Zhihu - Earnings Call - Q2 2025
August 27, 2025
Transcript
Speaker 0
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Zhihu Inc. second quarter 2025 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a Q&A session. Today's conference is being recorded and webcast. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Yolanda Liu, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Ma'am.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Sara. Hello everyone, welcome to Zhihu Inc.'s 2025 second quarter financial results conference call. Joining me today on the call from the Senior Management Team are Mr. Zhou Yuan, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Wang Han, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's discussion will include forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, the actual results may be materially different from the views expressed today. Further information regarding these and other risks and uncertainties is included in our public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable law.
Additionally, the discussion today will include both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures for comparison purposes only. For reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please refer to our earnings release issued earlier today. In addition, a webcast replay of this conference call will be available on our IR website at ir.zhihu.com. Today, Zhou Yuan, our Founder and CEO, and Wang Han, our CFO, will have their prepared remarks delivered in English through their representative AI voice agents. The content is prepared by them, while the agents serve only as a voice interface. As the agents are still learning, we appreciate your understanding. First, let's hear from Zhou Yuan's agent, Victor. Victor, please go ahead.
Speaker 4
Thank you, Yolanda. Hello everyone, and thank you for joining Zhihu Inc.'s second quarter 2025 earnings call. I am Victor Zhou, an AI-powered voice agent of Zhou Yuan. I am pleased to deliver today's opening remarks on behalf of Mr. Zhou Yuan, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Zhihu Inc. We posted our third consecutive quarter of non-GAAP profitability, once again beating market expectations by a wide margin. Adjusted net income for the second quarter reached RMB 91.3 million, compared to a loss of RMB 44.6 million in the same period last year. While gross margin expanded by approximately 3% year over year, these results highlight the strength of our disciplined operating strategy and the value of our AI-powered productivity gains. Zhihu Inc.'s ecosystem continues to flourish with our trustworthy content and professional creators, enriching the experience for users and creators alike.
In particular, leading experts continue to drive deeper engagement within the community, steadily amplifying their influence and strengthening the ecosystem. This increased engagement is clearly reflected in several key user metrics. While MAUs remained stable from last quarter, daily time spent, core user retention, and high-tier creator engagement all posted notable gains both sequentially and year over year. Our expanding in-house AI capabilities and growing industry influence have reinforced our platform's unique value proposition as the go-to destination for professional, trustworthy Chinese language content, with an increasing number of users and creators flocking to the platform. Notably, our platform has emerged as the preferred launchpad for new AI technologies and products, while becoming the leading network for AI talent and expertise. As our synergistic development of high-quality content, trusted creator network, and AI capabilities accelerates, Zhihu Inc.
is delivering greater and differentiated value to users and clients, not only on our platform but also across the broader internet, continuously widening our competitive moat. As AI tools surge in popularity, professional content from the Zhihu Inc. community is increasingly being cited by a growing number of leading large AI models and AI search engines. We are pleased to see Zhihu Inc. serve as a key source for credible information and research, especially in practical use cases such as scientific education, consumer decision-making, and career development. Moving forward, we will further enhance the user and creator experience by integrating AI more deeply throughout our community by adding intuitive features like personal knowledge assistants. We will continue to test, refine, and enhance our AI capabilities to amplify the value of Zhihu as a trusted content and expert network across the broader internet.
We believe these efforts will establish our platform as a foundational source of reliable content for the Chinese AI ecosystem. Our persistent efforts to optimize the trustworthiness of our content system and foster greater creator engagement across the community continue to deliver tangible results. In the second quarter, average daily user time spent exceeded 39 minutes, reflecting a 15% year-over-year increase. Core user retention improved significantly, both on a sequential and a year-over-year basis, while the depth of DAU content engagement increased quarter over quarter. This progress reflects our ongoing efforts to optimize community features and refine operational strategies throughout the year. Through AI integration, we've created a more user-friendly and reliable user experience, while strengthening connections among our users and key contributors.
Over the past 14 years, we've developed and continuously refined Zhihu's content model, building a robust foundation where professional content thrives and consistently inspires trust, drives citations, and encourages discussions online. In the second quarter, daily high-quality content creation increased by over 10% sequentially. AI has emerged as a key vertical, with professional AI-related content maintaining year-over-year growth of over 45% for two consecutive quarters. Recently, we've seen a growing trend of more and more frontline engineers and AI model developers openly sharing key insights that go beyond academic papers. This has made Zhihu a uniquely valuable community where new products debut, in-depth discussions unfold, and knowledge is continuously built and preserved. Over the past month alone, Zhihu has been the go-to platform for top AI teams and frontline developers to launch and discuss new technologies and products.
For example, Moonshot AI unveiled the technical details of their Kimi K2 model, with core developers actively engaging in Q&A sessions to break down the architecture and technical details. ByteDance's C-Team also released their GR3 robot model on our platform, accompanied by an exclusive article outlining their development principles and journey. The Chai team at ByteDance also shared a comprehensive overview of their model iteration process. In addition, Zippo AI launched its GLM 4.5 model on our platform, and Alibaba's Q-Team released three consecutive models, sparking a series of vibrant community discussions. Even Stepfun's Co-Founder, Ibo Zhou, chose Zhihu to thoroughly explain the design ideas behind the Step 3 architecture. Through ongoing improvements to our content ecosystem and algorithms, we continue to identify and suppress the spread of low-quality content, reducing its distribution by more than 98% year over year and over 59% sequentially.
During the challenging annual Gaokao college entrance exam in June, when students are often overwhelmed with information and need to make critical life decisions, Zhihu leveraged its trustworthy, structured content ecosystem to provide clear and practical guidance. Tools such as the Gaokao Data Hub offered data-driven support for application submissions, while roundtable discussions such as career paths for humanities majors and how to navigate away from discouraged majors were brought together. Expert voices offered valuable insights. Zhihu's university communities also supported students by sharing authentic firsthand perspectives about campus life. Professional creators formed the backbone of our ecosystem. In the second quarter, daily active high-tier creators continued to grow sequentially, while the number of verified honored creators increased by 26% year over year. The Zhihu community continues to thrive with high-quality engagement.
As of the end of June, over 16 million continuous learners and 3.65 million proficient creators on Zhihu engaged in science and AI-related discussions. Among those who are AI developers, over 56% hold a master's or doctoral degree, nearly 40% are aged between 18 and 24, and 14% are senior technology professionals, including company executives, CTOs, and tech leads. To provide a better experience for professional creators, we continue to optimize our Ideas and Column products. The upgraded Ideas product now seamlessly aligns with the high-frequency creation workflow of professionals, while encouraging interaction among users with shared interests. This led to a quarter-over-quarter increase of over 15% in both views and engagement in the second quarter. The column feature has strengthened connections among like-minded users, resulting in a 45.7% quarter-over-quarter increase in daily visits.
Additionally, more professional creators launched their own columns this quarter, fueling solid growth in the total number of columns. At the same time, deepening AI integration within our community has continued to expand our AI capabilities and service scope. In the second quarter, we launched a major update to Zhihu Zhida, a public knowledge base built on top of existing personal knowledge libraries. This update delivers a seamless AI interaction experience for creators and users across a wide range of reading, Q&A, and search use cases. It has also further reduced AI hallucinations in professional domains. Within just two weeks of launch, users created hundreds of new entries on the public knowledge base. This momentum also supported the creation of additional private knowledge bases among users, enabling them to consolidate and archive their search and research workflows.
Moving forward, we will continue to develop Zhihu Zhida as an AI agent embedded within the community, serving as a comprehensive productivity suite for search, research, learning, and content creation. We will further promote the open sharing of professional content within the Zhihu community and continue to strengthen the synergy between high-quality content, our trusted expert network, and AI capabilities. We are thrilled to see that Zhihu Zhida has entered an exciting new stage of growth and innovation. Once it achieves critical penetration relative to overall platform traffic, with user experience and answer quality reaching key milestones, we will seek to integrate it across our broader suite of products. Now, let's move on to commercialization. In the second quarter, we maintained a dynamic balance between commercial growth and community integrity by proactively refining our product offerings and client mix.
While still navigating an adjustment cycle, we are encouraged to see the year-over-year top line decline moderating, with total revenue reaching RMB 716.9 million in the second quarter. We firmly believe these ongoing adjustments will lay a solid foundation for our sustainable long-term growth. Moreover, our evolving AI capabilities and content ecosystem will continue to enhance and expand our commercial services, reinforcing the virtuous cycle between commercial growth and community vitality. Let's turn to performance by segment. Our marketing services are progressing through the adjustment phase as planned and remain on track. In the second quarter, marketing services revenue grew 13.1% quarter over quarter to RMB 222.8 million, with the year-over-year decline narrowing substantially. We continued to crack down on low-quality marketing content, reducing its consumption by over 90% year over year during the second quarter. We also made meaningful progress in optimizing our client mix.
Leveraging Zhihu's strong brand equity and influence, we expanded our enterprise-facing or 2B client base and diversified our commercial IP products and services tailored for top-tier clients. During the June 18 Shopping Festival, we launched the SmartPix Expert Choice campaign, capitalizing on Zhihu's trustworthy content model and high-value user community. This initiative boosted brand awareness and highlighted product strengths for leading brands such as Dream, Hiya, BYD, Roborock, and Nawal. Furthermore, our advertising product upgrades are accelerating, powered by our advanced AI capabilities. While the second quarter is typically peak season for e-commerce, our overall ad load significantly decreased from the same period last year, while CPM performance improved sequentially across most product categories. During the June 18 Shopping Festival, users increasingly used our AI capabilities to make more informed purchase decisions, reflected in the 190% year-over-year surge in the Zhihu June 18 Recommendation Search Index.
The index for June 18 purchase-related searches on Zhihu Zhida grew by 61% quarter over quarter, and the average order value per user increased by 27% year over year. We are also building stronger connections between trusted content creators, high-quality content, and products. The number of content creators participating in product promotion grew by 10% year over year, while the volume of promotional content increased by 20% year over year. We continue to upgrade our CCS products, which are quickly gaining traction among clients. Advertising spend from the gaming sector saw a four-fold increase year over year, while our client base expanded by 75%. With ongoing improvements to our AI capabilities, we expect marketing services to recover more strongly in the second half, expanding our commercial potential and driving long-term value.
For our paid membership business, in the second quarter, average monthly subscribing members totaled 13.2 million, with revenue reaching RMB 402 million, representing a slight sequential decline of 3.8%. This was largely driven by our strategic emphasis on acquiring users with longer life cycles and higher ROI potential, which impacted new member signups. Since the start of the year, we have focused on enhancing user stickiness and diversifying our paid content and business models. As part of this, we further expanded and upgraded the premium content formats and service offerings under Yanyan Story. Notably, voice live streaming has seen steady growth in both user penetration and paid conversion rates since launch. In the second quarter, its ARPU significantly exceeded our expectations and continues to grow, reflecting strong user endorsement and the monetization potential it offers.
The Yanyan Story long-form writing marathon launched in May has generated thousands of high-quality submissions from creators within just two months, significantly outperforming similar initiatives over the period. This highlights the distinct advantages our content creator ecosystem has and the growing mindshare we hold among users in the long-form content space. This directly translates into extended user subscription cycles and builds on our leadership in the short-form content space. Our commitment to premium paid content and support for creators has enabled Yanyan Story to consistently deliver high-quality works that blend literary richness with broad emotional appeal. This has allowed us to build a stable and robust content pipeline that is both well-received by users and widely recognized across the industry.
In June, Yanyan Titles received three major awards in the 2024 China Online Literature Influence Ranking and the Global Online Literature Influence Ranking, further validating our content strategy and strengthening our foundation for IP development and monetization going forward. Momentum is also building in the commercialization of our original IPs. In the second quarter, revenue from IP licensing grew by triple digits, both year over year and quarter over quarter. By the end of June, more than 40 premium short-form stories published on Zhihu had generated revenue through film and television licensing. Among them, "Fish Lamp," "Guiding All Souls," "Yu Deng Yin Huan Ji," "No Time to Die," "无暇赴死," and "Qing Yin: The Birth of a Queen." Together dubbed the three Yanyan masterpieces, Yanyan Fan Jue were especially well-received by audiences, while attracting strong interest from film and television adaptation partners.
Lastly, our vocational training business recorded revenue of RMB 62.1 million during the quarter, down 34.3% quarter over quarter, as we focused resources on high-performing course categories and gradually phased out offerings with limited growth potential or lower profitability. This strategic focus is designed to improve overall business quality and long-term growth. Encouragingly, the operating profit of the business for the quarter increased by an impressive 90% year over year, demonstrating the effectiveness of our operating strategy and execution. We continue to make steady progress in the broader strategic transformation of our vocational training business. Powered by our high-quality content ecosystem and trusted creator network, we are transitioning from a traditional subject-based expansion model focused on a few core categories to a more community-driven approach that fosters deeper social engagement and knowledge sharing. This will also unlock new monetization opportunities for professional creators.
In support of this, we enhanced the creator experience and paid content ecosystem of our new column product this quarter. Since May, we have improved operations, product experience, and algorithms to better support content creation and distribution. These efforts led to a more than 50% increase in shared column content from May to June. Creator user engagement also improved significantly. The growing demand for premium content further fueled the monetization of paid columns, with GMV in June increasing by over 34% month over month. For the remainder of the year, we will continue to drive the integrated development of high-quality content, a trusted creator network, and AI capabilities, further reinforcing Zhihu's competitive moat in the AI era. As AI becomes more deeply embedded in our community, we aim to enable more intelligent, reliable experiences for users across a variety of scenarios.
On the commercial front, we will accelerate our product upgrades to better serve high-value users and professional creators, building a suite of solutions that enhance user trust and support stronger commercial monetization. Leveraging this foundation, we will further expand the reach of Zhihu's AI capabilities beyond our platform, offering our trusted content and services to a wider user base. We are confident that stronger synergies between our community and commercial ecosystems will reinforce Zhihu's value proposition as a trusted platform and unlock long-term sustainable growth. With that, I will hand the call over to our CFO, Wang Han, whose remarks will also be delivered through his AI voice agent. Han, please go ahead. Now, I will review the details of our second quarter financials. For a complete overview of our second quarter 2025 results, please refer to our press release issued earlier today.
In the second quarter, we maintained our trajectory of non-GAAP profitability for the third consecutive quarter. Gross margin also continued to expand year over year. These results underscore the ongoing strengthening of our financial fundamentals, supported by a linear cost structure and more efficient operations. Our total revenues for the quarter were RMB 716.9 million, compared with RMB 93.8 million in the same period of 2024. The decrease was driven by our ongoing business optimization. The year-over-year decline also narrowed slightly for the second straight quarter, in line with our expectations as we transition toward a more resilient and higher-quality revenue mix. Our marketing services revenue for the quarter was RMB 222.8 million, compared with RMB 344 million in the same period of 2024. This decrease was mainly due to our continued refinement of service offerings and our strategic focus on improving margins.
Encouragingly, revenue grew 13.1% sequentially, and the year-over-year decline also narrowed meaningfully, reflecting a more stable phase in our adjustment cycle. Paid membership revenue was RMB 402 million, down slightly from RMB 432.7 million in the same period of 2024. This was primarily due to a decrease in new subscriptions following a shift in our focus toward acquiring users with longer life cycles and higher ROI potential. Vocational training revenue was RMB 62.1 million, compared with RMB 133.6 million in the same period of 2024. The decline resulted from the ongoing refinement of our acquired businesses as we continue to prioritize faster-growing self-operated course offerings. Other revenues were RMB 30 million, compared with RMB 203.5 million in the same period of 2024. Our gross profit for the quarter was RMB 448.2 million, compared with RMB 556.5 million in the same period of 2024.
Gross margin expanded to 62.5%, up from 59.6% in the same period of 2024 and 61.8% in the previous quarter. This was largely driven by improvements to our monetization capabilities and continued gains in operating efficiency. Our total operating expenses for the quarter declined by 27.2% year over year to RMB 539.2 million. This decrease reflects tighter cost controls and productivity improvements supported by technological innovation. Selling and marketing expenses decreased by 21.8% to RMB 326.3 million from RMB 417 million in the same period of 2024. The decrease was primarily due to more disciplined promotional spending and lower personnel-related expenses. Research and development expenses decreased by 30.4% to RMB 145.7 million from RMB 209.3 million in the same period of 2024. The decrease was mainly driven by improved efficiency in our research and development activities.
General and administrative expenses decreased by 41.1% to RMB 67.3 million from RMB 114.1 million in the same period of 2024. The decrease was largely due to reduced allowance for expected credit losses and lower share-based compensation. Investment income was RMB 140.8 million, compared with RMB 201.8 million in the same period of 2024. The increase was primarily attributable to unrealized gains as a result of remeasuring the fair value of our investment in a privately held company, associated with an observable price change in the quarter. As a result, our GAAP net income for the quarter was RMB 72.5 million, compared with a net loss of RMB 806 million in the same period of 2024.
On a non-GAAP basis, we remained profitable for the third consecutive quarter, recording an adjusted net income of RMB 91.3 million, compared with an adjusted net loss of RMB 44.6 million in the same period of 2024. As of June 30, 2025, we had cash and cash equivalents, term deposits, restricted cash, and short-term investments of RMB 4.8 billion, compared with RMB 4.9 billion as of December 31, 2024. As of June 30, 2025, we repurchased 31.1 million Class A ordinary shares for an aggregate value of US$66.5 million on open market. Additionally, we also repurchased a total of 18.6 million Class A ordinary shares for an aggregate value of $27.9 million through the trustee of the company as of the end of Q2. Looking ahead, we will continue to strengthen our monetization capabilities and support long-term growth across key areas of our AI-powered content ecosystem.
As we deepen the synergy between community activity and commercial performance, our solid financial foundation enables us to invest with focus and flexibility to drive sustainable profitability. 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.
Speaker 5
Thank you. To ask a question, you need to press *1 1 on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw a question, please press *1 and 1 again. In the interest of time, please ask one question each time. If you have any follow-up questions, please go back to the queue. Mr. Mbao will compile the Q&A rows. This will take a few moments. We are going to take the first question. It comes to the line of Xueqing Zhang from CICC. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Speaker 2
谢谢关羽主任接受我的提问。刚刚AI周总、韩总的发言让人很印象深刻。那我的问题也是关于AI的, 想请教一下, 知乎在AI及大语言模型相关产品方面是否有一些新的计划, 然后我们现在应该如何理解当前的一个进展? 谢谢。 Thanks management for taking my question. The prepared remarks delivered by AI agents are really impressive. My question is also about AI, regarding Zhihu's AI and the large language model-related products. Does the company have any new plans, and how should we sync its current progress? Thank you.
Speaker 6
雪琴你好啊, 我是周元。本质上来说呢, 知乎在AI上的进展其实和大模型行业是同步的。这个呢, 它其实是一个模型和应用之间水涨船高的这么一个紧密关系。我们在过去一个季度呢, 其实大家都看到大模型的更新发布速度非常快, 开源也很多。我们的判断呢, 就是未来两年, 模型的智能上限还会持续的拉升, 所以我们也在加速这个部署agentic的升级, 这个会更加充分的介入到模型的能力。
Speaker 2
Thank you, Xueqing Zhang, for your question, and this is from Zhou Yuan, CEO of Zhihu Inc. Our progress in AI is keeping pace with the broader large language model industry. Over the past quarter, we've seen a lot of new integrations of many new models, including both open sources and closed sources. We believe our capability will naturally rise along with all these new models. We're accelerating the upgrade of our agentic capability to more fully leverage this increase and innovation of the entire industry.
Speaker 6
这答案其实是在应用层的产品，那么在过去一个季度呢，它表现还是不错的，就是渗透率跟使用就是用量都有持续的提升。这个本质上呢，还是来自于我们持续对它进行不断的产品升级创新吧。我们也看到越来越多关于这个应用用户口碑的带来的传播。
Speaker 2
Zhida is a very key product at the application layer for us. It has performed very well over the past quarter, with its penetration and usage both continuing to grow. This progress reflects our ongoing innovation and product updates, as well as increasing word of mouth amongst our users.
Speaker 6
那么说到这个产品的升级啊，就是其实Zhihu Zhida的升级呢，目前已经经过了两个阶段。首先是AI搜索，然后是AI搜索加上知识库。我们认为这个都是属于AI加社区比较必要的场景的一个补充，而不是一个单点的功能升级。
Speaker 2
The evolution of Zhihu Zhida has gone through two stages. First, as the AI search, then AI search combined with a knowledge base. We see these not as affiliated stage upgrades, but as necessary scenario extensions of AI+ community.
Speaker 6
我举个例子啊，就是上周8月22号，我们这个知识库的升级呢，已经可以让它的单条内容在社区里面进行流通分享了。这个使用起来是在体验上是无缝的，大家是不会去发现或者关注到这个其实已经是一个横跨社区native和AI native的容器。这种升级其实在单一的AI应用上是比较难看到的，后续的升级空间也会很大。
Speaker 2
Just last week, on August 22, to be specific, we see knowledge-based entries became shareable and circulable within our community. The experience is seamless, so our users don't even notice they are already engaging with the container that spans both community-native and AI-native domains. Something really same in the standalone AI applications, as we believe the room for this future upgrade is substantial.
Speaker 6
回到你说的这个目前的这个阶段，我们的这个升级更新还会持续的迭代。这个AI搜索跟知识库会进一步和社区的场景做整合。同时，我们接下来会在Q4，在目前的这两个阶段的基础上，会给用户带来更显著的一个体验升级，所以也请大家敬请期待。谢谢。
Speaker 2
Looking ahead, we believe AI search and the knowledge base will become further integrated with the community scenarios. In Q4, we plan to deliver a more significant experience update on top of this foundation. Please stay tuned. Thank you for your question.
Speaker 5
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. The question comes to the line of Vicky Wei from Citi. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Speaker 3
谢谢管理层接受我的提问。我想跟进一下刚才管理层分享到关于AI的问题，能不能请管理层给我们分享一下，就是现在知乎直达目前的用户数据表现是怎么样的，有没有什么看的可以分享，然后我们管理层看到知乎我们独特的真容内容的价值是怎么样的，我们看到了哪些机会，又比如说我们发现面临最大的挑战又是什么。 Thanks management for taking my question. Would management share some color about the current user matrix for Zhihu Zhida? How does management view the unique value of Zhihu's authentic user-generated content? What opportunities has Zhihu identified and what are the biggest challenges facing? Thank you.
Speaker 6
I think everyone can understand that Zhida is a reflection of our AI capabilities in multiple scenarios within the community.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Vicky, for your question. This is Zhou Yuan, Zhihu CEO. As I just mentioned earlier, this quarter Zhihu Zhida's penetration with the community continues to grow. At the same time, we believe the definition of Zhihu Zhida itself is also evolving. Of course, Zhihu Zhida initially just launched as many people's understanding is for AI search within the community. Now definitely it's been beyond that definition. It should be understood as our AI capability applied across diverse community scenarios.
Speaker 6
刚才你问到这个真人内容的价值，真人内容价值是非常大的。它的价值就是AI时代的信任货币，是金本位，也就是说内容本身的质量和真实性决定了这个价值的基准。
Speaker 2
You also ask about the value of the human-generated content. In my opinion, its value is huge, and its value is the currency of trust in the AI era, the gold standard, where the quality and authenticity of content set the baseline of this value.
Speaker 6
verifiable path, and we will move forward with great determination. Thank you.
Speaker 2
From our understanding, the opportunity we see here is in how trust can scale, what we call scaling law of trust. Our path forward is a variable formula of trusted content times expert network times AI capabilities, and we will move forward with strong conviction along this direction. Thank you. Thank you for your question.
Speaker 5
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes to the line of Lincoln Kong from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Speaker 6
Thank you, management, for taking my question. Could management provide some color on the growth outlook for the marketing services, paid membership, and vocational training business? How should we think about the key drivers for each segment in the second half? How should we think about the full year profitability for 2025? Thank you.
Speaker 3
感谢林展啊，我是公司CFO王涵。我现在回答一下这个问题，先回答第一个问题。
Speaker 5
Thank you, Lincoln, for your question. This is from Zhihu's CFO, Wang Han. I will just start with your first question.
Speaker 3
a direct rebound and achieve double-digit growth.
Speaker 5
On our marketing services, in the past several quarters, we have often mentioned that we are in an adjustment phase. Now we can say that this phase is nearing its end. We expect to see a stabilization and recovery in the coming quarters with a return to positive year-over-year growth.
Speaker 3
我们会着眼于客户结构的优化和商业产品升级，客户优化方面呢，我们会更好地利用支付的品牌和高端客户优势，拓展更加信任导向的品类，比如说一些高价值的FMC集成母婴以及一些专业的ToB属性的客户。
Speaker 5
Our focus will be on optimizing our client structure and upgrading our commercial products. On client structure-wise, we will further leverage Zhihu brand and a high-quality user base to expand into more trust-driven categories, such as high-value FMCG and maternal and infant products, as well as clients with stronger professional B2B attributes.
Speaker 3
除此以外，我们还想加强去看守直播的商业IP的这一部分，加点钱。
Speaker 5
At the same time, we'll also continue to strengthen the monetization of Zhihu's high-profile commercial IPs.
Speaker 3
dimensions of IP cost.
Speaker 5
For our paid membership business, we are currently in a stage of active experimentation with the core goal of improving renewal and retention, as well as driving our true growth across multiple dimensions.
Speaker 3
续费流程方面，我们重点调优了新会员的这个结构，吸引更多生命周期更长的会员，比如说这个七卡零卡，同时呢，想积极尝试中长期内容。
Speaker 5
On retention-wise, we have optimized the structure of new members to attract users with longer life cycles, such as expanding our monthly paid members to more like half-year and annual paid members. We're also actively exploring media and longer-form content.
Speaker 3
在提升RP方面，我们不断拓展会员的基本内容形态和服务权益，比如前面讲到的云直播。
Speaker 5
On RPU, we are expanding premium content formats and service benefits for our members. For example, like I mentioned, the voice live streaming.
Speaker 3
此外，我们还会进一步加速IP变现的效率，从而增强会员的这个粘性，并提升他们的商业价值。
Speaker 5
At the same time, we will further accelerate the monetization efficiency of our IPs of the paid membership, thereby to strengthen member stickiness and to enhance the commercial value of each member.
Speaker 3
呃, 职业培训板块的经营策略目前是效率和利润为先。
Speaker 5
On vocational training, our operating strategy remains focused on efficiency and profitability.
Speaker 3
and stable stage.
Speaker 5
In the second half of this year, we will continue to adjust both our model and content, though these adjustments are already approaching a more stable stage.
Speaker 3
方向上呢，也会持续向更具社交性和知识共享特征的专业模式来迈进，让知性的内容更好地满足用户需求和体验，让社区形象更好地流通和消费，更好地反哺社区生态。
Speaker 5
Strategically, we will keep moving toward a more social and knowledge-sharing-oriented model, enabling knowledge-based content to better meet our users' needs and experience, and to foster healthy circulation and consumption within the community. In return, we believe it will further strengthen the community's ecosystem.
Speaker 3
这是这几个板块的信号。
Speaker 5
This is basically about the current development of all our business services. Thank you for your question. Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. The question comes to the line of Xiaohan Sun from HGI. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Speaker 2
好的, 谢谢管理层给我一次提问的机会。我是想管理层能否向我们分享一下接下来应该如何预期股东的回报方式和回报力度。我来翻译一下。 Thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask a question. I would like to ask management to share how we should anticipate the method and accent of shareholder returns going forward. Thank you.
Speaker 3
我们现在回答一下这个股东回报，刚才那个 Lincoln Kong 那第二个问题，那个权限盈利，那个盈利预期那个我们一会再补充一下。
Speaker 2
This is Xie from Zhihu, CFO Wang Han, and we will just pick up the question about the shareholder return first, and then I will add on the second question from Lincoln about the outlook of the full year profitability.
Speaker 3
回购方面, 今年我们的董事会和股东大会批准了在外发行股份的这个10%额度内的回购, 我们会继续坚定的通过股东这个股票回购的方式来加强股东回报。
Speaker 2
With this 10% share repurchase authorization approved by our Board and the shareholders earlier this year, we remain firmly committed to enhance shareholders' returns through buybacks.
Speaker 3
the total outstanding shares.
Speaker 2
As disclosed in today's earlier earnings release, by June 30, we had repurchased 7.41 million ordinary shares in open markets, representing 2.8% of total shares outstanding.
Speaker 3
继而以来呢，我们也仍在进行积极的公开市场回购。下半年我们也会沿用这些策略，然后我们在过去一两年和可见的未来，都应该会是整个中概里面回购股份比例最显著的公司之一。
Speaker 2
Since this July, we have also continued to execute actively on the share repurchase program. We believe in the second half of this year, we will stay the same course and carry out this strategy with a strong commitment. Also, over the past two years and for the foreseeable future, we expect to remain one of the most significant U.S.-listed Chinese companies in terms of a share repurchase ratio.
Speaker 3
expectations for 2025.
Speaker 2
I will just add on about the second question raised from Lincoln, and it's on about our full year profitability.
Speaker 3
a non-GAAP basis. This is our current expectation.
Speaker 2
In the first half of this year, we achieved the profitability on both the GAAP and non-GAAP net income basis in each of these two quarters, also exceeding expectations on the markets. This has not only provided us with more flexibility to make adjustments in certain businesses for longer-term healthy development, but also significantly increased the likelihood, the possibilities of reaching near break even on a full year non-GAAP basis.
Speaker 3
哦, 感谢各位的提问。
Speaker 2
Thank you all for your questions. Thank you.
Speaker 5
That concludes today's question and answer session. At this time, I will turn the conference back to Yolanda Liu for any additional or closing remarks.
Speaker 2
Thank you, operator. Thank you all once again for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please contact our IR team directly or Christensen Advisory. Thank you.
Speaker 5
The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect. Have a nice day.