Zhihu - Q2 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Welcome to the Zhihu Inc. second quarter 2023 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a Q&A session. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Iris Liu, IR Manager. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone. Welcome to our second quarter 2023 financial results conference call. Participants on today's call will include Mr. Yuan Zhou, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Zhihu; Mr. Li Dahai, Chief Technology Officer; and Mr. Henry Sha, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we continue, please note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, the company's results may be materially different from... Further information regarding these and other risks and uncertainties is included in the company's prospectus and other public filings as filed with the U.S. Securities, and Exchange Commission. The company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable law.

During today's call, management will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures for comparison purposes only. For a definition of non-GAAP financial measures and the reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial results, please see the earnings release issued earlier today. In addition, a webcast replay of this conference call will be available in our website at ir.zhihu.com. I will now turn this call over to Mr. Henry Sha, CFO of Zhihu.

Henry Dachuan Sha (CFO)

Thank you, Iris. I'm pleased to deliver today's opening remarks on behalf of our CEO, Mr. Zhou Yuan. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Zhihu's second quarter 2023 earnings call. We continued to accelerate development across our business during the second quarter, achieving sustainable growth through effective execution of our community ecosystem-first strategy. As we enriched our content library, user engagement increased throughout the Zhihu community, and our average MAUs continued to increase as well, rising to 109.4 million in the second quarter, representing 3.3% year-over-year growth and a 6.9% sequential growth. Furthermore, our unremitting efforts to diversify monetization channels and upgrade our service capabilities during the second quarter drove robust growth in total revenue, which increased by 24.9% year-over-year.

At the same time, we further enhanced the operating efficiency, boosting our gross margin to 53.8%, up by 6 percentage points year-over-year. Our non-GAAP net loss narrowed significantly as a result of ongoing operating efficiency improvements by 49.9% compared with the same period last year, despite our newly initiated investment in generative AI technology. Speaking of generative AI technology development, following the launch of our first large language model, Zhihai Tu AI in April, we are currently conducting internal trials of AI applications, aiming to strengthen the vibrancy of our community and further unlock commercial value. Leveraging our vast content portfolio, potential applications of this cutting-edge technology in our community could include a more efficient content search and more customized recommendations for our users.

AI technology could also help content creators increase productivity and creativity to further enrich Zhihu's content pool. Let me now move on to our users and content. In the second quarter, we focused on content quality enhancement, particularly by continuously enriching our professional content library and enhancing users' interaction with professional users. To that end, we upgraded our content creator incentive scheme, Haiyan Plan 5.0, in April, providing selected content creators with an array of supportive tools, as well as better user traffic support and financial rewards for their high-quality work. With these efforts, we were encouraged to see increased growth momentum in both the volume of content created and the number of the content creators.

By the end of the second quarter, our 66.6 million cultivated content creators had contributed 711.3 million pieces of content covering over 1,000 verticals. To further refine the content quality, we also upgraded our professional identity verification functions in this quarter. Many of our content creators, who have been endorsed by our Blue Medal professional identification, are veterans in specific industries such as internet, finance, legal, engineering, et cetera, with credentials from well-known enterprises, colleges, and institutions. Professional identity status has brought and enhanced the greater recognition of their professional content, and up to 10 times more user interaction post-identification. A growing number of professional users have collectively contributed content, underscoring Zhihu's reputation as a professional community with high credibility.

Our reliable, professional, and abundant content made Zhihu a desirable destination for users to search for answers and follow trending topics. Discussions on trending topics in various formats, such as Q&A, live streaming, and ideas, enliven, enliven the, the Zhihu community also. In addition to enjoying our discussion content, consumers are becoming more reliant on Zhihu's detailed and informative commerce content as a decision-making reference. Moving forward, we will continue to focus on content quality while expanding our content library, creating value for our user across all aspects of studying and consumption. Users have always been the cornerstone of the Zhihu community. Our content encourage users to stay and grow on our platform, driving our average MAUs to 109.4 million in the second quarter. Furthermore, increasing user engagement is critical in promoting the healthy development of our ecosystem.

Many of our long-term, frequent users started their journey on Zhihu when they were students. Now, they are between 18 and 40 years old, with higher edu education and have become new generation professionals. They want to share their insights, experience, and stories, and to become key opinion professionals. Zhihu has expanded its content verticals to capture key opinion professionals involving interest accordingly. This deepening generational engagement reflects Zhihu's peerless ability to captivate users for the long term and serve them at different stage of life. In addition, by leveraging Zhihu's strong brand awareness, content library, and AI-powered technology, we are confident Zhihu can further extend coverage in lower-tier cities by attracting more professionals, young generations, and consumers. Meanwhile, we will continue to support the content creators and uphold a high standard of community governance, reinforcing our healthy culture of sincerity, expertise, and respect.

Let me go into the details of our commercialization progress. Let's start with our membership business, which sustained its strong growth momentum in the second quarter. Paid membership revenue for the second quarter increased by 65.6% year-over-year, while average monthly subscribing members grew by 65.3% year-over-year, reflecting our dedication to expanding premium content coverage. In the second quarter, we continued to enhance the effectiveness of our story creation tools and upgrade our financial reward plans to inspire passion among content creators, while protecting their rights, and benefits through enhanced anti-piracy measures. The number of Zhihu core premium content pieces increased by more than 200% year-over-year during the quarter. The number of membership content creators who earned income from Zhihu increased by almost 50% year-over-year.

Thanks to creators' passion and their premium content contributions, our users were able to enjoy a larger content library with superior quality. In the second half of this year, we will further differentiate ourself with our content and membership products from those of our competitors, and expand our content distribution channel by partnering with more platforms, such as Huawei, among smartphone manufacturers. What's more, a web drama series adapted from a novel in Zhihu content library, was recently launched on Tencent Video platform, disseminating our premium content to a broader audience in a visual format. We anticipate that more of our premium stories will be adapted, unlocking our IP value going forward.

Next, our vocational training business, which continued to deliver excellent results with its revenue increasing by 213.3% year-over-year, and 35.1% quarter-over-quarter. Following the acquisition of MBA Master in the second quarter, we were able to further optimize our program offerings. Meanwhile, by encouraging professionalism and sincerity in our community for young professional users, we increased their interest in sharing and learning vocational skills on Zhihu, driving organic growth across our proprietary vocational training offerings. While our vocational training business is still in the early stage, we will continue to invest in human resources and technology infrastructure to build a solid foundation. As a leading content-centric community, Zhihu's unique proposition enable us to deeply understand our users' evolving learning demands, then satisfy those demands through well-selected, targeted programs. Moving on to marketing services.

Back in Q1 2023, we combined advertising and content commerce solutions, or CCS, into marketing services. This change helped to optimize our organization structure and synergize the resources. By strengthening our service capabilities and optimizing the service offerings, we are able to provide more precise, comprehensive marketing solutions and improve operating efficiency. In Q2, we recorded a sequential quarterly revenue increase of 5.3%, with expanded gross margin. Among the various industries we serve, IT and 3C, and home appliance stood out, growing significantly by double digits, both year-over-year and sequentially, benefiting from increasing ROI across the related sectors within Zhihu community. Going forward, we will continue to streamline our marketing service offerings and optimize recommendation algorithm to meet advertising clients' evolving needs.

Overall, as we move into the second half of 2023, we will focus on enhancing our efficiency to further narrow our losses and advance our progress in terms of our profitability, while prioritizing healthy and sustainable growth across all of our business segments. Before I conclude, I would like to specifically highlight our progress in generative AI technology. As I mentioned earlier, Zhihu has been focusing on innovatively applying large language model technology into our services and products over the past several quarters. We are currently exploring AI's potential application to enhance users' content search experience, optimize algorithms, and improve content creation efficiency. For instance, we aimed to develop search tools that analyze our Q&A content pool to present more precise and better summarize the results, thereby improving both the accuracy and efficiency of content searching.

In addition to these breakthroughs, we have been empowering our internal operating system with AI technology to further increase its data monitoring and operational capabilities. Moving forward, we will continue to invest prudently in generative AI technology to create new AI-powered functions that can improve the content creators' creation experience, as well as enhance our service capabilities. We firmly believe that AI-powered technology's true value lies in empowering human beings across all aspects of life as extension of our innate capabilities. This concludes Mr. Yuan Zhou's remarks. I will turn into our financial details for the second quarter. For a review of our second quarter 2023 results, please see our press release issued earlier today. We delivered solid results for the second quarter of 2023 on the heels of a strong first quarter.

Our total revenues for the second quarter increased by 24.9% year-over-year, which is in line with the management guidance. Our gross margin further expanded by 6 percentage points, and our non-GAAP net loss margin narrowed by 32% points, both on a year-over-year basis. Thanks to our effective ongoing cost control measures, guided by our community ecosystem first strategy, we continued to expand our premium content library and stimulate content creators' passion for creation, preparing prosperity across Zhihu's vibrant community. Both our paid membership and vocational training services continued to grow robustly, increasing by 65.6% and 213.3% respectively, on a year-over-year basis. We also further improved our operation efficiency with streamlined organizational structure and product offerings.

As a result, while our quarterly marketing service revenue decreased by 13.7% year-over-year, it picked up as sequentially for growth of 5.3% quarter-over-quarter. In particular, our cornerstone vertical of our advertisement business, IT and 3C, and home appliance, outperformed with a high double-digit year-over-year increase. Our paid membership revenue for the quarter was RMB 449.1 million, up 65.6% from RMB 271.2 million in the same period of 2022. This increase was attributable to the rapid growth of our subscribing members. For the second quarter, our average monthly subscribing members reached 14 million, increasing by 65.3% year-over-year. In Q3, we anticipated the paid membership revenue will achieve both sequential and year-over-year growth.

Our vocational training business revenue for the second quarter increased by 213.3% year-over-year, reaching RMB 144.5 million, from RMB 46.1 million in the same period of last year. As we continue to enrich our program offerings through both M&A and self-developed products, as well as enhance our service capability with cutting-edge technology, we are confident we can harness even more of this industry's massive potential. Our marketing services revenue for the quarter was RMB 412.7 million, compared with RMB 478.1 million in the same period of the last year. During the quarter, we focused on better utilizing our resources and phased out some low-margin marketing services and products, all of which contributed to the margin improvement of the quarter.

We expect these strategic strategic adjustments in marketing services business to generate recovered growth and increase our resilience in the face of macroeconomic uncertainty in the second half of this year. Gross profit for the second quarter increased by 40.7% year-over-year to RMB 562.1 million, with gross margin expanding to 53.8% from 47.8% in the same period of 2022. Demonstrating the effectiveness of our refined monetization efforts, as well as our improvements in cloud services and the bandwidth utilization efficiency. Total operating expenses were RMB 889.3 million in the second quarter, compared to RMB 860.3 million in the same period of last year.

Selling and marketing expenses increased slightly to RMB 540.6 million from RMB 532.4 million in the same period of 2022. As we continued to invest in promoting our product offerings and branding, while remaining prudent in our overall marketing related spending. Research and development expenses increased to RMB 236.2 million from RMB 223.6 million in the same period of last year. The increase was primarily attributable to our increased spending in technology innovation, as we believe such investment will better position us in the competitive landscape over the long term.

General administrative expenses increased to RMB 112.5 million from RMB 104.63 million in the same period of 2022, due to the increased share-based compensation expenses. Our ongoing efforts to control costs and improve operational efficiency continued to bear fruit. Our GAAP net loss for the quarter was RMB 279.1 million, down by 42.7% on a year-over-year basis. Our non-GAAP adjusted net loss, which primarily excludes share-based compensation expenses and amortization of intangible assets resulting from business acquisition, was RMB 222.3 million for the second quarter, decreasing by approximately 50% from the same period last year.

Non-GAAP net loss margin for the quarter was 21.3%, narrowing significantly by 32% points from a year ago. We will still prioritize loss reduction for the rest of the year. Our net cash used in operating activities was RMB 58.3 million for the first half of 2023, a significant reduction from RMB 515.1 million for the same period of last year, highlighting our improved operating efficiency and the shift in our revenue structure. As of June 30, 2023, the company had cash and cash equivalents, term deposits, and short-term investments of approximately RMB 6.2 billion, compared with RMB 6.3 billion as of December 31, 2022. This concludes my prepared remarks on our financial performance for this quarter.

Let's turn the call over to the operator for the Q&A session. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, if you do have a question, please press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. We will now pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Today's first question comes from Xuanjing Zhang with CICC. Please proceed.

Xuanjing Zhang (Analyst)

Good evening, management. Thanks for taking my question and congratulations on the solid results. My question is related to AI. You mentioned in your prepared remarks that you had some progress on AI-empowered technology. Could management share with us more colors, that what's the specific application scenarios are involved? What's your advantage in AI-empowered technology compared to others? Also, what changes will the utilization of AI bring to Zhihu? Thank you.

Speaker 10

Uh,

Dahai Li (CTO)

... 嗯 ， 知 乎 社 区 拥 有 独 特 的 中 文 语 言 的 数 据 优 势 ， 在 AI 技 术 革 命 里 面 形 成 了 独 特 的 定 位 。

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

Thank you for the-

Dahai Li (CTO)

大 家 好 ， 你 听 见 吗 ？

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

没 听 到 。Thank you for the question, this is Dahai Li, CTO of Zhihu. Zhihu community has abundant language, Chinese language database, and in this AI technology evolution, we have unique competitive advantages.

Dahai Li (CTO)

呃 ，AI 技 术 有 许 多 可 以 在 社 区 中 的 应 用 场 景 ， 用 来 提 升 用 户 体 验 ， 同 时 为 我 们 的 运 营 提 效 。

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

AI technology has a wide range of scenario applications in our community to enhance our user experience and enhance our operating efficiency.

Dahai Li (CTO)

目 前 我 们 已 经 掌 握 了 二 十 B 脸 参 数 的 大 模 型 。 嗯 ， 我 们 已 经 训 练 了 二 十 B 脸 参 数 的 大 模 型 ， 啊 ， 内 测 效 果 显 著 提 升 ， 正 在 拓 展 到 八 十 B 面 ， 今 年 计 划 达 到 一 百 B 面 。

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

We are now training about 20 billion parameters for our large language model. Our beta testing results is significantly improved, and now we are expanding our large language model to about 80 billion parameters, and reach 100 billion parameters towards year end.

Dahai Li (CTO)

啊 ， 在 应 用 方 面 呢 ， 我 们 充 分 挖 掘 大 模 型 的 生 成 语 义 理 解 的 功 能 ， 并 在 内 容 分 类 、 主 题 识 别 等 方 面 取 得 了 成 果 。

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

We have been trying to identify the implied deep meaning of our, large language model, and we have made significant progress in terms of content, categorization, and theme identification.

Dahai Li (CTO)

AI 未 来 在 社 区 中 的 具 体 应 用 主 要 包 括 ...

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

In the future, the AI technology will be used in our community, and I will give some examples to the specific applications in our community.

Dahai Li (CTO)

创 作 方 面 呢, 不 能 创 作 者 更 高 效, 更 高 质 量 的 创 作, 比 如 通 过 推 荐 场 景 的 描 述, 风 格, 写 作 纠 错 等 方 式, 来 降 低 创 作 者 的 发 布 操 作 门 槛, 拓 展 高 质 量 内 容 库 的 数 量.

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

For example, in terms of content creator, empowerment, in the future, AI technology will help our content creators to enhance their productivity and enhance their quality of creation, especially through, for example, recommending different writing styles according to the scenario, and also writing correction. We will further enhance high quality content through lowering the barrier for content creation.

Dahai Li (CTO)

， 在 推 荐 场 景 呢 ， 我 们 根 据 场 景 、 用 户 关 系 等 实 现 了 更 高 效 、 更 精 准 的 用 户 内 容 推 送 ， 用 来 提 升 用 户 的 参 与 度 ， 并 且 促 进 粘 性 ， 也 在 探 索 应 用 在 广 告 内 容 精 准 推 荐 里 面 ， 用 来 提 升 商 业 化 效 率 。

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

Next is for our content recommendation. AI technology will empower our content recommendation according to the scenario, user relationship, and help us to realize more accurate and more efficient content, content recommendation for our users to enhance their engagement and stickiness. In the future, we are exploring to apply AI technology for our marketing services, content recommendation to enhance our commercialization efficiency.

Dahai Li (CTO)

在 搜 索 场 景 ， 我 们 基 于 AI 的 搜 索 功 能 ， 正 在 啊 内 测 智 能 搜 索 聚 合 ， 用 来 提 升 搜 索 结 果 的 精 准 性 ， 帮 助 用 户 获 得 归 纳 总 结 好 的 解 答 ， 来 提 升 他 们 的 发 现 效 率 。

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

Thirdly, is our content search. We are beta testing integrated search function that use AI technology to enhance the intelligence of our search function, to enhance the accuracy, results, and also to make the search results more customized and correct, and users can easily get what they want in a summarized way.

Dahai Li (CTO)

在 审 核 方 面 ， 我 们 通 过 AI 的 能 力 来 提 升 审 核 的 效 率 ， 从 而 降 低 审 核 成 本 。

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

Next is our content auditing. AI will help us to identify the safe settings of content, and help us to increase the efficiency of our content auditing.

Dahai Li (CTO)

同 时 降 低 审 核 成 本 。

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

Also to save some, the operational cost for our content auditing.

Dahai Li (CTO)

除 此 之 外 呢 ， 我 们 在 具 体 的 业 务 场 景 里 面 ， AI 技 术 也 可 以 为 运 营 提 升 效 率 。

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

...Next is for our application scenarios in our different business. AI will also further increase our operating efficiency. I will also give some examples on that front.

Dahai Li (CTO)

我 们 在 我 们 的 会 员 业 务 里 面 ，AI 技 术 可 以 赋 能 短 篇 故 事 的 封 面 和 插 图 的 生 成 ， 来 提 升 ， 提 升 图 片 生 成 的 效 率 和 提 升 图 片 生 成 的 质 量 。

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

For our paid membership business, AI technology will empower our the front covers and pictures in our short stories, and also enhance the quality and efficiency for our picture generation.

Dahai Li (CTO)

在 教育 业务 里面， 我们 用 AI 来 推动 职业 培训 的 数字 化、 智能化， 从而 提供 更 个性 化 的 课程 推荐， 辅导 解答。 另外 也 能够 帮助， 帮助 学员 去 做 作文、 作业 和 论文 的 批改。

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

Next is for our vocational training business. AI technology is going to promote the digitalization and intelligence in intelligent business of our vocational training, and also help our users to get more customized course recommendation and coaching solutions. Another thing is that AI will help us to correct the essays and homework for our users.

Dahai Li (CTO)

呃 ， 总 的 来 说 呢 ，AI 对 于 知 乎 来 说 是 一 个 重 要 的 机 遇 。 我 们 通 过 知 海 图 AI 大 模 型 的 研 发 ， 不 断 提 升 底 层 技 术 的 能 力 ， 来 为 用 户 和 创 作 者 营 造 更 好 的 体 验 ， 也 为 商 业 化 来 提 升 效 率 。

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

To summarize our AI applications, we, we believe that AI evolution is actually a very important opportunity, a once in a lifetime opportunity for Zhihu. We are trying to use our Zhihai Tu AI technology, which is released in April this year, to enhance our technology capabilities, and to empower our users and content creators to obtain more better user experience and help us to increase the commercialization efficiency.

Dahai Li (CTO)

好 的 ， 谢 谢 大 家 。

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

Thank you very much. That's it for my answers.

Henry Dachuan Sha (CFO)

This is Henry, the CFO of the company. I will help to supplement the answers from Dahai, and answer the second question raised by the CICC. Actually, we believe that we have a very obvious differentiated points with the our... with the other large language model competitors on the market, that we are in Zhihu, we have a large number of the data accumulated in the past 10 years, which the answers and data contributed by our user, more than like 100 billion MAUs. We believe that in the simplified Chinese language environment, our user data and our content has this scarcity, scarcity value.

We are doing a lot of work in the anti, crawler technology, and we are very, how to say, resistant to those, like, data abuse actions on the market, that we are defending ourselves from our competitors on data side. Thanks. That's my answers to Xu Ting. Next one?

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Steve Chiou with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.

Steve Chiou (Analyst)

哎 ， 呃 ， 好 ， 谢 谢 ！ 接 受 我 的 提 问 。 呃 ， 这 个 季 度 看 到 就 我 们 的 严 选 会 员 的 同 比 增 速 很 好 ， 啊 ， 但 华 语 的 话 ， 因 为 这 个 盗 版 呢 ， 遇 到 了 一 些 压 力 。 呃 ， 可 不 请 管 理 层 分 享 一 下 我 们 对 这 个 会 员 业 务 下 半 年 的 预 期 ， 呃 ， 然 后 长 期 增 长 的 思 考 。 呃 ， 比 方 说 和 这 个 微 信 读 书 啊 ，QQ 阅 读 签 订 了 一 个 合 作 ， 然 后 还 有 其 他 除 了 会 员 费 以 外 ，

提 升 用 户 LTV 变 现 的 一 些 战 略 。

Thank you for taking my question. This quarter, we have seen very strong, membership growth from a year-on-year perspective, but the number of subscribers were facing some issue quarter-over-quarter, given the pirating issue. Could management share with us your outlook on the membership revenue growth for the second half, as well as your thoughts on the long-term growth profile, such as collaboration with Weixin or perhaps QQ Reading, as well as your thinking of how to extend the lifetime value of the users, beyond just charging the membership fees? Thank you.

Dahai Li (CTO)

谢 谢 Steve， 我 是 周 元 ， 这 个 问 题 我 来 回 答 。 就 是 关 于 会 员 业 务 的 短 期 ， 长 期 ...

我们的 一些 思考。首先 呢，这个 会员 它 所 产生的 这个 精品 短片 内容 呢，其实 是 整个 市场 上的 新 内容，是 更 适合 当下 用户 需求的 变化的。其实 我们 也 看到 哈，就是 相对 比较 传统 的 内容，就是 在 这个 市场 上，传统 的 这个 网文 平台 增长 放缓 的 时候，我们的 市场 占有率 呢，其实 是 在 不断 提升 的。

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

Thank you for your question. This is CEO of Zhihu. I'm going to discuss about this question through both our short-term and long-term objectives or strategies for our paid membership business. We are providing premium short, short stories in our platform, and we believe that we are forming a clear competitive advantage or differentiate from other traditional online reading platforms, in, on this branch. For example, our stories are very short and cater to the evolving needs of users, especially to the users' recommended time in terms of their reading.

Yuan Zhou (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

наличие, 这 个, 就 是 当 下 我 们 的 整 个 业 务 啊, 就 是 随 着 我 们 盐言故事 APP, 这 个, 独 立 场 景 的 这 个 上 线, 它 其 实 呢, 也 变 成 了 我 们 获 取 新 用 户 的 一 个 新 的 渠 道. 其 实 它 上 线 的 时 间 呢, 相 对 来 说 还 比 较 短, 但 是 受 欢 迎 的 程 度 还 是 可 以 的. 这 个 APP 呢, 在 用 户 体 验 的 升 级 上, 其 实 我 们 看 到 还 有 很 大 的 空 间.

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

Another thing is that, as mentioned in our previous earnings call, we have released our Yanyan Story application, and this forms as another, another channel for our user acquisition, for our paid membership business. Inside this Yanyan Story application, our users can get more immersive and differentiated reading experience.

Yuan Zhou (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

同 时 呢 ， 就 是 我 们 其 实 这 个 合 作 伙 伴 呢 ， 是 在 积 极 地 拓 展 的 。 因 为 研 研 故 事 呢 ， 嗯 ， 我 们 的 逻 辑 呢 ， 是 要 对 它 进 行 这 个 全 网 阅 读 的 一 个 布 局 。 所 以 在 这 个 月 啊 ， 我 们 跟 ， 呃 ， 华 为 呢 ， 也 展 开 了 这 个 深 度 的 合 作 ， 研 研 故 事 的 内 容 呢 ， 将 会 上 线 到 ， 呃 ， 华 为 阅 读 力 。

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

Also for our Yanyan Stories, we are expanding to form more partnership with other platforms. Recently we have formed partnership with HUAWEI Books to enlarge our user base and expand our different content providing channels.

Yuan Zhou (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

我 们 预 计, 今 年 下 半 年 呢, 会 员 还 是 会 以, 较 高 的 速 度 保 持 增 长.

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

We are excited that with all these efforts, in the second half of this year, our paid membership business will keep the momentum and increase at a very high trend in the future.

Yuan Zhou (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

从 长 期 角 度 看 ， 我 认 为 AI 应 用 ， 媒 介 升 级 和 IP 化 ， 对 于 这 个 业 务 ， 对 于 这 个 产 品 都 是 有 很 大 的 机 会 的 。 谢 谢 。

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

In the future, I think the paid membership business will enhance its LTV, 3, through 3 routes. Firstly, is through our AI applications in paid membership business, as mentioned by our CTO, Li Dahai, just now. Secondly, is through the upgrade of different distribution channels for different formats, as we are making progress. Thirdly, is through the unlocking IP value in the future.

Henry Dachuan Sha (CFO)

Hi, Steve, this is Henry. I will further explain the trend that you have been seeing. There's some fluctuation of the subscribing numbers between Q1 and Q2. Actually, in Q1, I think it's a high base during the Spring Festival. We have a promotion activity which allowing the users to subscribe for the first month with 9 RMB. I think it was a successful promotion activity in Q1, which created a high base of the subscribing members. In Q2, we do not continue too much for that 9 RMB for the first month activity, so there is some fluctuation. Also, we have already established a professional team for the anti-piracy measures to take actions internally.

We are very confident to see the rebound, or I say, sequential growth as well as a year-over-year growth, for the Q3 and Q4 for the paid membership business revenue growth. That's my answer for you. Thank you.

Steve Chiou (Analyst)

Thank you.

Henry Dachuan Sha (CFO)

Next.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Vicky Wei with Citi. Please proceed.

Vicky Wei (Analyst)

管 理 层 晚 上 好 ， 谢 谢 接 受 我 的 提 问 。 我 的 问 题 是 关 于 营 销 服 务 的 ， 想 请 问 管 理 层 ， 您 认 为 营 销 服 务 何 ， 何 时 可 以 恢 复 增 长 ？ 我 们 公 司 有 哪 些 举 措 可 以 提 升 营 销 服 务 的 竞 争 力 ？ 谢 谢 。 Good evening, management. Thanks for taking my questions. I have one question regarding the marketing services. What is management view on the recovery pace of the marketing services? How should we think of Zhihu's strategy to improve the marketing services competitiveness? Thank you.

Henry Dachuan Sha (CFO)

Thank you, Vicky. This is Henry. Thanks for the question. As we introduced earlier in the last quarter, we have been facing some, like, uncertainties from the macro economy for the second quarter. Also we have been seeing that the entity will still be sustained for the second half of this year. Internally, we are doing several taking actions to in facing and to solve the problems for us. The first one, that we are combining 2 teams together, as we introduced earlier, that we combined our CCS team together with our advertising team. We have been seeing the demand, the increasing demand from our clients....

on the, how to say, the effective basis or the ROI basis, the advertising products like CTS. Which I, I believe that will be still welcomed in the second half of this year. Secondly, we are improving our efficiency, as I said earlier in the, in, on this call, that we're taking actions to phase out some low-margin business from our advertising business, to enhance our competitiveness, to achieve the healthy growth, continuously. That's what our thoughts about our marketing services business. For now, we cannot guarantee that, that we will achieve the, like, the year-over-year growth in, in Q4, but we are confident that this business should have, should be seeing the rebound trend in the second half of this year. Thank you.

Vicky Wei (Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Daisy Chen with Haitong International. Please proceed.

Daisy Chen (Analyst)

Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for taking my question. My question is about the education business. First of all, congratulations to Zhihu's education business for having very strong growth in this quarter. The growth rate is over 200%. Can I ask, that is, the current status of our education business's operation or deployment? For example, the types of courses, promotion strategy. Can management share your outlook for the momentum of the second half and the next year, as well as the revenue contributions from our long-term perspective? Any strategies, the, what works do you think you need to do to achieve those goals? Besides the growth rate, can you share more color on the profitability of the, of this segment? Thank you.

Henry Dachuan Sha (CFO)

Thank you, Daisy. This is Henry. I will help you answer your question. For the second half of this year, we believe that our vocational training business will still achieve the year-over-year and the sequential growth for the second half of this year, with more than, like, 100% year-over-year growth rate. I think for the full year, that will be two times growth in comparison with that in last year. Course offerings of the education vocational training business, the products offerings, I think we have already almost complete the structure of our vocational training business, the allocation on that.

By including, for example, national graduate students entrance examination, as well as the ELT, the English or foreign language teaching, the courses. As well as the, for example, the, like the MBA courses, as well as like the, the, the, the, the teachers certification service offerings for... Et cetera, et cetera. I believe that, if, if we say that, that's, that will form our organic growth going forward. Maybe in next one or two year, there is a one or two more acquisition will be formed, like to provide some like the M&A growth looking forward.

About your question, the profitability of our looking to like, like, like a, like a whole vocational training business, I think we're still in the investment stage. For example, I think for this whole year, the vocational training business will still bear loss like the, the loss making for the, for the whole group. That will be between RMB 100 million-RMB 200 million hit to our bottom line like the P&L. That's our answer to your question. Yeah.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes- the next question comes from Yiwen Zhang with China Renaissance. Please proceed.

Yiwen Zhang (Analyst)

Good evening, everyone. I have a question about our revenue. What is the latest update on our breakeven point? So my question is regarding our margin. Yeah, any update on our, you know, reaching breakeven timetable? What are the driver, drivers for us to reach a breakeven even point? Thank you.

Henry Dachuan Sha (CFO)

Thank you, Yuan. This is Henry. I think in the second half of this year, we will reaffirm and prioritize our loss reduction strategy for the rest of the year. Also, this is the main topic for the next year. I think the approach is two ways. First one, we will enhance our commercialization capability by boosting our both marketing service business and to seed the business by including the growth of the membership business as well as the vocational training business, which is to seed. We believe that there's some changing happening with our revenue structure, and we are confident that we will get a recovery in terms of the revenue growth for the second half of this year and the next year.

The second way is to the more prudence in investment, as well as in the like the marketing spending. I think that we are doing a cost reduction program for the second half of this year. I think we are, the loss reduction strategy is on track so far, by looking to our Q2, and business, and the results. This, that answers your question?

Yiwen Zhang (Analyst)

Yes, sure, sir.

Henry Dachuan Sha (CFO)

Thank you, Yuan.

Operator (participant)

That concludes today's question and answer session. At this time, I would like to turn the conference back to Iris for any closing remarks.

Iris Liu (IR Manager)

Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please contact our IR team directly, or Piacente Financial Communications. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation.