Gaofei Wang
Analyst · Xueqing Zhang from CICC
[Interpreted] Thank you. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Weibo's Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. On today's call, I'll share with you highlights on Weibo's product and monetization, review the progress made in 2025, elaborate our strategies for 2026. Starting from our financial performance in the fourth quarter, our total revenues in the fourth quarter reached USD 473.3 million, an increase of 4% year-over-year. Our total revenues reached USD 403.8 million, an increase of 5% year-over-year. Our value-added service revenues reached USD 69.5 million, a decrease of 2% year-over-year. Our non-GAAP operating income in the fourth quarter reached USD 100.4 million, representing operating margin of 21%. For full year 2025, our total revenues reached USD 1.76 billion, relatively flat year-over-year. Our total ad revenues reached USD 1.5 billion, relatively flat year-over-year. Our value-added service revenues reached USD 255.6 million, relatively flat year-over-year. For the full year 2025, our non-GAAP operating income reached USD 523.6 million, representing a non-GAAP operating margin of 30%. On the user front, in December 2025, Weibo's MAUs reached 567 million and average DAUs reached 252 million. Throughout 2025, we focused on enhancing user value, solidifying Weibo's leading position in hot topics and entertainment content ecosystem and strengthening the competitiveness of our social products. At the same time, we leveraged to improve our recommendation and search systems, driving both user base and engagement. Next, I will highlight key development in Weibo's product operation and monetization in the fourth quarter. On user growth and engagement, in late July, we completed a structural upgrade of our core homepage and officially rolled out the new homepage with interest-based feed as a primary interface. Our key objective of this upgrade was to leverage in social products while expanding from only relying on relationship-based mechanism to distribute content -- user to discover high-quality content more efficiently and providing greater visibility for vertical content across the platform. In terms of execution in the third quarter, we focused on ensuring smooth transition of the product and minimize the impact on user behaviors. In the fourth quarter, we prioritized 2 key initiatives. First, we continue to refine our recommendation algorithm to improve recommendation to efficiency by leveraging real-time user behavior, coding clicks, time spent and engagement. We strengthened our instant recommendation capabilities and facilitated more in-depth content consumption. As a result, in the fourth quarter, both the average information feed viewership and time spent per user increased quarter-over-quarter. That, we rolled out an algorithm-driven audience segmentation strategy to deliver more granular targeted content recommendation for users to engage on the platform. We maintained a stable distribution of relationship-based content within their interest-based feed, keeping a balance between relationship-based content and interest-based content, satisfying users' demand for social content consumption while improving the precision of content. Among the social users, the average viewership and time spent per refresh and engagement per 1,000 viewership all increased quarter-over-quarter in the fourth quarter. We also revamped the new homepage with easier onboarding experience for new users. With continued recommendation algorithms, new users average information feed consumption per refresh and have exhibited upward trends. In the meantime, we also recognize that compared with the relationship-based feed, the market for the interest-based recommendation feed is highly competitive. In the transitional period, some user metrics remain volatile, which is within our expectation. Nevertheless, the strong content consumption by social users and new users have fully validated our current direction. Going forward, we will continue to leverage Weibo's social product and hot topics, further enhance the distribution of Weibo's unique content. Meanwhile, we will focus on establishing a more stable and predictable content consumption experience and enhancing user trust and stickiness with the homepage information feed, which laid a solid foundation for long-term user growth, engagement and monetization. As the interest-based feed became the core scenario for distribution, this will facilitate the distribution of our video content, which were previously mainly through relationship-based feed. For video strategy in the second half 2025, we focused on 2 key initiatives: first, enhancing video efficiency by strengthening the synergy between content and scenarios; second, improve the quality of video content. This involves incentivizing top-tier KOLs to produce more competitive content for the platform, while systematically managing low-quality video content to optimize the supply structure. In the second half of 2025, both the average daily video view time and the per user video view time on the video playback page achieved double-digit growth compared with first half of 2025. Furthermore, during the spring, the release and widespread adoption of AI video technology and tools significantly lowered the barrier for video creation. During the period, both the number of original videos and the number of original video content creators among Golden and grew over 40% year-over-year. Looking ahead, as AI technologies continue to evolve and advance video production efficiency and quality are expected to improve further. In response, we will leverage the product in content in hot topics and vertical IPs, providing content creators with AI creation tools to support secondary content production and content expansion around vertical IPs. This further strengthen the competitiveness of Weibo video content ecosystem. For example, among those movies released during the spring festival, we will partner with the Belgian, the Blade launch a fan creation contest where content creators use AI tools to produce creative adaptation based on the flow and characters. Over 100 creators participate through the contest and over -- the main production team interacted active platform. The campaign sparked a diverse discussion and engaged audience from all verticals, providing a replicable marketing model. Subsequently, this AI-powered edition model is also being used for the current hit drama, helping to boost the show's visibility. Turning to search products. In the first quarter, we continued to focus on providing users with more intelligent and convenient search experience. First, we continue our AI capabilities to improve the accuracy of understanding users' needs and content. In high-frequency search scenarios such as hot topics and public figure search, we leveraged intelligent search to optimize search effectiveness and user experience, strengthening the mind share of search among Weibo users. Second, we upgraded the product form, evolving Weibo intelligent search from a single round Q&A model to a multi-round conversational assistant, which better meets users' needs for more coherent and in-depth information discovery and exploration. Third, we expanded implementation of intelligence more key scenarios, including content consumption and social interactions, reaching a broader user base. These initiatives lead to continued growth in intelligent search user scale and engagement in the fourth quarter. In December, Weibo's intelligent search MAU surpassed 80 million with average DAUs and search queries booked double-digit growth quarter-over-quarter, driving overall platform search query volume further to improve. Moving on to monetization. In 2025, our ad product and sales teams consistently focused on 2 strategic priorities. First, continuing to promote Weibo's unique content marketing positioning across all industries; and second, systematically improving ad performance and conversion capabilities by leveraging AI technologies. In the fourth quarter, Weibo's ad revenues grew by 5% year-over-year. By industry, in the fourth quarter, we focused on capturing marketing opportunities sector with high budget visibility with e-commerce, automobile and local service serving as the primary driver of top line growth. Leveraging Weibo's strength in social products and hot trends, Weibo gained stronger recognition from e-commerce clients in delivering key and acquiring high-value users. As a result, the e-commerce sector booked notable year-over-year growth. Meanwhile, we successfully replicate this model to local service sectors, helping service-oriented advertisers such as food delivery platforms to achieve effective user acquisition in a highly competitive environment. We are pleased to see solid ad growth from local service sector. The automobile sector also sustained steady growth, underpinned by Weibo's vertical ecosystem advantages. On flip side, the handset industry experienced traction factoring into product launch, product launch schedules and subsidy policy fluctuations. The online game sector continued to face pressure, mainly due to the lack of blockbuster game releases. Since the fourth quarter, with the tailwind from intensive release of large language models, Weibo has become the go-to platform for companies to launch new products, promote AI technologies and build brand awareness, leveraging Weibo's well-established KOL ecosystem and professional discussion environment in the digital and technology sectors. Recent integration of major AI models such as in Qwen by Alibaba and Doubao by ByteDance drove nearly 50% increase in related discussion on Weibo compared with that around 50 rollout last year. This technological upgrade went viral on our platform, which also attracted trends-related ad budget. The AI sector is becoming a clear growth driver for our platforms. For the full year, despite temporary fluctuation in ad budget due to macroeconomics and industry-specific factors, our revenue structure demonstrated stronger resilience with content marketing consistently contributing 50% of total ad revenues. Throughout 2025, we continuously optimize the marketing combo of high-quality native content production by KOLs and precise information feed targeting, thereby enhancing Weibo's overall competitiveness in brand awareness and conversion. Taking the new product we launch programs as an example. In 2025, we serve over brand clients across 22 industries, leveraging synergy between high-quality celebrity and KOL content and feed ad placement. We established a full funnel campaign model from amplify brand awareness to drive conversion. This campaign model significantly improved clients' marketing effectiveness of our trends, creating a positive synergy between our monetization and -- in performance-based advertising, our AI application made notable progress. In December, AI-generated ad creatives already accounted for 40% of consumption in promoted feed ad offerings and the real-time bidding systems. AI integration has not only enabled us to greatly reduce advertisers' creative cost, but also improve traffic monetization efficiency through ongoing optimization of bidding models and conversion paths. Overall, Weibo has achieved its annual ad revenue target as we beef up organizational execution, AI-empowered capability in 2025. We are pleased to further solidify and enhance competitiveness of Weibo's monetization ecosystem. Entering 2026, we will continue to create value for users with focus on optimizing user experience and driving long-term retention. By balancing traffic operation efficiency with quality, we are committed to strengthening Weibo's ecosystem and reinforcing its long-term competitiveness while further growing our user community and engagement. Next, let me share some color on our key strategies for 2026 on 3 key fronts: user growth and engagement, content ecosystem and monetization. On user growth and engagement, we will prioritize retention of quality users in the hope of building a sustainable growth path featuring high value and deeply engaged user community. First, on the channel strategy, we will upgrade our full life cycle operation framework to optimize the entire new user journey from activation and onboarding to stable usage and thus enhancing the conversion of acquired users into core active users. Second, for the information feed products built upon the homepage revamp and capability building in 2025, '26 will mark a new phase of user experience improvement and refined operation. We will continue to optimize Weibo's algorithm and strengthen engagement with the homepage information feeds so as to drive steady growth in both user engagement and time spent. Third, video will become our key strategic driver of user retention and time spent in 2026. The homepage revamp in 2025 has paved the way for more efficient video distribution across the platforms. We have already achieved solid progress in improving content quality and fostering user mindset of video consumption on Weibo. In 2026, we will step up investment and leverage AI technologies to enhance video understanding and recommendation efficiency. Meanwhile, we will work to diversify our video content offerings, including original videos, mindshare-focused videos and short format. Through comprehensive upgrade across content, algorithms and product experience, we expect video to play an increasingly important role in driving user time spent and retention, supporting continued growth of our user base. On the content, in 2026, we will continue to focus on 3 core pillars: our trends, social product and search products to further our content ecosystem and strengthen our core competitiveness. First, on hot trends, we'll explore the synchronization of feed distribution and hot trend charts. On top of reinforcing the credibility of the hot search product, we aim to enhance recommendation efficiency of hot topics within the information feed and expand the scale of users engaging in discussion, which will enable us to reinforce core advantages in hot topic consumption and fashion. Second, on social product, we will continue to beef up investment in super topic products. We will focus specifically on the interest-based needs of young users, deepen the operation of interest-based communities and enhance their experience. By cultivating social relationship and interactive mindset on the platform, we aim to further boost user sense of belonging and engagement on Weibo. Third, on search product, building on the full rollout of Weibo intelligent search capability in 2025, we will focus on cultivating a differentiating of our search product in 2026. To elaborate, we seek to highlight in our search features, including searching people, IPs and hot trends. By integrating intelligent Q&A and conversational search experience, we aim to provide users with more accurate, efficient and differentiated search services. Moving on to monetization. In 2026, our key initiative is to capture our volume share in the brand and market through resource investment, specifically towards invest, leveraging Weibo's cumulative strength in IP hot trends, celebrity ecosystem, we are pleased to see a broad-based trend with more and more brands showing recognition to step up ad budgets in our celebrity and web marketing. In light of this trend, we upgrade our full-service IP marketing framework to enhance Weibo's competitive edge in brand and market, leveraging service and a comprehensive metric of celebrity ad playbook. We will try to deepen partnership with clients and participate in their decision-making process, thereby wallet share in the brand and content marketing ad budget. Meanwhile, we will make the prudent resource allocation among selected core marketing scenarios to build a portfolio with stronger competitive moats. This resource deployment will largely be structured around our existing marketing ecosystem. While the fluctuation in profit margin in the short term, the overall pacing will be strictly managed based on the ROI and kept within a controllable budget cap. As we continue to refine product ecosystem and client service capabilities, we expect this initiative to gradually yield returns from the second half of 2026 onwards. In the mid to long term, this initiative will help further elevate Weibo's position within clients' marketing decision-making chains, driving more sustainable revenue growth. In terms of performance-based advertising, we maintain steady operations across core industries. Furthermore, empowered by AI technology, we will focus on further enhancing both ad targeting position, the overall user experience. Finally, on value-added service, we aim for steady growth by refining the privilege system for paid users and expanding the coverage of V plus membership among top-tier content creators in the hope of promoting the creation of the V plus ecosystem to achieve significant revenue breakthroughs. On organizational efficiency, in 2026, AI to drive front-end business growth, we will focus on expanding AI adoption across internal operations, enabling teams in product development, operations and monetization to drive AI tools to enhance execution efficiency. We believe enhanced technological capabilities and organizational efficiency will be the cornerstone for achieving our strategic goals for 2026. With that, let me turn the call over to Fei Cao for the financial review of the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2025.