Thank you, operator. Welcome to Weibo's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call.

Joining me today are our Chief Executive Officer, Gaofei Wang, and our Chief Financial Officer, Fei Cao. This conference call is also being broadcasted on the internet, and is available through Weibo's IR website.

Before the management remarks, I would like to read you the safe harbor statement in connection with today's conference call. During today's conference call, we may make forward-looking statements.

Statements that are not historical facts, including statements of our beliefs and expectations. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties.

A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from contained in any forward-looking statements. Weibo assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statement in this conference call and elsewhere.

Further information regarding this and other risks is included in Weibo's annual report on Form 20-F and other filings with the SEC. All the information provided in this press release is occurring as of the date hereof.

Weibo assumes no obligation to update such information, except as required under applicable law. Additionally, I would like to remind you that our discussion today includes certain non-GAAP measures, which exclude stock-based compensation and certain other expenses.

We use non-GAAP financial measures to gain a better understanding of Weibo's comparative operating performance and the future prospects. Our non-GAAP financials exclude certain expenses, gains or losses, and other items that are not expected to cash payment or are non-recurring in nature, or are not indicative of our core operating results and outlook.

Please refer to our press release for more information about our non-GAAP measures. Following management prepared remarks, we'll open the lines for a brief Q&A session.

With this, I would like to turn the call over to our CEO, Gaofei Wang. 谢谢。大家好。欢迎大家参加微博财报电话会议。

Thank you. Hello, everyone.

Welcome to Weibo's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call.

本次财报会，我向大家重点介绍微博2026年第二季度产品运营和商业化方面的进展。

On today's call, I will share with you highlights on Weibo's product and monetization in the second quarter 2026.

用户方面，截至二季度末，我们的月活跃用户达到5.61亿，日活跃用户达到2.54亿。由于我们今年主动调整了渠道投放策略，将预算重点由扩大获客转向提升渠道向活跃用户的转化效率。同时，首页信息流改版仍处于持续优化期内，部分低频用户需要一定时间适应。二季度日活跃用户同比小幅下降，环比基本持平。财务方面，二季度微博总营收为4.538亿美元，同比增幅2%。其中，广告营收3.81亿美元，同比下降1%。非广告营收7290万美元，同比增幅19%。广告业务虽然受到消费市场部分行业客户预算压力的影响，但汽车、互联网软件和应用、食品饮料等行业仍实现了同比不错的增长。明星营销相关的收入也保持了同比的增长。二季度，微博调整后营业利润为1.254亿美元，调整后营业利润率为28%。

On the user front, in June 2026, Weibo's MAUs reached 561 million, and average DAUs reached 254 million. This year, we have proactively rationalized our channel budget allocation strategy.

Instead of scaling up user acquisition, we shift our focus towards improving the conversion rate of newly acquired channel users into active users. Concurrently, as the homepage information feed revamp is still in the phase of continuous optimization, some low-frequency users will need time to adapt to changes.

As a result, our DAU base declined slightly year-over-year in June, but remained largely flat quarter-over-quarter. Now let me walk you through the financials.

Our total revenues in the second quarter reached $453.8 million, an increase of 2% year-over-year. Our total ad revenues reached $381 million, a decrease of 1% year-over-year.

VAS revenues reached $72.9 million, an increase of 19% year-over-year. Although our advertising business was impacted by the consumption market headwinds and tightened budget from advertisers in certain industries, advertising revenues from automobile, internet services, and food and beverage still achieved solid year-over-year growth this quarter.

Ad revenues from celebrity marketing also maintained year-over-year growth trends. Our non-GAAP operating income in the second quarter reached $125.4 million, representing a non-GAAP operating margin of 28%.

2026年，我们持续聚焦用户体验，提升平台的运营效率和内容质量，加大AI在产品运营上的投入力度，增强用户在微博的长期活跃和使用粘性。产品运营方面，我们将继续优化首页信息流，发挥微博在热点传播、社交互动和观点讨论上的优势，让用户打开微博后，能更及时地获取热点、值得讨论和传播的内容，以及与自身兴趣相关的优质内容。同时，我们也会继续完善视频、兴趣社区和搜索等核心场景，提升用户在内容消费、视频内容消费、兴趣互动和兴趣消费方面的体验，为平台长期竞争力提供支撑。AI今年在产品运营上的使用，也让我们在新功能、新产品的研发、运营策略优化方面看到了实在的成效。

In 2026, we'll continue to enhance user experience, improve platform operating efficiency and content quality, continuously stepping up AI investment in product operation, and strengthening user retention and long-term engagement. On the product and operation front, we'll continue to refine the homepage information feed.

By leveraging trending topic dissemination, social interaction, and hot topics discussion, we aim to ensure that users gain timely access to the key trending content, content worth discussing and sharing, as well as high-quality posts tailored to their interests when they access Weibo. Furthermore, we will continue to strengthen product capabilities across core consumption scenarios, such as video, interest-based community, and search, thereby enrich user experience in video content consumption, interest-driven interaction, and information discovery, and further enhance the platform's long-term competitiveness.

The use of AI in both product and operation this year has also delivered tangible results in new feature and product development, as well as operational strategy optimization. 在用户增长和活跃方面，二季度我们继续加强首页信息流的优化，在稳定关系流、社交消费体验的同时，重点增强推荐流在兴趣内容、热点内容和视频内容的分发和承接能力，让推荐流在提升内容消费效率的同时，进一步体现微博在社交、热点和观点讨论方面的差异化优势，增强用户打开和使用微博的意愿。

On the user growth and engagement front, we continue to optimize the homepage information feed product in the second quarter. While maintaining a stable social consumption experience in the relationship-based feed, we focus on strengthening the capability of interest-based feed to distribute relationship-based content, trending topics, and video content, and sustain user engagement and consumption.

By doing so, we aim to improve content matching efficiency while further highlighting Weibo's differentiated advantages in social interaction, trending topics, and opinion discussion, which ultimately increase users' willingness to open Weibo and stay engaged. 具体来看，随着推荐流分发能力逐步提升，平台对内容的组织和分发能力也进一步增强，用户强需求的一些社交内容、热点讨论和优质视频在推荐流内获得了更充分的曝光。在二季度带动了首页信息流在消费时长、互动用户规模和互动量的整体提升。与此同时，我们也看到部分低频用户对新的推荐流产品形态仍需要一定时间适应，他们的访问频次和留存恢复仍慢于大盘消费指标的改善，停留和留存面临一定挑战。后续，在优化产品体验、在提升推荐效率的同时，更好的兼顾不同用户的使用习惯，增强首页信息流对用户访问和长期活跃的支撑能力。

Specifically, with the continuous improvement of distribution capability of the interest-based feed, the platform has strengthened its ability to better organize and distribute content. Social content that users have a strong demand for, trending discussion, and high-quality video content received greater exposure through the interest-based feed.

This, in turn, drove overall increase in the time spent, the number of engaged users, and the interaction for the homepage information feed in the second quarter. At the same time, we have observed that for some low-frequency users, it still takes time to adapt to new product formats.

Thus, recovery of their visits frequency and retention continue to lag behind the improvement in overall consumption metrics, posing challenges in time spent and retention. Going forward, we'll continue to optimize product experience, keeping a better balance between improving recommendation efficiency and accommodating different users' habits, thereby strengthening the homepage feed's ability to drive user visits and long-term engagement.

视频业务方面，二季度我们继续从分发和供给两端推进优化，提升视频的消费效率，扩大优质视频的供给。在分发端，随着首页推荐能力的增强，平台可以更有效的识别和分发优质视频，并推动流量向平台鼓励的优质内容倾斜，减少低质视频对用户体验的影响。二季度，视频播放页消费时长同比保持两位数的增长，人均播放页消费时长增长更为明显，视频消费深度也进一步提升。在供给侧，二季度全端优质视频环比持续增长两位数。随着推荐流升级的逐步优化，优质视频的分发能力和消费规模的提升，我们今年也加大了对视频作者的拓展和运营策略的投入，通过完善视频作者的拓展机制，加强流量扶持和持续运营，逐步形成了更清晰的作者引入、生产和留存的路径。新入作者生产视频，无论生产规模和用户消费表现符合预期，正逐步形成生产和消费的正循环。 On the video front, in the second quarter, we continue to optimize video distribution and supply, with a focus on improving video consumption efficiency and expanding the supply of high-quality video content.

On the distribution side, with enhanced recommendation algorithm of interest-based feed, we were able to more effectively identify and distribute high-quality video content, shifting traffic towards the high-quality content. This helped reduce the negative impact of repetitive and low-quality videos on the user experience.

In the second quarter, total time spent on video views continued to grow double-digit year-over-year, and average time spent per user on video views grew even more meaningfully, indicating deeper video consumption. On the supply side, the supply of high-quality video content across the platform continued to grow double-digit quarter-over-quarter in the second quarter.

As the upgraded interest-based feed continued to drive greater distribution and consumption of high-quality video content, we further beefed up our efforts to expand the video content creator base and strengthen content operation. By improving our content creator acquisition mechanism, enhancing traffic support, and sustaining operation, we have gradually established a clearer framework for creator onboarding, content production, and creator retention.

As a result, the scale of video production from newly acquired content creators and their corresponding user consumption performance have largely met our expectations, and gradually forming a positive cycle between video content supply and consumption. 下半年，我们将进一步加大对优质视频作者的拓展，加速引入具备稳定生产能力和内容影响力的优质作者，并结合平台用户的消费需求，进行重点视频内容的推荐补充。与此同时，我们将通过持续运营，帮助视频作者更好的理解并契合微博平台的内容生态方向，形成稳定生产。随着优质视频供给规模的扩大，推荐系统也能更好的理解用户的视频消费偏好，提升优质内容和目标用户的匹配效率。通过同步改善作者供给、内容分发和消费承接，视频业务将对用户的使用时长、长期活跃和商业化效率形成更持续的支撑，也将进一步提升平台内容生态的活力和竞争力。

In the second half of this year, we will further step up our efforts to expand our video creator base, accelerating the onboarding of high-quality creators with stable production capabilities and strong content influence. We'll also leverage traffic support to strategically supplement key video content in alignment with our users' consumption needs.

At the same time, through ongoing operation, we will help video content creators better understand the type of content that resonate on Weibo's platform, and establish consistent production. As the supply of high-quality video content expands, the recommendation algorithm will also be able to better understand users' video consumption preference, improving the efficiency of matching quality content with targeted users.

By simultaneously improving video creator supply, content distribution, and content consumption, the video business will more sustainably drive user time spent, long-term engagement, and monetization efficiency, while further enhancing the vitality and competitiveness of the platform's content ecosystem.

内容生态竞争力方面，2026年我们围绕热点、社交、搜索三大核心业务，重点提升内容生态的健康度和核心竞争力。

Moving on to content ecosystem competitiveness. Throughout 2026, we'll continue to focus on three core areas: trending topics, social network, and search, while further enhancing the health and core competitiveness of our content ecosystems.

社交方面，超话是微博的核心兴趣社区，也是强化兴趣社交竞争力的重要场景。二季度，我们围绕不同兴趣社区的核心需求，加快产品迭代，增强微博在兴趣社交场景中的竞争力。例如，在明星超话中，我们完善签到，推出明星纪念册功能以及线上线下的联动玩法。在体育和电竞超话中，推出赛事点评、打分和讨论功能，并结合世界杯强化用户认知，带动了体育超话用户规模的明显增长。这些玩法进一步促进用户从纯内容消费向互动和深度参与转化，带动超话二季度日活跃用户规模和讨论用户规模同比两位数的提升。 On social attributes, Super Topic is a core interest-based community on Weibo and an important area for strengthening our competitiveness in the interest-based social engagement.

In the second quarter, we accelerated product and feature iteration around the core needs of users across different interest-based communities, aiming to further reinforce Weibo's competitiveness in the interest-based social scenarios. For example, in celebrity Super Topics, we enhanced the checking experience and introduced a celebrity commemorative album feature, as well as online to offline engagement initiatives.

In sports and e-sports Super Topics, we introduced features for event reviews, ratings, and discussion, and leveraged the World Cup to strengthen user awareness, driving a significant increase in the sports Super Topics user base. These new features further encouraged users to move from content consumption to interaction and deeper participation.

As a result, both daily active users and the number of users participating in discussion on Super Topics saw double-digit year-over-year growth in the second quarter.

搜索方面，在去年搜索产品规模化覆盖的基础上，今年我们的重点进一步转向提升多轮对话能力的使用深度，并将AI搜索更自然的融入内容消费场景。二季度，我们继续增强多轮对话功能对上下文和用户意图的理解，并重点在热点、人物和IP等具微博差异化内容优势的场景提升搜索体验。同时，我们正在把搜索入口更深入的嵌入博文、视频和热点浏览路径，及时承接用户在内容消费过程中产生的搜索需求，持续提升用户搜索信息的效率和体验。

On search, building on the scaled rollout of Weibo intelligent search last year, our focus this year has shifted further toward deepening the use of multi-turn conversations and integrating AI search more naturally into content consumption experience. In the second quarter, we continue to enhance intelligent search's ability to understand context and user intent in multi-turn conversations, with a particular focus on enhancing the search experience in areas where Weibo has differentiated content trends, such as trending topics, public figures, and IPs.

At the same time, we are embedding search entry points more deeply into users' journey for browsing posts, videos, and trending topics, allowing us to promptly address search needs as they arise during content consumption and continue to improve the efficiency and user experience of information discovery.

商业化方面，上半年我们的广告产品和销售聚焦在两大策略：一是推动微博独特的内容营销价值向更多的行业和客户渗透；二是结合AI能力，系统性的提升广告的消耗转换能力。二季度，国内消费市场复苏的节奏偏弱，行业和我们客户之间的经营分化较为明显。部分客户仍面临终端需求恢复有限、行业竞争加剧以及成本和利润压力上升等挑战。因此在营销预算上更加谨慎，更关注投放的确定性和转化回报。尽管微博的新品发布、明星营销、赛事营销等产品中具备较强的预算承接能力，但一定程度上受这些因素影响，微博广告业务二季度阶段性承压，同比下降1%。

On monetization, in the first half of the year, our advertising product and sales team focused on two key strategies. First, we sought to bring Weibo unique content marketing value to more industries and advertisers.

Second, we systematically enhanced advertising performance and conversion through AI integration. In the second quarter, the recovery in the domestic consumption market remained relatively subdued, with divergent trends across industries and advertisers.

Some advertisers continue to face challenges, such as limited recovery in consumption demand, intensifying industry competition, and rising cost and margin pressures. As a result, they become more cautious with their marketing budgets, placing greater emphasis on the measurable returns and ROI certainty.

Although Weibo continued to be well-positioned to capture advertising budgets in areas such as new product launch, celebrity marketing, and sports event marketing, these aforementioned factors weighed on our advertising business to a certain extent. Consequently, Weibo's ad revenue experienced temporary pressure in the second quarter, and decreased 1% year-over-year.

分行业来看，汽车行业受新能源车型密集发布带动，广告收入实现同比增幅。互联网软件及应用行业主要受益于AI以及软件服务类客户对于消耗转化和内容传播需求的提升，广告收入也保持了增长。食品饮料行业实现增长，主要因为世界杯、明星营销和重点新品的推广带动，投放带动。与此同时，部分行业仍面临一定压力。电商行业在历经去年较为激烈的竞争后，逐步回归常态。尽管618期间整体广告投放保持稳定，但去年部分业务线形成的较高收入基数，对今年增长带来明显的压力。手机行业则受成本和利润压力的影响，整体广告预算有所收缩，在微博在该行业的预算份额基本保持稳定。针对客户的预算趋势，下半年我们将重点完善内容营销相关产品和服务能力，通过更标准化的产品方案和更便捷的投放工具，降低客户在内容策划、资源配置和信息流投放等环节的使用门槛，进一步提升微博获取客户预算的能力。

By industry, advertising revenue from the automobile sector grew year-over-year, driven by intensive launch of new energy vehicles. The internet service sector continued to brook solid growth, primarily benefiting from the increased demand among AI and software service advertisers for performance-driven advertising and content distribution.

The food and beverage sector also delivered growth, mainly fueled by the World Cup, celebrity marketing, and the promotion of key new products. On the flip side, some industry continue to face headwinds.

Following intense competition last year, the e-commerce sector has gradually returned to a more normal market condition. Despite overall stable ad spend during the June 18th Shopping Festival, the relatively high revenue base from certain business lines last year posted noticeable pressure on the revenue growth this year.

In the handset sector, overall ad budget contracted amid cost and margin pressure, but Weibo's wallet share within the sector remained largely stable. In light of advertisers' budget trends, in the second half of the year, we will focus on further strengthening our content marketing product and services.

By offering more standardized product solutions and more convenient advertising tools, we aim to lower the barrier for advertisers across content planning, resource allocation, and information feed placement, thereby further enhancing Weibo's ability to capture ad budgets.

在上述营销场景中，明星营销是我们二季度重点推进的方向之一，我们也看到客户对明星营销的需求仍在增长。上半年，我们不仅承接客户在微博的明星传播投放，也进一步前置参与部分客户明星营销方案的设计和资源匹配，围绕品牌诉求和传播目标提供更完整的服务。通过适度的资源投入和服务能力提升，带动客户持续加大在微博明星营销上的投入。以王老吉与哈兰德的合作为例，结合客户的品牌定位和世界杯的营销节点，我们协助完成明星资源匹配，并联动品牌方、明星方，围绕赛事热点开展内容共创和传播运营。世界杯期间，哈兰德相关话题在微博获得了广泛关注，话题阅读量超50亿，讨论量超140万。王老吉也借助明星内容与世界杯讨论，进一步提升了品牌曝光和用户关注。在这个过程中，微博将明星资源、赛事热点和社交讨论有效整合，为客户提供从资源匹配、内容共创到传播运营一体化服务，帮助品牌将单一的明星合作延长为持续的内容声量和品牌关注。

Among these marketing scenarios, celebrity marketing was one of our key focus areas in the second quarter. We are pleased with the growing demand from advertisers for celebrity marketing.

In the first half of the year, we not only supported advertisers with celebrity marketing campaigns on Weibo, but also became involved earlier in campaign planning and resource matching, providing more comprehensive services aligned with their brand objectives and communication goals. Leveraging measured resource investment and enhanced service capabilities, we successfully expanded their ad spend on celebrity marketing products.

Taking Wanglaoji's partnership with Erling Haaland as an example, we helped match the brand with the right celebrity resource, and worked with both the brand and the celebrity to co-create content and drive engagement around key event-related topics. During the World Cup, topics related to Erling Haaland attracted broader attention on Weibo, generating over 5 billion topic views and 1.4 million discussions.

Wanglaoji also further enhanced its brand exposure and user engagement, thanks to the celebrity content and World Cup-related discussion. During the campaign, Weibo effectively integrated celebrity resources, event-related trending topics, and social discussion to provide the advertiser with one-stop services spanning resources matching, content co-creation, and campaign execution.

This empowered the brand to extend a single celebrity collaboration into sustained content buzz and brand exposure.

在广告产品方面，我们持续将AI能力应用于商业广告关键环节，围绕创意供给、智能投放和素材质量治理，持续提升客户投放效率和用户广告体验。二季度，随着视频生成模型能力进一步成熟，我们为视频素材相对不足的电商客户提供自动化的创意生成能力。在AI素材生产端，二季度目标商品的AI视频生产覆盖率和生成素材的可用率均有所提升，AI生成素材的生产效率和质量持续改善。在实际投放端，AI生成素材在信息流竞价广告中的消耗占比持续提升，6月份达到了50%。与此同时，我们通过AI识别低质和高负反馈的广告素材，进行针对性的优化。在电商行业，AI优化后的素材负反馈率较客户原始素材下降超过30%，有效改善了广告内容的用户消费体验。后续，我们将持续完善广告创意的质量评估能力，并根据不同投放场景优化AI创意的生成和投放，让生成素材更贴近客户的需求和用户的消费场景，进一步提升广告效果和投放效率。

On advertising products, Weibo continued to apply AI across key stages of advertising process, focusing on creative supply, intelligent ad placement, and creative quality management to improve advertisers' campaign efficiency and user experience. In the second quarter, driven by the advancement of video generation models, we automatically generated viable ad creatives for e-commerce advertisers facing a shortage of video materials, resulting in solid improvement in the coverage and usability of AI-produced videos for target products, with continued gains in efficiency and quality of AI-creative production.

On the ad placement front, the consumption share of AI-generated ad creatives in the promoted feed ad offerings and real-time bidding system continued to increase, reaching 50% in June. Meanwhile, we used AI to identify ad creatives with low quality and those generating high levels of negative feedback, and applied targeted optimization accordingly.

In the e-commerce sector, AI-optimized materials saw a drop of over 30% in negative feedback rate, compared with clients' original materials, effectively enhancing the user experience in ad content consumption. Going forward, leveraging an increasingly mature creative quality evaluation system and implementing differentiated generation strategies for various distribution scenarios, we aim to continuously improve the adaptability of creatives to their respective scenarios.

With these initiatives, we hope to further improve advertising performance and campaign efficiency. 目前来看下半年，我们认为消费市场修复仍需一定时间，客户面临的成本、利润及行业竞争压力将持续，广告预算竞争仍较为激烈。同时，去年三季度的外卖大战带来了较高的阶段性收入基数，而本届世界杯受主要比赛时段和广告主投放意愿等因素影响，对商业预算的增量拉动也弱于上一届。上述因素预计对三季度我们广告收入的同比表现带来一定压力。面对这一市场环境，我们将继续加强微博差异化商业服务能力的建设，紧跟客户的营销需求和预算结构的变化，进一步强化内容营销优势和广告效果转化能力，提升对客户确定性预算的承接能力，稳定整体收入的基本盘。

Looking ahead to the second half of the year, we believe the recovery in consumer demand will take some time, while pressure on advertisers from cost, profitability, and industry competition is likely to persist. Competition for advertising budgets is also expected to remain intense.

It's worth mentioning that the food delivery price war in the third quarter of last year created a relatively high revenue base for comparison. Moreover, due to factors such as primary match broadcast times and the advertiser dynamics during this year's World Cup, the incremental boost to the related ad budget was lower than that of the previous tournament.

These factors are expected to put some pressure on year-over-year advertising revenue growth in the third quarter. Faced with this market environment, we'll continue to invest in building Weibo's differentiated commercial service capabilities, keep pace with shifts in clients' marketing needs and budget structures, reinforce our content marketing value proposition and ad conversion effectiveness, and enhance our capability to capture clients' ad budgets with more certainty to stabilize our overall ad revenue base.

接下来，让我转给曹菲，介绍二季度的财务结果。 With that, let me turn the call over to Fei Cao for a financial review.

Thank you, Gaofei, and hello, everyone. Welcome to Weibo's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call.

Let's start with user metrics. In June 2026, Weibo's MAUs and average DAUs reached 561 million and 254 million respectively.

During this quarter, our user strategy continued to focus on improving user quality, driving retention, and deepening engagement. While MAUs saw a modest sequential decline, DAUs remained resilient and broadly stable quarter-over-quarter.

We continued to see solid engagement among our core users, along with improving consumption and engagement in the recommendation feed. Video consumption also continued to improve, supported by better content distribution within our revamped feed.

AI continued to serve as an important enabler across our product, content, and monetization systems, helping us better understand user interests, improve ad targeting and delivery, and enhance operating efficiency. Turning to financials.

As a reminder, my prepared remarks will focus on non-GAAP results. All monetary amounts are in US dollars, and all comparisons are on a year-over-year basis, unless otherwise noted.

Now let me walk you through our financial highlights for the second quarter 2026. Weibo's second quarter 2026 net revenues were $453.8 million, an increase of 2% or a decrease of 4% on constant currency basis.

Operating income was $125.4 million, representing operating margin of 28%. Net income attributable to Weibo reached $102.7 million, and diluted EPS was 38 cents US dollar.

Let me give you more color on the second quarter 2026 revenue performance. Weibo's advertising and marketing revenues for the second quarter 2026 were $381 million, a decrease of 1% or 6% on constant currency basis.

The decrease was mainly reflecting softer demand in certain key advertising verticals, and was partially offset by the favorable foreign exchange impact on reported numbers on a year-over-year basis. By industry, our top three verticals were FMCG, e-commerce, and automobile.

In terms of growth, internet services and automobile were primary contributors. Despite softness in overall automobile sales, ad revenues from the auto sector delivered solid year-over-year growth, supported by Weibo's strong content ecosystem and frequent new energy vehicle launches during the quarter.

Advertising revenues from internet companies also increased, driven by stronger marketing demand for AI-related products and services as leading internet platforms increased marketing activities around their AI offerings. As for industries facing headwinds, the handset sector remained under pressure in the second quarter.

Softer ad demand continued to weigh on smartphone shipments, while rising component costs put additional pressure on handset manufacturers' profitability and marketing budgets. As a result, advertising revenues from the sector declined year-over-year.

The FMCG sector saw divergent performance during the quarter. Food and beverage delivered solid growth, benefiting from the early release of World Cup-related marketing budgets during the quarter.

The cosmetics vertical remained soft, as certain international brands reduced marketing spend amid weak sales and intensified competition. In addition, game developers remained cautious on advertising spend amid continued softness in the online game market.

By ad product, promoted feed ads remained our largest format, followed by social display ads, and search and topic ads. eCPM continued to improve both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter, supported by deeper AI integration in creative generation, targeting, and bidding.

These improvements helped enhance ad delivery efficiency and advertiser ROI. Our IP and content marketing solutions also continued to see solid demand.

Ad revenues from Alibaba for the second quarter were $39.2 million, an increase of 10% or 3% on constant currency basis. During the quarter, higher spending on AI-related activities more than offset softer spending in local services.

As we have noted previously, Alibaba's advertising spend on Weibo is closely tied to its own marketing priorities and pace of product launches, which may therefore vary from quarter to quarter. Value-added service revenues were $72.9 million in the second quarter, an increase of 19% or 12% on constant currency basis.

The increase was primarily driven by one-off ticket portions from offline activities held by Weibo, solid growth from membership services, as well as favorable foreign exchange impact on reported numbers on a year-over-year basis. Turning to costs and expenses.

Total costs and expenses for the second quarter were $328.4 million, an increase of 16%, mainly due to higher ad production costs and marketing expenses. Operating income in the second quarter was $125.4 million, representing operating margin of 28%, compared to 36% in the same period last year.

Turning to income tax under GAAP. Income tax expenses for the second quarter were $23 million, compared to $31.7 million last year, mainly due to lower income before taxes.

Net income attributable to Weibo in the second quarter was $102.7 million, representing a net margin of 23%. Turning to our balance sheet and cash flow items.

As of June 30th, 2026, Weibo's cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments totaled $2.64 billion, compared to $2.41 billion as of December 31st, 2025. In the second quarter, cash provided by operating activities was $15.5 million.

The decrease in operating cash flow for the quarter was primarily resulted from settlement of corporate income taxes, collection schedule of receivables, as well as payment schedule of annual rebates, compared with prior quarter. Capital expenditures totaled $3.1 million, and depreciation and amortization expenses amounted to $15.7 million.

We remain disciplined in capital allocation, with measured capital spending and continued support to shareholder returns. We close the first half of 2026 with continued progress across our product, content, and monetization initiatives.

While softer consumer demand and intensified industry competition continued to weigh on advertising demand, we are encouraged by measurable improvements from our product revamp and AI initiatives, particularly in user engagement and advertising efficiency. Entering the second half, we will focus on advertising opportunities with better budget visibility, while carefully managing the pace of investment and maintaining our focus on operating efficiency.

Our priority remains to balance near-term with sustainable profitability and financial flexibility, while strengthening the foundation for Weibo's long-term development. With that, let me now turn the call over to the operator for the Q&A session.

Great. Thank you, management, for taking my question.

I think my question is regarding the outlook of the advertising revenue into the second half of this year. Just wondering, can management share more detail on your expectations on the ad revenue growth and what is the trend for different sub-sectors, and what is the latest updates on your advertising strategy?

More specifically on AI, just wondering if you can share more color on how AI has increased the overall eCPM of the advertising business, and what other operating metrics that you may share? 晚上好，高飞总、曹总，那感谢接受我的提问。那我的问题是关于微博今年下半年的广告的展望，以及各个行业的一个增速的预期。那包括我们今年下半年在广告策略上面有哪些更新可以值得分享的。另外和AI相关，可否再分享一下我们看到的一些广告指标的一些变化，比如说像eCPM，以及其他的我们追踪的比较关键的指标最近的一些更新情况？谢谢。

OK.

谢谢。我首先说一下下半年的预期。就是刚才二季度其实我简单的说了，就是二季度来讲的话呢，整个其实我们除了汽车，包括食品饮料这些行业，包括APP行业在增长之外，其实很多行业还是比较承压的。那主要还是因为我觉得国内目前的整个消费的压力的问题导致客户预算是有所缩减。Gordon。

Yeah. Thank you very much for the question.

I'd like to talk about my expectations over the second half of this year. As I have already stated just now for the performance in Q2, except for some of the verticals that were increasing in the performance, for instance, automotive and food and beverages, for the rest of the other verticals, we did see some of the stressful situations.

It was because of the overall macroeconomic especially on consumption, we had seen some of the pressure. The customers were decreasing their budget on advertisement.

Okay.

那从下半年来看的话呢，我们会看客户市场上还是有一定的不确定性。就是首先从主要几个行业，汽车来看的话呢，大家也都看到汽车整个行业的销量的趋势今年还是跌幅比较大的。那但是因为今年的新能源车车型上市比较多，那微博在新产品宣发包括发布方面还是有比较强竞争力的。那所以说我们汽车行业的广告还是保持不错的增幅。我们预计下半年这个增幅应该还是可以继续保持。Gordon。

Let's talk about some of the performance in the second half of the year. There are still a lot of uncertainties.

First, in terms of the automotive industry, we did see the less sales, and also poorer performance in terms of the sales and production of the first half of the year. Still, in the first half of the year, we did see a lot of launches and new energy launch and available to the market.

Weibo is actually a very strong platform in doing the advertisement for the new product launches and new product availability. You can see that on this front, we did see actually an increase in ad revenue for that, and that particular increasement and that particular momentum could be kept until the second half of the year.

Okay. 那另外就是互联网软件和应用服务这部分，我们预计下半年的情况和上半年类似。但是也是会看到客户对于预算和ROI要求越来越高，我估计下半年的增幅可能不会有上半年那么多，但是应该可以保持稳定或者略有增长，这是互联网和软件应用领域。手机行业其实上半年出现了下降，毫无疑问这也是因为大家会看到我们一些手机客户本身的财报，他的利润跌幅是比较多的，销量大概我们会看整个行业除了苹果之外，跌幅大概都在两位数左右。那下半年的话呢，因为我们会看到新产品的发布虽然会有所增加，但是我们也在观望今年9月份苹果的发布会是不是可以带来其他行业新品在类似一些中高端机型上的投入。所以说我们对三季度的手机行业还不是很乐观，但是对于四季度的我们再观察吧。对，Gordon。

Next, I would like to talk about the internet industry, especially the vertical of the software and application services. We believe that the second half of the year will be quite similar to that of the year.

Still, because the customers are having higher requirements over the ROI, as well as the allocated the budgets on advertisements. As a result, we do not expect too much of the growth in the second half of the year.

I believe that this particular industry, the software and application services are going to be having a flat performance or a little bit increase in the second half of the year. Next vertical is the handset industry.

In the first half of the year, we did see the down performance, and mainly due to the decrease for most of the customers. Except for Apple, the rest of the other handset makers were having double-digit decrease in terms of the total performance.

In the second half of the year, of course, we might be expecting some of the new products launch in the market. Still we are observing that in September for the Apple new product launch event, whether or not this is going to trigger more allocation of the budgets from the other handset makers to launch or to allocate to the new product availability, the medium to high-ends of the products.

In Q3, we have the not that optimistic view on this handset industry, but still keep in observation into the Q4 performance of this year.

Okay. 那我觉得下半年压力最大的，我们会看还是在电商和外卖这个行业，因为去年因为外卖大战其实主要发生在三季度和一部分四季度。那所以说对我们去年下半年的收入基数还是有一些比较大的影响的。那这部分今年我们会看到几乎已经比去年有一个非常明显的一个下降了。而且到下半年我估计可能这个国家反内卷的影响可能厂商就是这几家平台可能这方面的竞争可能会更弱一些，所以说对我们的广告预期我们现在放的是非常非常低的，或者几乎就没有放。对，那所以说这部分具体在四季度会不会有所回暖，我们还不好说，所以说我们现在放的预期是非常低对于本地生活外卖这部分。Gordon。

Next, in the second half of the year, we have some of the really bad expectations over the industries of e-commerce and the food delivery as well. That last year primarily the food delivery price war was happening in about Q3 and Q4.

That actually did have a lot of impacts on the ad revenues to this. This year still, we have been seeing some stressful situations.

In the second half of the year, I believe that the anti-involution policies from Chinese government would continue on this one. This is going to be weakening this competition among different food delivery brands.

As a result, this was impacting our overall ad budget of this year as well. It is still uncertain for the industries like the local service or local lifestyle and also food delivery and e-commerce, etc.

We had actually low expec-.

Okay. 好，另外关于广告策略这部分我们分开来看啊，就是说首先从效果广告层面就是本身ECPM环比是有一定的提升的，但是我觉得目前来看的话，这个提升并不能代表太多对于效果广告本身的一个收入增长。因为刚才我介绍了我们目前的策略其实还是因为我们在过去一年里面我们产品的结构发生了比较大的变化。那这部分呢其实在我们的核心用群里面和我们的低频用户里面还是有一定的影响。我们在去年下半年特别是今年上半年做了非常多的工作去优化这部分，这里面包括对于用户的广告的一些影响。广告对于用户体验的影响，一些用户负反馈率比较高的或者用户体验不好的广告，我们其实今年采取了比较坚决的措施让这些广告主去清除，减少这些广告对于一些低频用户的曝光。那所以说这部分的库存其实说白了是有一定的压力的。那这部分来讲的话呢，我们下半年随着我们用户的时长和用户互动的增加，我们在逐步在释放这个库存。但是这个ECPM提升并不代表现在客户的需求在平台里面在大幅增长，某种程度上也是我们库存主动有意缩减带来的一些影响。Gordon。

On this particular ad-related strategies, first of all, in terms of the performance-based ads, of course, we did see an eCPM increase, but quarter-by-quarter. That does not represent that the ad revenue was going to also increase, because last year we had a lot of restructuring of the ad products.

That did impact some of the core users. In the first half of this year and also second half of last year, we have been doing some of the optimizations of this part.

For instance, in terms of this bad user experience of the ads and some of the negative experienced products, have some elimination process conducted. Reduce the exposure of those low-frequency ad users or low-frequency users' exposure.

That caused a stressful situation to our ad logs. In the second half of the year, while we are seeing a tendency of increased time users spent and also the kind of other relevant situations, we are expecting to have a little bit improvement, but still, and also a little bit release of the ad log to this.

Still, the eCPM a little bit increase does not represent an overall gross momentum of this site.

Okay. 那品牌广告方面，其实eCPM并不代表，因为那是一个定价体系，其实我们更关注品牌广告还是看售卖率。那如果能够看我们目前的用户和流量，那今年慢慢在回正的话，其实如果跟搜索相比，其实我们的售卖率是在一定程度的产生下降，比如因为我们线为一些最头部的客户，其实他由于市场竞争的影响，他的需求或者他的预算削减，会直接影响到我们品牌广告的售卖率。这也是我们为什么会说我们会现在花比较多的资源去辅做明星营销，包括内容营销的一个原因。因为当我们去拓展我们中部的客户，比如说在微博投放可能在500万到2000万这个中部的客户的时候，那其实明星营销是促使客户把他的主要预算阵地放在微博的一个非常明显的抓手。比如说在这个世界杯期间这个哈兰德的合作，其实就是通过这样明星的合作，让王老吉把他的一个主要的营销阵地放在了微博。他会大大促进我们他对于我们品牌广告的需求。所以说我们不管明星营销还是内容营销，其实是一个抓手，让平台可以更多的去获取我们的中腰部客户，让他们更多的销售机会、销售线索放在微博里面来做品牌营销。这是我们目前的在品牌营销、内容营销方面的一个主要的策略。其实核心还是要提升我们品牌资源的售卖率。这是我觉得在目前来讲的话，主要今年的一部一个策略变化。Gordon。

In terms of the brand-based ad, we can see that except for having an optimized pricing schemes, we believe that the most important parameter here is the sell-through rate of core resources. You can see that this particular parameter has been showing a decline tendency if we're comparing that with the ad revenue trend.

Because of the decrease the demand from our ad users or ad customers side. Of course, at this current stage, that's the very reason why we are now trying to actually focus more on the celebrity-based or KOL-based marketing or the content-based marketing.

Especially for those ad customers that may actually have the budget of between 5 million and 20 million, I believe that the KOL-based marketing would be the best option for these customers, and they're going to be putting most of their available budget or ad budget with Weibo, so that, for instance, especially the example of Wanglaoji of having most of their budget left on the Weibo platform to actually use the KOL marketing, because this is going to help them to actually really help to catch the attentions of those medium-level users and the consumers. This is actually going to help us to increase also the budget attraction as well as the ad revenue on this front.

The very important core part is to improve the parameter of the sell-through rate for the core resources.

好，谢谢。OK。

Thank you.

谢谢管理层给予的提问机会。那能否请您就是分享一下我们目前用户增长以及活跃的一个趋势，包括内容时长、频次等等方面。以及这个视频策略和AI方面目前的一个进展，以及我们下半年的一个侧重点。So let me translate myself. Could you please provide an update on user growth and engagement trends, including content consumption, time spent, and usage frequency, etc.?

In addition, in terms of our video-lization strategy and AI initiatives, could you please share the latest progress and the main areas of focus for the second half of the year? Thank you.

OK，那我前两个季度也主要说了，我们去年其实产品做了一些比较大的一个调整。那今年上半年呢，去年下半年压力是比较大的，其实对于我们的核心用群包括低频用户，其实这个调整都还是比较剧烈。那他们虽然说有些效率指标在上升，但是其实部分用户其实是有一些习惯上的压力的。那今年来看的话呢，就是整个的核心用群，不管他的整体的时长还是说我们的互动都是在明显的开始回升。但是我们的低频用户其实还是有一定的压力的，跟去年相比。那这里面有两方面的原因，一方面来讲的话呢，我觉得是今年我们我们其实主要的一个渠道以往是来自于手机的预装，但是今年的预装出货量其实还是有比较明显的一个下降的。这对于我们去拉低频用户其实还是造成了比较大的压力，那这部分year to year大概下降在10%左右吧。然后另外来讲的话呢，就是当我们的整体的产品变成以推荐流为主的时候，我们的这样一个产品相对于其他竞品而言，对于低频用户就没有什么明显的差异了。那这些低频用户本身的留存其实对我们来讲也是个挑战，这也是我们在今年上半年包括下半年重点去优化的一个方向。Gordon。

For this question, first of all, for the previous two quarters of this year, we did see, as I have already indicated just now, we have some of the adjustments of our product structure. In the last year second half, this did have some low-frequency users as well, especially because of the changes of their using habits.

This year, of course, in terms of the core users, we did see a very good trend of increasing the time spent on Weibo as well as the interactivity with Weibo. Still, this is quite stressful for the low-frequency users still.

Because of two reasons. First reason is that previously we were pretty much in the focus on the pre-installed app of Weibo in those handsets.

This year we had lower shipments of those handsets with the pre-installed app. That did help us to impact the overall parameter of attraction of new users using this pre-installed app.

This had around 10% of impact onto our overall business. Second reason is that now at the current stage we are primarily focusing on the recommendation-based feed.

Because of that, is we're competing with our peers, we do not see that much of a difference if you're talking about the low-frequency users attraction. That did give us actually a quite stressful situation.

I believe that in the second half of this year, we are going to focus on this particular issue and hope to have some better achievements in the second half of the year. Okay.

那对于从下半年来看的话，我们对于整体首页信息流的时长包括用户互动的增长、大盘的增长还是有信心的。但是对于低频用户，其实下半年能不能转正，这是我们目前主要工作的一个方向，这方面还是有一定压力的。那视频方面来看的话呢，刚才这个Sandra也介绍了，整体从时长方面，包括视频的生产和消费其实都是双位数以上的一个增长。那今年其实我们从二季度开始，因为这样一个增幅起来之后，我们开始花比较多的资源和投入去拓展在外的视频用户进入微博。我去年应该讲过，就是我们过去几年里面，就是我们也尝试了比较多的经营去拓展新的账号，但是对于微博原来这样一个以关系流为主的平台，其实它新的账号进入微博是比较难成长起来的。当我们切到现在的以推荐流体系之后，我们就可以拿出来更多的一个流量去激励这些新的博主。那这个是今年其实重点的一个工作。上半年这个工作在视频号上其实增长的非常不错的，下半年这方面的投入可能会变得更多。对，Gordon。

Next part is about the video-related consumption. As we have already stated in this prepared remarks, the time spent on the Weibo video and production as well as the consumption of Weibo video, we did see actually double-digit growth on these parameters.

Especially after Q2, we did see some of the particular resources and investments invested by us in order to attract those video users or video accounts to be created enter the Weibo or we are attracting the video content creators from other platforms to enter the Weibo platform. Of course, in the past, it was quite difficult to actually create the new accounts if it was purely based on the relationship-based feed.

At the current stage, we're now converting to the recommendations that based feed. That really give us the advantage of giving more traffic to those video content creators, so that they are more willing to opening account on our Weibo platform.

I believe that at the current stage the overall trend is pretty good in terms of the video content created and also the consumption as well. We are going to keep investing on this front.

Okay.

那这些视频账号从二季度的情况来看的话，我们大概拓展了不到1万个。那它的留存率其实跟之前就是前两年相比，现在的留存率提升到了大概70%左右。也就是用户经过一季度之后，还在还在每周更新视频的这个比例，其实可以70%的能够留下来。那这个短时间之内呢其实会提，因为我们拓展这些用户一部分是通过一定的激励，另外方面主要通过广告分成。那现在来看的话呢，这个ROI在当在今年年底，就是当年之内我们认为可以打平到70%到100%，对。但是我们目标是在70%左右，也就是说我们今年这部分这部分拓展账号带来了广告库存，我们给了分成了，可以cover它大概70%的成本，估计到明年来的话呢，才是一个完全的一个增量的一个收益。所以对今年的毛利可能会有一定程度的负向的影响，但会看这些账号进来之后给我们带来更多的视频生产，带来更多的广告库存和用户的粘性，其实对我们长期的收益还是有，同时给我们贡献更多的广告库存还是有比较正向的帮助。Gordon。

In terms of the number of those video content creators at the current state or accounts, at current stage, it is amounting to around 10,000 of them. In terms of the retention rate, it is about 70% or so, meaning that those accounts keep updating the video-related contents now.

This and second part is about incentives that we are providing to those content creators or the video content creators. The ROI then was about 70% to 100%.

This did help to contribute a lot to the ad log of the current year. Also, of course, that we believe in terms of the impact of this part to the gross margin of Weibo of a little bit negative.

Still, if you're talking about 那在AI方 Sorry.

OK. 那在

Sorry, sorry, sorry. 好，那我直接说。Hello。

Yeah. Yes.

I think that now I would like to talk a little bit about the intelligent search, Weibo intelligent search. We've been launching this in the past years, and especially the agentic AI and AI intelligent search.

In terms of the year-on-year performance, we did see actually an increase. Here, if you're talking about the quarter-by-quarter performance, this did have some of the negative trend.

Still, in Q1, we had a massive update of the capabilities of LLM, and stage, we are focusing on the upgrading of the technology, as well as improving the user experience, especially changing the user behaviors from those fixed box-based and typing the kind of a search to an interactive search and Q&A-based search or the introduction-based or guidance or guided search on this front. Hopefully that we are going to see a very positive overall trend of this particular user behavior and some of the other relevant areas.

Okay. 那另外，AI在产品和研发和运营方面我简单说一下。其实核心来讲的话，大家在很多公司可能都看到，其实AI对于产品研发的速度还是有明显的一个提升的。那在我们的公司里面，其实在核心产品里面，其实没有太多可以分享的，因为都是日常的使用。但是在一些，比如说超话这样的产品，可能以前它的产研的投入并不大，那它的主要的研发可能也主要能支撑一些比较核心的超话的运营活动的支撑。但是呢现在因为效率的提升，让更多的这种不管是明星的还是游戏的还是体育的超话，都可以量身定制一些超话的子应用。那这种方式其实带动了这些用户的参与和活跃，这也是我们会看到二季度开始超话，其实今年来讲超话基本上会接近一个历史的峰值，那主要还是来自于这些每个超话的个性化的玩法的不断增加。Gordon。

Next part is about the AI application and its overall impact to enhance the R&D efficiency, operation, and maintenance as well. At the current stage, we did see some of the positive impacts of AI use to facilitate the R&D of the products.

In terms of the core product R&D, there is not much to be shared, because this is actually kind of quite standardized. Especially on the product of the Super Topics, I think that this is really important in my opinion.

For this Super Topics, because of the efficiency of generating the Super Topics has by AI, we did see more kind of sub-apps to be created by those content accounts like from gaming industry or sports industry, etc. You can see that this particular Super Topic interaction and the activity rate at the current stage is already reaching the historical high status, just because of this facilitation by the AI technology to this particular area, and we're seeing a very good trend of Super Topic.

Okay. 好，谢谢。

Thank you for that.

This wrap up our conference call today. Thank you all for joining us.

We'll see you next quarter.