Weibo - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Transcript

Moderator (participant)

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Weibo Reports First Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press star 1, 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1, 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Sandra Zhang. Please go ahead.

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator. Welcome to Weibo's fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Joining me today are Chief Executive Officer Gaofei Wang and our Chief Financial Officer Fei Cao. This conference call is also being broadcast on the Internet and is available through Weibo's IO website. Before the management remarks, I would 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 statement in this conference call and elsewhere. Further information regarding this and other risks is included in Weibo's annual report on Form 20F and other filings with the SEC.

All the information provided in this press release is occurring as the date hereof. Weibo assumes no obligation to update such information except as required under applicable law. Additionally, I would like to remind you that our discussion today includes certain non-GAAP measures, which include 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 include certain expenses, gains or losses, and other items that are not expected to result in future cash payments or are non-recurring in nature or are 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&A session. With this, I would like to turn the call over to our CEO, Gaofei Wang.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

谢谢，大家好。欢迎大家参加微博财报电话会议。

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you. Hello everyone. Welcome to Weibo's first quarter 2025 earnings conference call.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

本次财报会议，我向大家重点介绍微博25年第一季度的产品运营以及商业化方面的进展。

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

On today's call, I'll share with you highlights on Weibo's product and monetization in the first quarter of 2025.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

用户方面，截至一季度末，我们的月活跃用户达到5.91亿，月活跃用户达到2.95亿。一季度微博总营收达到了3.969亿美金，年内年持平。其中广告营收达到3.391亿美金，年内年持平。增值业务收入达到5,700美金，年内年增长2%。剔除汇率因素，一季度总营收年内年增长1%。一季度公司调整后营业利润达到1.295亿美金，调整后营业利润率为33%。

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

On the user front, in March 2025, Weibo's MAUs reached 591 million, and the average DAUs reached 261 million. In the first quarter of 2025, Weibo's total revenues in the first quarter reached $396.9 million, flat year-over-year, or up 1% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. Our total ad revenues reached $339.1 million, flat year-over-year, and advanced revenues reached $57.7 million, up 2% year-over-year. Our non-GAAP operating income reached $129.5 million, representing a non-GAAP operating margin of 33%.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

放眼二五年，公司整体策略仍以用户价格为核心，保持微博在热点服务领域内容生态的领先优势，稳定社交产品的竞争力。在此基础上，结合大模型能力，重点投入加强推荐、搜索体系的建设，提升微博在垂直和视频内容生态的投入，实现用户规模和活跃的增长。接下来，我从用户增长、内容生态竞争力、商业化增长三个维度，阐述微博25年一季度产品运营以及商业化工作的进展。

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

In 2025, the company's overall strategy is to focus on the values of users, remain our leading position in hot trend and entertainment content ecosystem, and solidify the competitive edge of our social products. On top of that, we will prioritize enhancing our recommendation and search functions by integrating large language models and increase investment in vertical and video content ecosystem to drive user scale and engagement. Next, let me share with you our progress made in the first quarter of 2025 from three dimensions: user growth, the competitiveness of our content ecosystem, and monetization.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

从用户增长及活跃方面，二五年用户产品技术聚焦在社交产品的整合和推荐体系的升级，旨在促进用户规模和活跃的提升。信息流产品方面，关系流一季度的重心仍是提升用户社交互动体验，进一步促进博主和粉丝之间的社交粘性，重点加强用户关注的超话社区内容与关系流分发机制的打通，把优质的兴趣社区内容向外扩展，提升用户在关系流消费更多兴趣社区内容的同时，吸引用户来超话互动交流。一季度关系流的货运效率同比保持提升，与此同时，我们已在做首页信息流产品的升级准备工作，通过对首页产品的优化，结合大模型能力提升用户的推荐消费体验，提升推荐信息流的竞争力，目前正在内测中，预计二季度开放给用户体验。

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

On user growth and engagement, we focus on the integration of social products and upgrade of our recommendation system, aiming to drive user growth and engagement. For relationship-based feed, in the first quarter, we focus on enhancing user experience on social interactions and strengthening social stickiness between content creators and their fans. We achieve this by strengthening the synergy between the content distribution mechanism of relationship-based feed and Super Topics, extending the distribution of high-quality content from Super Topics to the interest-based feed. This approach successfully drives consumption of interest-based community contents within the relationship-based feed, while also attracts more users to consume and interact in Super Topics. As a result, the interaction efficiency of the relationship-based feed, which is measured by the engagement per 1,000 views, shows year-over-year growth in the first quarter. Simultaneously, we are preparing for the product upgrade of the information feed.

We will further enhance the competitiveness of the interest-based feed by optimizing the homepage interface and enhancing recommendation capabilities powered by large language models, creating a better content consumption experience for users. The upgraded version is currently under internal test and is expected to open to users during the second quarter.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

从插花内容生态方面，二五年用户产品运营聚焦在巩固热点和文娱生态的领先地位，同时持续投入垂直和视频内容生态建设，提升平台竞争用户和用户市场的内容能力。一季度赠送春节，文娱内容丰富，我们通过发挥平台文娱新品生态及热点运营跨垂直领域的运营优势，将热点文娱和垂直内容的合作整合在一起，吸引更多的用户参与到平台春节相关的内容消费和互动中来。除夕当晚，有近200万明星大V在微博发布猫聊春晚，新用户参与人数达到3,000万，加上春晚节目受大众喜爱，今年春晚相关阅读量超过600亿，跑量超过5亿，跑量较去年提升超过50%，而微博收获了不错的用户增长。不仅除夕当天平台DAU同比提升，春节期间的DAU和流量较春节前也有明显的增长，高于24年的同期水平。与此同时，随着微博热点营销心理在客户中的日益增强，也为我们带来了持续增长的商业收入。春节营销相关收入同比实现了双位数的增长，春节营销评估的客户数增长更为明显。

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

On content ecosystem, in 2025, our user product operation focuses on solidifying our leading position in hot trends and entertainment sector while continuing to invest in vertical content and video content ecosystem. This strategy enhances our ability to attract and retain users while increasing user time span. During the Spring Festival, a period with abundant entertainment content release, we leverage our platform strengths in celebrity fans ecosystem, holiday themes, hot trend campaigns, and cross-vertical operation, and integrated hot topics, entertainment content, and vertical content to drive users' consumption and interactions around Spring Festival-related content. On the Chinese New Year's Eve, nearly 200 celebrities and KOLs discussed around the Spring Festival Gala and sent electronic envelopes on Weibo, attracting over 30 million users to participate.

In addition, as the Spring Festival Gala this year gained popularity among the public, the views of the Spring Festival Gala-related topics surpassed 60 billion impressions, and discussion around these topics exceeded 500 million on Weibo platform, representing a 50% increase year-over-year. Weibo has achieved nice user growth during the season, with DAUs on Chinese New Year's Eve increasing year-over-year, and average DAUs and traffic during the Spring Festival season achieving substantial increase compared with the same period last year. Additionally, as our clients' perception of Weibo's hot trend marketing strengthened, we saw sustained growth of ad revenue from hot trend marketing during the season. To be specific, advertising revenue related to Spring Festival achieved double-digit growth year-over-year, with an even more notable increase in the number of participating advertisers.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

同时，一季度我们也看到基础大模型带来令人兴奋的技术进展。AI热点在微博持续破圈，从DeepSeek到Manus迅速走红，从AI大模型到机器人，智能体公司纷纷入驻微博，科普解读技术趋势和品牌科技例子，吸引了众多科技行业大V参与互动和讨论，带动了微博上关于AI的讨论从技术群体迅速破圈至大众群体，加速了普通用户对AI的认知和使用，极大地推动了各平台产品与AI结合的速度。

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

In the first quarter, we're excited to see technological advancement driven by foundational large language models. AI-related topics continue to gain cross-platform traction on Weibo. For instance, topics related to emerging models like DeepSeek and Manus quickly went viral. Leading AI model companies, robotic firms, and intelligent agent developers have also opened accounts on Weibo and actively interpreted tech trends and showcased their innovation. This has attracted many influential voices from the technology sector to engage and spark discussion, accelerating the shift of AI-related conversations from niche technical communities to the broader public. As a result, ultimate users have a better understanding of AI and thus are more willing to embrace the AI transformation, which in turn drives the integration of AI capabilities across platform products.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

微博产品端也在积极推进AI在各多项业务场景的尝试，并逐步聚焦到AI搜索、AI社交互动、内容生态、推荐及商业广告几个方向。今年3月，我们看到最新的开源模型在微博搜索上的应用带来了微博搜索能力的明显提升。这周产品可以清晰梳理并总结各角度资讯和细节，以及舆论观点，同时还能给出下一步的关注点。不仅问答能力极大增强，用户使用搜索的体验更好，还能促进平台热点核心竞争力的提升。4月，我们加快完善了自搜的产品能力，并向全量用户开放。目前全部的热搜和普搜请求中会展示AI结果，并且我们在落地增强了权威媒体内容的引入，进一步加强了自搜内容的可信感值，提供给用户更优质、更全面、更真实可靠的搜索结果体验。3月，自搜产品的月活跃突破3,000万，自搜日均使用用户规模和QUER量较去年四季度均有不错的增长，搜索需求满足度有明显的提升。同时，自搜对整体搜索的用户量QUER量也有所带动。AI在社交广告产品上的应用也在积极内测。我们会保持在提升现有产品核心竞争力上的AI投入，相信随着技术模型的能力的继续提升以及算力成本的下降，我们会陆续向大家介绍微博在AI应用方面的成果。

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

Weibo has also actively explored and implemented AI technology in multiple business scenarios on the product side, gradually focusing on several strategic areas, including AI-powered search, social interaction, content ecosystem, content recommendation, and commercial advertising. In March, we integrated the latest open-source models into Weibo Search, which delivered a significant upgrade in search capabilities. Weibo Intelligence Search product is now able to organize and summarize information from multiple perspectives, including technical details and public sentiments, while suggesting users with key follow-up topics. This has not only greatly improved the answer quality and user experience, but also enhanced our competitive edge around trending topics. In April, we accelerated the evolution of our Intelligence Search product and rolled it out to all users. AI-generated results are now displayed across all trending and general search queries.

We have also optimized landing pages with enriched image and video content, as well as authoritative media sources. The upgraded product delivers a more comprehensive, reliable, and higher-quality search experience. In March, MAUs of our Intelligence Search product surpassed 30 million, and the DAUs and daily search queries for Intelligence Search in March grew nicely on a sequential basis. Search satisfaction metrics also showed notable improvement, which further drove the user scale and queries of Weibo's general search function. In addition, we are actively piloting AI applications in social and advertising products. We are dedicated to investing in the AI transformation to strengthen the core competitiveness of our existing products. As foundational models advance and the cost of computing power declines, we look forward to sharing more updates with you on our progress and achievements in the AI-powered application.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

从商业化增长方面，二五年广告产品销售聚焦在微博内容营销心智在更多行业以及客户的建立及巩固，以及广告产品效果的转化能力。一季度，微博的广告收入剔除汇率因素同比增长1%。从整体市场来看，扩大内需促进消费的政策在逐步落地过程中，客户市场对二五年的投入仍偏谨慎观望，会根据市场实际反馈逐步释放预算。在我们平台内部，一方面我们会致力于抓住客户的新品发布、重大节点、重大热点的营销需求，不断深化微博在内容和新品营销的核心优势，帮助客户的市场活动和新品发布做到比行业更领先的内容传播和效果反馈。另一方面，我们在新一周竞价广告产品上会持续投入，提升了效果广告预算的获取能力，在经验收入上也看到了正向反馈。

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

Moving on to monetization, in 2025, our ad product and sales strategy focuses on further establishing and solidifying customers' mindset of choosing Weibo as the go-to platform for content marketing across industries, as well as enhancing ad product conversion capabilities. In the first quarter, Weibo's advertising revenues grew 1% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. Across the broader market, while micro policies to boost domestic demand and consumption are gradually taking effect, advertiser budgets for 2025 remain cautious, with ad spend to be unlocked progressively based on the market feedback. Internally, for 1 thing, we strive to capture clients' marketing demand around the new product launch, major events, and mega trends. Leveraging reinforced core strengths in content and product launch marketing, we seek to deliver better performance in terms of distribution effect and clients' feedback.

For another, we remain committed to investing in our real-time bidding information ad product and pleased with the positive revenue result from information feeds thanks to the improved capability to capture ad wallets.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

分行业来看，受政府消费补贴政策的影响，部门行业一季度保持了较好的态势，汽车行业一季度继续保持同比增长。这不仅是新能源品牌车带来的贡献，传统厂商也在加快布局新能源车型，加大了在微博的预算投放。这也是微博这几年打造新能源新车首发营销和讨论主阵地带来的，再加上政策红利的持续释放，使得汽车行业在连续几年增长的基础上仍能够保持比较稳健的基本盘。

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

Looking at industry trends, benefiting from the consumption stimulus package, we are pleased to see solid growth across a number of industries. The automobile sector continued to deliver growth in the first quarter, driven not only by the contribution from the NEV brands but also by traditional OEMs accelerating their NEV rollout and increasing their budget allocation to Weibo. The momentum demonstrates Weibo's position as a key product launch and discussion hub for the NEV in the recent years. Coupled with policy tailwinds, Weibo has maintained resilience in ad revenues from the ad sector off the back of the consecutive years of robust growth.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

一季度，结合春节营销节点，电商行业、如品、视频引导行业从收入同比保持增长，其中电商行业收入增长明显。作为内需消费非常重要的营销场景，以及电商平台最终经营的改善，电商平台今年在微博的投入有望增加。我们会积极把握确定性的机会，在平台热点和重点电商节点与客户共同拓展营销机会，获取增量预算。食品饮料行业，微博的明星营销和新品营销的心智在客户中日渐增强。一季度，明星和新品的营销项目数和收入同比大幅增长。这也是微博差异化内容营销模式在更多行业标准化拓展的体现。当客户与明星代言官宣和新品发布时，逐步都会来微博进行品牌加内容营销。

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

In the first quarter, the e-commerce, dairy product, and food and beverage sectors also booked a solid growth, tapping into the key market window during the Spring Festival. E-commerce platform, in particular, delivered robust growth in the first quarter. With e-commerce becoming a significant driver of domestic consumption and e-commerce platform improved operating efficiency, we hope to see higher e-commerce ad spend on Weibo this year. We will beef up our efforts to seize their high certainty opportunities by partnering with clients around the trending topics and key e-commerce shopping festivals, and thus expand marketing reach and capture incremental budgets. As for the food and beverage sector, Weibo's celebrity-driven and new product marketing continue to gain traction among client base. In the first quarter, both the number of celebrity and new product marketing projects as well as related revenues saw robust year-over-year growth.

This showcased the scalability of Weibo's differentiated content marketing model across more industries. When clients have a celebrity endorsement or new product launch needs, they are choosing Weibo for integrated brand plus content marketing campaigns.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

另一方面，手机行业一季度同比有所下降，主要来自中高端机型新机发布的节奏变化导致。虽然微博在整体手机行业预算获取能力处于较高水平，但是得益于新进营销心智以及国补落地带来的换机热潮，全年预计会保持比较稳健的增长趋势。游戏行业同比仍存在一定缺口，拖累了微博整体广告大盘的增速。一是由于去年一季度的头部游戏厂商的重点项目投入造成了高支出影响，二是去年中期开始新品和精品游戏的数量明显减少。目前看，游戏行业全年会持续存在压力，我们也在积极地寻找应对办法。美妆护肤行业收入同比下跌收窄，对微博的广告收入整体的影响减少，环比实现增长。针对游戏和美妆护肤这两个行业，我们的重点还是根据市场情况和我们的竞争优势完善售卖策略，同时复制更多能生产优质内容的QL与商业做好协同，提升行业的内容营销收入份额。

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

On the flip side, the handset manufacturer sector saw a year-over-year decline in the first quarter, primarily due to shift to product launch timelines of mid to high-end models. Despite Weibo's already strong wallet share in this sector, we expect resilient full-year growth from this sector, benefiting from the new product marketing and the surge in device upgrades driven by trading subsidies. The online game sector continued to face year-over-year decline, which weighed on the overall growth of Weibo's advertising revenues. This was primarily due to a high base effect from major campaigns by top online game companies in the first quarter of last year, as well as a notable decrease in the number of new and blockbuster game launches starting from mid of last year.

Looking ahead, we expect the online game industry to remain under pressure throughout the year, and we are actively exploring ways to address these headwinds. In the beauty and personal care sector, revenue declined narrow year-over-year and booked sequential growth during the quarter. That said, the category's impact on the overall ad revenue has been diminishing. For both the online game and the beauty and personal care industries, we focus on refining our sales strategy according to market condition and leveraging our competitive advantages. Meanwhile, we will continue to support more KOLs capable of generating high-quality content and strengthening synergies between our content and monetization ecosystems, aiming to increase the wallet share of content marketing revenues in these sectors.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

广告产品方面，一季度新西流竞价广告同比提升明显，主要通过产品能力的加强和对客户需求的挖掘，在部分客户上取得明显的进展。下一步我们会扩大客户的覆盖，有针对性地通过广告产品来满足用户需求。同时，我们在用户广告消费和客户广告投放流程上，今年会进一步结合AI重点提升体验和效率，整体上进一步提升售后广告预算的获取能力。

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

From the ad product perspective, ad revenues from our Promoted Feed offerings and the real-time bidding system booked a notable year-over-year growth in the first quarter. The growth was primarily driven by enhanced product capabilities and a better understanding of clients' needs, resulting in significant progress with selected client groups. Moving forward, we will penetrate into a broader client base and better fulfill the needs of different advertisers, leveraging our ad product capabilities. In addition, we are committed to further integrating AI technology to enhance the user experience of ad consumption and streamline clients' ad placement, which enables us to further capture performance-based ad budgets.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

一季度，整体收入表现保持平稳，得益于公司一季度在提升效率方面各项措施的有力执行。我们的运营利润率保持了较好的水平，同比有所提升。公司经营效率的提升、稳定的盈利能力和健康的现金流提升了公司的财务灵活度，使我们可以进一步投入到AI的尝试以及微博生态竞争力的建设之中，从而提升用户规模和活跃，增强商业竞争力。

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

To conclude, in the first quarter, with stable revenue performance, Weibo's operating margin remained healthy and improved year-over-year thanks to our effective execution of efficiency initiatives. Improved operating efficiency, stable profitability, and healthy cash flow had enhanced our financial flexibility, enabling us to further invest in the AI transformation and strengthen the competitiveness of our Weibo ecosystem. These investments are cornerstones for us to further drive user growth and deepen engagement, as well as reinforce our monetization capabilities.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

接下来，让我们长点，曹飞介绍一季度的财务结果。

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

With that, let me turn the call over to Fei Cao for a financial review.

Fei Cao (CFO)

Thank you, Gaofei and hello everyone. Welcome to Weibo's first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Let's start with user metrics. In March 2025, Weibo's MAU and average DAU reached 591 million and 261 million respectively, representing a net addition of 3 million and 6 million users on a year-over-year basis. Despite ongoing discipline in channel spending, we kicked off the year with both MAU and average DAU returning to a growth trajectory, demonstrating our efforts to attract and engage a vibrant user community. Importantly, our DAU versus MAU ratio remained healthy, indicating strong user engagement and platform fitness. Turning to financials, as a reminder, my prepared remarks would focus on non-GAAP results. All monetary amounts are in US dollar terms, and all comparisons are on a year-over-year basis, unless otherwise noted. Now, let me walk you through our financial highlights for the first quarter 2025.

Weibo's first quarter 2025 net revenues were $396.69 million, flat on an increase of 1% on a constant currency basis. Operating income was $129.5 million, representing an operating margin of 33%. Net income attributable to Weibo reached $119.5 million, an increase of 12%, and the diluted EPS was $0.45. Let me give you more color on the first quarter 2025 revenue performance. Weibo's advertising and marketing revenues for the first quarter 2025 were $339.1 million, flat on an increase of 1% on a constant currency basis. Value-added service revenue was $57.7 million in the first quarter, an increase of 2% or 3% on a constant currency basis. In line with our expectations, our advertising business continued to stabilize with diverging trends across our major ad verticals this quarter. By industry, our largest three verticals were FMCG, e-commerce, and the 3C products.

In terms of growth, e-commerce, internet services, and automobile were the key contributors. E-commerce platforms, Alibaba in particular, jumped up ad spend to amplify the Spring Festival marketing effect and capture surging consumer demand during the holiday season. We are also pleased with the healthy growth of the automobile sector, benefiting from the ongoing secular shift to electronic vehicles. FMCG as a whole decreased by low single digits year-over-year this quarter. Within the category, dairy, food, and beverage products demonstrated an upward trend, while beauty and personal care continued to face a year-over-year gap, but the segments showed a clear sequential recovery. On the other hand, the online game sector faced tough times and declined sharply due to lack of blockbuster releases this quarter.

The handset manufacturers moderated their ad spend with us this quarter, mainly due to seasonal slowdown in the product launch phase of mid to high-end handset devices. These underperforming industries without a meaningful top-line recovery. By ad product, Promoted Feed Ad was the largest, followed by Social Display and the Topic and Search. Ad revenues from Alibaba booked a robust growth of 89%, reaching $42.6 million in the first quarter. The strong momentum of ad revenues from Alibaba was primarily driven by its high-profile sponsorship of the Spring Festival Gala to promote its platform and e-commerce events, as well as incremental ad spend in promoting their AI-related products. Value-added service revenue was $57.7 million in the first quarter, up 2% year-over-year, primarily driven by growth in membership services.

The increase in membership revenue was largely fueled by higher up as our VIP membership offering reason as well with Weibo's premium user base. Turning to cost and expenses, total cost and expenses for the first quarter were $267.4 million, a decrease of 1%, with decrease in sales and marketing expenses offset by increase in cost of revenues. Operating income in the first quarter was $129.5 million, an increase of 3%, representing an operating margin of 33% compared to 32% in the same period last year. Turning to income tax and their gap, income tax expenses for the first quarter were $24.3 million, compared to $25 million last year. Net income attributable to Weibo in the first quarter was $119.5 million, an increase of 12%, representing a net margin of 30% compared to 27% last year.

The increase was primarily attributable to operating efficiency and higher net interest and other income. Turning to our balance sheet and cash flow items, as of March 31, 2025, Weibo's cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments totaled $2.08 billion compared to $2.35 billion as of December 31, 2024. The decrease of Weibo's cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments was mainly resulted from the purchase of long-term well-demanded products in the first quarter of 2025. In the first quarter, cash provided by operating activities was $113.2 million. Capital expenditures totaled $9.4 million, and depreciation and amortization expenses amounted to $13.6 million. Before turning to the Q&A session, we are pleased to announce that we have completed the distribution of the annual cash dividend of $0.82 per ordinary share or ADI for the fiscal year 2024, with aggregate amount of approximately $200 million in May.

In addition, we would like to provide an update on our ESG initiative. In April, we released our first ESG report, highlighting our performance across key areas, including green operations, employee development, content ecosystem, social responsibility, information security, and technological innovation. The report underscores our long-term commitment to sustainability. For more information on our ESG disclosures, please visit our investor relations website. With that, let me now turn the call over to the operator for the Q&A session.

Moderator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, you will need to press star 1, 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1, 1 again. We will take our first question, and the question comes from the line of Alicia Yap from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Alicia Yap (Analyst)

Hello, thank you. 哎，管理层晚上好。谢谢接受我的提问。我先用中文问一下。其实我是想大概能让管理层跟我们梳理一下我们这个微博AI搜索方面的这个进展。其实微博智收其实做得很不错，然后想大概能够给我们一个方向，就是说未来的一些策略有哪些，然后在变现上我们这边是怎么去想的。然后从产品上，您觉得这个是还是会围绕在微博里面，还是说后续其实有可能会变成一个独立的产品？然后另外就想问一下，就是广告收入在AI这个新的领域里面，就是说我们揭露了更多这样DeepSeek大模型，有没有看到说在这个广告素材这种智能投放或者是这个ECPM这边起到一个很明显的提升，然后帮助我们在广告收入这边有不错的一个进展，就是后续有一个不错的进展。然后希望管理层分享一下。我很快自己翻译一下。 Thanks, Management, for taking my questions. I wanted to ask about overall how you think about your search progressions. So Weibo just show has actually been doing quite well. If you can give us a little bit your future strategy or how you think about the product, will that still remain within the Weibo to help and engage user, or would that be actually potentially become a separate product down the road? Then second on the AI monetization. Just wondering how, after integrating DeepSeek and all other large language models, how our advertising product has improved in terms of, for example, the ad format or the ECPM, or even how advertisers are able to put more targeted ads. Any color from that would be helpful. Thank you.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

您这边问题主要是两个，一个是关于这个AI搜索，还有一个是跟这个AI跟广告相关的。我先回答第一个问题。然后呢，一季度我们刚才Scribe也提到了，我们重点其实把去年我们就基于一些开源的模型，其实对于做了基本的AI搜索。但是今年的春节的时候，DeepSeek出现之后，发布之后，我们在春节期间对于我们的，我们把我们的AI搜索切到DeepSeek模型之后，其实我们看到这个确实这个效果有非常明显的一个提升。所以说我们在3月份应该比较大规模的向我们的用户推出了这个新的基于DeepSeek的这样一个AI搜索的一个能力。那3月份的这个月活跃用户已经突破了这个3000万，4月份应该全量之后会有进一步的一个提升，这也有效地拉动了我们整体的搜索的DAU和quiry量的提升。 Go ahead.

Translator (participant)

Thank you very much for this question. I think that you have been asking two questions. The first one is about the AI search. The second one is about the relationship between AI and also the advertisements. The first question is that in Q1, as we have already stated, last year, based on the open-source models, we've been already providing the preliminary model or the AI search to the users. After the Spring Festival in China, we've been seeing the launch of DeepSeek. We've been integrating DeepSeek into our whole facility and do see a very good improvement of our final effectiveness. In March, we've been seeing also, we've been launching this particular DeepSeek-based AI search to the users and seen a very good boost of the number of MAUs.

For instance, in March, the number has been reaching over 30 million, and this number will be also growing in April as well. We believe that in the future, the number of DAUs and also the volume of query will be improving because of this result. Okay.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

那我们现在看这样一个产品来讲的话，从用户的使用和用户反馈来看的话，微博智收目前在平台和平台的新闻属性和一些文娱方面来讲的话，我们看到的搜索结果，包括用户反馈还是不错的。那在通用搜索方面来讲的话，虽然也有明显的提升，但是这方面的用户的数据其实提升并没有新闻方面那么明显。我觉得这跟平台微博平台本身的这样一个用户心智定位还是有密切相关性的。然后另外一方面来讲的话，我们看这样一个产品在用户消费层面，确实对于我们的搜索用户人均使用搜索量有一个大概五个点以上的一个提升，也直接提升了我们的人均quiry和用户的留存。所以说这个产品目前我们商业化上还没有开始具体去商业化，但是很多客户也在询问。但是我觉得在两个层面，其实这样一个产品已经对我们的商业收入有一定的帮助。一方面它提升了我们的用户的现有搜索用户的人均的quiry，然后另外一方面来讲的话，它对于我们在很多新闻热点事件、文娱事件方面，微博平台的差异化的竞争优势还是有比较大的帮助的。

Translator (participant)

All right. Second point I'd like to say is that now, according to the users' usage and also the feedback from the users, we've been seeing a very good result, especially in the field of the news and also entertainment-related contents. We've been using the Intelligence Search or Zhisou in this particular area, we've seen a lot of usage of the users. In terms of the general purpose search, still there is a certain kind of improvement. However, this particular volume increase was not as good as that from the news area, for instance. It is probably because of the natural positioning or the natural feature of Weibo, which is particularly focused on entertainment and news-related topics.

Of course, in terms of the user consumption, we do see about 5% of the increase in terms of the per capita search volume increase, and it does improve a lot on the per capita query as well as the user retention. We are not starting officially the commercialization approach, and also many users are asking us about when we're going to commercialize this. Still, we think that even if this is not commercialized fully yet, we can see a very good support and boost to our revenues of commercialization and monetization. For instance, as I have said, the per capita query volume increased because of this, and also we do see a very good differentiated competitive wedges that we've been building or we have been further enhancing in the field of hot topics, news-related, and entertainment-related content search. Okay.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

另外这样一个产品对于我们目前没有一个计划把它做一个独立的产品去进行推出，但是其实我们会看到智收这个产品，因为他们在热点，包括新闻和娱乐世界上的这种突出的优势，他已经在我们跟一些合作伙伴的合作里面起到了一个比较强的对我们带用户的一个拉动。如果您关注的话，就是我们在国内，我们之前在国内的很多手机厂商合作了这样一个搜索热搜搒单输出的这样一个服务，比如说在很多厂商的负一屏里面，其实我们是有热搜的搒单输出的。那这方面在过去的一个季度里面，我们也跟不同的厂商做了沟通，未来针对于智收，一方面这样一个搒单里面会有更多关于智收的一个结果的输出，另外一方面来讲，用户在这些合作伙伴里面搜索结果的时候，如果它是跟新闻相关的话，我们也在尝试看更多的是不是可以输入引用微博智收的这样一个结果，然后用户点击之后再回到微博的客户端，这样对于我们获取更多的新的用户其实是一个比较有效的一个拉动。

Translator (participant)

In terms of whether or not we have a plan to make this Intelligence Search an independent product, actually we do not have this plan to make it independent. However, still this has further maintained our advantage of the Intelligence Search in the area of hot topics, the news-related contents, and entertainment-related contents. For instance, we have been finding a very good effect of bringing users from other ends by collaborating with some of our partners. For instance, if you have been aware of that kind of results, previously we have been working with a lot of headset makers here in China and do have pre-installed results of the hot search ranking list, and part of those contents are actually generated or directly quoted from Weibo's Intelligence Search results. In the future, probably we can see more results related to this.

If in the future all kinds of research results are related to news, we are going to encourage more partners of quoting the Intelligence Search results from Weibo. From that sense, we can make the users click on that hot search ranking results, and this will direct the users to the terminal of Weibo. This is also another very good way of bringing new users onto the Weibo platform. Okay.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

另外最后再补充一点，就是关于AI的To C产品，其实从全球来看的话，我们目前看到大家比较认可的一致的一个趋势就是AI这样一个搜索对于传统搜索的取代其实是已经比较明确了。对于微博而言来讲的话，我们智收在这样一个产品体系里面，我觉得目前的产品，包括目前的产品的结构其实还只是一个雏形。我们在二季度，包括在未来的一两个季度，还会有不断更多的一些新的产品体验去输出。比如您看到的可能对于二三月份可能这个搜索更多的会偏传统的这种问答一些，以文字为主。当然在最新的里面增加了一些多媒体的一些输出，效果也非常不错。但是总的来讲的话，对于这样一个AI智收，我们在今年会加大这方面的投入。而且从目前的数据来看的话，它对于我们整个对于搜索的用户拉动，对于整个产品的这种用户回来拉动，包括产品微博整个产品对外的这种差异化竞争力的体现都还是比较明显的。谢谢。

Translator (participant)

Also, as for the AI for the consumers or the To C part of AI, we've been seeing that for Intelligence Search, for instance, in terms of the total structure of this particular product within Weibo, we are still at a very primitive and early stage. In the second quarter and also in the near future, we are going to see new user experience of using this Intelligence Search function of Weibo. For instance, in February and March, it was pretty much based on the Q&A format, generating texts a majority of the time for those questions that the users were searching upon. Of course, we do have a trial on some of the new multimedia kind of generated multimedia results being shown in the output results, which has been very much successful.

The overall conclusion is that this year in 2025, we're going to emphasize more on the investment dedicated to the Intelligence Search product so that we are going to further boost the number of users and also the activity of the users across the whole pipeline of our products so that we can really build much better differentiated competitive edges in the future. Thank you.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

另外关于这个AI跟广告的结合，我们在一季度我们刚才财报里面提了，就是新西流竞价广告其实同比是有一个不错的一个增长。这里面AI在里面其实带来了CTR的一个比较明显的提升。我们在以某些领域和测试里面大概可以CTR提升10%，但是它对于DCPM的提升目前还在个位数吧，然后五个点左右。对，然后对微博来讲的话，新西流竞价广告目前在我们整体的收入比例并不是太高的，所以说它对整体的收入拉动目前还不是特别的不明显。对，然后我们自己内部也在有专门的项目来看AI对于一些品牌广告、创意型的广告是不是可以带动我们的品牌广告的提升，但是这部分还比较的早期。对，所以说总体来看的话，就是对效果广告效果不错，但是因为我们的盘子里面大头其实还都是品牌，包括热点QR广告，所以说对于整体的收入拉动并不是特别的明显。

Translator (participant)

As for the second question, the relationship between AI and to what extent can we have a better advertisement-related revenue? Actually, we did see a very good facilitation to the boost of the advertisement revenue related to information-based feed, and also we did see a very good improvement of the CTR by about 10% also. For the other indicators, we did have only a single-digit improvement only. In terms of the effectiveness of the AI on the advertising revenues, especially the information feed related revenue increase, we had improvements, but you could see that because overall speaking, majority of our advertisements are effective based advertisements. In terms of the overall advertising revenue improvement, still the facilitation and also the boosting effect from the AI technology is still pretty limited. Okay.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

Yeah.

Translator (participant)

Yeah, thank you.

Moderator (participant)

Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Thomas Chong from Jefferies. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Thomas Chong (Regional Head of Internet and Media)

Thank you Management for taking my question. My question is about advertising. Can Management comment about the Q2 expanding sentiment and expectation, as well as the outlook for different industry verticals? My second question is about the updates of our advertising products and strategies. Thank you.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

没有了，好，谢谢。然后整体Q1我刚才介绍过了。对，然后从Q2的预期来看，其实跟Q1目前的情况差不太多，一个是跟这种消费国股带来的，我觉得不单单是汽车手机行业在二季度可能会恢复得快一些。另外来讲的话，电商我们目前看二季度增长也还是不错的。

Translator (participant)

Okay, as for the overall trend, I think that we've been already educated on this topic before, and in terms of the future expectations, our expectations for Q2 for this particular front is pretty much similar to the final result of Q1, especially those verticals that enjoy a very good consumption boost because of national subsidy policy. For instance, we've seen a very good performance improvement on the automotive industry and also the vertical of headsets. We are expecting a very good performance from the vertical of e-commerce as well in Q2. Okay.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

电商和手机我觉得一二季度应该都是保持同比的一个增长的。手机在一季度因为很多厂商它的机型营销周期调整，所以说一季度是下降的，二季度目前看是可以恢复增长的。医疗行业来讲的话，其实我们会看过去几年随着我们的客户需求增长，包括老龄化，包括医疗美容的增长，其实医疗这部分也是可以保持增长的。

Translator (participant)

Just now we have said that in Q2 we expect a very good performance from the vertical of headset and automotive. Still, in Q1 we had a little bit of a decrease of the revenue from the vertical of the headset because of the adjustment of marketing cycles of some of the manufacturers. This industry, I mean the vertical of headset, will be rebounded to a better track of growth in Q2. Another very promising vertical in Q2 and near future would be healthcare related because of a huge increase of the demand and because of the aging society nowadays and also a further boosting of the demand on cosmetic surgery, etc. Okay.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

然后另外可能去年下跌比较多的像美妆客户这些行业，然后今年来讲因为一季度环比保持了一个增长，但是我们会看到全年其实还是有比较大的压力的，因为国际的品牌其实还是在下跌，但是国内品牌今年的增长其实抵消了一部分这方面的趋势。游戏行业我觉得刚才也提到了，是比较有挑战的。然后我觉得一方面来讲的话，头部的几个客户像网易和腾讯都削减了一些市场方面的这些投入，然后这个其实在网易的财报里面他们应该也提到。然后作为抵消的话，其实我们现在更多的是通过AI广告，包括效果广告，通过我们增加这一些APP客户的，就是互联网应用的这种广告来抵消这种游戏效果广告的下降，是主要是做这方面的努力。

Translator (participant)

Last year for some of the challenged verticals, we did see a very good improvement in Q1 in terms of their overall revenue contribution on a quarter-by-quarter basis, but still we do see a lot of stress around these areas. For some of the overseas brands, we had a decrease of the revenue from them, but still this was offset by some of the domestic brands' increase. Another very challenging industry is the gaming industry. We are facing a lot of challenges still in the next quarter also. You can see that the budget allocated by Tencent and NetEase has been reduced, and especially you could see that in the financial statement proposed by NetEase in the recent sense.

Also, of course, how to mitigate that impact, we are going to fully leverage the AI advertisements or the performance-based ad increase, and especially some of the internet-based app-related ads to have an offset of the challenge from the gaming industry. Okay.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

在产品方面，其实我觉得之前采访也说过很多次了，其实从公司角度而言，我们的核心的平台定位，包括我们的客户心智定位，其实还是和明星营销、新品营销、内容营销会相关。过去一两年里面，其实公司在这方面不管是运营还是我们的广告产品都是集中在这方面去做好我们的整合优势，我们也抓住客户新品发布、重大营销节点、重大热点期间的这种营销需求，这是公司最核心最核心的技能。我们把这个做好之后也可以稳定我们在客户品牌需求和内容营销需求方面的这个收入。从目前的情况看，我们在大部分行业这种机会还是可以把握住的。

Translator (participant)

In terms of our ad product, our core competitive edges is that still in the user's mindset, we've been already regarded as a platform focusing on some new product marketing and content-based marketing. In the past 2 years of time, we did a very good job in terms of operation and also focus on this competitive advantage, especially while the brands are making the launches of the new products. In the future, we're going to further seize the opportunities from the brand new product launch and those hot topics, for instance, and this is the very core part of our competitive edge, and we are going to be consistent in doing so and increasing our investment into this.

Overall speaking, by doing this and focusing on the products of this kind, we are going to pretty much stabilize the demand and try to get most part of the budget from those brands. Okay.

Gaofei Wang (CEO)

另外一方面在效果广告方面刚才也介绍了，就是从我们在二三年开始重新加大投入之后，这两年其实效果广告从去年下半年开始已经开始恢复到一个增长的一个通路里面。那我们在新西流竞价效果广告方面会持续保持投入，然后主要还是通过AI，包括我们的加强销售这方面的投入去提升客户对于微博广告效果广告方面产品的认知，包括提升客户的效果去来增加我们这方面的收入。

Translator (participant)

In terms of the performance-based ad, after 2023, we've been investing a lot into this area, did see a very good growth coming back in the 2nd half of last year as well. This is point number 1. Point number 2 is that still for some of the information-based feed pricing-related ad, we'll be focusing on this as well. By doing the AI ad and some of the other related technologies and products, we are able to increase the awareness among the users and our existing customers and try to get new ones into the whole pool so that the revenue from this part could be enhanced because of these efforts. Okay.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Moderator (participant)

Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. I'll now hand back to Sandra Zhang for closing remarks.

Sandra Zhang (Head of Investor Relations)

Thanks, all presenters. Thank you all for joining us. We'll see you next quarter.

Moderator (participant)

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.