UP Fintech Holding Ltd. Sponsored ADR Class A (TIGR) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to UP Fintech Holding Limited Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today, August 26, 2026. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. Aron Lee, the Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the call today. UP Fintech Holding Limited's Second Quarter 2026 earnings release was distributed earlier today and is available on our IR website at ir.itiger.com as well as GlobeNewswire services. On the call today from UP Fintech are Mr. Wu Tianhua, Chairman and CEO; Mr. John Zeng, our CFO; and Mr. Huang Lei, CEO of U.S. Tiger Securities. 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 statements. For more information, please refer to our Form 6-K furnished today and our annual report on Form 20-F filed on April 24, 2026. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law. It is my pleasure to now introduce our CEO and Chairman, 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. Thank you for joining the Tiger Brokers Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. In the second quarter, we saw meaningful improvement in both commission income and interest-related income compared with the previous quarter and the same period last year. Our total revenue for the quarter reached USD 182 million, an all-time high, representing a sequential increase of 17.7% and a year-over-year growth of 31.4%. Operating profit reached USD 56.8 million, up 19.5% quarter-over-quarter and 12.6% year-over-year. GAAP and non-GAAP net income attributable to UP Fintech reached USD 39.4 million and USD 42.8 million, respectively, returning to profitability from a net loss in the previous quarter. Excluding the impact of approximately USD 59.7 million one-off penalty incurred in the first quarter, second quarter GAAP and non-GAAP net income attributable to UP Fintech both increased about 20% quarter-over-quarter. We added 32,600 new funded accounts this quarter, up 12.7% quarter-over-quarter with the great majority coming from the Singapore and Hong Kong market. As of the end of the second quarter, our total funded accounts reached 1.32 million, a year-over-year increase of 10.3%. In terms of client assets, retail users in markets such as Singapore and Hong Kong continue to contribute solid net asset inflows, exceeding USD 1.5 billion this quarter. At the same time, fueled by mark-to-market gains, total client assets stood at USD 60.7 billion at the end of the second quarter, up 3.1% quarter-over-quarter and 16.7% year-over-year. We are glad to see that client assets grew quarter-over-quarter across all the markets we operate in this quarter, indicating strong growth resilience and tremendous market potential. In the Hong Kong market, we rolled out more off-line promotion activities and expanded our brand exposure, driving local client assets up by nearly 30% quarter-over-quarter and extending the rapid sustained growth in client assets we have delivered since entering the Hong Kong retail market. Client assets in the Australia and New Zealand market and the U.S. market grew by more than 30% and nearly 50% quarter-over-quarter, respectively. This clearly demonstrates that as a global brokerage with internationalization at the core of our strategy and powered by the diversified development of our core business, we continue to earn the trust and recognition of both new and existing users across all the markets, gives us strong confidence in our growth prospects ahead. In the second quarter, we continued to focus on localized functions and enhance the user experience while stepping up our brand exposure to deepen user awareness. In the Singapore market, we further strengthened our localized trading capability by launching fractional share trading for Singapore listed stocks and REITs, which effectively lowered the trading entry barriers, making local investment more accessible and friendly to beginners. In addition, to simplify users' compliance costs and reduce the complexity of tax declaration, we rolled out a dedicated tax reporting tool in Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand. The upgrade is to optimize the end-to-end tax filing experience, enabling users to directly view and download annual tax reference documents through our app and official website, comprehensively covering key tax data, including trading profits and losses, dividend income as well as interest and coupon earnings. In the Hong Kong market, we scaled up our brand investment and localized operation during the second quarter. Our flagship marketing campaign of the quarter was built around SpaceX, amplifying our brand voice through an integrated mix of out-of-home advertising, social media, exclusive new user rewards and advertising placement at Hong Kong Airport. At the same time, we launched Cboe index option trading in Hong Kong and hosted a dedicated launch event for Tiger X Cboe index option alongside a series of investor education initiatives, further enriching the range of trading products available to local investors. Our [ B2B ] business continued to strong momentum in the second quarter of 2026. On the investment banking side, in Hong Kong, we underwrote 14 Hong Kong IPOs during the quarter, continuing to cover key sectors such as AI and hard tech, including major AI IPOs like Manycore, DeepZero, and WengeAI and participating in the offering of intelligent manufacturing and automotive semiconductor companies such as SUNMI, Robotphoenix and [ SEER ]. Further consolidating our market influence in listing services for technology and innovation companies. Meanwhile, we continue to expand our A+H listing business, participating in Hong Kong listing of leading companies such as Huaqin Technology and Senior Technology, spanning key industries, including smart hardware, new energy materials and consumer electronics. On the U.S. side, we participated in the distribution of 4 U.S. IPOs, including DSC Holdings, a digital platform from China automotive industry and Micware, a Japan automotive software company. Our ESOP business delivered steady growth during the quarter with 50 new clients added. As of June 30, 2026, our total ESOP clients served reached 840. Now I'd like to invite our CFO, John, to go over our financials.

All right. Thanks, Tianhua and Aron. Let me go through our financial performance for the second quarter. All numbers are in U.S. dollars. Commission income was $78.3 million, increased 21% year-over-year and 17% quarter-over-quarter. Interest income was $79.8 million, increased 36% year-over-year and 24% quarter-over-quarter. Together, total revenue reached $182 million, setting an all-time high, up 31% year-over-year and 18% quarter-over-quarter. Cash equity take rate was 3.6 bps this quarter, down from 5.9 bps a quarter ago. The main driver was a quarter-over-quarter increase of roughly $15 billion in trading volume from Tiger Brokers U.S. However, most of this uptick in trading volume didn't translate into commission revenues as in the U.S., we offer 0 commission to local users. Within commission revenue, about 71% comes from cash equities, 24% from options and the rest from futures and other products. Now on to cost. Interest expense was $21.5 million, increased 19% quarter-over-quarter and then 24% year-over-year, in line with the increase in interest income. Execution and clearing expense were $6.8 million, an increase of 25% from the same period last year, in line with the increase in commission income. Employee compensation and benefits expense were $50 million, an increase of 39% year-over-year, primarily due to the severance costs associated with Group's reorg of business units. Occupancy, depreciation and amortization expense were $2.8 million, a slight increase of 3% year-over-year. Communication and market data expense were $16.2 million, an increase of 56% year-over-year due to the increase in user base and IT-related service fees. Marketing expense were $18.4 million this quarter, increased 87% year-over-year as we focused on acquiring high-quality users and accelerate the expansion of our wealth management business. General and administrative expense were $9.8 million, increased 45% year-over-year due to an increase in professional service fees. Total operating costs were $103.9 million, an increase of 47% from the same quarter of last year. As a result, our bottom line increased on both GAAP and non-GAAP basis quarter-over-quarter. GAAP net income was $39.4 million and non-GAAP net income was $42.8 million, versus a net loss in the previous quarter and up 20% quarter-over-quarter after excluding the impact of the one-off penalty in the first quarter. As of the close of the U.S. market yesterday, we have cumulatively repurchased approximately USD 5 million worth of ADS under our buyback plan announced on June 2, 2026. We may continue to execute repurchase from time to time under the $50 million share repurchase program announced on June 2, 2026. Now I have concluded our presentation. Operator, please open the line for Q&A. Thanks.

The first question comes from the line of Yoyo Fan of CICC.

This is Yoyo Fan from CICC. I have 2 questions here. Firstly, we have delivered a strong revenue growth and solid operating profit expansion in Q2. But we noticed that there was also a loss of over $2 million under the other net, this line item. So what's the reason behind and how it would be going forward? And we also see that the income tax expense was a little bit high in Q2 with effective tax rate at nearly 28%. So what's the reason behind? And what should we expect as the normalized effective tax rate going forward? My second question, can you share the run rate of our operating trends since Q3, including metrics like trading velocity, client assets and new funded account users?

First, on the roughly USD 2 million loss in the other line item. This was mainly an FX loss driven by the continued appreciation of the RMB and the corresponding depreciation of the U.S. dollar during the second quarter. It's a noncash item. On income tax, first of all, we believe our normalized effective tax rate is in the 10% to 15% range. The second quarter tax expense was notably above that level for 2 reasons. Number 1 is there is a noncash deferred tax adjustment tied to employee share-based compensation. The share-based award we grant to employees are amortized quarterly on a gross basis as part of our compensation costs, covering both vested and unvested portions. For tax purpose, however, only the amortization of the vested award is deductible. The expense from unvested award is nondeductible and gives rise to a deferred tax asset. When our share price dropped after May 22, the value of the unvested employee stock pool declined, thus the previously recognized deferred tax asset came down accordingly. As a result, we wrote down about like $1 million of deferred tax asset this quarter, which was recorded as income tax expense. This is a noncash item. And if the share price recovers going forward, it would reverse and reduce tax expense in that period. The second reason is tied to the onetime penalty from May 22 rectification. We are still assessing this and for now, purely out of prudence, we have treated the entire penalty as a nondeductible expense in the second quarter, which added about USD 6 million to income tax expense this quarter. For now, this is a noncash item. Looking ahead, we expect to keep optimizing our tax arrangement in light of the profitability across the Group's various regions. And where consistent with the rules, we will aim to gradually reverse this against income tax expense in the second half. Okay, Tianhua?

[Interpreted] Okay. I'll translate regarding the run rate of our third quarter. First, on client assets. Q3 quarter-to-date, both net asset inflow and mark-to-market gains have each contributed more than $1 billion. So client asset has kept up a steady growth. Quarter-to-date, we've seen a high single-digit quarter-over-quarter increase on client assets compared to the end of the second quarter. And second, on trading activity. Quarter-to-date trading volume and commissions are running slightly below the same point in Q2. This mainly reflects a high base from a strong second quarter when the market rally kept trading activity elevated. With some pullback in the market heading into Q3, activities have eased accordingly. And last, on new funded accounts, Hong Kong and Singapore remain our key contributors. We expect the number of newly funded users to come in flat or increase versus Q2 as we stepped up our brand activity in both Hong Kong and Singapore in the second quarter, and the results are looking good so far in Q3. On top of that, it's worth noting that so far in Q3, the average net asset inflow per new funded user has risen further versus Q2 to around $25,000, which is in line with our quality-first approach to client acquisition.

Thank you. Operator, please move on to the next question.

Our next question comes from the line of Cindy Wang of China Renaissance.

I have 2 questions. First, I would like to follow up the regulatory update after May 22. First, are there any other new policy changes? And then second is whether Mainland clients have stabilized such as trading activity, customer churn and asset outflow? And currently, have you seen any significant changes in the percentage of customer assets and revenue from Mainland retail clients? The second question is the company's overall blended take rate has remained relatively stable, but the cash equity take rate has decreased significantly compared to the previous quarter. So could you explain the reasons behind this and what the trend looks like?

[Interpreted] Okay. Let me take this from 2 angles, the policy and the client behavior. First, on policy. We moved quickly and are in full compliance with the regulators' requirements. And on June 12, we rolled out the necessary monitoring mechanism to restrict onshore activities by Mainland users, such as opening positions and making deposits. Since then, we haven't received any further policy changes or adjustments from regulators. Second, on client behavior. Broadly speaking, the impact was concentrated in the second quarter and has largely been reflected at this point. Mainland retail users saw net asset inflow of about USD 500 million in the second quarter, most of them between May 22 and June 12. This is a high single-digit percentage of these user's total client assets before the regulatory update. So we're seeing this still manageable and heading into the second quarter, the pace of outflow has been gradually easing. So with those net asset inflows, Mainland retail users now accounts for under 10% of our total client assets, down further from before. And their revenue contribution has come down from the 20% to 25% range in full year 2025 and Q1 to a 15% to 20% range in Q2. So that being said, the outflow impact from regulatory change has largely run its course. More importantly, our core growth engine is our global business. In the second quarter, client assets grew quarter-over-quarter across every market we operate in. So based on the number and the actual results we are seeing so far, this matter has had no meaningful impact on the medium- to long-term fundamentals of our global business.

As I mentioned earlier, cash equity take rate went down from 5.9 bps in the first quarter to 3.6 bps in the second quarter for several reasons. Number 1, in the second quarter, AI and the semi sector trading volume accounted for a larger share on our platform. Stocks like Micron and SanDisk were traded at a high share price with take rate of well below 1 bps, which dragged down the overall U.S. cash equities take rate. In addition, the NASDAQ index rose sharply in the second quarter, up more than 20%, pushing up the average trading price of individual stocks. Since we charge commission on a per share basis, a higher trading price translates into lower take rate. The third reason is some high-frequency users were trading through our U.S. subsidiaries in the second quarter, which lifted the trading volume, but since we charge 0 commission for local U.S. clients, this also dragged down cash equity take rate. The first 2 factors are market-driven, so the trend is hard to predict. Let's say, quarter-to-date in the third quarter, we have seen some pullback in share price, which should be positive for the cash equity take rate. We expect the cash equity take rate to recover somewhat in the third quarter. As for the blended take rate, it stayed relatively stable quarter-over-quarter, mainly because the share of future trading declined while cash equity and option trading went up. Since future trading volume is calculated on a notional basis, a lower future trading volume lifted to the blended take rate.

Okay. So operator, let's proceed to next question.

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

So the first question is, could you break down the geographic mix of the new funded account in the second quarter? Second, we noticed a notable sequential rise in the marketing expense, including the CAC. Could you elaborate on the key drivers behind this increase? Specifically, what is the split between user acquisition versus reengagement spend? And in which markets have you ramped up investment? Please also share your outlook for the approximate range of CAC in the second half of this year.

[Interpreted] Of the new funded accounts we added in the second quarter, Singapore and Hong Kong together accounted for over 70%, split roughly even between these 2, Australia and New Zealand contributed around 25% with the rest coming from the U.S. market.

So let me break down the increase in our marketing spending and average CAC in the second quarter in 3 parts. First of all, some marketing expense were FCN rebates, not really tied to user acquisition. Excluding the FCN rebates, marketing spending was up about USD 2.5 million quarter-over-quarter, and average CAC rose from around USD 420 in Q1 to about USD 450 in Q2. Under split client acquisition, including branding, accounted for roughly 60% to 70% of our total marketing expense. The incremental spending went mainly into brand building in Hong Kong and Singapore, and it's clearly bringing high-quality users. Average net asset inflow per new funded account from under USD 20,000 in the first quarter to over USD 25,000 in the second quarter. In Hong Kong, our client assets have now grown double digits for 5 straight quarters, up nearly 30% quarter-over-quarter and roughly triple year-over-year in Q2. We launched a SpaceX themed campaign during the IPO to amplify our brand awareness through different venues and channels. In Singapore, we kept reinforcing our brand and marketing leadership through a mix of online and offline campaigns from taking part in GastroBeats 2026, the city's largest outdoor food and music festival to rolling out our Where's Your Next Step campaign with local running and pickleball communities to World Cup TV advertisement. Those campaigns helping us stay close to our user base, especially the younger ones and build a warmer, more trusted brand connection that go beyond traditional financing marketing. Looking beyond the second quarter, we will keep adjusting our acquisition spending based on the market condition. Based on what we have seen so far, we expect the average CAC to be around USD 450 to USD 550 range.

At this time, there are no further questions on the line. I would like to hand the call back to Mr. Aron Lee for closing.

Thank you. I'd like to thank everyone for joining our call today and 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 IR 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 your lines. [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]