allocated to fixed income funds alongside the sustained inflow into money market funds. To better serve the bespoke needs of professional investors, we introduced a self-service request for quote function for structured products, whereby clients can customize products based on their desired parameters, access and compare quotes from a number of issuers, and execute trades seamlessly without human intervention. We leverage technology to remove friction in the client experience while driving operating efficiency.
Leaf Li (Chairman and CEO)
[Foreign language] IPO [Foreign language] IR [Foreign language] 561, [Foreign language] 22%. [Foreign language] 12 [Foreign language].
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
We ended the quarter with 561 IPO distribution and IR clients, up 22% year-over-year. We continue to play a leading role in facilitating retail participation in the heated Hong Kong IPO market. In the third quarter, 12 IPOs each attracted over HKD 100 billion in subscription amount on our platform. We served as joint book runners for multiple well-known listings, including those of Cherry Automobile, Heosae Group, and Lance Technology. Notably, in the Putong Group IPO, we assumed the role of overall coordinators for the first time, underscoring the advancement of our enterprise service capabilities.
Leaf Li (Chairman and CEO)
[Foreign language].
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
Next, I'd like to invite our CFO Arthur Chen to discuss our financial performance.
Arthur Chen (CFO)
Thank you, Lee and Daniel. Please allow me to walk you through our financial performance in the third quarter. All the numbers are in HKD unless otherwise noted. Total revenue was HKD 6.4 billion, up 86% from HKD 3.4 billion in the third quarter of 2024. Brokerage commission and handling charge income was HKD 2.9 billion, up 91% year-over-year and 13% Q over Q, both primarily driven by higher trading volume. The change in blended commission rate was mostly technical in nature. The blended commission rate declined year-over-year as clients traded higher-priced U.S. options compared to a year-ago quarter, while the Q over Q increase in blended commission rate was due to sequentially stronger trading activities in low-priced U.S. stocks and options. Interest income was HKD 3 billion, up 79% year-over-year and 33% Q over Q.
The year-over-year increase was driven by higher interest income from securities borrowing and the lending business, margin financing, and bank deposits. The Q over Q increase was driven by higher interest income from securities borrowing and the lending business, as well as higher margin financing interest income. Other income was HKD 441 million, up 111% year-over-year and flat Q over Q. The year-over-year increase was primarily attributable to higher currency exchange service income, fund distribution service income, and IPO subscription service charge income. Our total cost was HKD 780 million and increased 25% from HKD 625 million in the third quarter of 2024. Brokerage commission and handling charge expenses were HKD 161 million, up 97% year-over-year and flat Q over Q. Both the year-over-year and the Q over Q increase was roughly in line with the change of our brokerage commission and handling charge income.
Interest expenses were HKD 474 million, up 17% year-over-year and 25% Q over Q. Both the year-over-year and the Q over Q increase was mainly due to higher interest expenses associated with our securities borrowing and lending business, as well as higher margin financing interest expenses. Processing and servicing costs were HKD 146 million, up 12% year-over-year and 10% Q over Q. The year-over-year increase was largely due to higher market information and data fee. The Q over Q increase was mainly driven by higher market information and data fee, as well as higher cloud service fee. As a result, our total gross profit was HKD 5.6 billion, an increase of 100% from HKD 2.8 billion in the third quarter of 2024. Gross margin was 87.8% as compared to 81.8% in the third quarter of 2024. Operating expenses were up 57% year-over-year and 31% Q over Q to HKD 1.7 billion.
R&D expenses were HKD 574 billion, up 49% year-over-year and 30% Q over Q. The year-over-year and the Q over Q increase was mainly driven by our greater investments in crypto and AI capabilities. Selling and marketing expenses were HKD 586 billion, up 86% year-over-year and 36% Q over Q. Both the year-over-year and the Q over Q increase was mainly attributable to higher new funded accounts. G&A expenses were HKD 535 billion, up 40% year-over-year and 26% Q over Q. Both the year-over-year and the Q over Q increase was primarily due to increase in general administrative headcount. As a result, income from operation increased 127% year-over-year and 17% Q over Q to HKD 3.9 billion. Operating margin increased to 61.3% from 50.4% in the third quarter of 2024, mostly due to strong top-line growth and operating leverage. Our net income increased by 143% year-over-year and 25% Q over Q to HKD 3.2 billion.
Net income margin expanded to 50.1% in the third quarter as compared to 38.4% in the same quarter last year. Our effective rate for the quarter was 16.7%. That concludes our prepared remarks. We now like to open the call to questions. Operator, please go ahead.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star 1, 1 on your telephone, and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1, 1 again. We will take our first question. The question comes from the line of Cindy Wang from China Renaissance. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Cindy Wang (Director)
[Foreign language] market market gain [Foreign language] CAC [Foreign language] target。[Foreign language] CAC [Foreign language].
Thanks for taking my call and congrats for the very great result in Q3. I have two questions here. First, client assets perform very strong in Q3. Could you break down by market market gains and net asset inflows? And what is the current run rate for net asset inflows and client assets in Q4? Second, customer acquisition cost in Q3 was higher than Q2, but still lower than your early full-year guidance. Given stock market pullback quarter to date, what's the recent customer acquisition trend, and what do you expect the customer acquisition cost in Q4? Thank you.
Arthur Chen (CFO)
[Foreign language]，Cindy，[Foreign language] market market, [Foreign language] market market [Foreign language] HKD 2,300 [Foreign language] HKD 2,500-3,000 [Foreign language].
For the first questions regarding the asset movement, around one third comes from the net clients' asset inflow, and the remaining two thirds come from the market-to-market fluctuations. In the fourth quarter, quarter to date, actually the market-to-market implication was negative, but on the flip side, on the asset inflows, we see the momentum remains very robust. There's no any slowdown compared with the second quarter or the third quarters. In the third quarter regarding the client acquisition, the average CAC in the third quarter is around HKD 2,300, slightly up on a Q on Q basis, but on the absolute levels, it is still very remains our full year's target, the range of HKD 2,500-3,000.
In the fourth quarter today, what I witnessed is that both the client acquisition momentum and also client acquisition cost remains quite healthy. Overall speaking, I feel more optimistic regarding our over year's client acquisition cost versus our objective in the beginning of this year. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Peter Zhang from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Peter Zhang (Analyst)
[Foreign language] Peter Zhang。[Foreign language]、margin financing security, borrowing [Foreign language] Crypto [Foreign language] Crypto [Foreign language] Crypto derivative business [Foreign language] business [Foreign language]。
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to ask questions. This is Peter Zhang from JP Morgan. We have two questions. The first question is related to interest income. We saw the third quarter interest income record very strong sequential growth. We would like to understand what the driving forces behind the strong momentum and the commitment help us to break down the quarterly interest income into the key items, that is the interest income from the client idle cash, from margin financing business, and from the security lending. We also noticed that the security borrowing's contribution to interest income has been very strong in second and third quarter.
We still understand, is this purely due to the market, or is there something Futu has been doing at the content level to lead to the strong growth? Our second question is related to crypto business. We wish to understand what's the latest crypto business contribution to your revenue in third quarter? And looking ahead, what will be the driving forces for crypto business to expand? For example, is this mostly due to the expansion of the tokens offering on your platform, or do many of us see other potential business like derivatives or staking business may have some upside to your crypto business? Thank you.
Arthur Chen (CFO)
[Foreign language] Peter。[Foreign language] margin [Foreign language] hard to borrow [Foreign language]。 Regarding the breakdown of the interest incomes in the third quarters, we have two different sources arising from the interest income.
Number one is from the client's idle cash, the second is from the margin financing, and the third is the security borrow and the lendings. Actually, in the third quarter, the percentage for these three sources are quite even. Regarding the security borrow and the lending business, we see a very strong momentum in the second quarter and the third quarter, but mainly the driving force was from the market itself. In particular, there will be more utilization for certain hard to borrow stocks in the third quarter. Thank you.
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
Hi, Peter. This is Daniel. I'll take your second question on our crypto business. First of all, I'm going to give you a breakdown of the exponential growth we saw in the third quarter, and then I'll discuss the outlook for this business. The strong crypto growth was quite broad-based across the three markets that we currently offer crypto trading. In Hong Kong, for example, our clients' crypto AUM and crypto trading volume both reported triple-digit sequential growth. As we mentioned in our opening remarks, Solana was very popular among our retail clients, which is the new coin we launched in the third quarter. In Singapore, we also saw triple-digit growth in crypto trading volume and a continuously growing penetration among our funded accounts.
In the U.S., we launched a number of new functions, including market orders, and added 10 new coins, which really helped driving crypto AUM and volume. As we've seen in the third quarter, there's a lot of volatility in the crypto market, but we've seen that a lot of our clients really took advantage of those volatility. In October, for example, we've seen the crypto volume continue to grow high double-digit month over month and hit a new high for monthly volume and the continuous uptick in the crypto penetration. These are all very encouraging signs. Crypto contributed a very small percentage to Futu's current revenue, but we think there is a long runway for growth in terms of driving crypto penetration among our client base and driving crypto revenue.
In terms of some of the factors and catalysts that are going to help with that revenue growth, I agree with a lot of things you mentioned just now, like a broadening of token offerings will be quite helpful and will be a direct beneficiary of that. Of course, derivatives with higher take rate are going to help with monetization, but a lot of these developments will be contingent on regulatory approvals. Long term, we're quite optimistic about the growth of this business, and we understand that a lot of these new businesses, they don't really grow in a linear fashion.
Peter, [Foreign language] crypto [Foreign language] Opening Remarks [Foreign language] Solana [Foreign language] 10 [Foreign language] Crypto [Foreign language] Crypto[Foreign language] Crypto Foreign language] Crypto [Foreign language]. Thank you.
Peter Zhang (Analyst)
[Foreign language] interest income [Foreign language]？ Okay, I follow up on the interest income part of the question. We wish to understand what's the fourth quarter trend on interest income, particularly for your securities borrowing business. Do you see the momentum continue in fourth quarter? Thank you.
Arthur Chen (CFO)
[Foreign language]。 Regarding your question about the interest income trend, we do not have the high frequency dataset for the interest income, in particular regarding the security borrowing business, but I'm very happy to give you an update during our fourth quarter results. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Emma Zhu from Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Emma Zhu (Analyst)
[Foreign language] R&D [Foreign language] GNA [Foreign language] Arthur{Foreign language] AI [Foreign language] Crypto [Foreign language]? I have two questions. The first one is about the sensitivity analysis to the Fed rate cut, and the second one is about your R&D and GNA cost. They increase notably quarter over quarter and year over year. You mentioned earlier for the R&D expense, it's mainly related to crypto and AI capacity investment, and for GNA is for GNA staff increase. Could you tell us what's your target or your plan for investment in these areas?
Arthur Chen (CFO)
[Foreign language]. Regarding the interest income sensitivities from the Fed. As we give the market some estimation, for every 25 basis points cut by the federal rate, our monthly pre-tax profit will be negatively impacted by around HKD 7 million. Having said that, the rate definitely will have a lot of positive factors such as the trading velocity increase and also more clients' asset inflows, which will partially offset, if not fully offset, this potential negative implication from the rate cut. Regarding the second question for the quarter-over-quarter increase on the R&D and the GNA expenses, for the GNA expenses, we do have some front-loading costs in the preparation of certain new markets we may open in the next two years.
Secondly, we have invested a lot on the crypto side, especially on the system in the preparation of certain license applications, not only including Hong Kong but also in other markets. Also regarding the AIs, we will further optimize our AI capabilities, especially for the external part. There will be further optimization for our AI Agent for our clients, and internally we will further utilize our AI capabilities to streamline our business process and enhance our operating efficiency. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Yu Fan from CICC. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yu Fan (Analyst)
[Foreign language]. Thanks for taking my question. Congratulations on the outstanding results achieved this quarter. This is Yoyo Fan from CICC. I have two questions, Hill. The first question, we see the strong customer growth this quarter, so was there really no breakdown of the existing and also the net new paying clients? And the second question is regarding the US market, would you please show more color on the market our strategy and what's our competitive advantages to the other peers in this market? Thank you.
Arthur Chen (CFO)
[Foreign language] Daniel. [Foreign language] 54% [Foreign language] 50%. For the breakdown of the funding new fund accounts in the third quarters, Hong Kong and Malaysia collectively contribute around 50% of total new fund accounts contribute in the third quarter. Except a certain new markets or small markets we entered recently, such as Canada and New Zealand, the remaining markets' contributions is in the range of 5%-15% for the third quarter. And at the end of the third quarters, the Greater China clients contributed around total 46% of the group fund accounts, and the remaining overseas markets contributed 54% of total accounts. Thank you.
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
Hi, Yoyo, this is Daniel. I'll take your second question on our US business. As you mentioned, we saw very strong momentum in terms of new funded accounts and also in terms of engagement of our existing clients with a number of options traders and options contracts traded, both logging double-digit sequential growth. I think that really thanks to our increasing brand influence. If you've been to New York recently, you'll see that we've launched another large-scale branding campaign in New York City, in the heart of New York City. Another important factor is obviously we have a very superior product experience for our target clients. US is probably the most competitive market in the world, but also unequivocally the largest brokerage market out there, which means that there is going to be diversified client needs to be satisfied by different players.
We think that our product is built for sophisticated active traders and those are the clients we want to serve, and we'll continue to optimize our product experience for that client focus.
[Foreign language].
Yu Fan (Analyst)
[Foreign language]. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Charles Zhao from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Charles Zhao (Analyst)
[Foreign language] AOM [Foreign language] net inflow [Foreign language] regional [Foreign language][Foreign language] AOM [Foreign langauge] net inflow。[Foreign language] share [Foreign language] . So this is the, you know, so this is Charles Zhou from UBS. First of all, congratulations to your very good results. It's also a strong beat to the market consensus. I have two questions. My first question is about the Airstar Bank. Could you please share what investment have you made since Futu acquired 44% equity stakes in Airstar Bank, I think last June? Also, how do you see the Airstar Bank's strategic role within Futu business in terms of short-term, medium-term, and also long-term perspective? My second question is regarding the regional mix of the client AUM net inflow. Can you maybe just give us a little bit more color about the breakdown of the regional mix? Say, for example, does Hong Kong still account for over 70%? And also, are we seeing a rising share from high net worth clients in the third quarter? Thank you.
Arthur Chen (CFO)
[Foreign language] Charles [Foreign language] Daniel [Foreign language] net asset inflow [Foreign langauge] balance [Foreign language]. Regarding the breakdown of the net asset inflow by regions, actually we see the percentage contributed by Hong Kong got some slightly decrease on a Q on Q basis, mainly due to certain overseas markets such as Singapore, Malaysia also record a very strong asset inflows. So proportion-wise, Hong Kong's percentage contribution was down a little bit. And regarding the clients' cohort, we do think we do see more and more high net worth clients' contributions in Hong Kong, and we do think this kind of trend will remain in the next coming quarters. We think we have very meaningful potentials in terms of further upgrading our clients' quality in Hong Kong through wealth management, etc. Thank you.
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
Hi Charles, this is Daniel. I'll take your first question on Airstar Bank. First of all, to give you an update on our investment, during the third quarter, upon regulatory approval and the discussion between the shareholders, we have increased our stake in Airstar Bank to 68.4%, thereby becoming the controlling shareholder of Airstar Bank. In the short term, we'll continue to focus on improving the customer experience to enriching products and capabilities. We believe that there is a lot of integration opportunities between the banking business and the brokerage business. In the long term, we believe that the banking business can help Futu increase client stickiness and to improve clients' wallet share, and will enable clients to complete fund deposits, investments, lending, and consumption.
We can satisfy all these various financial needs within Futu's ecosystem, and we can continue to enhance our clients' brand perception of Futu as a one-stop financial services platform. So far, Futu is the only online brokerage platform in Hong Kong that has integrated digital banking capabilities. We believe the scarcity of that license and the diversity of products and services we can offer under this license will continue to widen our competitive moat. After this round of capital injection, Airstar Bank will be consolidated into Futu's financial statements. In the next two to three years, we'll still be in investment mode for Airstar Bank, but we believe that as Futu's client quality improves across various markets and as more markets become profitable and play out that operating leverage, the drag of Airstar Bank's loss to Futu's overall P&L will be limited. After the capital injection, Futu and Xiaomi Group will continue to work very closely and to take advantage of each other's resources in the respective ecosystems to operate this bank together.
[Foreign language] Charles [Foreign language] update [Foreign language] 68.4%.[Foreign lanaguge].
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Qiao Yuang from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Qiao Yuang (Analyst)
[Foreign language] Crypto[Foreign language] Tokenization [Foreign language] Tokenization [Foreign language] Crypto [Foreign language] M&A [Foreign language] Crypto [Foreign languge] Crypto [Foreign languge]？ I have two questions. One is about the product pipeline from Crypto and Tokenization in the next one or two quarters. Then maybe a bit longer term, what kind of value proposition do we try to achieve from Tokenization to our clients? The second question is about whether management have any plan on M&A in the Crypto space to accelerate the capability building and what kind of capability of Crypto are we looking to build in the near term? Thank you.
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
[Foreign language] Tokenization，[Foreign language] Tokenization [Foreign language] Crypto [Foreign language] Crypto 的这一块的一个业务在公司内部是处于一个非常高战略级的这样的一个定位的。所以在任何我们认为可以去增加这个业务的一个快速发展的这样的一些机会出现的时候，我们是不排除使用一些这个兼并收购的一些方法来加速这方面的一些进程。 Regarding your two questions about the Crypto, number one for the new product pipelines and also tokenizations, we do have a lot of preparations and internal discussions, even some layout of certain products in that connections. But as you can understand, tokenization is a very new concept to the market nowadays and subject to different regulatory regimes examinations. It is very difficult for us to lay out a very clear roadmap for the product launch given that a lot of factors will be regulatory dependent. Regarding the M&A in the Crypto side, definitely we are very open in this direction given the Crypto is a very strategically important consideration in our business direction down the road. Definitely we will keep these options open afterwards. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Leon Qi from CLSA. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Leon Key (Analyst)
Hi, thanks for taking my questions. This is Leon Qi from CLSA. I have two questions today. Firstly, we are very glad to see that Hong Kong for the fourth consecutive quarter has led new client additions. I'm just interested in the client profile of our new customers being acquired in Hong Kong for the past quarter and actually for the past four quarters in general given Hong Kong's equity market started to become quite active since around four quarters ago. Is there any meaningful differences in terms of these new customers in Hong Kong in terms of average AUM, ages, trading velocity, the products they are buying? Is there any notable differences for these new clients compared with our existing Hong Kong customers, most of which were acquired during probably the bull market a few years ago? That's the first question on Hong Kong new customer profile.
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
Second question, I'm interested in the gross margin trend in markets outside Hong Kong. We are very pleasantly surprised to see gross margin disclosing in the third quarter was very strong. Given we also have very good AUM growth in markets like Singapore and a lot of new clients in Malaysia, I presume the economy of scale is kicking in very rapidly. If possible, if management can share with us some gross margin trend in Singapore and Malaysia, where are the margin in these markets standing in now? 我主要关心两方面问题。一方面是我们香港的客户结构，随着今年以来这个市场的变化，我们在香港新获得的客户在他的这个客户客群资产、客户年龄方面是不是有一些变化，还有 trading velocity 方面和我们上一轮牛市当中在香港获得这些客户是否有明显不同。第二个问题是我们香港之外的几个主要市场，比如说新加坡和马来西亚，他们的这个 gross margin trend 大概是怎么样的一个水平，是不是由于我们看到这些市场由于 AUM 的快速增长，由于新客户数的快速增长，他们的 margin 上升是我们公司整体 margin 上升的一个主要的原因。如果可能的话，是不是可以请管理层跟我们分享一下这些市场的 margin 现在大概是在怎么样的一个位置？谢谢。
Hi Leon, thank you for these two questions. This is Daniel. I'll take these two questions. First of all, regarding our Hong Kong business, in fact, in the third quarter, we have seen continued upward trajectory in average client assets of our new clients. That, coupled with the continuous net asset inflow, very robust net asset inflow from our existing clients, led to a double-digit sequential growth in average client assets in Hong Kong. I think that is representative of what happened the past couple of quarters. As we continue to enhance our brand image, I think we can continue to attract more and more high-quality clients. There will be more clients that are inclined to do one-stop asset allocation within Futu's platform. In terms of these clients' behavior, trading behavior specifically, I think that's very much market-driven.
As you know, in terms of our total trading volume in the past year or so, it's mostly kind of US stocks. In Q3 this year, as the Hong Kong equities market outperformed, a lot of our clients quickly flocked to Hong Kong equities and engaged quite actively. I think this is very much driven by the performance and the relative outperformance of different equity markets. We think this is more cyclical than structural in terms of clients' trading behavior. To your second question, yes, we think that online brokerage business inherently has huge operating leverage, but on the gross margin level, it's been very healthy across all of our markets because it mostly relates to trading and our trading product and margin product all have very high margins. The operating leverage mostly kicks in from the operating expenses.
As we continue to scale in a lot of these international markets, we have seen a very rapid expansion in operating leverage. Maybe to give you some numbers on our Singapore business, for a couple of consecutive months, we have seen the operating margin in our Singapore business consistently topped 60% and is still expanding. I think that really speaks to the strong operating leverage in our business model.
strong operating leverage, and as we continue to increase revenue, the profitability catch-up is relatively fast. Thank you.
Leon Key (Analyst)
好的，谢谢 Daniel 总。 Thanks a lot, Daniel. Very helpful.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. This concludes today's question and answer session. I'll now hand the call back to Daniel Yuan for closing remarks.
Daniel Yuan (Chief of Staff to CEO, Head of Strategy and IR)
That concludes our call today. On behalf of the Futu Management Team, I'd like to thank you for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or any of our investor relations representatives. Thank you and goodbye.
Operator (participant)
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.