iQIYI, Inc.
Q2 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 18 Aug 2020

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the iQIYI Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Investor Relations Director of iQIYI, Lei Zhang. Thank you. Please go ahead.

[Lei Zhang:]

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining iQIYI's Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. The company's results were released earlier today and are available on the company's Investor Relations website at ir.iqiyi.com.

[Tim Gong:]

Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. It's obvious that much has changed around the world since our last earnings call. Like many other companies and industries, we have experienced unusual user behavior, fluctuating numbers and great challenges. Clearly, the pandemic is the most influential factor to us and other business in the first half of this year. Our subscribers, MAU and user time spent all peaked during the first quarter because of home confinement. With pandemic gradually being controlled in Q2 earlier than most of other countries, people went back to work, and students in China started to study online and prepare for critical exams, such as the national entrance examination for college and high school, and the final term exams, all of which took place in June and July. As a result, we saw a decline in both people's video-viewing time and frequency in Q2. The pandemic also influenced our content supply. Movies especially theatrical movies, have served as one of our most important content categories in user acquisition and membership attraction. Due to the shutdown of cinemas, no new movies were released offline. Online video platforms, which act as the second window for theatrical movies under SVOD model, are also facing supply shortage and adverse effect to subscriber retention and acquisition. Fortunately, the cinemas in China were permitted to reopen on July 20, with limitation of 30% attendance rate though. Considering the average attendance rate of last year was lower than 30%, we believe that even with limitation, the offline movie industry will be normalized step by step. We expect more movies will be released in cinemas, and the amount will possibly peak during October national holiday. These movies could be aired on Internet in 2 to 8 weeks after the offline window. The supply recovery will somehow improve our subscriber growth and stickiness in late 2020.

[Xiaodong Wang:]

Morning everyone. Let me comment on our financial highlights. Despite the volatile macro-environment in China, we delivered another quarter of growth, with total revenues increasing 4% year over year. Our membership business continued to be the main business pillar, with revenues up 19% year over year, accounting for 55% of our total revenues. Our advertising business continued to be soft with revenue declined year over year, due to the advertisers' budget cuts, traffic decline after the pandemic containment and the delay of certain variety shows. Both our cost of revenues and operating expenses decreased year over year, and our content costs were only up 2%. We kept spending strategically on original content to drive in-house production capability while making wise and disciplined investment across the board. As a result, our operating loss margin narrowed to 17% from 26% in the same period last year. Our net loss decreased to RMB 1.4 billion from RMB 2.3 billion in the same period last year. As of June 30, 2020, the company had cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investments of RMB 9.5 billion. For detailed financial data, please refer to our press release on our IR website. For the third quarter of year 2020, iQIYI expects total net revenues to be between RMB 6.95 billion and RMB 7.4 billion, representing a 6% decrease to flat year over year. This forecast reflects iQIYI's current and preliminary view, which may be subject to change. I will now open the floor to Q&A.

[Operator:]

Your first question comes from the line of Wendy Chen from Goldman Sachs.

[Wendy Chen:]

So my question is about the subscriber growth outlook. You mentioned that the subs growth momentum has come back since the end of June. So wondering how do we see the subscriber growth so far for the -- and also for the second half of the year as the college entrance exam ended and the summer peak season started? And also how do we see the subscriber level reaching in the medium to longer term?

[Tim Gong:]

[Lei Zhang:]

Thank you, Wendy. You're correct that the examination for the entrance to college already ended on July. But to consider in this situation, this summer break is different from normal seasons that, for example, the exams were delayed 1 month, and also the other that with the shortened holiday -- summer break for the high school and maybe junior high school students as well, so that we cannot predict precisely on the net add numbers, but we are seeing the very clear trend on the rebounding of our traffic and the subscribers. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Your next questions come from the line of Thomas Chong from Jefferies.

[Thomas Chong:]

My question is about the advertising outlook in the second half. Given that we are seeing some kind of recovery in Q3, how should we think about the momentum for KA as well as SME? And my second part of the question is about our mid-form video strategies in the second half. Should we expect there will be a step-up in sales and marketing and any KPI that can share would be great.

[Tim Gong:]

[Lei Zhang:]

For the first question, and yes, that I think our most of ad revenue comes from the brand advertisement. So KA reflects a large proportion of our ad revenue. That as we can see that the KA brand advertisers said that their budget is coming back after our variety show is gradually to be on air. But it will take some time to reflect in the financials. Because that, I think that some of our new variety shows will be on air on August and some maybe on September and possibly peak on October. So that it will take some time to reflect in financials. For the in-feed advertisers and for the SME advertisers that -- since it's not account for so much of our advertising revenues, even that there's some rebound, it will not reflect too much on the financials. Regarding the Suike that we did variety of the activities on the market promotion and the technology platform building and also, after that, we put efforts on the community setup for the fans. But there is -- there has been some progress already, but we need some time to build it into the large scale. And I think that the most of the advertisement in the Suike will come to the form of the in-feed advertisement and the ad inventory will thus be not that much. So that we don't see much of the reflection on the ad revenues from the Suike perspective.

[Operator:]

And now we have Alicia Yap from Citigroup.

[Alicia Yap:]

[Tim Gong:]

[Lei Zhang:]

I will answer the first question, then we'll leave Xiaodong to answer the second one. We have different scheduling strategies regarding the different content category. I'll start with the dramas. For example, the drama there are a few influential factors regarding the scheduling. There are -- the first 2 are most important ones, including the production cycle and our license cycle. The second one is the regulation cycle. And also that it may have some influence from the advertisers but not much. For the variety shows that seems that most of the revenue comes from advertisers, so it will be determined mostly by the advertisers budget and their promotion activity schedule. So most of them, the variety shows needs to be aired or produced or scheduled based on the contract agreement with the major advertisers or that the appropriate ROI assessment, so that only very few of variety shows that we decided to schedule anyway, it's because they have -- there has something more meaningful to our platform or that we expect that their revenue will gradually increase after -- as long as it is broadcasting. So that meaning, in that case, we may schedule it on air that even without agreement with advertisers. Now Xiaodong, you have...

[Xiaodong Wang:]

No, go ahead.

[Lei Zhang:]

Sorry that Mr. Gong wants to add some points on this question. Please, later.

[Tim Gong:]

[Lei Zhang:]

Also for the scheduling on other 2 content category, animation and theatrical movies that, thinks that the Japanese animation generates half of our traffic in our animation channel. Since the break up -- the pause of the Japanese animation, new episode releasing somehow influenced our animation traffic as well. And -- but in the future to cope well with this kind of possible risk, we will invest more on the domestic animation production. For the theatrical movies that we can -- everybody can see that for the half of the year, there is no theatrical movies release offline. That's also because of the we ranked #1 on the movie traffic compared to other platforms that this kind of shortage on the content supply that somehow influence us most regarding the theatrical movie. Good news is that the cinema already reopened from July 21. We expect that more and more movies will be released offline and possibly after 2 to 8 weeks, that it will be aired on the Internet as well. Possibly the national holiday will be the peak time for the theatrical movies' release. Also that to further better coordinate with the kind of the possible risk that we will invest more original movies, and the quality will to the same as the theatrical movies, and we will do more to cooperate with this kind of risk and build up our own self-produced movie confidence and independence as well.

[Xiaodong Wang:]

This is Xiaodong. I think a couple of weeks after the short seller report, we received inquiry from both Nasdaq and SEC, the inquiry on a confidential basis. However, we still voluntarily to disclose this inquiry at this time because we want to be transparent to all investors. That's basically the logic behind. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Ella Ji from China Renaissance.

[Ella Ji:]

So two questions relating to the membership services revenue. One is due to the delayed launch of some key drama shows and variety shows, in the later half of the summer break, I just wonder the seasonality for the rest of the year, so are we going to see a more balanced membership growth between 3Q and 4Q this year versus the prior year? And secondarily, management mentioned a few areas to increase the ARPU of your members. So just wonder what's the organic ARPU growth for your members.

[Xianghua Yang:]

[Lei Zhang:]

As our SVP of the Membership business, Mr. Yang Xianghua just answered the question that, yes, you're right. The Q3, normally the peak season for our traffic and the same as our subscriber additions. But normally, that it's also highly depending on our content supply as well. Some of the summer with really heat, blockbusters will have the higher traffic and subscriber additions, some are not. But for this year, that with the influence of the pandemic and also relatively shorter summer break that we cannot predict or anticipate precisely about the number of the net adds of the subscribers. But it's very clear that we are already seeing some rebound from the Q2 end. And we hope that the trend will continue for the increase. But again, this may some -- have some uncertainties on that. Thank you.

[Operator:]

And now we have Billy Leung from Haitong International.

[Billy Leung:]

[Xianghua Yang:]

[Lei Zhang:]

Thank you for the question regarding S-diamond membership. And yes, that from the May 23 that we launched our new membership package S-diamond membership to cater that -- our diversified membership proposition. It has -- since it has only launched for more than 1 month that until Q2, and we didn't see it account for too much on our relative very big massive user bases. So -- but it did meet our expectations, and we have the expectations on this to further improve our subscriber monetization. Thank you. Xiaodong will follow with the next questions.

[Xiaodong Wang:]

Regarding the internal review on the SEC's queries, I think you're right, it's been almost like 4 -- more than 4 months past. But you have to understand, it's internal, independent internal review. So we don't know exactly the result and the status right now. What I can tell you is the voluntary disclosure of this investigation itself actually shows the confidence of the management on the potential results of this internal review. And we do believe due to the solid and disciplined internal control process and the corporate governance we built in the past 10 years, and together with the corporate culture we're promoting in the company, we do believe the results will be quite positive to the company. That's our belief. And also, here, because a lot of people are asking similar questions. I just want everybody, including those non-Chinese speaking investors, I think you have to understand, unlike those short seller or the politicians, we are -- we have some -- we are people who create not destroy. We are someone who not interest. So I do believe and together under the lead of Dr. Gong Yu, we will be up again. We will show all the investors the quality of the company and the potential of the management. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Tian Hou from T.H. Capital.

[Tian Hou:]

So the first question is -- I want to see if the company can give some color on the S-diamond member and . So that's one. Number two is I have to doubt the member -- revenue per member, if that can actually sustain -- steadily support iQIYI, this kind of a market cap, if there are some other ways of accomplish much bigger monetization in addition to the member fee. So what's the thought on that from management? That's 2 questions.

[Xianghua Yang:]

[Lei Zhang:]

Mr. Xianghua will answer the first question. Yes that, you can see that we developed a variance of the subscriber fees and other monetization methods mostly to cater to different choices, options of our customers. I think that we have a massive user base. And this seems controversial but, fundamentally, it's not conflicted to each other at all. And that also that we will further explore possible monetization method to cater to our users' demand and without any, adverse feelings from our users. As we can see that exploring to -- for the subscribers or paying users that monthly, yearly that there's many exploring in the history. And until now that we can admit the current user change and the user willingness to pay for the content through other entertainment forms, the trend is clearly going up. And we can see not just us long-form videos, for the music and literature as well. People paying willingness is increasing that we are certain that paying is still the clear trend. And Dr. Yu will follow with the next question.

[Tim Gong:]

[Lei Zhang:]

Regarding our business model that we firmly believe that our major source of our revenue is still the subscriber revenue. That the subscriber revenue still cannot cover our cost, it's because the past 9 or 10 years intense competition. Currently, that our monthly fee is RMB 19.8. It is calculated and made by -- in the discussion between me and Xianghua a few years ago. We didn't have much of the benchmark regarding the industry at that moment. That's why we consider things that, reading the data, normal users in China, normal audience in China that normally will watch 4 movies per month. And the unlicensed DVD, they're buying at a price of RMB 5 for 1 disc. So combined together, it is RMB 20 for 1 month. That's why we made our price for the monthly fee at RMB 19.8. So it still is relatively low regarding., because of the competition, it cannot cover our content cost right now. So with other revenues together with advertising revenues because we have the different format of our advertisers, advertisement, some subscriber will -- advertisers, advertisement and also nonsubscriber advertisers as well with other added value, the monetization methods, including animation, literature and so on that we believe combined all of these revenues together, still we can achieve the profitability or cover our content at least. Thank you.

[Operator:]

The last question comes from the line of Bo Pei from Oppenheimer.

[Bo Pei:]

I will translate for myself. I want to know more about the 12 episode summer series like The Bad Kids had very good feedback in 2Q. And then I want to know in terms of ROI, is there any difference between the short drama series and the long one we used to produce more? And then in the future, is that a key area for us to invest?

[Xiaohui Wang:]

[Lei Zhang:]

Our Chief Content Officer, Xiaohui, just answered this question. That since that, we very appreciated that and very happy to receive the very positive feedback regard -- and better ROI on the -- from The Mist Theater since we launched it, and especially the titles you mentioned, The Bad Kids, and we definitely will invest more on this type of the intense suspense dramas and other themed theaters as well. But we will not -- of course, we will not invest less on the long or longer episode dramas as well because they have different expressions and different ways to attract our users. No matter long -- the longer episodes or the short episode, we definitely will continue to improve our capability to provide more high-quality content to our users. Mr. Yu Gong will also add some points on this topic.

[Tim Gong:]

[Lei Zhang:]

This kind of 12-episodes, short drama titles to that, the content cost per episode is a little bit higher than the longer episode drama. But the ability to attract subscribers is as strong as other form of the drama titles so that we can see a little bit better ROI for this kind of 12 episode drama. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Thank you. Now I would now like to hand the conference back to the management. Presenter, please continue.

[Lei Zhang:]

Thank you for joining us today. Thank you very much. Have a good day.

[Operator:]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.