Phoenix New Media Limited ($FENG)

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Phoenix New Media Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to your first speaker today, Muzi Guo from Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Welcome to Phoenix New Media's Earnings Conference Call for the Fourth Quarter of 2025. 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, I would also like to point to the safe harbor statement in our earnings press release, which also applies to any forward-looking statements made during this call. Unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned are in RMB. Joining me 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.

[Interpreted] Thank you all for joining today's call. Over the past quarter, we have continued to increase our inputs in in-depth reporting, professional commentary and the planning of major thematic coverage with the aim of enhancing the quality and influence of our core columns and flagship products. At the same time, we have optimized and upgraded key events and branded initiatives, promoting greater integration between our content and product formats. In an environment characterized by information overload and increasingly similar traffic-driven content, the value of professional in-depth and credible journalism becomes even more important. We will stay focused on our core strength and strategy while managing risk prudently and advancing our transformation in a disciplined and steady manner to build a more sustainable foundation for the future growth. Now I will hand over to Edward for a more detailed update on our business progress and financial results.

Okay. Thank you, Muzi. In the fourth quarter, influenced by macroeconomic environment, so overall market competition remained intense. Against this backdrop, we are focused on strengthening our core capabilities, reinforcing our positioning as a mainstream media online, refining our original content system and advancing our technology and collaboration initiatives. In terms of content reporting, we maintained high frequency, professional coverage, further reinforcing our influence on major political and current affairs topics. With outstanding performance in coverage of events such as the Maduro incident and the development of U.S.-Iran conflict. In addition, as a historic moment of China's Fujian aircraft carrier interim service, we delivered an expert live broadcast that attracted over 1.8 million views and produced in-depth analytical content on the technological development, strengthening our voice in professional commentary. We have always focused on social issues, fulfilling the public value of media through continuous observation and reporting. For example, 1 of our reports focused on Regency International in Hangzhou, known as the first building for mass influencer leasing and a typical example of the rapid growth of live streaming e-commerce. By systematically analyzing the structural changes behind it, we published an in-depth report, which garnered over 10,000 reads and prompted an official government response, contributing to broader public discussion. In original content, deeply reported human-centered stories remained the strongest foundation for our brand and audience engagement. For example, 1 episode of our program journey told the story of a father who after his son's suicide joined an online chat group to reach out to other struggling young people and help them found hope again, garnering 120 million views. Another episode featured ongoing coverage of public figures [ tightly battled ] with ALS, capturing the resilience of human spirit with a single episode reaching 145 million views. These and other programs form a key part of our broader content portfolio, which is structured as a complementary matrix, different formats and themes support 1 another, elevating brand value and providing a more stable foundation for monetization. Beyond content production, we also strengthened our presence in high-end events through cooperation with platforms such as The World Chinese Entrepreneurs Convention. We integrated key resources to enable synergy between content and offline events. Our Action League Charity Gala marked its tenth anniversary, receiving coverage from major offline, including CCTV and other TV stations, and bringing together leaders from multiple net national level foundations, further reinforcing our organizational capability and social influence in the public welfare space. In content distribution, our presence across major platforms continue to expand, undergoing average live per cost -- per post increased by 54% quarter-over-quarter, with total followers growing to 18.9 million. Our WeChat video account also saw strong follower growth, bringing the total to over 6 million. On our app, AI applications now support content aggregation and trending topic operations, improving distribution, efficiency and user engagement. Interaction volume increased by over 10% and average time spent per user rose 8% quarter-over-quarter. Meanwhile, our cooperation within Huawei's HarmonyOS ecosystem provides us with a more stable traffic entry point and deeper technological collaboration. Looking ahead to 2026, we will continue to prioritize capability, building and structural optimization. We remain focused on developing original content as our core assets, leveraging technology as an efficiency driver and steadily advancing our business upgrade. This concludes our CEO, Mr. Sun's prepared remarks. I will now walk you through our financial performance for the first quarter of 2025. All figures mentioned will be in RMB. Our total revenues were RMB 222.3 million, representing a 1.9% increase year-on-year from RMB 218.1 million. Specifically, net advertising revenues were RMB 181.1 million compared to RMB 189 million in the same period of last year. Paid services revenue were RMB 41.2 million representing a 41.6% increase year-on-year from RMB 29.1 million, primarily driven by revenue generated from our digital reading services offering through mini-programs on third-party applications. Cost of revenues decreased by 18.6% to 98.6% (sic) [ RMB 98.6 million ] from RMB 121.1 million in the same period of last year. Gross margin for the fourth quarter improved to 55.6% from 44.5% in the same period of last year. Total operating expenses were RMB 99.2 million, reflecting a 9.9% increase year-on-year from RMB 90.3 million. This increase was primarily due to higher sales and marketing expenses incurred for the digital reading services mentioned earlier. Income from operations increased by 265.7% to RMB 24.5 million from RMB 6.7 million in the same period of last year. Net income attributable to ifeng was RMB 45.3 million compared to net loss attributable to ifeng of RMB 3.6 million in the same period of last year. Moving on to our balance sheet. As of December 31, 2025, the company's cash and cash equivalents, term deposits, short-term investments and restricted cash totaled RMB 1.02 billion or approximately USD 145.6 million. Finally, I'd like to provide our business outlook for the first quarter of 2026. We forecast total revenue to be between RMB 160 million and RMB 175 million. For net advertising revenues, we project between RMB 111.2 million and RMB 121.2 million. While for paid service revenues, we project between RMB 48.8 million and RMB 53.8 million. This forecast reflects our current and preliminary view, which is subject to change in the substantial uncertainties. This concludes the prepared portion of our call. We are now ready for questions. Operator, please go ahead.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take the first question from Alice Tang of First Shanghai.

So what are the key challenges the company is currently facing? And how do you view the outlook for the advertising market in 2026?

Alice, thank you for the question. Actually, in Q4, advertising budgets declined among major Internet platforms while the automotive and the liquor sectors were relatively weak. At the same time, we achieved growth in consumer categories, such as personal care, tourism and entertainment and home appliances, partially offsetting declines in traditional sectors and reflecting opportunities arising from industry shifts. In the near term, market challenges persist, and we will focus on optimizing our client mix while exploring new growth drivers. Internationalization has become a key differentiator for us. In the fourth quarter, the light of Chinese events launched alongside The World Chinese Entrepreneurs Convention strengthened our connections with overseas business communities, and enhanced both brand influence and collaboration potential. On the innovation front, demand for short-term video continues to grow, and we will enhance content differentiation and conversion capabilities through our social media metrics. At the same time, AI technologies are being increasingly applied to content production and the data analytics to improve marketing efficiency, and this will remain a key focus going forward. As consumption continues to upgrade, we will prioritize sectors with stronger budget potential, including home appliances, transportation and daily consumer goods, while aligning with things such as technological innovation and green consumption, supported by our credibility and authoritative platform, we remain an important partner for brands seeking differentiated communication.

Thank you. There are no further questions, and this concludes the Q&A session. I'll now turn the conference back to Muzi Guo for her closing comments.

Thank you. We have now come to the end of our conference call and Q&A session. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us. Thank you for joining us today, and have a great day.

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