NetEase - Earnings Call - Q4 2024
February 20, 2025
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good day, and welcome to the NetEase 2024 Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Brandi Piacente. Please go ahead.
Brandi Piacente (External Investor Consultant for NetEase)
Thank you, Operator. Please note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements relating to the future performance of the company and are intended to qualify for the safe harbor from liability as established by the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Such statements are not guarantees 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 and in announcements and filings on the website of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The company does not undertake any obligation to update this forward-looking information except as required by law. In today's discussion, management will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures for certain comparison purposes only. For a definition of non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial results, please see the Fourth Quarter 2024 and 2024 Fiscal Year Earnings 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's senior management are Mr. William Ding, Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Bill Pang, the Vice President of Corporate Development. I will now turn the call over to Bill, who will read the prepared remarks on William's behalf.
Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)
Thank you, Brandi, 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 R&D. At NetEase, we're dedicated to innovation and strive for continuous breakthroughs across our businesses. While 2023 was a year of expanding our portfolio across various game genres, 2024 was about pushing boundaries with both innovation and accelerating our brand awareness in the global market. These strategic steps reinforce our foundation for sustainable long-term growth. By the end of the year, our total net revenue reached CNY 105.3 billion, with CNY 83.6 billion from games and related value-added services, both marking new record highs. Notably, this marks the 22nd consecutive year of revenue growth from our online games operations. The successful launch of new batch of titles in the fourth quarter advanced each of our growth drivers: innovation, diversification, and globalization.
By redefining gameplay and setting new industry standards for premium quality, we have created tremendous player enthusiasm. Our games captured attention across genres, within and beyond the traditional gaming community, and on both domestic and global scale. Let's start today by reviewing our new games' performance. Then, we'll take a look at our broader portfolio and pipeline. Marvel Rivals, our fast-paced superhero shooting game, sparked massive excitement across global markets following its launch. It claimed the number one spot on Steam's top-seller chart within four hours of its release, attracting over 10 million players in its first 72 hours and 20 million players in the first 12 days. With over 40 million players accumulated so far, Marvel Rivals is redefining the hero shooter experience through its unique art style, innovative combat system, and ever-changing battlefields.
Its key team-up ability adds a dynamic layer of immersive interactions among players while recreating iconic Marvel moments with our fresh take that adds a new dimension to the Marvel Universe. During the Season One update, Marvel Rivals once again topped Steam's top-seller and most-played chart. Our collaboration with Marvel Comics also brought Marvel Rivals to life for comic fans through an infinity comic series on Marvel Unlimited. The synergy not only amplified the game's momentum but also bridged the world of gaming and other media forms, captivating audiences beyond the gaming community and solidifying Marvel Rivals as a cultural phenomenon. With more superheroes and exciting events on the horizon, Marvel Rivals will continue to evolve. We are thrilled to bring even more new experiences to the game that keep players engaged and inspired. At the end of December, we launched our highly anticipated open-world action-adventure RPG, Where Winds Meet.
Within four days of its PC launch in China, the game has amassed 3 million downloads and topped the iOS download chart for around two weeks following its mobile launch. The booming mobile version drove total players across PC and mobile to over 10 million within a week and over 15 million after two weeks. Rooted in a richly crafted world with a deep historical backdrop, Where Winds Meet innovatively introduced Chinese martial arts into an open-world exploration experience. On top of that, we pioneered a mode that caters to both single-player and multiplayer preferences, which reinterprets Wuxia's story in a brand-new way. Players can immerse themselves in the intertwined conflict of ancient cities like Kaifeng, witness characters' contrasting fate during historical changes, and develop social networks with other people along the journey. Building on the single-player experience, the game seamlessly integrates challenges that encourage social exchange.
While continuously refining the experiences, we aim to create a compelling blend of solo and multiplayer elements, offering players a diverse way to experience the world. With community high praise, we expect the audience of Where Winds Meet to continue to expand over time, with the game becoming another flagship evergreen title. Our plans to build on the game's initial success are underway. We're currently working to bring Where Winds Meet to console platforms and introduce the saga to players in more regions.
In addition to our new game launches, the return of Blizzard games to China has been highly successful, with a strong momentum throughout the fourth quarter. The return of World of Warcraft has consistently sparked tremendous enthusiasm from the community, supported by our diverse localized events that are driving the franchise to new heights. Shortly after Hearthstone's return, we quickly reorganized the highly anticipated Hearthstone Gold Series in China.
The event set new records, drawing in over 10,000 fans in person, and more than 10 million players gathered to watch online. Just yesterday, Overwatch 2 made its return to China, reigniting player excitement. As Blizzard's portfolio gradually returns to the Chinese market, we are further strengthening our partnership with Blizzard, exploring localization opportunities, and bringing more exciting content for China's robust game community. Whether developing or operating a title, we're always committed to innovation and operational excellence. We apply this across our portfolio and continue to see the results of our dedication reflected in our new and legacy franchises. With operations across decades, our beloved legacy franchises continue to set new records and amass fans, thrilling players with enduring popularity. Fantasy Westward Journey continues to bring players fresh experiences through well-timed events and new content in the fourth quarter.
The Tianbian Wanhua Expansion Pack, featuring the iconic transformation abilities of Monkey King Sun Wukong, introduced all-new skills and summon-based games. Meanwhile, the Spring Festival event, planned around the Year of the Snake, brought the community a vibrant New Year atmosphere. For Fantasy Westward Journey Mobile, we continue to infuse new content into the game, which gained heightened popularity throughout the year and led to the record high revenue for 2024, nearly a decade after its launch. Fantasy Westward Journey Online II also achieved record high annual revenue, driven by enriched gameplay and activities, as well as refreshed gaming experience powered by new servers. Players flock to the in-game ceremony for Tang Dynasty Emperor Taizong and explore new maps and missions set in the thriving ancient cities of Luoyang. Stepping into 2025, we also introduced our major new annual server update for Westward Journey Online Mobile.
We accompanied the update with a dual-generation sharing system. It generated significant new community interest and further strengthened bonds among players while keeping long-term fans coming back for more. Identity V is another testament to our long-term operational success with our established titles. After setting consecutive new quarterly records in the first three quarters, both in terms of player numbers and revenues, Identity V achieved record high revenue in 2024. In the fourth quarter, we sustained intense player activity with our comprehensive operational strategy, which players love. For example, in November, we launched a cross-branding campaign with Persona 5 Royal, introducing the beloved Phantom Thieves of Hearts to our game. Fans appeared in droves for the crossover event, driving Identity V to number two position on the iOS top-grossing chart. Naraka: Bladepoint franchise also continues to impress with its continuous impressive run with an action-based comeback community.
With the December update, Naraka: Bladepoint partnered with CD Projekt Red for a special crossover on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, introducing four beloved characters through new costumes and in-game events. Most recently, our January collaboration with King of Fighters brought iconic KOF characters Athena and Mai Shiranui into the game, bringing a high level of player interest. Naraka: Bladepoint Mobile has also been growing its player base since its launch in the third quarter and surpassed 50 million players in December. For Eggy Party, we continue to nurture its dynamic UGC ecosystem. The community is highly connected, filling regular supply and demand for content creation. The platform consistently adds diverse game modes to build on its rich content offerings, allowing players to enjoy relaxing and heartwarming moments with their Eggy buddies.
So far, we have successfully introduced several popular game modes, including MOBA, Asymmetric Battle Arena, Werewolf, Pet Keeping, and Farm Management, each captivating a large audience within the Eggy Party community. Our innovative MMO, Justice Mobile, maintained its large and active player base in the fourth quarter. In late December, Justice Mobile hosted a groundbreaking virtual concert for its cross-year celebration, immersing players in festivities and inviting them to participate in an interactive feast. The event created a truly unforgettable audio-visual experience by merging cutting-edge technology with Asian art. Beyond conventional concerts, all players would join as their in-game characters, embarking on an exploratory journey through various immersive scenes. The concert ignited considerable buzz among players, attracting over 3 million concurrent viewers online. The robust community engagement and related Steam content updates propelled Justice Mobile to number two on the iOS top-grossing chart shortly after the event.
Since its launch in July, Once Human has cultivated a dedicated survival player fan base around the world, and we continue to build on this. The new PvP and PvE scenario we introduced in the fourth quarter sparked a player surge. The spike in total concurrent users drove Once Human to rank on Steam's top 10 most-played chart and to number three on Steam's top-seller chart. Anticipation on the much-awaited mobile version is also mounting. We now have over 10 million pre-registrations as we finalize the game's mobile version for its global launch in this April. With the addition of a mobile version, we expect to attract even more fans worldwide. Adding to our ever-expanding and increasing diverse portfolio, we have a great lineup of new titles in our pipeline, with several key games planned to hit key markets in the coming months.
The global launch for FragPunk, our fast-paced 5v5 tactical shooter game, is set to begin on March 6. We expect the game to become a dynamic force in the shooting experiences for fans worldwide, featuring an innovative three-card system with shifting combat dynamics and a colorful punk art style. Through meticulous game development, FragPunk is set to disrupt the traditional shooting experience with all-new, rule-breaking gameplay that we think players will love. Next up is Destiny: Rising, which successfully concluded its first closed-beta test in December. The community's broad enthusiasm won Destiny: Rising Pocket Gamer's annual most-anticipated game award. Using the valuable insight we gained from early tests in target regions, we are currently working to make the game even better. Our goal is to bring this fresh shooting adventure set in an alternative Destiny timeline to all players around the globe.
Lastly, I'd like to highlight our superhero team-based tactical RPG, Marvel Mystic Mayhem. It just finished closed-beta cross-country testing in January with a unique art style, rich cast of characters, and varied and rewarding gameplay that thrilled the community. Sweeping positive player feedback gives us confidence that players will love Mystic Mayhem's experience as they fight with beloved Marvel characters across various bizarre dreamlands. As many of you know, we have been steadily expanding into new game categories over recent years. Diversifying our portfolio has allowed us to carve a path beyond the traditional MMO game that defined our early journey in the gaming industry. Along the way, we have achieved significant milestones and gained invaluable insights into genres that were once new to us. Each successful vertical we enter reinforces our ability to craft impactful games across diverse categories.
Moreover, our diversified game portfolio has strengthened our global presence, enabling our games to reach and resonate with audiences worldwide. As we expand our game offerings, upholding superior quality and staying agile in our operational iterations, we're confident that we can continue captivating global audiences with new innovative titles and grow our international reach. Now let's move to Youdao. With its continued focus on technology-driven innovation and profitability enhancement, Youdao's operating profit increased by over 10% year-over-year in the fourth quarter, and it achieved its first-ever annual operating profit in 2024. In the fourth quarter, learning services revenue declined as we further focused on long-term growth, balancing revenue and profitability. By prioritizing high-demand courses, we achieved healthy development and reinforced profitability. Notably, Youdao's flagship course, featuring tiered learning videos and AI-powered support, continues to thrive.
With strong engagement and loyalty, it achieved a retention rate of over 70% in the fourth quarter. Recently, we launched Confucius 01, China's leading step-by-step reasoning model for education. As a 14B lightweight model, it supports deployment on consumer-grade GPUs and delivers detailed problem-solving processes. With its high accuracy and robust reasoning capabilities, Confucius 01 has been seamlessly integrated into our AI learning assistant, Mr. P AI Tutor, earning excellent user feedback and surpassing 100 million users. Youdao's online marketing services have also continued to advance. Domestic performance-based advertising reached record-breaking revenue, led by gaming and the AI tool sector. Internationally, we recently established an official partnership with Google, laying a solid foundation for further expansion. We have also sharpened our technology edge in overseas KOL marketing. By developing an evaluation model, we can precisely match KOL selection with specific demands, driving high conversion rates.
Our smart devices segment maintains healthy growth. Our flagship Youdao Dictionary Pen solidified its leading position in the Double Eleven Online Shopping Festival, dominating the top position in this category on JD and Tmall's sales chart for five consecutive years. Building on this success, we launched Youdao Dictionary Pen A7 Pro in January, featuring higher performance to further fuel growth. Turning to NetEase Cloud Music, NetEase Cloud Music continues to drive quality development across its music-centric ecosystem, nurturing its unique community and distinctive content offerings. We continue reinforcing our signature music consumption experiences while expanding consumption scenarios and brand awareness. We launched and iterated several innovative features to improve users' joy and interface with music and music-inspired content in Q4. For example, our new feature, Lyric Book, allows users to highlight their favorite lyrics, create a personalized lyric collection, and share that unique lyric book with others.
Additionally, Lightbulb enhances users' music discovery journey, offering recommendations that flow naturally with each user's distinctive taste. These functions were highly popular with music fans and increased user engagement. Building our compelling consumption experiences, we continue diversifying music consumption scenarios. For example, co-branding activities in collaboration with our game division helped expand our existing audience while introducing and enhancing music-inspired social interaction features in games, further extending our brand presence. Expanding our music library also allows us to keep bringing users a diverse range of licensed and original music. In Q4, we deepened our partnership with Kakao Entertainment and strengthened our Chinese music collection this January by collaborating with renowned artist Li Jian, bringing his full discography back to our platform, including many beloved classics. On the in-house music side, we stepped up our efforts as well.
Several tracks gained widespread recognition in Q4, including the hit "Follow." We're also growing our copyright collaboration with popular artists. In January, Hua Chenyu's digital album, "Tipping Point," debuted on our platform, selling over one million copies within 24 hours. In Q4, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of our independent musician platform with special events highlighting our musicians' journeys, helping to deepen the connection between the artist and fans. As of December, our platform boasted over 770,000 registered artists, making it one of China's top platforms for independent musicians. As we continue to improve our music-focused marketization, subscription-based membership remained an important driver of online music revenue growth. To further optimize our premium offering, we enhanced our content appeal, introduced cutting-edge features, added membership privileges for subscribers, and refined our comprehensive pricing strategy. This effort boosted subscriber growth and deepened engagement, laying a solid foundation for more sustainable growth.
Finally, let's look at Yanxuan. Yanxuan continues to focus on key categories and drive growth through best-selling products. In 2024, core categories like pet products and home cleaning recorded solid growth, reinforcing their market leadership. Meanwhile, other key categories keep gaining popularity through its star products. Our Zhongguo Da'e jackets, known for exceptional quality and strategic marketing, remained a standout performer in the fourth quarter, breaking into top five positions for menswear on Tmall's sales chart. Across our NetEase family of businesses, we pursue innovation that advances our company and the industries we serve. We are extending this to our global aspiration for our games as we further diversify our portfolio and bring beloved titles to fans worldwide in 2025 and beyond. We believe these initiatives will fuel lasting value creation across our business and for our players, partners, and shareholders alike. This concludes William's comment.
I will now provide a brief review of our 2024 outlook with a focus on the fourth quarter. Given the limited time on today's call, I will present some abbreviated financial highlights. We encourage you to read through our press release issued earlier today for further details. As a reminder, all amounts are in RMB unless otherwise stated. Our total net revenue for 2024 will be CNY 105.3 billion, or $14.4 billion, representing a 2% increase year-over-year. For the fourth quarter, total revenue will be CNY 26.7 billion, or $3.7 billion. For 2024, net revenue from games and related VAS will be CNY 83.6 billion, up 3% from 2023 and up 2% year-over-year in Q4 to CNY 21.2 billion. Specifically, net revenues from online games will be CNY 80.4 billion, up 6% from 2023 and up 5% year-over-year in Q4 to CNY 20.5 billion.
Through 2024, our PC client games delivered strong performances, achieving 17% year-over-year growth with an impressive 57% increase in Q4. The Q4 growth was primarily driven by titles such as Naraka: Bladepoint, Westward Journey Online II, and several licensed titles. While the positive momentum in PC games has shifted our revenue mix, mobile games remain a significant part of our business. In the fourth quarter, they accounted for approximately 65% of our total net revenue from online games and operations, and for the full year, it made up about 73%. Youdao's net revenue for 2024 was up about 4% for the year to RMB 5.6 billion, primarily due to revenue growth from online marketing services.
They declined 9.5% year-over-year in the fourth quarter to CNY 1.3 billion, primarily due to the decline in learning services revenue as we focus on the business that serves our long-term growth objective with better profitability. NetEase Cloud Music's net revenue will up a little over 1% at CNY 8 billion for the full year and CNY 1.9 billion in the fourth quarter, a 5% decrease year-over-year. As discussed in previous quarters, the decline reflects lower revenue from social entertainment service, which aligns with our refined focus on sustainably improving profitability. Net revenue for innovative business and others will CNY 8.1 billion for the year and CNY 2.3 billion for the quarter, down 6% and 17% respectively year-over-year. The decline was mainly due to decreased revenue from NetEase Cloud Music, advertising services, and some other innovative businesses. For the year, our total gross profit margin was 62.5%.
In the fourth quarter, our gross profit margin slightly decreased year-over-year to 60.8%. Looking at our fourth quarter margin in more detail, gross profit margin was 66.7% for our games and related BES, compared with 69.5% the same period last year. The decrease was primarily attributable to a higher proportion of net revenue from licensed games, which carry a lower margin than our self-developed titles. Our gross profit margin for Youdao was 47.8%, compared with 49.9% in the same period last year. The decrease was mainly due to reduced revenue contribution from learning services. Gross profit margin for NetEase Cloud Music was 31.9% in the fourth quarter versus 30.3% in the same period a year ago. The margin improvements primarily resulted from increased revenue from membership subscriptions and continued cost management improvements.
For our innovative business and others, gross profit was 37.8%, compared with 34.4% in the fourth quarter of 2023. The increase was primarily the result of margin improvements in NetEase Cloud Music. The operating expenses for the fourth quarter were CNY 8.5 billion, or 32% of our total net. Taking a closer look at our cost composition, our selling and marketing expenses as a percentage of total net revenue were 10.5% for the fourth quarter, compared with 15.6% for the same period last year, mainly due to decreased spending on gaming promotions during the quarter. On a full-year basis, selling and marketing expenses accounted for 13.4% of net revenue, relatively stable with 13.5% in 2023. Our R&D expenses as a percentage of total net revenue also remained stable year-over-year at 16.7% in the fourth quarter, compared with 16.5% for the same period last year.
On a full-year basis, R&D expenses accounted for 66.6% of net revenue, up slightly from 15.9% in 2023. We remain committed to investing into content creation and product development. We're also seeing leverage in our R&D investments longer term. The effective tax rate was 15.3% for the full year and 13.4% for the fourth quarter. As a reminder, the effective tax rate is presented on an accrual basis, and the tax credit deferred for each of our entities at different time periods, depending on applicable policies and our operations. Our non-GAAP net income attributable to shareholders for the fourth quarter totaled RMB 9.7 billion, or $1.3 billion, up 31% year-over-year. Non-GAAP earnings per ADS for the quarter was $2.09, or $0.42 per share.
For the full year, Non-GAAP net income attributable to shareholders was up 3% to RMB 33.5 billion, or $4.6 billion, which is $7.17 per ADS, or $1.43 per share. Additionally, our cash position remained strong. As of year-end, our net cash position was about RMB 131.5 billion, compared with RMB 110.9 billion at the end of 2023. In accordance with our dividend policy, we are pleased to report that our board of directors has approved a dividend of $0.244 per share, or $1.22 per ADS for the fourth quarter. Lastly, under our current $5 billion share repurchase program starting in mid-January last year, we had repurchased approximately 21.2 million ADS as of December 31st, 2024, for a total cost of approximately $1.9 billion. Thank you for your attention.
We will now open the call to your questions. Operator, please.
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're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. In addition to your standard, 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 follow-up questions, please rejoin the queue. Your first question comes from Yang Bai with CICC
[Foreign language] ？ As a translator by myself, concerning FragPunk, could management share more color on its beta test achievements, current preparations for launching, and post-launch operational priorities?
What's the company's perspective on competition within the shooter game market segment? Thank you.
William Ding (Founder and CEO)
[Foreign language].
Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)
Okay, I'll do the English translation. FragPunk has come to large-scale testing both domestically and in the overseas market, which feedback met our expectations. Players gave high appraisals to our innovative gameplay and system design, and provided a lot of valuable advice as well. After months of iteration, we're now ready to launch. After launch, as always, we'll continue to monitor player feedback, update battle levels, provide new characters, and crack down cheating behaviors, building a healthy gaming environment for the players. Currently, as I said, there are multiple well-performing shooting titles in the shooting genre. Shooting is a big genre, which our R&D teams have truly experienced. This actually reinforced our confidence in our game, no matter the control feelings, the system designs, or the hero narratives, including its very unique art style.
Everything has its unique signature and will be appealing to existing and new players. We do have confidence that the game will be successful. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question.
Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)
Our operator, next question.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Comes from Yang Liu with Morgan Stanley.
Yang Liu (Executive Director)
[Foreign language]. I will translate my question. First, I congratulate the positive feedback from the gamers on Where Winds Meet, and we see quite positive metrics on retention, DAU, etc. But also we hear a lot of feedback to expect the company to improve the cosmetics and also the multiplayer gameplay in the game. So I would like to ask what is the next stage monetization strategy for this title, and where could we see improvement? And also I would like to ask about the overseas launch plan for this title, when and what market? Thank you.
William Ding (Founder and CEO)
[Foreign language].
Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)
Okay, thank you, William.
I will do the translation. Where Winds Meet. Thank you for your question. Where Winds Meet is widely accepted since its launch, demonstrating a solid performance with robust metrics. The inclusion of both single-player and multiplayer modes has created a diverse demand of players, and the monetization strategy centered around cosmetics was widely welcomed. Furthermore, our content ecosystem featuring casual and low-pressure gaming experience lays a healthy foundation for long-term operation. In the future, we will continue to focus on infusing new content or maps to enrich our open world, creating diversified quality costumes, crafting various interesting and innovative single-player and multiplayer experiences for single-player and multiplayer gameplays for gamers. And from time to time, we will talk to players face-to-face, collect their feedback to keep modifying, keep polishing our game.
Regarding your question on the overseas plan, we do notice that Where Winds Meet receives wide acclaim for its unique open-world style and the unique interpretation of wuxia content, which actually gained us wide attention and anticipation from overseas audiences as well. Currently, we have started working on the overseas version, and we hope we could present that to overseas players within 2025. Thank you. Thank you for your question, operator. Next question, please.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from Ritchie Sun with HSBC.
Ritchie Sun (Analyst)
[Foreign language]? Thank you, Management, for taking my questions. I have two, but the first one is about Marvel Rivals. Regarding the 40 million users, can you share more about the paying propensity, paying ratio, and what is the next growth strategy that we're looking at? Will we expand the marketing or e-sports or even connectivity with the Marvel movies to further expand our user base? Thank you.
William Ding (Founder and CEO)
[Foreign language].
Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)
Thank you for your question. Marvel Rivals, especially after season one, has gained wide appraisal from worldwide players. And this is a product we're going to keep investing both on development and marketing. And we do believe this product we're going to keep operating, keep enhancing, keep investing for 10 years and beyond. To your question, yes, the team does have plans for e-sports, and we're going to announce our e-sports plans, hope to have these e-sports plans to further enhance the overall gaming ecosystem. And to your question, yes, we're going to do a lot of crossover events and promotions with other medias in the future. And this is a key product we'll keep investing. Thank you for your attention. Operator, next question, please.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from Alicia Yap with Citigroup. Hi, thank you.
Alicia Yap (Analyst)
[Foreign language]. So my question is related to Overwatch, given the game's relaunch in China yesterday. So what are the company's current expectations for the game, and how will NetEase strike a balance between Marvel Rivals and Overwatch? Thank you.
William Ding (Founder and CEO)
[Foreign language].
Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)
Thank you for your question. Regarding our expectations for Overwatch, it's similar to those for World of Warcraft and Hearthstone. We aim not only to just restore the operation as is, we aim to really revitalize the product and reach new highs. We're encouraged to see that from the day one we launched yesterday, from the data, from the user feedback, we're happy to see that we are on that track. Both Marvel Rivals and Overwatch are excellent superhero shooters in this category, and both well designed and supported by outstanding development teams. We will each strive to meet diversified demands of our respective player community.
We believe the market is large enough to accommodate two excellent games in the market. Thank you. Operator, next question, please.
Operator (participant)
Next question is from Ritchie Sun with HSBC.
Ritchie Sun (Analyst)
[Foreign language]? Thank you, Management, for taking my question again. Can you discuss how the user and revenue trend looks for World of Warcraft and Hearthstone after a strong initial boost from pent-up demand? After this normalization, what is the company's next long-term operational plan? Thank you.
William Ding (Founder and CEO)
[Foreign language].
Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)
Thank you for your question. Six months after its return, World of Warcraft and Hearthstone are still performing far better than any other time in history. Of course, as you mentioned that during the launch time, it is not uncommon that things will normalize compared to the release time.
We have closely collaborated with our partners at Blizzard to plan upcoming content plan, and we believe we will reignite players' engagement. And in the long term, we have established a strong trust with Blizzard's development team and are committed to addressing the feedback from Chinese players to improve their gaming experience in the local way. Thank you for your question. Operator, next question, please.
Operator (participant)
Next question is from Lincoln Kong with Goldman Sachs.
Lincoln Kong (Executive Director)
[Foreign language]. So thank you, Management, for taking my question. So my first question is about our overseas market. So after the Marvel Rivals' success and also some of the adjustment of our overseas studios, how should we think about our future expansion strategy in the overseas market? So we follow more direction as Marvel Rivals and FragPunk, those are self-developed games. How should we think about our advantage in the overseas market?
The second question is about AI and the game. So after the success of DeepSeek and the huge inference cost dropping, how would NetEase integrate our AI versus our current game portfolio as well as our future pipeline? Could management share with us more around the gameplay innovation, our user interaction, our production efficiency, or our cost discipline, or any aspects related to AI? Thank you.
William Ding (Founder and CEO)
[Foreign language].
Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)
Okay, I will do the translation. So to your question, the user demand, their preference in the overseas market are not the same as the user demand and preference in China market. We really like that. And we actually pay a lot of attention to support our overseas studios. We support the creators in the overseas market to be creative, to create content to meet the local demands in the overseas market.
Our commitment to support the really high-quality studios and really master creators to create the very creative games for the overseas market. That is our strategy. There's no change on that. Yeah, so that's the answer to the first question. And the second question regarding AI. AI is and will significantly increase the efficiency in the R&D process, in the development pipeline. There's no doubt about that. We have been doing that, and we're going to do that in the future. And also, there are many, many other applications of AI in gaming. For example, in games, it could help the users to better engage with the content, better understand the content, better onboarding on the content for the new gamers. And we're exploring that in a massive way as well.
We believe AI for the R&D process, the creative process of the gaming industry is going to make huge positive contributions. We're very positive about that. Thank you. Thank you for your question. Operator, next question, please.
Operator (participant)
Next question is from Lei Zhang with Bank of America.
Lei Zhang (Analyst)
[Foreign language]. Thank you, Management, for taking my question. My first question is regarding the game [Foreign language] or NATO, which got game approval pretty much late. So we expect it to be launched in 2025 and giving the competitive of ACG game. So how do we think about its positioning and the differentiation here? Secondly, I want to follow up on the sales and marketing expense, which have a meaningful reduction in Q4. So I want to know the driver and whether we change the sales and marketing strategy and going forward, how should we look at the sales and marketing trend in 2025?
Thank you.
William Ding (Founder and CEO)
[Foreign language].
Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)
So I will translate the first question first. Okay, yes. So we have completed an offline test for Project Mugen this January, and the feedback is honestly quite positive. The development is undergoing in the very smooth way on track, and the team is growing in the orderly manner as well. For competition, we believe competition is a good thing and it actually reflects that there's an interest in the market in this genre of game and there's unmet demand there. As long as we meet the player expectations, we're confident that we can deliver outstanding products. Currently, we are focusing on refining our content to keep developing the product, and we plan to invite more players for testing when we are ready. Thank you.
William Ding (Founder and CEO)
[Foreign language].
Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)
So regarding the marketing spending decrease in Q4, as you know, we keep innovating our marketing engine and exploring more efficient ways and tools and systems to operate, to do the marketing operations. And this actually reflects our improved efficiency in terms of marketing operations. Thank you, Operator. Next question, please. For the time being, we probably have time for one more question, please.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. The next question comes from Felix Liu with UBS.
Felix Liu (Analyst)
[Foreign language]. Let me translate myself. Thank you, Management, for taking my question. My question is on the news of recent organizational changes. We noted there have been quite a few changes within both your domestic and overseas studios. Could management share the reason and consideration behind these changes? And how should we think about your mid and long-term investment plan for new games? Thank you.
William Ding (Founder and CEO)
[Foreign language].
Bill Pang (VP of Corporate Development)
Okay, I will do the translation.
Yeah, okay. I will do the translation. When we allocate resources among different products across different studios, no matter domestically or including our overseas studios, we pay a lot of attention to a lot of key attributes. For example, the quality of the work, and is the work going to meet the future demands of players when the work is released in market years later, as well as the production efficiency of the work, everything. So if some project we can foresee that when the product faces market years later, it's likely not going to be the same as our players, we will very firmly, with the use of the word, press the brake. And if some project, if they're really high quality, meeting the future market demands, actually we're going to double down. So it's all about the product itself, the quality, the development efficiency.
Is it going to meet the ever-growing user expectation? Because game development is a long cycle, a three-year, four-year, five-year cycle. When we charge a project, we have some assumptions. And during that development process, we'll keep monitoring to see if the product is going to be able to meet the future demands and to do resource allocation adjustments. That's a normal course of game development elements. We have been doing that for a long time and doing that that way. Thank you for your question.
Operator (participant)
And that concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brandi Piacente for any closing comments.
Brandi Piacente (External Investor Consultant for NetEase)
Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us directly, and we hope you have a great day. Thank you.
Thank you.