UP Fintech Holding Ltd. Sponsored ADR Class A (TIGR) Q4 2025 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to UP Fintech Holdings Limited Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today, March 19, 2026. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. Aron Lee, the Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call today UP Fintech Holding Limited Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Release was distributed earlier today and is available on our IR website at ir.itigerup.com as well as Globe Newswire services. On the call today from UP Fintech are Mr. Wu Tianhua, Chairman and CEO; Mr. John Zeng, our CFO; Mr. Wang Lei, CEO of U.S. Tiger Securities; and Mr. Kenny Zhao, our Financial Controller. Mr. Wu will give an overview of our business operations and discuss corporate highlights. Mr. Zeng will then discuss our financial results. They will both be available to answer your questions during the Q&A session that follows their remarks. Now let me cover the safe harbor. The statements we are about to make contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. For more information, please refer to our Form 6-K furnished today and our annual report on Form 20-F filed on April 23, 2025. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law. It is my pleasure to now introduce our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Wu. Mr. Wu will make remarks in Chinese, which will be followed by English translation. Mr. Wu, please go ahead with your remarks.

[Interpreted] Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining Tiger Brokers Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. In 2025, supported by growth in our user base and client assets, continued enhancement of product offerings and localization as well as supportive market environment, we delivered a substantial improvement in both financial and operating performance. Full year total revenue reached USD 612.1 million, up 56.3% compared with 2024. We are also glad to see further improvement on profitability. For the full year, GAAP net income attributable to Fintech was USD 170.9 million and non-GAAP net income was USD 186.5 million, both set record high, up 81.4% and 164.7% year-over-year, respectively. In the fourth quarter, total revenue was USD 175.6 million, an increase of 41.5% year-over-year. Fourth quarter GAAP and non-GAAP net income attributable to Fintech were USD 45.2 million and USD 48.9 million, up 61.3% and 60.5% year-over-year, respectively. In the fourth quarter, we added 29,700 newly funded accounts as the total number of newly funded accounts reaching 161,900 for full year 2025, surpassing our annual target of 150,000. As of the end of 2025, total funded accounts surpassed 1.25 million, representing a 14.8% increase from the end of 2024. Year-to-date, we continue to see healthy paying client growth. We target to acquire 150,000 new funded clients in 2026 while prioritizing user quality. Our net asset inflow remained strong. For the full year 2025, net asset inflows exceeded USD 10 billion with over $3 billion of net inflow in the fourth quarter alone. Hong Kong was the largest contributor to our retail net asset inflow in the fourth quarter. Despite the impact of mark-to-market losses on client assets, total client assets at the end of fourth quarter remained stable quarter-over-quarter. at USD 80.8 billion, up 45.7% year-over-year. We are very pleased that over the past year, Tiger's platform has continued to win the trust and recognition of both new and existing users across our markets and client assets in all regions have increased meaningfully. In particular, client assets in Singapore and the Australia and New Zealand market delivered strong double-digit and even more than doubling year-over-year growth. Hong Kong was a standout. client asset there more than tripled year-over-year. Even in the fourth quarter, marked by a pullback in the Hong Kong stock market, client assets from Hong Kong still increased by more than 20% quarter-over-quarter. This performance benefited from our continued investment in the local client acquisition as well as the high-quality user base in Hong Kong. Notably, the quality of newly funded users continued to improve in the fourth quarter in Hong Kong with the average net asset inflow of newly acquired clients exceeding USD 43,000, reaching a historic high. We also remain focused on enriching our product offerings and enhancing user experience. In the fourth quarter, we made an important upgrade to our options combo trading feature by adding support for combined orders involving options and underlying cash equities. This allows investors to deploy more sophisticated strategies to navigate market volatility, while real-time combination codes significantly improve order execution fill rate when users trade based on a combination price movements. As our presence in the Australian market has expanded in recent years, our user base and investment appetite there have become more diversified. In response, in the fourth quarter, we launched market accounts in the Australian market. This has significantly strengthened our product competitiveness locally and further completed our trading service ecosystem. Our 2B business continues to perform well. In the investment banking business, we underwrote a total of 22 U.S. and Hong Kong IPOs in the fourth quarter, including Pony AI, Inc. and HashKey, bringing the total number of U.S. and Hong Kong IPO underwritten for the year to 47. In our ESOP business, we added 39 new clients in the fourth quarter, bringing the total number of ESOP clients served to 848 as of the end of 2025. Now I'd like to invite our CFO, John, to go over our financials.

Great. Thanks, Tianhua and Aron. Let me go through our financial performance for the fourth quarter. All numbers are in U.S. dollars. Total revenue for this quarter reached $175.6 million, reflecting a year-over-year increase of 42% and a slight quarter-over-quarter increase of 0.2%. For the full year, total revenue were $612.1 million, increase of 56% compared to the previous year. Both quarterly and full year top line reached an all-time high in our operating history. The cash equity take rate this quarter was 6.4 bps, down from 7.1 bps in the previous quarter as the figure normalized in Q4 due to less mini stock trading compared to the third quarter. Within commission revenue, about 65% comes from cash equities, 29% from options and the rest comes from futures and other products. Regarding costs, interest expense was $19 million, increased by 14% from same quarter last year due to the increase in margin financing and securities lending activities. Execution and clearing expense were $5.3 million, decreased 13% from the same period of last year, primarily due to lower SEC regulatory fees. Employee compensation and benefits expense were $50.3 million, an increase of 35% year-over-year due to an increase of global headcount. Occupancy, depreciation and amortization expense increased 34% to $2.9 million due to the increase in office space and relevant leasehold improvements. Communication and market data expense were $14.5 million, an increase of 23% year-over-year due to the increase in user base and IT-related services. Marketing expense were $15.8 million this quarter, increased 67% year-over-year as we increased marketing and branding spending under a more favorable market backdrop. General and administrative expense were $14 million, an increase of 118% year-over-year due to uncollectible underwriting fee and an increase in professional service fees. Total operating costs were $102.9 million, an increase of 41% from the same quarter of last year. As a result, in the fourth quarter, GAAP net income at $45.2 million, non-GAAP net income at $48.9 million, both increased 61% year-over-year. For the full year of 2025, total GAAP profit was $171.2 million and non-GAAP net income was $186.8 million. Both are all-time high and increased 182% and 165%, respectively, compared to last year. Now I have concluded our presentation. Operator, please open the line for Q&A. Thanks.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Dennis Bai from UBS.

[Interpreted] This is Dennis from UBS. Congratulations on the solid results. I have 2 questions. First, regarding the 150,000 client acquisition guidance for 2026, could you please break down the expected contribution by market? Does this include any plans to enter new markets this year? Also, could you please share a market breakdown of new client acquisition in the fourth quarter of last year? Second question, does the company have a clear plan for the convertible bonds maturing around the end of the first quarter this year, conversion or repayment? And could this create any pressure on your cash flow or capital?

[Interpreted] First, in terms of our full year target, starting from 2025, our acquisition strategy has been set with a clear focus on quality and ROI. We've been putting more emphasis on expanding our high net worth client base rather than merely pursuing user numbers. And we have executed firmly with this strategy. In 2025, full year net asset inflow exceeded USD 10 billion and the majority of which came from retail clients. Net inflow from retail users doubled compared with 2024 and reached an all-time high on a full year basis. This helped total client assets jump from a USD 40 billion range at the end of 2024 to a USD 60 billion range by the end of 2025, which in turn has made our overall profitability more resilient. So when we set this 150,000 new funded user target for 2026, we are following the same strategy and principles. We are confident that in terms of asset contribution and volatility, the quality of newly acquired users in the coming year will remain constant with what we saw in 2025. For the regional breakdown of new funded accounts in the fourth quarter, Singapore and Hong Kong each contributed 35%. The Australia and New Zealand market contributed around 25% and the remaining roughly 5% came from the U.S. market. And looking at the 150,000 new funded user target for 2026, excluding any impact from the new markets, we expect the regional mix to be similar to what we saw in the Q4 with Hong Kong and Singapore as the main contributor.

We issued USD 155 million private CB back in 2021. All of this will mature by April. Two strategic investors have agreed to extend their holding around USD 50 million for another 2 years. We will repay the rest of $100 million to investors. Given our current financial profile, we don't think the repayment of the CB will have a meaningful impact on our liquidity or business operations.

The next question comes from the line of Emma Xu of Bank of America Securities.

[Interpreted] The first question is that how has the operating performance been since the first quarter including the number of new funded customers, client assets and trading activities. The second question is about the CAC. Your average customer acquisition cost rose significantly in the fourth quarter. What are the reasons behind this increase? And what is the target average customer acquisition cost for 2026?

[Interpreted] Okay. Your first question on the number of new funding accounts. The recent market volatility did not have a lot of impact on our acquisition pace. We expect Q1 new funding accounts to be roughly flat versus Q4. On user activity, we are seeing the following trends so far in Q1. Due to market volatility and geopolitical factors, the U.S. equity turnover has declined slightly compared with Q4. In contrast, after previous pullback, Hong Kong equity has seen a pickup in trading activity and trading volume. The Q1 quarter-to-date, Hong Kong share trading volume has already exceeded Q4 entire trading volume. With about 2 weeks remaining in the quarter, we will continue to monitor closely. As for the land assets, both U.S. and Hong Kong equity markets have continued to pull back in Q1 which will lead to some mark-to-market losses in client assets. That said, in the first 2 months, we saw strong net asset inflow driven by client position covered, especially from retail users. In addition, our continued marketing and branding input in 2025 have brought in more high net worth clients. As a result, at the end of February, client assets have remained relatively stable quarter-over-quarter, and we are closely monitoring market activity throughout March. So total marketing expense increased around USD 4 million quarter-over-quarter, primarily due to the below 3 reasons. First, in Singapore, we stepped up campaigns and advertising in the fourth quarter around New Year and Christmas. For example, we partnered with [indiscernible] to promote healthy commuting and further embedded Tiger into local daily life. To deepen connection with the local community, we hosted our flagship Tiger Trade Experience 2025 event at year-end, which attracted more than 4,000 local users and received very positive feedback. Tiger Singapore also coorganized its first charity fundraising event with local nonprofit organization, Google Plus, rising funds to support youth development programs that benefit over 400 local teenagers. From investment service to community initiative, Tiger is integrating into local communities through a different angle and expand our brand influence. In Hong Kong, we continue to increase marketing activities, including local community events and referral-based acquisition programs. As we mentioned before, Hong Kong clients are of very high quality and the payback period there is the shortest across our licensed markets. Even though Hong Kong market experienced pullback in Q4, our acquisition pace was not slowed down. Hong Kong contributed about 35% of the group's newly funded accounts in the quarter, and the user quality further improved with the average net asset inflow of newly acquired clients rose from around USD 30,000 to a record high of about USD 43,000. In addition, our wealth management business has also developed very well over the past quarter. To attract more high-level clients to Tiger platform, we have been partnering with high-quality channels, which led to higher channel rate based cost in the fourth quarter. At the same time, the number of newly funded users in Q4 was slightly lower than in the third quarter. Those factors combined result in a significant increase in average CAC. Looking ahead in the first quarter, we expect both marketing expense and the number of new users to be quite stable quarter-over-quarter. Therefore, the average CAC -- we expect to remain at the same level, but we are comfortable with the payback period and user quality. Looking forward, we will adjust our strategy based on market conditions to ensure that our ROI remains healthy.

Our next question comes from Cindy Wang of China Renaissance.

[Interpreted] I have 2 questions here. First, 4Q 2025 top line has been quite flattish, but the bottom line dropped 70% quarter-over-quarter. As we've seen cost increased a lot in this quarter. What is the reason behind it? And any guidance for case this year? Second, we have seen a significant increase in other revenue since second half of last year. So mainly contributed by wealth management and IPO service. So could management share some color on the wealth management business development and our current AUM and as well as the progress of the investment banking business. Thank you.

[Interpreted] So revenue was roughly flat quarter-over-quarter, while our bottom line declined by around USD 10 million. In addition to the roughly USD 4 million impact from higher marketing expense mentioned earlier, there are 2 factors behind the profit decline. Number one, in the fourth quarter, communication and market data expense increased by about $2.6 million quarter-over-quarter. This was mainly due to the upgrades we made to the crypto market data and the additional R&D costs for improving the interaction and experience of Tiger AI. We also had some expense related to overseas cloud services we purchased at the end of the year. The quarter-on-quarter increase in G&A is primarily due to we booked around USD 3 million in bad debt provision in the quarter. This relates to IPO underwriting deals from the previous years when revenue had already been recognized, but the counterparty has not yet paid. we are doing all the necessary collection procedures. This is a one-off impact. And if we recover the payment in the future, the amount will offset expense in the period when it's received. So those 2 items together with higher marketing expense added up to about USD 10 million in additional costs. So bottom line declined quarter-over-quarter, while top line is flat. So for your second question, our other revenue have increased from only a few million U.S. dollars quarterly to around USD 25 million to USD 30 million per quarter in the past 2 quarters. ESOP business has certainly contributed. Since we launched the ESOP business in 2018, we have served around 750 companies and built a solid reputation in the industry. The main drivers of this step-up is in other revenue, however, is our wealth management and investment banking business. For the investment banking, Tiger has long been among the industry leaders in the U.S. IPO underwriting in terms of both deal count and size. Over the past year, as the popularity of Hong Kong IPO subscription has increased, our Hong Kong IPO pipeline has also expanded steadily. We have offered users more attractive and inclusive terms in financing rates and subscription experience. And through IPO subscriptions, many more Hong Kong users have become familiar with our platform. In Q4, Hong Kong IPOs continue to perform strongly on our platform. Total IPO subscription amount doubled quarter-over-quarter, while the number of subscribers increased by about 80% quarter-over-quarter. For full year 2025, total subscription amount reached HKD 1.2 trillion, surpassing the trillion mark for the first time and setting a new record. As for our wealth management business, User penetration is ramping quite fast. Currently, among every 5 new funded clients in our licensed markets, one uses our wealth management services, driven mainly by Hong Kong and Singapore. In Q4, both AUM for mutual funds and assets in cash management tools such as Tiger Vault delivered close to double year-over-year growth. Our structured note feature has also entered a rapid growth phase. Trading volume in Q4 increased by more than 50% quarter-over-quarter. The number of trading accounts grew several fold year-over-year and product coverage continues to expand. In terms of product capabilities, we launched our strategy generation engine, Smart Fund AI. This tool helps fund manager quickly create investment suggestions based on fund selection criteria and clients' risk preference. significantly reducing our research times and aligning more accurately with clients' investment goals. Thank you.

That concludes the Q&A session today. I would like to hand the call back to management for closing. Thank you.

Thank you. I'd like to thank everyone for joining our call today. I'm now closing the call on behalf of the management team here at Tiger. We do appreciate your participation in today's call. If you have any further questions, please reach out to our Investor Relations team. This concludes the call, and thank you very much for your time. Bye-bye.

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