Phoenix New Media Limited (FENG) Q1 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Phoenix New Media First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your first speaker today, Muzi Guo from Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Welcome to Phoenix New Media's earnings conference call for the first quarter of 2026. Today's call will start with an overview of our quarterly results, followed by a Q&A session. Our quarterly financial results and the webcast of this conference call are available on our website at ir.ifeng.com. Before we continue, please note the safe harbor statement in our earnings press release, which applies to any forward-looking statements made during this call. Unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned are in RMB. Joining me here today are our CEO, Mr. Yusheng Sun; and our CFO, Mr. Edward Lu. I will now pass the call to Mr. Sun for his opening remarks. I will provide translation as needed. [Foreign Language]

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] And I will provide translation. Thank you all for joining today's call. In the first quarter, we stayed focused on strengthening our core capabilities, leveraging major domestic and international events to improve both our brand influence and user engagement. Our ability to respond quickly to breaking news and deliver structured coverage of key events reflects solid execution and content competitiveness. We also continue to integrate technology into our content operations to improve efficiency. Finally, we achieved revenue growth and narrowed operating losses with overall performance improving year-over-year. Next, I would like to invite Edward to present specific highlights and achievements of Q1.

In Q1, we continued to capitalize on major domestic and international events to reach more audiences, increase the impact of our content and strengthen our brand and long-term user engagement. In major event coverage, the biggest highlight this quarter was our strong execution. During the U.S., Israel, Iran conflict, we responded quickly and coordinated well across teams and formats. We delivered real-time updates, live broadcast, in-depth commentary and feature stories at key moments with both speed and accuracy. Our time line product and multilingual reporting system played a key role, supported by fact-checking and on-the-ground reporting. Our daily reports from Tehran added a strong sense of immediacy, and we were the first to conduct an in-depth exclusive interview with the Chinese seafarers stranded in the Strait of Hormuz. This showed our ability to deliver international news directly from the field. Overall, what mattered most was not any single viral piece, but the entire process. It proved that our international news reporting system is now at industry-leading level of maturity and responsiveness. During the 2 sessions, we combined structured interviews with delegates with targeted issue-based content planning. This helped us reach a wider audience. Several short videos on public policy topics made it on to trending lists, showing we can balance authoritative mainstream reporting with content that appeals to the general audience. In vertical content, sports coverage performed very well during major events. Around the Milan Winter Olympics and other key tournaments, we used the full platform coordination to significantly increase exposure and engagement. Total Winter Olympics exposure exceeded 250 million. Our Abu Dhabi Masters coverage achieved full integration across fixed TV, PC, mobile app and third-party video platforms. It attracted over 1.2 million live viewers with 3 topics entering 6 trending lists, generating more than 15 million total reads. We also saw once again that high-quality human-centered content can still stand out in today's crowded information environment. Our Journey series is a good example. One recent episode alone reached over 80 million views and triggered follow-up reports from major national media outlets. This kind of impact is hard to replicate and remains one of our core strengths. On the commercialization front, we made solid progress through our in-depth participation and coverage at major international exhibitions. In Q1, through our active media coverage of CES, MWC and AWE, both our client numbers and revenue in tech sector grew substantially. This success validated our business model of international exhibitions plus premium content plus monetization in the tech sector and give us valuable experience that can be applied to other vertical fields. On the product side, our mobile app saw a clear increase in user engagement, driven by major news events. To meet users' need for both speed and better understanding, we improved our content structure and distribution. We added new sections such as On the Scene and World Affairs, which made it easier for users to find content and helped improve retention. Overall, our direction remains unchanged. We are building a more stable and scalable content system, one that can deliver reliable output during major news cycles, create strong original content and adapt to new technologies. At the same time, we are steadily accelerating commercialization. Looking ahead, we will keep focusing on content quality, strengthen our IP portfolio, improve operational efficiency, and pursue steady and sustainable growth. This concludes our CEO, Mr. Sun's prepared remarks. I will now walk you through our financial performance for the first quarter of 2026. All figures mentioned will be in RMB. Our total revenues were RMB 188.8 million, representing a 21.6% increase year-on-year from RMB 155.2 million. Specifically, net advertising revenues were RMB 125.3 million, representing a 4% increase year-on-year from RMB 120.5 million. Paid services revenues were RMB 63.5 million, representing an 83% increase year-on-year from RMB 34.7 million, primarily driven by revenue generated from our digital reading services offered through mini programs on third-party applications. Cost of revenues decreased by 5.1% to RMB 87.8 million from RMB 92.5 million in the same period of last year. Gross margin for the first quarter improved to 53.5% from 40.4% in the same period of last year. Total operating expenses were RMB 130.9 million, reflecting a 29.5% increase year-on-year from RMB 101.1 million. This increase was primarily due to higher sales and marketing expenses incurred for the digital reading services mentioned earlier. Loss from operations was RMB 29.9 million compared to RMB 38.4 million in the same period of last year. Net loss attributable to ifeng was RMB 16.8 million compared to RMB 29.7 million in the same period of last year. Moving on to our balance sheet. As of March 31, 2026, the company's cash and cash equivalents, term deposits, short-term investments and restricted cash totaling RMB 955.8 million or approximately USD 138.6 million. Finally, I'd like to provide our business outlook for the second quarter of 2026. We forecast total revenues to be between RMB 195.7 million and RMB 210.7 million. For net advertising revenues, we project between RMB 141.8 million and RMB 151.8 million, while for paid service revenues, we project between RMB 53.9 million and RMB 58.9 million. This forecast reflects our current and preliminary view, which is subject to change and substantial uncertainties. This concludes the prepared portion of our call. We are now ready for questions. Operator, please go ahead.

[Operator Instructions] First question comes from Alice Tang of First Shanghai.

We saw that the company achieved year-on-year revenue growth in Q1. So could you please share the highlights and challenges in advertising revenue and your views on the near to medium-term outlook, please?

Alice, actually, in Q1, we did see some budget adjustment pressure in certain categories, but we are happy to see that several high potential consumption and service sectors delivered solid growth, which helped offset the pressure. Areas like liquor, Internet services, automotive, home appliances, finance and retail all grew year-on-year. We are especially encouraged by the strong momentum in emerging AI application sectors. Also, our deeper involvement in international sports events and exhibitions also performed well and really showcases our progress in international marketing. We are seeing a clear shift in brand marketing. It's moving away from just chasing traffic toward building deeper emotional connections with users and creating lasting brand value. This plays directly to our strength in content marketing. In the near to medium-term, we think macro headwinds and budget pressure may continue for a while. We will keep optimizing our client mix and focus on areas with stronger resilience and better growth prospects. We will also push on internationalization to sharpen our competitive edge. Overall, I think we will make steady progress through 2026. Thank you, Alice.

I see no further questions at this time. I will now turn back to Muzi for closing remarks.

Thank you. This concludes our Q&A session and conference call. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us. Thank you for joining us today, and have a great day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]