JOYY - Q4 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the JOYY Inc.'s fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings 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. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your host today, Jane Xie, the company's Senior Manager of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Jane.

Jane Xie (Senior Manager of Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone. Welcome to JOYY's fourth quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Joining us today are Mr. David Xueling Li, Chairman and CEO of JOYY, Ms. Ting Li, our COO, and Mr. Alex Liu, the Vice President of Finance. For today's call, management will first provide a review of the quarter, and then we will conduct a Q&A session. The financial results and webcast of this conference call are available at ir.joyy.com. A replay of this call will also be available on our website in a few hours. Before we continue, I would like to remind you that we may make forward-looking statements, which are inherently subject to risks and uncertainty that may cause actual results to differ from our current expectations.

For detailed discussions of the risks and uncertainties, please refer to our latest annual report on Form 20-F and other documents filed with the SEC. Finally, please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during this conference call are in U.S. dollar. I will now turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Mr. David Xueling Li. Please go ahead, sir.

David Xueling Li (Chairman and CEO)

Hello, everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter 2023 earnings call. First, we will provide a quick review of our performance for the quarter and the full year. During the fourth quarter, our group revenue came to $570 million. Our core business segment, BIGO, recorded a revenue for $491 million, a year-over-year increase for 3.1%. Group's non-GAAP net profit is $64.2 million, with BIGO contributing $63.5 million. For the full year of 2023, group revenue reached $2.227 billion, with around $1.92 billion coming from BIGO. On reflection, 2023 proved to be a year of progress. Our focus on continuous product enhancement, nimble operational strategies, and our strong execution yielded positive results despite the prevailing macro changes.

First, our relentless optimization of operational efficiencies generated enhanced profitability for the third consecutive year. In 2023, our non-GAAP net profit reached $293 million, increased by 46.8% year-over-year. Our non-GAAP net margin was 12.9%, up by 4.6 percentage points year-over-year. Bigo's non-GAAP operating profit reached $288 million, representing a non-GAAP operating margin of 15%, higher than our expectation. Notably, all social products under the Bigo segment, include Bigo Live, Likee and others, were profitable in 2023. Additionally, Hago, under the All Other segment, generated a positive operating cash flow for the year. Second, our global average mobile MAUs have now resumed year-over-year growth for the three consecutive quarters, even as we adhere to a disciplined marketing spending strategy.

In the fourth quarter, our global average mobile MAUs increased by 2.6% year-over-year to 275 million. Third, we solidified our leadership position within the global social entertainment industry. According to data.ai's State of Mobile report released in January 2024, Bigo Live retained its position as the world's second-largest social app based on consumer spending in 2023. Out of the 29 countries and regions spanning the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific, covered by data.ai. Bigo Live ranked among the top five social apps in 18 countries and regions, and among the top ten social apps in seven countries and regions in terms of customer spending. Other social products also achieved a significant breakthrough in key markets in 2023.

In terms of customer spending, Likee claimed the third place among social apps in Saudi Arabia, while Hago secured a top 10 position in both Indonesia and the Philippines. Despite this progress, the group and the BIGO segment revenues were down by 6% and 3.6% respectively, year-over-year. The decline was primarily due to two factors. First, despite middle single-digit growth in BIGO's paying user throughout the fourth quarter, BIGO's ARPU was still down year-over-year, primarily due to high inflation, which negatively affected the users paying sentiment. Second, to strengthen our global positioning and foster sustainable growth, we proactively made adjustment to certain non-core live streaming operations starting in the second quarter. Those adjustments had a negative impact on our live streaming revenues in certain regions.

However, by fine-tuning our operations and focusing resources on the more resilient developed countries region, we saw BIGO's ARPU stabilize and a recovery in BIGO's revenue in the two most recent quarters. With our more focused operational strategy, we believe BIGO will continue to recover and grow steadily during 2024. Looking ahead, we believe there's ample room for growth. To capture such potential, the key is to deliver unique experience and value to users to stay relevant and achieve sustainable growth, such as our priorities for 2024 are as follows: First, we remain committed to our globalization strategy, while we acknowledge inquiries regarding the potential impact of YY Live transaction on our future strategies. We are currently in discussion with Baidu on the next step following the termination of the SPA, and we are unable to disclose any further information at this time.

However, we can confirm that our globalization strategy will remain unchanged. Globalization through localization has been our foremost strategy and our strong global, localized operational capabilities are the cornerstone of our global success. In 2024, we will double down on our emphasis on local talent and drive innovative operations to further build our brand's global influence. Our elevated collaborations with KOLs and local partners were instrumental in enhancing product awareness and catalyzing user growth in 2023. Building on this success, we will uphold our efforts to drive further steady growth of our global user community. Second, we will continue to strike a balance between growth and efficiency. In 2024, while we anticipate the sustained recovery of BIGO, we also expect to maintain profitability and our positive cash flows at the group level.

This year, we remain committed to dedicating resources to build our core strengths, which encompass both our global operational capacity and our technology. At the same time, we will prudently explore long-term growth opportunities by driving innovations at the products and operational levels. We have been exploring new monetization models and beyond live streaming, and achieved meaningful progress. In 2023, revenue from our non-live streaming business made up to 12.7% of our total revenues, up from 5.4% in 2021. We expect this upward trend to continue in 2024, further expanding and diversifying our revenue streams, and ultimately fortifying a multilevel growth engine for our long-term development. Now, let's take a closer look at our products. We will start at Bigo Live.

Bigo Live maintained its user growth momentum in the fourth quarter, with MAUs increased by 4.5% year-over-year to 38.4 million. We saw growth across several regions with year-over-year MAU increase of 10.9% in Europe, 8.4% in Asia Pacific region, and 12.6% in the Middle East. Bigo Live's revenue and the paying users sustained their recovery trend and sequential growth. The fourth quarter is typical, the peak season of local operational activities worldwide. To capitalize on this, Bigo Live organized a series of events to discover both outstanding creators across various domains and inspire new and diverse content creation. On October, Bigo Live hosted the second season of its Bigo's Most Talented Creator Contest in North America. This event attracted talented dancers, musicians, comedians, and more.

Bigo Live also introduced a brand new creator incentive program across major regions around the world. While Bigo Live continues to support experienced professional streamers and PUGC, as a program places a stronger emphasis on major streamers and UGC. As well as generous economical rewards, Bigo Live provides comprehensive training course for amateur streamers, helping newcomers to develop their skill and learn the ropes of successful streaming. As of the end of 2023, the UGC incentive program has already attracted over 300,000 amateur streamers. In January, we hold our annual year-end flagship event, the Bigo Awards Gala in Las Vegas. The online live streaming of the event attracted over 1.2 million viewers from across the globe.

This year, we also hosted supplementary region galas in various locations, including Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Both the flagship and regional gala saw Bigo Live recognize the most outstanding streamers and families of 2023, and the talented creators were invited to give captivating, diverse performance. The BIGO Awards Gala established tradition of the Bigo Live has helped members of exceptional creators enhance their influence and gain exposure on the global stage. Our galas remained an essential component of our commitment to support our creators in their growth journeys and help them maximize their value creation. On the fourth quarter, our family-based activities encouraged the user to further explore and engaging in family events. Families provide a robust social attributes and...

resonate with users, and we amplified this to drive user acquisition, nurturing long tail streamers and convert free users to paying users. On sequential basis, revenue contributed by family members increased by 5.7%. The number of contracted streamers in families rose by sixteen point five percent, and average DAUs in families increased by 5.5%. Throughout the first quarter, we personalized the user experience by refining recommendation algorithm for our diverse user base. Recommendations will continuously fine-tune based on user behavior, ensuring each user receives the most relevant feeds. As a result, user engagement, user retention, and average viewers time spent per live sessions all improved.

The next-day user retention rate in the first quarter rose by 2.3% sequentially, while average viewer time spent per session surged by 6.4%. Bigo Live's Real Match feature continues to foster high quality social connection among users by refining and optimizing the overall matching progress, including user profiles and matching strategies. We successfully leveraged the Real Match to cultivate a great number of stable user connection. In the first quarter, the total number of connections increased by 23.3% sequentially, and the number of direct chat message between matched users grew by 14.8%. Next, let's take a look at Likee. Likee maintained its strategy, strategy focus on its core, Middle East and Europe markets.

In recent quarters, Likee implemented a series of targeted operational and product optimizations to drive user recovery and stimulate monetization growth in its core regions. Although Likee's overall MAUs turned down sequentially during the first quarter, its DAUs in the core developed countries, especially Europe, have maintained high single-digit growth for the past four quarters. In terms of monetization, Likee's revenue for the full year was up year-over-year in 2023. The recovery of DAUs in its core region and involving creators, services, ecosystem, and more established business and creators marketplace, all contributed to Likee's advertising revenue growth, growing by nearly 2.4 times for the full year of 2023. Despite a decline in its live streaming ARPU, which was a negatively affected by macroeconomic uncertainties.

The number of Likee's paying user has grown for four consecutive quarters. Thanks to its progress on monetization and disciplined spending, Likee maintained its profitability during the first quarter. This means that Likee achieved the first full year profitability in 2023, another significant milestone. On the product front, Likee continues to focus on delivering comprehensive creator services, incentivizing diverse content creation, and fostering community interactions. In the fourth quarter, Likee introduced text and image posting features alongside new monetization options enabling user subscription for both video collections and individual videos. Those features offer creators greater flexibility in terms of content formats and open up new opportunities for monetization. Likee also rolled out a variety of interactive games in the first quarter to better align with users evolving entertainment preferences.

During the fourth quarter, Likee continued to enhance its content production quality, leading to 2.7% sequential growth on in average user time spending. Thanks to upgraded interactive features, overall user engagement as measured by the ratio of DAUs and MAUs improved by 2.2% in the same period. Now turning to Hago. In the fourth quarter, Hago's innovative year-end events and the new operational features drove strong middle single-digit sequential revenue growth. Hago continued to generate positive operating cash flow in the quarter, and therefore, achieved its first full-year operating cash flow breakeven in 2023. Hago's user social interactions also improved during the fourth quarter. Average time spending per user in social channels increased by 4%, sequentially, surpassed 99 minutes.

Average time spending per user in multi-guest voice room saw a similar change, increased by 4.9% Q-over-Q. Finally, let me provide some updates on cash flow and capital return. We continued to generate robust positive operational cash flow, reaching $97.2 million in the fourth quarter. Our commitment to create and retaining value to our shareholders remains important priority and priority, and our track record is a testament to our long-term dedication. Over the course of 2023, we repurchased share and distributed cash dividends in aggregate amount of $355 million, equivalent to 121.5% of our annual non-GAAP net profit.

From 2020 to 2023, we have in total distributed approximately $1.38 billion in capital returns. As of the end of the fourth quarter, we still have approximately $530 million unutilized quota under our current share repurchase program. We intend to steadily execute additional share buybacks under the program in 2024. Looking ahead, we will continue to cultivate our content and social ecosystem to steadily grow our thriving user community and reinforce our leadership in core geographic regions. At the same time, we will further dedicate our resources to build our core strengths and carefully explore long-term growth opportunities. By driving innovations in both our products and operations, we expect to further diversify our revenue streams and capture long-term sustainable growth. This concludes my prepared remarks.

I will now turn the call to our Vice President of Finance, Alex Liu, for our financial updates.

Alex Liu (VP of Finance)

Thanks, David. Hello, everyone. Before I go into our financial details, I would like to remind you that despite the latest development in the sale of YY Live, to the date of this press release, we have not obtained control over YY Live, and therefore have not consolidated the business. The financial results presented in our press release and this conference call primarily consisted of Bigo, excluding YY Live. Now, let me go through the details of our financial results. Despite the ongoing macro uncertainties, we ended 2023 with another strong quarter. Our total net revenues were $569.8 million in the fourth quarter. Revenues from Bigo segment were $491.3 million, up by 3.1% year-over-year....

driven by a strong annual increase of 7.9% in Bigo's quarterly paying users and stable live streaming ARPU, which was down by 2.6%. Geographically speaking, as we prioritized our operational resources towards developed countries and regions, revenues from developed countries was up by double digits year-over-year, outperforming other regions. Cost of revenues for the quarter decreased to $368.4 million, among which our revenue sharing fees and content costs decreased to $242.2 million. Bigo's cost of revenues was $309 million, which was up year-over-year, consistent with the rebound in live streaming revenue and elevated creator support during the quarter. Gross profit was $201.5 million in the quarter, with a gross margin of 35.4%.

Bigo's gross profit was $182.3 million, with a gross margin of 37.1%. Our group's operating expenses for the quarter were $199.4 million, compared with $231.2 million in the same period of 2022. Among the operating expenses, sales and marketing expenses decreased to $92.3 million from $100.8 million in the same period of 2022, primarily due to the optimization of overall sales and marketing strategies across various product lines to be more focused on ROI and the effectiveness of user acquisition. R&D expenses was $72.6 million, compared with $73.6 million in the same period of 2022.

General and administrative expenses decreased to $34.6 million from $41.9 million in the same period of 2022, mainly due to the company's efforts to improve management efficiency during the year. Bigo's operating expenses for the quarter were $131.3 million, compared with $127.8 million in the same period of 2022. Our group's GAAP operating income for the quarter was $4.8 million. Our non-GAAP operating income for the quarter, which excludes SBC expenses, amortization of intangible assets from business acquisitions, loss of the consolidation and disposal of subsidiaries, as well as impairment of goodwill and investments, was $27.9 million in the quarter, with a non-GAAP operating income margin of 4.9%.

Bigo's GAAP operating income for the quarter was $53 million, and Bigo's non-GAAP operating income was $67 million, representing a non-GAAP operating income margin of 13.6%. Our group's GAAP net income attributable to controlling interest of JOYY in the quarter was $45.8 million, compared to net loss of $377.5 million in the same period of 2022. GAAP net income margin was 8% in the fourth quarter of 2023, compared to net loss margin of 62.4% in the same period of 2022. Our net loss last year was primarily due to an impairment loss from an equity investment recognized in that quarter. Bigo's GAAP net income in the quarter was $52 million, with a GAAP net margin of 10.6%.

Non-GAAP net income attributable to controlling interest of JOYY in the quarter was $64.2 million, compared to $50 million in the same period of 2022. The group's non-GAAP net income margin was 11.3% in the quarter, compared to 8.3% in the same period of 2022. Bigo's non-GAAP net income was $63.1 million, with a non-GAAP net margin of 12.9%. For the fourth quarter of 2023, we booked net cash inflows from operating activities of $97.2 million. We remain a healthy balance sheet with a strong cash position of $3.7 billion as of December 31, 2023. Now, I would like to briefly walk through the full year financial highlights.

Our total net revenues for the full year were $767.9 million, compared to $741.5 million in 2022. Bigo's revenues for the full year were $924.3 million. We have enhanced profitability at the group level for the third consecutive year. Our non-GAAP net income, attributable to controlling interest and common shareholders of JOYY for the full year of 2023, was $292.5 million, up by 46.8% from $199.3 million in 2022. Non-GAAP net income margin for the full year of 2023 was 12.9%, up from 8.3% in 2022.

Notably, BIGO's non-GAAP net income expanded to $302 million in 2023, with its non-GAAP net income margin improved to 15.7% from 14.4% in the prior year. Importantly, we have continued to enhance returns to shareholders through dividends and share repurchase. In the full year of 2023, we have retained an aggregate amount of $355.4 million to our shareholders through share buybacks and cash dividends, which altogether represent 121.5% of our non-GAAP net income. As of the end of 2023, we still have around $530 million unutilized quota under our current share repurchase program. We intend to proceed with a steady execution of additional share buyback in 2024. Turning now to our business outlook. We anticipate continued top line recovery in the BIGO segment.

However, due to the ongoing uncertainty in the global macro landscape, we recognize that the pace of recovery may vary across different markets, and there may be short-term fluctuations in users' paying sentiments. Separately, as we have implemented some proactive adjustments to certain operations in the previous quarters, we have had and will continue to have a negative impact on our revenues. At group level, we expect our net revenues for the first quarter of 2024 to be between $543 million and $560 million. This forecast reflects our preliminary views on the market and operational conditions and business adjustments, which are subject to changes. In conclusion, balancing between growth and efficiency remains a priority in 2024. We remain committed to dedicating resources to building our core strengths and prudently explore long-term growth opportunities.

With our proven execution capabilities and a robust financial position, we are confident that we are well-positioned to seize growth opportunities and deliver sustainable value to our shareholders. That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we would now like to open up the call to questions. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. When asking a question, please state your question in Chinese first, then repeat your question in English for the convenience of everyone on the call. Your first question comes from Yiwen Zhang from China Renaissance. Please go ahead.

Yiwen Zhang (Analyst)

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. My question regarding our 2024 user and monetization growth trend. Could you discuss like Bigo Live and like Likee, respectively? Thank you.

David Xueling Li (Chairman and CEO)

Ni hao

Yiwen Zhang (Analyst)

[Foreign Language] ...Q4，Bigo发达国家大区的营收同比增速达到了两位数。啊，我想2024年呢，我们仍然会保持这个灵活和有针对性的运营策略，根据ROI以及全球市场恢复的节奏，优先投资资源到消费增长更强劲的地区去。所以呢，我们预期2024年Bigo板块的变现将在大方向上保持复苏。嗯，Jane。

Jane Xie (Senior Manager of Investor Relations)

Hi, thank you, Yiwen. This is David, I will take your question. First of all, let's look back at the monetization trend in Q4. Thanks to elevated operational activities such as our year-end gala, our revenue came in line with our expectation, with Bigo sustaining its top line year-over-year growth for the second consecutive quarter. And in particular, Bigo's three core social global products achieved mid-single digit year-over-year growth in terms of revenue, and this was mainly attributed to a strong growth in their number of paying users and a stabilizing ARPU. And geographically speaking, considering that we have a more targeted operational strategy with prioritizing high-end users and the developed countries, we can see a continued recovery in the developed countries region. In Q4, the top line growth rate from developed countries actually reached double digits year over year for the Bigo segment. In 2024, we expect to maintain our nimble and targeted operational strategy dependent on ROI and also the recovery pace of the global markets. We will continue to prioritize our resources towards regions with stronger growth, and we expect Bigo segment to continue its top line recovery trend in 2024.

David Xueling Li (Chairman and CEO)

[Foreign Language] 另外呢，这个在增长结构上呢，我们也提到，过去两年呢，我们稳步地推进多元化变现战略，集团的这个非直播收入的比例明显提高。2024年呢，为了满足业务发展的需要呢，我们对非直播业务做了一些战略升级和调整，通过这个挖掘深化变现模式，2024年我们预期集团的整体的非直播收入的比例会逐步提高，以多元化的这个引擎推动这个集团业务的增长。然后在用户增长方面呢，在比较节制的这个市场销售开支的这个情况呢，集团的这个MAU连续三个季度恢复同比增长。2024年呢，在用户增长上，我们各个产品线还是会采取均衡可持续增长的策略，着重用户增长的质量，并且不断地提升整体获客的效率。

Jane Xie (Senior Manager of Investor Relations)

And in terms of our growth drivers, as we mentioned earlier, in the past two years, we've been exploring new monetization models beyond live streaming and achieved meaningful progress. Revenue contributed by our non-live streaming businesses have contributed a higher percentage of our group's revenue in the year 2023. And for the coming year of 2024, to better satisfy the development needs of our non-live streaming business, we've made some business upgrades and strategy upgrades to these non-live streaming businesses. And we expect our non-live streaming business to further grow and to take up a higher percentage of the group's revenue in the year 2024. Eventually, we'd like to fortify a multi-level growth engine for our long-term development. And in terms of user growth, our group's MAU has resumed positive year-over-year growth for three consecutive quarters. Going forward, even as we continue to adhere to our discipline marketing spend strategy and going forward into the year 2024, we expect to continue to adopt a balanced and sustainable growth strategy at all products, focusing on the quality of user growth and continue to enhance our overall user acquisition efficiency. Next question, please.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Alex Poon from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Alex Poon (Analyst)

[Foreign Language] 哎，早上好，管理层，谢谢接受我的提问。我的问题是关于Bigo和整个集团的利润率的一个趋势，能不能讲一下2024年，这个Bigo和整个集团的利润率的一个趋势，给一些指引。谢谢。Thanks management for taking my question. My question is related to our margin trend for Bigo and overall group levels in 2024. Thank you very much.

David Xueling Li (Chairman and CEO)

[Foreign Language] 啊，谢谢你的问题，Alex，我来回答一下。...

[Foreign Language] 2023年，我们整体的利润表现其实是好于预期的，尤其是BIGO segment。我们可以看到non-GAAP的毛利率从2022年的37.6%提升到了2023年的38.3%。那么non-GAAP的经营利润率，也是从14.4%提升到了15%。从成本和费用的结构上来看，支付渠道成本、服务器的成本和市场销售费用也是进一步得到了优化，这些驱动了毛利和经营利润率的一个提升。那么展望2024年，我们将持续优化成本结构，进一步提升运营和管理效率，同时适当投入一部分资源到推动营收增长和符合长期战略规划的业务方向中，包括适当加大与KOL的合作与奖励等。那么对于BIGO板块，刨除2023年下半年以来对部分非核心直播业务主动调整带来的影响，2024年我们预期BIGO的核心业务在稳步复苏的情况下，全年non-GAAP的经营利润额，也就是经营利润的规模，在大的方向上保持稳定。对于All Other的板块，刨除自2023年Q2以来，对部分非核心直播业务主动调整带来的影响，我们预期All Other的板块将继续稳步收窄经营亏损。总的来说，新的在集团层面，我们还是会持续谋求增长与效率的平衡，我们将以利润和正向的现金流为导向，持续推动运营效率提升，持续保持盈利和正向的运营现金流，推动集团业务长期稳健的发展。

Jane Xie (Senior Manager of Investor Relations)

This is Alex. I will take your question. If you look at our results for the full year, we actually deliver better than expected profits. In particular, if you're looking at BIGO segment, the non-GAAP gross margin of BIGO segment was 38.3% up from 37.6% in 2022, and the non-GAAP operating margin has been improved to 15%, up from 14.4% in prior year. And that was mainly due to our continued optimization of our payment channel expenses, our server depreciation expenses, and also our sales and marketing expenses. Looking forward to the year 2024, we will continue to optimize our cost structure and improve our operational and management efficiency.

At the same time, we expect to prudently reinvest some of our operating profits into operational activities that can drive further revenue growth and also businesses that align with our long-term strategy. For example, we intend to prudently expand our collaboration with KOL and their incentives. Therefore, specifically for the BIGO segment, while excluding the impact from the proactive adjustments to some non-core live streaming business that we made since the second half of the year 2023, we expect BIGO to continue its top-line recovery and with its non-GAAP operating profit, the amount of non-GAAP operating profit to be roughly stable compared to the year 2023.

And for the All Other segment, also excluding the impact from the proactive adjustments that we made to certain non-core live streaming businesses since the second quarter of 2023, we expect to continue to narrow the amount of non-GAAP operating loss of this segment for the year of 2024 as well. So all in all, at group level, we will continue to strike a balance between profit and growth, and we will value profit and cash flow self-sufficiency, and drive further improvement of our operational efficiencies. All in all, at group level, we expect to maintain profitable, maintain a positive operating cash flow, and drive a long-term sustainable growth of the group's business. Thank you. Next question, please.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Your next question comes from Brian Gong from Citi. Please go ahead.

Brian Gong (Analyst)

[Foreign Language] 好的，谢谢管理层接受我的提问。我的提问是关于这个BIGO收入的分布，能不能分享一下，就是BIGO这边，美国及其他地区的这个收入分布情况，以及能不能分享一下2024年，市场的展望？谢谢。

David Xueling Li (Chairman and CEO)

[Foreign Language] 哦，谢谢你的问题。我觉得这个就是自从我们确立全球化战略，也到现在9年了，我们在这个业务的这个分布上逐渐形成了这个全球化和比较平衡的这个格局。2023年呢，集团的这个直播收入在发达国家地区，占比是38%，中东地区的占比是22%，中国大陆是14%，然后还有剩下的25%是来自东南亚及其他国家地区，就是分布呢，是非常多样化，而且非常平衡的。...

[Foreign Language] 在发达国家的这个大区里面呢，我们进一步可以拆分为北美、欧洲、日韩、澳新和其他的这个子地区，这几个子地区的贡献也是比较分散的。以北美为例呢，北美仅占集团收入的这个low teens的这个水平。

Jane Xie (Senior Manager of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Brian. I will take your...

This is David, I will take your question. So, since we established our globalization strategy, it's been nine years, and you can see that we have actually built a very global business with a diversified and balanced revenue mix across different regions. Looking at our group's live streaming revenue for the year 2023, developed countries and regions actually contributed around 38%, Middle East around 22%, Mainland China around 14%, and the remaining 25% came from Southeast Asia and other area, which you can see is very, very diversified and balanced. And even within the developed countries region, we can further break it down into second-tier sub-regions such as North America, Europe, Eastern Pacific and others. And the contribution among these second-tier sub-regions are also very dispersed. Taking North America as an example, it only accounts for low teens in terms of percentage contribution to the group's overall revenue.

David Xueling Li (Chairman and CEO)

[Foreign Language] 对，就是对于一个这个全球化运营的企业来讲呢，由于各个市场存在这个政治、经济、文化，还有发展阶段等等全方位的差异，往往呢，我们面临的运营非常复杂，然后宏观挑战和地缘政治呢，的不确定性要比这个单一市场运营要大得多。但是呢，对于深耕全球运营的企业来讲呢，在全球，呃，本土运营的实力建立呃，一定的业务规模和成熟的商业模式以后呢，全球均衡的这个战略布局呢，也有利于大幅度降低任何单一市场运营集中带来的风险，也有更大的这个增长潜力。所以呢，我们接下来还是会走持续均衡发展的全球化战略，保持那个灵活有针对性的运营，根据那个ROI和那个全球各个市场的这个恢复的节奏，优先投入资源到那些呃，高增长地区。

Jane Xie (Senior Manager of Investor Relations)

Therefore, you can see that, due to the comprehensive differences across the markets, either in terms of politics, economics, cultural, and industry development differences, a multinational company will definitely encounter more operational complexity and greater macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties, in terms of business operation, than those who operate in a single market. However, as we have established our own global operational capacity, and accumulated a business of scale, and also have a relatively proven business model, a globalization strategy with a balanced mix can actually significantly lower the concentration risk of operating in a single market, and it also enables us to tap into a much greater growth opportunities at the global level. Therefore, moving forward, we will continue to pursue a balanced globalization strategy and remain nimble and targeted in our operational strategy. We will continue to prioritize our resources investment into regions with a stronger growth potential, dependent on ROI and also market recovery. Thank you. Next question.

Final question, please.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Your next question comes from Henry Sun from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Henry Sun (Analyst)

[Foreign Language] 好，感谢管理层接受我的提问，我的问题是关于股东回馈的，我们能否分享一下在这方面有什么新的想法和进展？谢谢。Thanks management for taking my question. My question is about shareholder return. Could you share any new thoughts and outlook in this area? Thanks a lot.

Alex Liu (VP of Finance)

好，谢谢你的问题，我来回答一下。其实正如我们刚刚提到的，2023年，我们集团整体的股东回馈节奏是非常积极的，全年累计股东回馈投入的总金额达到了$355 million，是超过了我们2023年全年的non-GAAP的利润额的，然后占到了81.5%。2024年，股东回馈仍然是我们整个集团管理层关注的重點。截至2023年底，我们还有$530 million的回购额度。那么2024年以来，截至3月15号，我们已经回购了大概$25 million。整个2024年我们会继续推进回购的执行，并且尽量稳步提升回购执行的一个稳定性。谢谢。

Jane Xie (Senior Manager of Investor Relations)

Oh, this is Alex. I will answer your question. In 2023, we remain very active in returning value to our shareholders. For the full year, we have dedicated around $355 million in shareholder returns, which is equivalent to around 121.5% of the group's annual non-GAAP net profit. And for 2024, we would say that creating and returning value to our shareholders remains an important priority for the management. As of the end of 2023, we still have around $530 million unutilized quota under our share repurchase program. And actually, from January to March 15, we have already repurchased an additional 25 million of our shares. And for 2024, we expect to continue to execute additional share buybacks and strive to improve our execution consistency in the new year. So, that was the end of this conference call. Thank you so much for joining today, and we expect to speaking with everyone next quarter. Thank you.