NetEase - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, and welcome to the NetEase 2023 third quarter earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Margaret Shi, Senior IR Director of NetEase. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Margaret Shi (Senior Director of Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator. Please note the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements relating to the future performance of the company and are intended to qualify for a safe harbor from liability, as established by the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Such statements are not guaranteed of future performance and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors. Some of these risks are beyond the company's control and could cause actual results to differ materially from those mentioned in today's press release and this discussion. A general discussion of the risk factors that could affect NetEase's business and financial results is included in certain filings of the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual report on Form 20-F, any announcements or filings on the website of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking information except as required by law. During today's call, management will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures for comparison purposes only. For a definition of non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial results, please see the 2023 third quarter earnings release, news release issued earlier today. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. In addition, an investor presentation and a webcast replay of this conference call will be available on the NetEase corporate website at ir.netease.com. Joining us today on the call from NetEase senior management are Mr. William Ding, Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Charles Yang, Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Charles, who will read the prepared remarks on behalf of William.

Charles Yang (CFO)

Thank you, Margaret, and thank you everyone for participating in today's call. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that all percentages are based on RMB. The third quarter was another period marked by outstanding results. Our beloved legacy titles and new hit games are strengthening our reach throughout the gaming world. Our total net revenues were RMB 27.3 billion for the third quarter, up nearly 12% year-over-year, and our net income attributable to shareholders rose to RMB 7.8 billion, increasing by 17% year-over-year. Our time-honored legacy franchises have maintained robust popularity. Notably, we brought players updates for the Fantasy Westward Journey saga in the third quarter with a brand-new storyline and captivating activities, which once again breathed new life into the saga and drove year-over-year revenue growth for a more than 20-year-old epic title.

In addition to our well-established games, we are actively expanding our portfolio by consistently launching and cultivating long-lasting franchises across more genres. We have strengthened our leadership in MMOs by pushing the boundaries of industry standards. We have also expanded our presence in broader game categories and demographics with innovative content, gameplay, and monetization models. We can see this in the enduring popularity of the games that we have introduced in recent years, such as Eggy Party, NARAKA: BLADEPOINT. Furthermore, our recently launched titles, including Justice Mobile Game, Racing Master, and Dunk City Dynasty, have quickly climbed to the top of the iOS grossing charts after its release. Looking at our newest hit titles, Justice Mobile Game, launched just in June, impressively surpassed 50 million registered users in October, establishing itself as one of the largest MMOs in NetEase company history in terms of user base size.

Notably, a significant portion of its player community comprises Generation Z players who were previously unfamiliar with the MMO genre, becoming the gateway of MMO games for the younger generation in China. As a trendsetter in the MMO industry, NetEase has once again brought key innovations to the genre with the launch of Justice Mobile Game and reshaped the MMO landscape. It offers players a vast array of high-quality content for free, revamping the conventional paying model for MMOs. The shift to a more balanced spending approach gives players more freedom to enjoy the game's rich features and gameplay, with optional purchases focused on avatars, cosmetics, and accessories. This model was very well received by the game's player base, solidifying its stability. In late October, we introduced Justice Mobile Game's first seasonal update, which significantly enhanced player engagement with captivating storylines, new gameplay, and additional professional role options.

It swiftly propelled Justice Mobile Game to the number 2 position on China's iOS Grossing Chart shortly after its release. The innovative seasonal mechanism we've introduced to the MMO genre gives all players a fresh start with a focus on fair and balanced gameplay. It also reduces the gap between experienced and new players, ensuring that everyone can enjoy and engage in this game. In addition to the success of this new blockbuster MMO title, we also achieved success across other game genres in the third quarter. Our new racing simulation game, Racing Master, consistently ranked amongst the top 3 most downloaded and highest grossing games on the iOS chart in China, following each new game update, proving its broad appeal to racing enthusiasts. Notably, as China's very first AAA standard racing simulator mobile game, Racing Master has introduced an authentic racing experience into China's mainstream gaming sphere.

With a plan for Racing Master's global market expansion, we will soon commence overseas testing to bring this exciting racing simulation experience to players worldwide. We also achieved a significant milestone with our foray into sports games, a historically less popular category in China. We've broken new ground with Dunk City Dynasty, a street basketball game that provides various modes to deliver a casual basketball gameplay experience. Dunk City Dynasty quickly rose to the number 2 position on the iOS Grossing Chart in China just a few weeks after its release. Following our latest seasonal updates, with the introduction of new basketball superstars to the team roster, like James Harden, the game rose to the number 1 position on the iOS Grossing Chart in China. The innovative gameplay and balanced gaming experience we've infused in Dunk City Dynasty are important differentiators for our game.

By integrating players authorized by the NBPA with street basketball, we provide players with higher gameplay freedom, along with expanded cosmetic options. The game also includes a fair card for fair play, meaning increased player spending doesn't dictate who wins. This facilitates more inclusive gameplay and even more potential for the game's long-term success. Player enthusiasm for Racing Master and Dunk City Dynasty underscores the significant demand in China for top-tier games in the casual game genre. Along with our rich R&D capabilities, we are leveraging the inroads we've already made across a broad spectrum of genre verticals to fill these gaps in the market with new hit games that players love. Games we've introduced in recent years continue to resonate with players, demonstrating enduring popularity and long-term operating potential. Eggy Party, for example, continues to achieve remarkable milestones.

In August, Eggy Party set new records by amassing over 100 million UGC maps and attracting 100 million MAUs. We have been committed to fostering and nurturing our UGC ecosystem, which is the cornerstone of Eggy Party's success. We enhanced our self-developed editor in the third quarter by introducing more advanced and interactive functions. We also added collaborative map crafting functionality that lets users create with friends online on a shared canvas. To help foster even more creativity, we've introduced tutoring systems and a range of incentives to reward and motivate creators through various activities. Building on the game's notoriety in domestic markets, we are actively pursuing global expansion plan for Eggy Party. In the third quarter, we launched Eggy Party in Southeast Asia, where it consistently secured dominating positions on Google Play download charts for multiple weeks, particularly in Indonesia and Thailand.

These early overseas releases also gave us valuable feedback and insights that guide our efforts as we optimize the game for a global audience. We are also proud to announce that NARAKA: BLADEPOINT recently reached a remarkable milestone of 40 million users. Following the transition to a free-to-play mode in July, we also introduced new heroes to the game in the third quarter, igniting greater player enthusiasm and attracting a massive influx of additional users to the game. To bolster our robust portfolio of games, we have a number of new games under development. As we get closer to some of these introductions,... We are particularly excited about Where Winds Meet, our new AAA martial arts-themed action-adventure game. Where Winds Meet infuses an immersive open world experience with an exciting historical backdrop that's relatively untouched in Chinese gaming.

This interactive sandbox style adventure features an extensive map, a diverse array of weaponry, and captivating martial arts techniques. Players have the flexibility to explore this interactive world, both individually and in groups, with two gameplay options. Players can freely roam in the ancient Chinese landscape in single-player mode, enjoying a highly personalized combat experience. In multiplayer mode, players can work closely with friends to complete tasks, engaging in exciting and heartwarming social interactions. We will soon launch the second round of testing, where players will be able to see more of the game with a longer play time. Early feedback fuels our excitement as we get closer to officially launching this brand-new open world experience to our players in 2024.

As the developer of China's first ACG hit title, Onmyoji, NetEase has made ongoing investments in the animation genre, accumulating valuable industry expertise, and we hope to impress the ACG community once again. The promotional video release of our upcoming ACG title under development, set in the metropolitan-themed open world genre, Project Mugen, has garnered significant attention from players both domestically and internationally. We are committed to infusing new vitality into the ACG arena, drawing upon our renowned innovation capabilities and experience in the realms of animated games. Beyond these titles, we also have a number of other games in the making, including Mission Zero, Once Human, She Diao, and NARAKA: BLADEPOINT mobile game. On the global stage, our game development is progressing smoothly in Japan, North America, and Europe. This month, we are excited to welcome Fantastic Pixel Castle as our newest additions to the NetEase family.

Fantastic Pixel Castle is led by Greg Street, who is well known for his contribution to massively successful games around the world, including World of Warcraft and League of Legends. Greg and his experienced founding teams are currently developing a top-tier MMO game, code-named Ghost, to provide players with a fresh and immersive fantasy MMO experience. We are thrilled to collaborate with so many talented industry producers, leveraging their creativity in synergy with our deep research and operational capabilities. Together, we aim to deliver even more captivating games to players worldwide. Now, let's move on to Youdao. In the third quarter, Youdao achieved record high revenue of RMB 1.5 billion, growing 10% year-over-year, driven by the growth in lead learning services and online marketing.

Additionally, as part of our continued efforts to improve profitability, our operating loss for Youdao narrowed by a significant 74% year-over-year to RMB 58 million. The solid growth in our learning services was due to our consistent ability to launch unique and high-quality courses. Notably, in the third quarter, our coding courses introduced a specialized program aimed at preparing students for the CSP Informatics Competition, one of the most popular competitive programming event in China. Our program features all-encompassing services that include learning, contest practice, and an evaluation system. The evaluation system is supported by our in-house developed scoring model, allowing students to estimate their scores and assess their probability of progressing into the next round of the contest. Youdao's online marketing services have consistently grown at an impressive rate of approximately 100% for the second consecutive quarter.

This underscores our expertise in proprietary algorithms and the effectiveness of our customized solutions that are precisely crafted for diverse industry sectors. Revenues from our smart devices declined in the third quarter as we strategically optimized our channel mix by reducing sales through less cost-effective channels. Although this may have a temporary impact on Youdao's revenue, we believe it will lay a solid foundation for sustained long-term growth and enhance Youdao's profitability potential over the long run. Our focus on technological innovation remains our driving force... In addition to Youdao's tech-boosted performance, we upgraded AI bot on Youdao Translation product in the third quarter, which enables more accurate and natural translation across various types of documents. With the support of our machine-generated functions, third quarter revenue from subscription fees for translation increased by over 160% year-over-year.

Furthermore, following the August introduction of our digital human language coach, Hi Echo, through Youdao Dictionary Pen X6 Pro, we expanded our reach to a broader user base through an independent app in October, attracting over 100,000 user registrations within just a month. We will continue to iterate Hi Echo with a new update coming soon. Looking forward, we will look to drive more technological innovation and introduce more products that genuinely meet our users' needs by harnessing our expertise in machine learning technology. Next, turning to NetEase Cloud Music. In the third quarter of 2023, Cloud Music continues to navigate quality development across our core music-centric ecosystem, while further extending the robust monetization momentum in the core online music sphere and improving overall profitability. Total online music MAUs remained largely steady, staying above 200 million in the third quarter.

Total revenues for the quarter were RMB 2 billion, on par with last quarter. Growth in our music-centric memberships accelerated, demonstrating our ability to introduce premium offerings, including expensive content and innovative features. Additionally, our social entertainment services started to stabilize on a monthly basis during the latter part of the third quarter, following our strategic positioning refinements in live streaming, which resulted in short-term setbacks. With solid monetization momentum in the core online music businesses and continued cost structure optimization, Cloud Music maintained steady margin improvement for the period. We are constantly expanding our music library to provide a comprehensive selection of music for our diverse audience base. During the third quarter, we broadened our extensive music collection by adding songs from popular Chinese pop artists like Karen Mok, Zheng Jun, and Zhang Jie.

In addition, we were delighted to release albums by pop stars, including G.E.M., KeyNG, and Shen Yicheng. As part of our ongoing commitment to enriching our music-centered ecosystem, we remain dedicated to empowering and assisting independent artists. As of the end of September, we proudly served a thriving community of over 660,000 registered independent artists, showing strong growth of 16% compared with the same period last year. We've also broadened our support for emerging music talent. Our new programs are tailored to regional roots and distinctive styles in different areas, including programs like Localized Sound and Project Stone Season Five, to honor and promote more diverse artists. At the same time, we hosted offline music festivals such as 65PARK Camp Music Festival, providing more exposure for our independent musicians.

In addition to broadening our content selections, we continued our product innovation initiatives, aiming to elevate users' music listening experience and foster our music-centric community. We recently officially launched the private DJ feature, incorporating music recommendations with an intelligent and personalized music introduction and explanatory experience. This feature allows users to record old-fashioned radio DJ, while enjoying a more personalized music accompaniment as part of their listening experience. Building on our iconic comment section, our comment square has emerged as a vibrant gathering place for users to express and find connections with one another. Moving on to Yanxuan. In the third quarter, our private label consumer brand launched more popular products through diversified channels. We saw robust sales growth in selected categories like pet supplies and home cleaning products. Best sellers like ergonomic chairs, bathroom fragrances, and cat food consistently outperformed competitors across various platforms.

Our strategic efforts, including efficient warehouse and distribution management and personalized packaging, have also proven successful. Thanks to the innovative marketing campaign, our down jacket series, which is highly acclaimed for its exceptional quality at affordable price, gained immense popularity during this year's Double Eleven online shopping event, driving the collection to hit top positions on multiple best-selling charts on several e-commerce platforms. In summary, innovation is at the core of all of our businesses, driving our growth and our competitive edge. We believe that great content, product, and services stem from new and creative ideas. This principle lies at the heart of NetEase, whether it's games, Cloud Music, Youdao or Yanxuan, we consistently strive to reach new heights. In doing so, we help drive the industries we serve forward, while delivering value to our growing global community, our partners, our team members, and our stakeholders. This concludes William's comments.

I will now provide a brief review of our 2023 third quarter financial results. Given the limited time on today's call, I will be presenting some abbreviated financial highlights. We encourage you to read through our press release issued earlier today for further details. Total net revenues for the third quarter were RMB 27.3 billion, or $3.7 billion, representing an increase of approximately 12% year-over-year. Total net revenues from our games and value-added services were RMB 21.8 billion, up 16% year-over-year. The growth was primarily due to increased revenue contribution from newly launched games, such as Justice Mobile Game, Racing Master, and Eggy Party. Net revenues from our mobile game accounted for nearly 78% of our total net revenues from online games operation.

Youdao's net revenues were RMB 1.5 billion, a year-over-year increase of nearly 10%, primarily due to increased revenue contribution from learning services and online marketing services. Net revenues from cloud music were RMB 2 billion, a 16% decline compared to the same period last year. As we explained earlier, this result reflects declining revenue of social entertainment services as we adjust our focus to improve profitability in a sustainable manner. Net revenues for innovative businesses and others were relatively flat in the third quarter at RMB 2 billion. Our total gross profit margin continues to grow, exceeding 62% in the third quarter, compared with 56% in the third quarter of 2022.

Looking at our third quarter margin in more details, gross profit margin was 69% for our games and related value-added services, compared with 65% in the same period of last year. The increases were primarily attributable to changes in the revenue mix of the NetEase self-developed and co-developed and licensed games. GP margin for Youdao was 55.9%, compared with 54.2% in the same period of last year. The increase mainly resulted from increased revenue contribution from its learning services and online marketing services segment. Gross profit margin for Cloud Music improved in the third quarter, reaching 27.2% versus 14.2% in the same period a year ago. The margin improvement primarily resulted from increased revenues scale from membership subscription and continued improvement to our cost management measures.

For innovative businesses and others, gross profit margin was 27.3%, compared with 25.5% in the third quarter of last year. The increase was primarily the result of margin improvement in Yanxuan and some of our innovative businesses. Total operating expenses for the third quarter were RMB 9.4 billion, or 35% of our total net revenues. Taking a closer look at our expense composition, our selling and marketing expenses as a percentage of total net revenues were 13% in the third quarter, compared with 15.4% for the same period of last year. This reflects our ongoing efforts to consistently enhancing marketing efficiency. Our R&D expenses as a percentage of total net revenues also remained stable quarter-over-quarter at 16%. As always, we are committed to ongoing investments in content creation and product development.

We are also seeing leverage in our R&D investments longer term. Our G&A expenses as a percentage of total net revenues was 5.5%. The slight increase from the previous quarter was primarily due to certain one-off items. Our other income was RMB 1.5 billion for the third quarter of 2023, versus RMB 2.8 billion in previous quarter. The decrease was mainly due to the exchange rate of the US dollar against the RMB fluctuating over the period. ... As per applicable accounting standards, we are required to reflect the fair value changes. The effective tax rate was 14.2% for the third quarter. As a reminder, the effective tax rate is presented on an accrual basis, and the tax credits defer for each of our entities at different time periods, depending on applicable policies and our operations.

Our non-GAAP net income from continuing operations attributable to our shareholders for the third quarter totaled RMB 8.6 billion, or $1.2 billion. Non-GAAP basic earnings from continuing operations per ADS for the quarter was $1.84 or $0.37 per share. Additionally, our cash position remains robust, with net cash of approximately RMB 104.4 billion as of September end, compared with RMB 95.6 billion as of the end of last year. In accordance with our dividend policy, we are pleased to report that our Board of Directors has approved a dividend of $0.099 per share, or $0.495 per ADS.

Lastly, under our current $5 billion share repurchase program starting in mid-January this year, we had repurchased approximately 7 million ADS as of September 30th, 2023, for a total cost of approximately $588 million. Thank you for your attention. We would like now to open the call to your questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up your handset to ask your question. For the benefit of all participants on today's call, if you wish to ask your question to management in Chinese, please immediately repeat your question in English. Please limit your questions to one at a time. If you wish to have a follow-up question, please rejoin the queue. Our first question comes from Ritchie Sun with HSBC. Please go ahead.

Ritchie Sun (Director of Internet Research)

管理层晚上好，谢谢你们接受我的提问。恭喜公司有...对新游戏有非常强劲的表现。我想问一下，排...

管理层对派对游戏的竞争格局的看法，你们觉得是胜者通吃，还是可以有两家的玩家？我们看到蛋仔派对已经拥有强大的用户群体和用户生成内容UGC的能力，考虑到其他竞争对手，带来的竞争，网易将会采取哪些措施去保持领先的地位？I will translate this question myself. Thank you, management, for taking my questions. I have a question about the competitive landscape for party games. Does management think it is a winner-takes-all market, or can you have two players?

We noticed that Eggy Party has strong user base and UGC content already. Given that there are more potential competition from other platforms, what would NetEase further do to sustain the leadership? Thank you.

William Ding (CEO)

我觉得有竞争是一件很正常的事情，那网易在未来会继续通过创新和为用户提供满意的服务，来在这个市场上稳扎稳打。所以我们很有信心，在party游戏上继续这个努力，谢谢。

Speaker 11

Yeah, just do a translation for William. So we think it's absolutely normal to have a competition. But from NetEase's perspective, we'll continue to drive innovation and provide good services to our users, and that's how we lead the market. So we have full confidence in keeping pleasing our users in the party game genre. Thank you.Next question, please.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Jane Jian with CITIC. Please go ahead.

Jane Jian (Managing Director of Beijing ESG Investing)

谢谢管理层，接受我提问。我想请教一下关于长期玩游戏的一些情况。那想请管理层具体分享一下长期玩游戏，比如说是，梦幻西游系列，如何去保持它强劲的一个生命力的？然后在当下的情况下来看的话，这些游戏的流水趋势怎么样，然后内部的生态会怎么样？谢谢。

Could management share more details with us that how do the friendship games, such as Fantasy Westward Journey series, maintain their strong maturity? And what is the growth being chain of this games? Thank you.

William Ding (CEO)

我还是回到这个游戏的话题，就是第一个你要创新，第二个呢，你要提供高质量的，细分的内容来满足用户的需求，这样你能保持这个游戏的，长期的生命力，不要去做一些短期的行为。...

为了这个短期的利益去做一些事情。网易过去20多年的游戏的运营经验都是坚持这个长期的理念，谢谢。

Speaker 11

So the most, as I say, want to say the most important thing for a game is innovation and continue to provide high quality content for our users, and it's important for us to focus on the long term, longevity of our games and never make any short term decisions. So based on our 20 years operation experience, we think that a long term goal is the key. Thank you. Next question please.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Felix Liu with UBS. Please go ahead.

Felix Liu (Executive Director and China Internet and Media and Education Research Analyst)

Let me translate myself. Thank you management for taking my question and congratulations on the strong third quarter results. My question is on the pipeline. Among the three games that already have licenses, including She Diao, Where Winds Meet and Mission Zero. How is the R&D progress for these games?

When do you think these games can come to market? For the other games that are still waiting for banhao, such as Naraka Mobile and Project Mugen, does management have any color on their R&D progress? Thank you.

William Ding (CEO)

网易每一款推向市场的产品都是经过认真打磨以后，认为这个质量得到了保证，我们才会向用户提供服务的。所以，射雕、零号任务等这些游戏，我们还在进行认真的最后的线上的准备。这个我们会在最晚，不会超过明年的第二季度之前上市，我们会在明年的第二季度之前这个准备好上市。谢谢。

Speaker 11

Yeah, thank you. Just a quick translation. Yeah, so for each of our game, it's always after very careful adjustments moderation before we are ready to release them to the market. And so games such as She Diao, Mission Zero, we are still in the final stage of preparation, and hopefully we'll get them released to the market, no later than the second quarter of next year. Thank you. Next question, please.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Thomas Chong with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Thomas Chong (Managing Director and Regional Head of Internet and Media)

Thanks management for taking my questions. My question is about our overseas strategies. Given that we have, we have demonstrate very good sets of results in the domestic market, the very solid pipeline, how should we think about our overseas expansion in the coming years as well as our investment strategies? Thank you.

William Ding (CEO)

我要回答这个问题吧。在全球市场上，我们仍然会坚持我们一贯的以精品内容为导向的方针，然后在全球范围内积极寻找认同网易的这样研发和运营理念的合作伙伴，持续地支持许多优秀的海外团队，然后争取为全球的用户打造最优质的产品内容。

Speaker 11

So for on the global market, we will continue our strategy of high quality, focused and direction. We'll continue to look for partners who share the same mentality, share the same passion for games as we do, and continue to investing investing good teams to produce and create great content for users all around the globe. Thank you. Next question, please.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Lincoln Kong with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Lincoln Kong (Executive Director)

谢谢管理层接受我提问，也恭喜公司三季度很强的利润表现。那我的问题是，今年其实也看到，就是成功的，无论 是蛋仔还是逆水寒，可能跟我们传统的这些长期游戏有所不同，都有很大的这个用户基数和这个生命周期。所以对于未来网易可能开发上线的游戏，尤其是包括明年的这个燕云十六声和射雕，我们这边可以想，会有更多的 一些玩法的创新和类似之前成功的一些经验的借鉴吗？我们可以很期待下一个，逆水寒的成功。

...So, thank you, Mitchell, for taking my questions. So, we have seen this year a very successful title from Eggy Party and Justice Mobile, which is a bit different from traditional legacy game, have a very big user base and a DAU. So when we think about the future, upcoming launching games, especially for next year, Where Winds Meet and so on, should we expect some of the semi-similar type of features and anything we can sort of recover from the past success? When should we expect the next success of Justice Mobile?

William Ding (CEO)

Got you the-

Speaker 11

Thank you. Let me do translation. So, the last DAU games is definitely a very important direction for us. We'll continue to find the key takeaways from the games that have succeeded in order for us to produce more games of this type. But similarly, at the same time, you know, it's also very important to create high quality games of a particular niche category to meet the different requirements and preference of different type of users. For example, this year we launched a basketball game, racing car games, so these are good examples of top performing games of each of their respective category.

So, within NetEase, we have, you know, NetEase Games teams who specialize in large DAU games and our teams that focus on particular niche, so that we have various different teams within NetEase, and we encourage them to apply their unique edges and a unique experience. Thank you. Next question please.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Ritchie Sun with HSBC. Please go ahead.

Ritchie Sun (Director of Internet Research)

Thank you. So the Dunk City Dynasty has been quite successful despite launching without Android App Store. Although it could have higher channel costs, Android can also bring in more users potentially, which can sustain the game longevity. So how does management assess the ROI of not using Android store? And what type of titles would adopt a similar launch strategy in the future? Thank you.

William Ding (CEO)

Now, we may sound like

Speaker 11

Thank you. So for games that with the targeting towards a very massive user base, like party games, you know, games targeted for all ages. So for these type of games, the platforms, distribution platforms, are more effective in reaching out more users. But for games such as, you know, the basketball game, it requires a specific group, a specific community of game players. So we can find these players through various different platforms and channels.

So in order for us to bring them onto NetEase platform and to operate these games for long period of time, in order for us to get to know these users a little bit better, and then to continue to perform different iterations, to give better and better service and experience to our users. We also want to add that, for you know, so for the Android platform users, they can also download our game through our own website and TapTap and various other channels. Thank you. Next question, please.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Alex Poon with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Alex Poon (Equity Research Analyst of China Internet)

Hi, 谢谢管理层接受我的提问，恭喜很强劲的业绩。我的问题是想，问关于AIGC的，请问AIGC对于我们的新老游戏的内容更新的一个效率提升的一个问题。以往一些大的资料片可能是要3-6个月时间，去更新，在AIGC的时代会不会来得更快？比如说，可以变成每个月去更新，每周更新，以及提升用户的粘性和变现等等。congratulations on very strong quarter.

My question is related to AIGC, and can AIGC in for our future game updates, expansion packs be much more frequent than the current 3-6 months, becoming on a monthly basis or even weekly basis, and such that the longevity and gaming user stickiness, monetization can get better? Thank you very much.

William Ding (CEO)

对，我首先是要强调就是AIGC目前在我们研发上面是起了非常大的帮助，我们在策划，对这个AIGC进行这样的设计，剧情的编写，美术上面，一些创意的这样的就是设计，还有什么代码方面的一些应用。那我们其实整个研发团队，效率其实都有提升，所以我们越来越精通这样AIGC的技术，我相信这个获益是会更快。但是，虽然我们这个，产能是提升了，资料片的推出节奏还是要看我们的运营节奏和玩家的喜好偏好，那并不是越快越好，因为，你还是要给玩家足够的体验和沉浸在游戏的时间，不能赶着他们走。那么，我们会坚持长期运营，那么在效率提高的情况下，我们会以同样时间产出更多更高品质的内容。

Speaker 11

Yes. So just, so yes, we agree that AI is extremely helpful in increasing, enhancing the R&D efficiency, particularly in areas of game design, storyline design, mission design, and on arts, et cetera. So almost every year, every month, we can see another upgrade in terms of R&D efficiency. But while the productivity is increasing, but the pace of us pushing out expansion packs is not completely dependent on that. We need our users to enjoy our content fully. So, the pace and frequency of us rolling out expansion packs is still very much dependent on the preference of our gamers. So we want to run each of our game for long period of time.

So with the increased efficiency, we can provide higher quality content within the same amount of time frame. Thank you. Next question, please.

Alex Poon (Equity Research Analyst of China Internet)

哦。好，谢谢。其实我有个follow up的问题，我想问一下，代号无限大和勇者无敌手游在2024年，会有机会上线吗？谢谢。My second question is about NARAKA: BLADEPOINT Mobile and Project Mugen. Are they likely will be released in 2024? Thank you very much.

William Ding (CEO)

就关于勇者无敌手游的话，我们其实是谈了很久，那么我们也进行了多次的这样的内部玩家的邀请测试，那么，对于这个研发上线，我们已经做好了比较充分的准备，目前主要是在等待这个版号的发放。我相信，这个之后的话，就会公布它的上线市场的时间。关于代号无限大，这是我们和玩家都共同比较期待的下一个精品的游戏。自己的话是，希望它做出，进一步更多的突破，那么会投入更多的资源进行开发，做出跨时代的产品质量。所以目前我们还没有可以透露的时间表。

Speaker 11

Okay. So for NARAKA: BLADEPOINT mobile game, as you know, the game has been under preparation for a little while now, and I think we are fully prepared. The only thing we are waiting for is a license approval. So once we receive license approval, the product should be ready to go. In terms of Project Mugen, it's one of the games that highly anticipated by both us and the gaming community. So we want to keep surprise our players with great content. So we're going to continue to invest in more resources in developing that game in order to create the next generation quality content.

So for now, we do not have a timetable to share. Thank you. The last question, please.

Operator (participant)

Our last question comes from Alicia Yap with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Alicia Yap (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, hello.

晚上好，管理层，谢谢接受我的提问。我有个问题是关于逆水寒手游。除了新用户之外，对于现有的网易玩家，我们是否知道这些玩家在他们玩逆水寒手游之前，其实是玩过哪些网易的游戏？然后对于非网易玩家，他们在玩逆水寒之前，他们是哪些游戏的玩家呢？还有就是说，逆水寒的付费比例和这个ARPU，是不是比网易其他游戏高很多？谢谢。我自己翻译一下。My question is related on Justice Mobile.

So in addition to the new user, for those existing NetEase gamers, where do these gamers come from? Which NetEase game that they were playing before and which non-NetEase game that these players used to play before Justice? Is the paying ratio and also the ARPU for Justice is much higher than the other NetEase games. Thank you.

William Ding (CEO)

逆水寒手游的用户，我们做过统计，大概有三分之一的用户之前是没有玩过网易的这种游戏的。那么这些用户主要来源是来自于目前市场上其他的，用户规模比较大的产品，而且比例也差不多，这证明逆水寒它是一个，对于用户都比较友好的游戏。那么，我们还有其他的一些游戏呢，比如说像这个季度表现出色的篮球和巅峰极速，也都有大量的之前没有玩过网易游戏的用户，扩展了新的用户。 第二个问题是关于逆水寒手游的付费的问题。那么，由于我们逆水寒采用的是一种更加亲民的这样的一个，就是非强制素质付费的模式，所以，它的付费比例其实因为是小额度付费是比较高的，相对于其他产品，同时的话，它的ARPU值相对是偏低的，致力于打造一种更健康，对玩家来说压力更小的类型的付费模式，来保持它长期的这样的一个健康的运营，谢谢。

Speaker 11

So for Justice Mobile, based on our stats, about roughly a third of our users have never played NetEase games before. And these gamers mostly come from, you know, other large DAU products around the market, which means that this is actually a very friendly and among many type of users. In fact, I mean, this year, some of the other games that we launched, such as the basketball game and the Racing Master, they also, you know, enjoyed a large proportion of gamers who've never played NetEase games before. So in terms of the paying ratio of monetization of Justice Mobile, so for Justice Mobile, we've actually opted a more, a more, a lighter monetization model.

And because of that, the ARPU is relatively lower with a much higher paying ratio. So we purposely chose this monetization model so that we can create a more healthy and balanced in-game environment, giving our game players less pressure in terms of paying to give them a long-term, enjoyable environment in which they can enjoy their games. Thank you. Yeah. So that's, I think that's all the questions we have for today.

Operator (participant)

Operator, that concludes the question. Thank you. That concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any additional or closing comments.

Margaret Shi (Senior Director of Investor Relations)

Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us directly or Investor Relations. Have a great day. Thank you.