Weibo - Earnings Call - Q1 2021

Transcript

Speaker 0

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Weibo's First Quarter twenty twenty one Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I'd now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Sandra Zhang, Weibo's Head of IR. Thank you. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Welcome to Weibo's first quarter twenty twenty one earnings conference call. Joining today are Chief Executive Officer, Gao Fei Wang and our Chief Financial Officer, Fei Cao. The conference call is also being broadcasted on the Internet and is available through Weibo's IR website. Before the management remarks, I'd like to read you the Safe Harbor statement in connection with today's conference call.

During today's conference call, we may make forward looking statements, statements that are not historical facts, including statements of our beliefs and expectations. Forward looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward looking statements. Weibo assumes no obligation to update the forward looking statements in this conference call and elsewhere. Further information regarding this and other risks is included in Weibo's annual report on Form 20 F and other filings with the SEC.

All the information provided in this press release is occurring as of the date hereof. Weibo assumes no obligation to update such information except as required under applicable law. Additionally, I'd like to remind you that our discussion today includes certain non GAAP measures, which excludes stock based compensation and certain other expenses. We use non GAAP financial measures to gain a better understanding of Weibo's comparative operating performance and future prospects. Our non GAAP financials exclude certain expenses, gains or losses and other items that are not expected to result in future cash payment or are non recurring in nature or not indicative of our core operating results and outlook.

Please refer to our press release for more information about our non GAAP measures. Following management prepared remarks, we'll open the lines for a brief Q and A session. With this, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Gao Yibang. Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Weibo's fourth quarter twenty twenty one earnings conference call.

On today's call, I'll share with you highlights in Weibo's user product and monetization in the 2021. On the user front, Weibo's MAU reached five thirty million and average DAUs reached two thirty million in March 2021 and ninety four percent of Weibo's MAU's Teen for Mobile. On the monetization front, in the 2021, our revenue increased to 42% year over year to RMB458.9 million mainly thanks to the further recovery of market demand and the optimization of our competitive strategy for key industries. Our advertising and marketing revenue increased 42% year over year to RMB390 million with 92% of our revenue coming from mobile. Our non GAAP operating income in the first quarter reached RMB137.5

Speaker 2

million.

Speaker 1

Next, let me elaborate on the progress made in the area of product monetization in the first quarter. On the product front, since the start of 2021 we further enhance Weibo's differentiated competitiveness in key features such as hot trends and social functions coupled with effective channel strategies. We have further increased our user engagement concurrently to beef up our investment in video product to strengthen users' mindset of using Weibo for video consumption so as we enhance our product competitiveness. On the channel front, we set up our channel investment with a focus on improving user engagement leveraging Weibo's competitive advantage in these acquisition costs, while strengthening the synergy between channel investment and subsequent content consumption and thereby improving user engagement and retention. In the first quarter, we expanded these channels and improved the content recommendation efficiency and the consumption experience of acquired user by focusing on algorithm optimization.

Moving forward, we will continue to improve user acquisition efficiency while focusing on increasing user retention, content consumption and monetization efficiency so as to improve ROI for use acquisition. On the product front, I would like to elaborate on key initiative on Weibo's information feed and video. Our information feed, our objective in 2021 is to enhance Weibo's key social features and the competitiveness and thus drive user stickiness and interaction among Weibo's Weibo's core user groups. In the first quarter for relationship based fee, we focused on the data mining on quality social content to improve the social attribute and the content diversity and thus effectively promote user consumption and retention. Meanwhile, we step up our investment in social interest products.

To elaborate in the first quarter, we improved the integration of the super topic into the course fee, optimizing the interest path with user to discover and consume super topics. For gaming and campus verticals, we also strengthened the interactive features of super topic to improve the community vibe, which led to a notable increase of user engagement traffic in super topic on a year over year basis. Super topic traffic in first quarter increased by nearly 40% year over year, which generated more social content for relationship based feed and increased the users social stickiness on Weibo. On interest based feed, in the first quarter we focused on the technology technical upgrade of the recommendation system as well as algorithm which combines the behavior characteristic of users from different channels and in different scenarios to strengthen feed content recommendation. As a result, users content consumption experience has been improved and we saw a steady increase in the user scale and traffic from the previous quarter.

On the video front, in 2021, we will accelerate the content visualization for Weibo's content creators to video account mechanism and thus improve the production and consumption of Weibo's video content, while strengthening users' mindset of using Weibo for video consumption. In the first quarter, we upgraded Weibo's video account product, improving the consumption experience in all video feeds and lowered the entry barrier for content creator to participate in the program. As of now, we saw a notable increase of content creator, content with a registered video account, which exceeded 5,000,000 among which the video accounts with over a million followers each exceeded 25,000. By verticals, entertainment and lifestyle related verticals remain at our core. As of March, for those video accounts with over 10,000 followers, Approximately 60% of the accounts and video views generated are from entertainment and lifestyle related verticals.

Also, we are pleased to see the rapid visualization trends among certain knowledge related verticals including popular science, law and education, serving as good supplement to the existing graphic and tax content ecosystem of Weibo. On live streaming, in the first quarter, we launched the feature of joint joint mic live streaming, which enables the interaction between multiple multiple content creators and users through live streaming. Hundreds of KOLs have joined the test run with enhanced interactive features versus traditional live streaming, joined mic performed well in both user retention and time stamp. In the second quarter, we plan to launch the join Mike live streaming with top media outlets cooperating with COL to strengthen Weibo's brand recognition in the live streaming market. Before moving on to monetization, I'd like to touch upon on the adjustment we have made on segment disclosure.

We used to classify our ad business by customer type since our IPO, mainly pay and SME segment. The disclosure measure could help categorize customer with distinction in ad spend and marketing demand. For instance, the marketing demand for KA customer is usually brand focused, while for SME customer it is usually performance driven. Numbersalis with development of the advertising industry and Weibo's business as well, the distinction between K and SME segment has become increasingly blurred. On the one hand, customer across those segments has an increasing demand for brand plus performance ad products.

On the other hand, there's no clear distinction of the amount of ad spend by pay and SME. Therefore, we are also de emphasizing such distinction in our internal management by integrating the two sales teams, while increasingly focusing on development of vertical industry, fulfilling each customer's comprehensive campaign needs, as well as the competitiveness of all our products in the market. And thus to be consistent with internal management, we will no longer provide segment disclosure by KA and SMEs since the 2021. Let me share with you more color on our strategy of monetization and progress made so far. In 2021, we will further strengthen the competitiveness of our social ad product, solidify industry specific marketing confidence and unleash the potential and efficiency of traffic monetization, so as to improve Weibo's monetization scale and market competitiveness.

From an industry perspective, in the first quarter, our ad revenue increased by 42% year over year on a low base due to the pandemic last year. It also represents 14% growth compared to the 2019 before the pandemic, which speaks to the recovery of the overall market market environment recovery as well as our efforts to strengthen Weibo's capabilities to directly serve customer across key industries, marketing oriented services and differentiated marketing strategies. In particular, we're delighted to see a robust year over year growth in key industries that by our further enhanced competitive advantage. To elaborate in FMCG sectors such as food and beverage and beauty and personal care, we put celebrity and KOL marketing and brand plus performance solution in the full play, delivering a notable year over year growth in revenue. In both the automobile and handset sectors, we are seeing changes in market landscape with more emerging brands and shorter intervals between new product release in the first half of the year.

In response, we fully utilize our advantage in promoting new products for customers to halt trends resulting in our performance of revenue growth of these sectors versus the overall ad business on a year over year basis. In a luxury category, most top brands customers have shifted their marketing focus towards the domestic market. Therefore, we strengthened their marketing mindset to promote new products through live streaming and with the celebrity and KOL endorsement and thus increasing the revenue in the first quarter by triple digit year over year. In the education sector, we did see a pullback on marketing demand, which was tightened regulation, while keeping an eye on the subsequent impacts. We are also strengthening the combination of Weibo's unique ecosystem and strategies to encourage customer to try out our content marketing solutions.

On the ad products in the first quarter we prioritize on the continued optimization of product that leverage Weibo's advantages in brand plus performance content marketing, such as promoted feed product with KOL celebrity marketing concepts and the promoted trend and topic products. Not only could this product help increase brand awareness for customers, it could also fulfill customers performance driven needs, which largely increase the recognition of this product solution among performance customers. In this quarter, the number of customers who had ad spend on either celebrity or KOL marketing or promoting trends and topic products grew notably year over year with revenues contributed from this product delivered strong momentum as well. And meanwhile, for online service and gaming verticals, while continuing to optimize the algorithm, we upgraded the entire advertising experience and optimized the ad performance for app download customers. For example, we optimized the app download ad and installation link and improved download and installation rates.

As a result, the app download increased significantly after the solution was launched. On video ad, in the first quarter, the ramp up of traffic from video accounts brought for a small video ad inventories and also attract more customers to advertise through video. And thus video ad as percentage of total ad revenues continue to ramp up this quarter. Going forward, we will fine tune the scheduling and distribution of the monetizable traffic and allocate quality and compatible traffic to customers with a stronger performance demand and greater market potential so as to maximize the efficiency of traffic monetization. Lastly, I would also like to touch on Apple's recent implementation of the APP tracking transparency policy since the launch of iOS 14.5 under which new apps are no longer able to access IDFA namely identifiers for advertising by default without user permission.

It is expected that such change may compromise the precision of attribution in targeted app targeted APP download marketing. Since IDFA is a key tracker for the app attribution, especially with the cross app plus app activity tracking. In response, we have adopted Apple SK ad network attribution as an alternative. Nevertheless, in the short term, we expect to face headwinds on the ad algorithm and strategy front due to change in the attribution algorithm. In the long run SK 80 downward based attribution could gradually catch up and deliver similar performance as the original model leveraging model training and advertisers increasing support.

With that, let me turn the call over to Fei Cao for financial review. Thank you, Zhao Fei, and hello, everyone. Welcome to Weibo's first quarter twenty twenty one earnings conference call. Let's start with user metrics. In March 2021, Weibo's MAUs reached $530,000,000 a decrease of 5% year over year primarily due to a tough comp last year with our user traffic reaching peak levels during the pandemic period.

On sequential basis, our MAUs represented a net addition of 9,000,000 users. Mobile MAUs represented approximately 94% of total MAUs. Weibo's average DAUs reached $230,000,000, a decrease of 5% year over year due to the same reasons for MAU. On a sequential basis, our average being used represented a net addition of 5,000,000 users. Turning to financials, as a reminder, my prepared remarks would focus on non GAAP results and all the comparisons on a year to year basis unless otherwise noted.

Now let me walk you through our financial highlights for the 2021. Weibo's first quarter twenty twenty one net revenues were $458,900,000 an increase of 42% exceeding the high end of our guidance. Operating income was $137,500,000 an increase of 85% representing operating margin of 30%. Net income attributable to Weibo reached $113,700,000 an increase of 94% representing a net margin of 28%. Diluted EPS was $0.57 compared to zero three zero dollars in the first quarter twenty twenty.

Now let me give you more color on revenues. Weibo's advertising and marketing revenues for the 2021 reached $390,000,000 an increase of 42%. Mobile ad revenues were 3 and $61,800,000 contributing approximately 93% of total ad revenues, up from 89% last year. As Bobby indicated in his prepared remarks, consistently market trends and internal management, we will no longer provide a segment disclosure of ad business by KA versus SME starting from this quarter. Let me share some color on our growth from an industry and ad product perspective instead.

For the first quarter twenty twenty one, our leading verticals in terms of ad revenue contributions were FMCG, Flexi product and e commerce. Weibo has gradually become the cornerstone of many advertisers in this traditionally highly spending industries to fulfill their integrated branding plus performance needs. We are also delighted to see great opportunities with new economies, particularly in the consumption sectors, such as those emerging domestic brands. As these customers increasingly recognize on Weibo's unique value proposition in connecting with massive young generation of users, implementing celebrity and the KOL marketing and delivering viral effects in their content. In terms of growth, the fastest growing verticals for automobile, luxury and e commerce.

Apart from low base effect, these verticals have been experiencing rapid secular growth momentum, leveraging tailwinds in consumption behavior shift as well as our differentiated social marketing solutions. From ad product perspective, promoting fees continued to be the largest part followed by social display ads and other ad offerings such as promoted chat and topics. We are encouraged to see customers by a combo of leads that work ad offering to drive users all the way down the funnel to achieve a tighter ROI. Mostly ad revenue generated from our differentiated promoted trend and the top new product delivered strong growth, mainly driven by increase of ad inventory and the positive pricing trends as well as a relatively low base last year during the pandemic. Revenue contribution from video ad also continued to trend up, many benefiting from continuous growth of ad demand for video ad products underpinned by good momentum with our video accounts program.

Ad revenues from Alibaba for the first quarter were $33,300,000 an increase of 21% Despite a relatively high base from Alibaba last year, ad revenue from Alibaba continued to deliver double digit growth, speaking to the value of our partnership in serving integrated marketing demand for both platforms, brands and merchants. That said, I've spent from Alibaba highly correlated to its own business operation, especially its marketing strategy which may change from time to time. As communicated earlier, we cannot assure that such robust growth will be sustainable in the future. Value added service, VAS revenues were $58,900,000 in the first quarter, an increase of 34%, primarily attributable to the revenues derived from the interactive entertainment company acquired in November. Turning to cost and expenses, total cost and expenses for the first quarter was $321,400,000 an increase of 29.

The increase was primarily due to step up in marketing spend and higher personnel related costs. Operating income in the first quarter was 137,500,000.0 an increase of 55% representing operating margin of 30%. At this end of margin profile amid intense market competition and also in line with our expectation as we proactively step up our spending in channel investments and the video capabilities. Turning to income tax, under GAAP measure, income tax expense for the first quarter was $14,900,000 compared to $15,900,000 last year. Net income attributable to Weibo in the first quarter was $130,700,000 representing a net margin of 28% compared to 21% last year.

Turning to our balance sheet and cash flow items. As of 03/31/2021. We both cash, cash equivalents and short term investments totaled $3,400,000,000 compared to $3,500,000,000 as of 12/31/2020. In the 2021, cash provided by operating activities was $244,300,000 capital expenditures totaled $6,000,000 and depreciation and amortization expenses amounted to $12,400,000 Lastly, let's talk about our financial outlook. We anticipate our 2021 revenue to grow by 25 to 30% year over year on a constant currency basis.

This forecast also reflects Weibo's current and preliminary view and is subject to change. With that, let me now turn the call over to the operator for the Q and A session.

Speaker 0

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Your first question comes from the line of Alicia Yuk from Citigroup. Please ask your question.

Speaker 1

Congratulations on the very strong results. So I wanted to follow-up a little bit on this strong outperformance in the first quarter. Was that mainly driven by the secular ad recovery, especially with the low base last year? Or are we actually seeing we are gaining market share in terms of the allocation from the advertiser? Any color that management could provide in terms of the trend going into the second quarter, for example, like April or the May, some of the strong vertical that you see in first quarter, are we also seeing the trends continue into April and May?

Thank you.

Speaker 3

So first of all, thank you very much for the question. Let's just be very brief. So first of all, we have been seeing that in Q1 we had a big growth and part of the reason was due to the kind of year on year base like low base number of the last quarter Q1 of last year, but that was only partially the reason. However, we can see that if we're talking about the growth rate of the Q2, this is still as robust as Q1, so only partially the reason. And also, let me talk about the external and also internal reasons of having that high growth of the Q1 performance of the advertisement.

So first of all, externally, we are seeing that the recovery of many verticals are very robust. For example, the consumer related industries like the e commerce and also FMCG and automobile and luxurious as well. Also some of the other very competitive markets for example the gaming and also the education industry which was somehow impacted by certain policies. But still we have seek to strive to realize our target set in the beginning of the year if we're talking about the year on year growth. So this is something about a very good vertical performance.

And also internally we're talking about the reasons for example last year we have been doing some kind of restructuring of our sales system. So in the past, for example, we had a branding team and sales team that was very much focused and strong at doing service and providing service to those KA customers. However, they are relatively weaker in providing services to SMEs. And also on the contrary, those SME sales teams were very much dedicated in providing services and also get budgets from the gaming and education industry. They're pretty much strong in helping to download or helping to sell the courses, but not that much in terms of organizing activity or doing some kind of a branding work for those SME customers.

But since second half of last year, we have been doing the restructuring of our sales system. That is the reason that after Q4 that we can see that we're not performing like the other companies that are only focusing on either brand or KA customers or SMEs, But we actually now have combined this and also better to say we have a higher and also better strength in gaining the budget from our customers and also improve our competitiveness because the customers could approach Weibo for a lot of effectiveness. For example, content marketing and branding and also effectiveness etcetera, etcetera. So that is to say that we are providing a whole package of solution to the customers. And also you know that in terms of the quickest growing one of the quickest growing verticals like automobile which had over 60% of the performance or growth, that is to say the kind of effective and also SMEs ad is the quickest growing part.

However, in this education sector we've been seeing that the brand part is actually the biggest growing sector. So that's to say in a word, we are having stronger ability to actually gain more budget from our customers.

Speaker 1

Thank you so much.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our next question comes from Alex Shere from Credit Suisse. Please ask your question.

Speaker 2

Thank you management for taking my questions and congratulations on very strong results. So I'd like to ask about your strategic focus in the user products. So what will be your key initiatives to increase the user engagement in terms of your product design and operations? And would you like to share any specific targets for some of them? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Okay. So thank you for this question. First of all, since Q4 of last year and also in Q1, this quarterly report, we have already been mentioning some of the work and emphasis focusing on the user engagement and enhancement. And also for example, the first is that we are trying to get access to those low frequency users and especially improving their frequency from the external sources. And also second from the internal sources, are talking about for example after Q1, we focus more on those kind of activity and also more engagement on the core scenarios.

And especially for example those interest driven or interest based scenarios like the super topic. And also we are going to increase the frequency of the content consumption from the KOLs and also the gamers as well as the campus etcetera products. And also like the Super and that is the exact reason why we had over 40% of the growth on the Super Topic. And also talking about the monetization, we are going to actually start doing the monetization since Q2 of this year. And also third point is we are emphasizing a lot on the growth of the video account.

And also you can see that not only this can help us to develop the DAU and MAU in terms of user side, but also more importantly that we can enhance the consumption of content and also consumption scale of the videos. So that is exactly a focus on the enrollment or enlargement of the time spent on the videos within the system. So that is to say that we have been gaining a lot in terms of the traffic inventory in this area and that is specifically important for us to drive the SME ad industry and also product. Also talking about the Q3 and Q2, I don't think that there is any big change. So in a word, we are just going to focus on three areas.

The first is that more channel access to increase the frequency to be more specific. And second is that focusing more on the social content products and also third video products.

Speaker 0

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

Speaker 4

Thanks management for taking my questions. I just have a question relating to the cost side. Given that we are going to invest more in content to drive user growth and engagement, Can you share about our spending budget for this year together with the trend in R and D and sales and marketing? Thank you.

Speaker 3

All right. So first of all, let's give you the answer in relation to the content part. So since this year, we are talking about a kind of competitive landscape here. And also we are going to focus more on the investment to the content. But of course, this particular fashion of doing the investment is quite much different from the investment to the content or to the video, sorry.

So that is to say like we are talking about the collaborations with the NBA last year and also CBA and also China Super League Football League of this year, quite similar. So that is to say that we are going to focus more on the those kind of social accounts like in the Weibo and also to do some kind of monetization or socialization work. But we're not going to act like a video actor, which is to say that we are not going to buy a lot of content in that sense. So that and second of all, let's talk to you about the monetization or the business side or commercial side. So that is to say that first of all, we are trying to provide to our customers the kind of commercial solution that is pretty much focused on the content marketing.

So that is to say that with all together the regular kind of solutions that we are providing to our customers, we're also going to put and include inside package the kind of contents created by the KOLs and also those top notch KOLs. So that will generate certain cost in this particular area. However, if you are talking about the kind of sales gross margin of this particular area, we are not seeing any deduction on the gross margins here. So that is to say that even though the absolute figure is going to kind of increase, but talking about the percentage against the total sales, this is not changing. And also, third of all, let's talk about the expenditures on the channel side.

So as we have already stated last year that since this year, we are definitely not going to expenditure or expand more focusing on the channels. So the reasons are, first of all, because of higher competition and more intense competition here, we're going to spend more money in getting access to users especially the new users and also more engaged and active users. And also that is to say however having said that our kind of user acquisition cost is relatively lower than our competitors. And also second of all, we are having a more stringent appraisal of the ROI of this particular area. So that's to say that in half a year of time, we're going to try to balance this particular kind of investment versus the user acquisition cost.

So that's to say that the conclusion is that since Q1, we have already seen a big increase of this particular expenditure on the channels. However, we are going to definitely focus more on the sustainable kind of growth of the channels and also we are going to have more stringent policies over the appraisal of this particular indicator and also ROI of this expenditure.

Speaker 0

Great. Thank you. Our next question comes from Alex Ko from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.

Speaker 2

Thank you management for taking my questions. So I wanted to get a sense of like the recent fan economy like the regulatory headwind or like the crackdown. Would that have like any impact on like any operational or financial impact on our business fundamentals? Thank you.

Speaker 3

And also talking about this question, first of all, I have to say that this is not a very good question for Weibo to comment, but rather Baidu or IT should comment on this. But however, let me just share you some of my opinions. So I think that we're talking about the two levels of regulation. The first one is that first of all, we're not talking about this particular fan economy, but I think that this is more like a kind of illegal funding for cross sourcing and also to help those fans to hit the ranking. But the thing is that all those kind of launching or initiating kind of a platform or the funding platform or the promotional platforms, they are not Weibo.

But actually people are discussing however all those topics on Weibo. So we are keeping a very close eye on this topic and also a very close relationship and also communication with the government. And also second of all talking about the fan economy I think that this is pretty common here in China or also in the other part of the world. And also I think that in Weibo we are trying to divert this particular to a very good direction and positive direction. So that is to say that this topic has been talked and discussed for a month and also for the past half a year.

And also for example, talking about the KOLs servicing Weibo, I think that their fan economy is more like engaging their fans to really do some pro activities or charity activities or some of the positive energy oriented activities. For example, that one of the indicators that we care and concern about is the charity value that created by that KOL together with their fans and followers. So that is to say that very thing this is something very positive driven. And also having said that still for this particular problem or issue as you have described, this may occur and emerge due to the period of time when the reality show actually was quite popular, but the platform wasn't quite complete and there wasn't a very complete agent system or the servicing system in place. So some of the platforms were taking advantage of that and trying to promote this so called plan economy of that.

But that wasn't something quite virtuous and benign. So I think that need to be eradicated afterwards. So and also another thing is that in the past one quarter we have been seeing a very active communication of Weibo and also our regulatory bodies. So that is to say that for the platform and big platforms such as Weibo, we are having a very stringent requirement over the management of the fans and also the fans group as well as the agency and also the KOLs themselves. So we should manage and that to say that verification of the identities of the followers and also the fans group of that particular agent company or the KOL is a must and also necessary thing for us to do.

So that's to say we are not allowing any activities organized by the irrelevant fans group according to that regulation. And also I think that this is a beneficial thing for the development of this industry and also a very healthy development and management of this whole fans economy. But the thing is that this might seem a kind of a temporary impact on the pause and stop of some kind of reality show programs and this may have seen a kind of a reduction over the short term traffic on that. However, I think it's pretty much important for Weibo to manage this as a whole and also we are going to gain long term benefit by managing strictly on this particular notion. Right.

Speaker 0

Right, thank you. So we have reached the end of the question and answer session. With that we conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.