Bing Jin
Analyst · J.P. Morgan. Please ask your question
Thank you, Matthew. Hello, everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2017 earnings conference call. This is Bing Jin, the CFO of YY. I will now speak on behalf of our Chairman and Acting CEO, David Xueling Li. We’re delighted to conclude 2017 with robust growth momentum. The innovative model of YY Live 7.0 continues to attract new users to our live streaming platform and generate strong operating results. Consequently, we achieved better than expected financial result in the fourth quarter of 2017. Our total net revenues increased by 46% year-over-year to RMB3.63 billion, exceeding both our guidance and Street consensus. Now let me provide more updates on both YY Live and Huya business, as well as our recent new explorations. Firstly for YY Live, we continue to cultivate new growth engine through product innovation and content enrichment. Our initial foray into AI embedded casual games such as Happy Basketball in the third quarter of 2017 was a smash hit. To build upon this success, we launched several new Ai casual games such as emoji Tetris in the fourth quarter of 2017. As a result, YY Live continues to attract a younger generation of users and the levels of interaction and engagement between our users have further improved. We held the YY 2017 Annual Awards in the fourth quarter. In addition to that, we also hosted the first ever YY Carnival in Guangzhou. During that event 38,000 fans joined over 300 hosts from 23 live streaming categories on site for the celebration. And another 8 million viewers turned in to watch the live broadcast online. Meanwhile, we continue to explore more opportunities in the field of casual games to fulfill user demand in their fragmented time throughout daily lives. In the fourth quarter of 2017, we launched our casual game collection platform called Happy Go by introducing over 40 casual small games into this product so far. We continue to attract younger generations to our platform. Now I would like to give you update on Huya. Recently Huya submitted a confidential filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Committee for a possible initial public offering in the U.S. This announcement is being made pursuant to and in accordance with Rule 135 under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Huya IPO is an important milestone in our long-term strategy. Huya is focused on game live streaming while YY Live on entertainment live streaming. Together, we are able to cover the entire spectrum of and become dominant player in the live streaming industry in China. Now, Huya has reached a stage near its development where it needs to obtain its own group of investors to fund its long-term growth. In a public company, we also strengthened Huya’s brand recognition and help it forge more strategic partnerships, which in turn should enable both YY and Huya to further grow our combined live streaming ecosystem. Looking forward, we will continue to explore innovative ways to attract more users, enhance user engagement, enrich live streaming content and improve the traffic to monetization conversion. We believe that we have the right strategy in place to solidify our leading position in China’s live streaming social media industry. That concludes the remarks of our Chairman and Acting CEO, David Xueling Li. Now as the CFO, I would like to discuss our financial results. We are very pleased to sustain our growth momentum in the fourth quarter of 2017. Our total net revenues for fourth quarter increased by 46% year-over-year to RMB3.63 billion, exceeding the high-end of our previous guidance range. Notably, revenues from live streaming which are accounted for 92.9% of our total net revenues grew by 51.9% year-over-year to RMB3.37 billion. Consistent with our strategic focus on the mobile platform, mobile contributed 53.4% of our live streaming revenues in the fourth quarter of 2017. Mobile live streaming MAUs grew by 36.6% year-over-year to RMB76.5 million from RMB56 million in the prior year period. Live streaming paying users reached 6.5 million, up 25% from 5.2 million in the prior year period. Mobile paying users constituted 79.5% of our total live streaming paying users in the fourth quarter of 2017. Our cost of revenues for fourth quarter increased by 40.8% year-over-year to RMB2.2 billion, which was in line with our topline growth. The increase of cost of revenues were primarily attributable to our 49.6% year-over-year increase in the revenue sharing fees and content costs to RMB1.83 billion. Our gross profit increased by 54.7% year-over-year to RMB1.43 billion and our gross margin expanded to 39.4% in the fourth quarter of 2017 from 37.2% in the prior year period. Our operating expenses increased by 31.8% year-over-year to RMB652.9 million during the fourth quarter of 2017, which was a slower pace than that of our revenues. Sales and marketing expenses were RMB148.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2017, up 33.4% year-over-year. As a percentage of total net revenues, sales and marketing expenses in the fourth quarter of 2017 was 4.1%, down from 4.5% in the prior year period. In addition, our R&D and G&A expenses as a percentage of total net revenues were 7.8% and 6%, respectively, in the fourth quarter as compared to 6.4% and 8.3%, respectively, in the prior year period. Our GAAP operating income increased by 32.2% year-over-year to RMB821.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2017. GAAP operating margin was 22.7% in the fourth quarter of 2017, as compared to 25% in the prior year period, primarily due to an increase in newly issued share-based compensation in the fourth quarter of 2017. Our non-GAAP operating income which excludes share-based compensation expenses increased by 59% year-over-year to RMB1.03 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017. Non-GAAP operating margin increased to 28.4% in the quarter from 26.1% in the prior year period. Our GAAP net income attributable to YY increased by 29.4% to RMB740.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2017. Net margin in the fourth quarter of 2017 was 20.4% compared to 23% in the prior year period. Primarily due to the increases in the newly issued share based compensation in the fourth quarter of 2017. Non-GAAP net income attributable to YY increased by 58.5% to RMB948.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2017. Non-GAAP net margin in the fourth quarter of 2017 expanded to 26.2% from 24.1% in the prior year period. Diluted net income per ADS in the fourth quarter of 2017 increased by 18.4% to RMB11.53 from RMB9.74 in the prior year period. Non-GAAP diluted net income per ADS increased by 45.2% to RMB14.77 from RMB10.17 in the prior year period. Now turning to the results of full year 2017. Our total net revenues increased by 41.3% year-over-year to RMB11.59 billion, driven by a 51.9% year-over-year increase in live streaming revenues. Our GAAP net income attributable to YY for the full year 2017 increased by 63.6% to RMB2.49 and our non-GAAP net income attributable to YY for the full 2017 increased by 63.6% to RMB2.75 billion. Diluted net income per ADS for the full year 2017 increased by 56.6% to RMB41.33 from RMB26.4 in the prior year period and non-GAAP diluted net income per ADS for the full year 2017 increased by 57.2% to RMB45.56 from RMB28.98 in the prior year period. Looking forward to the first quarter of 2018, we expect our total net revenues to be between RMB3 billion and RMB3.15 billion, representing a year-over-year growth of 32.3% to 39%. This forecast reflects our current and preliminary views on the market and operational conditions, which are subject to change. Finally, please be noted, as Huya has filed a draft registration statement on Form F-1 on a confidential basis to the U.S. SEC for a possible initial public offering under the view of the proposed IPO there will be no questions expected relating to Huya in this call. That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we will now open the call to questions.