Charles Yang
Thank you, Brandi, and thank you, everyone, for participating in today's call. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that all percentages are based on renminbi. With that said, I will deliver opening remarks on William's behalf. We are very pleased to report another strong quarter with total revenues up 35% year-over-year. Each of our primary business lines continues to grow supported by our loyal community of users and our strong R&D team that strive supreme best-in-class games and internet services to both users in China and internationally. Total revenues for our online games in the third quarter stood at RMB10 billion for the second consecutive quarter and we are confident that this trend is sustainable. In addition to our growing catalog of games and world class R&D capabilities, our online games portfolio is more diversified than ever before. We now operate numerous games that span a wide variety of genres both domestically and internationally, as well as games that appeal to both PC and mobile players. Through this diverse catalog, we can appeal to a multitude of players and interest levels worldwide. With the introduction of new games and our work in mobile has propelled our success in recent years. Our flagship titles remain remarkable steady. In the third quarter, Fantasy Westward Journey and Westward Journey series enjoyed another quarter of year-over-year growth, driven by the popularity of new expansion packs released over the summer. Some of our newer titles released in recent years, share this type of longevity such as Invincible, Onmyoji, Knives Out and Identity V just to name a few. The remarkable longevity of these games is a task immense to NetEase unique skillset and the ability to operate games successfully over long periods of time. Very few companies globally can attach to this type of endurance in online games through different economic cycles and NetEase is proud to be among these prestigious ranks. The value of our most popular games reaches far beyond the titles themselves. After years of operation, these games have accumulated huge fan bases turning them into very powerful IP. Each self-developed IP has the potential to become its own sustainable franchise with potential to diversify beyond just online games. One good example of this is with one of our most recognizable games, Fantasy Westward Journey. This IP has been in successful operation for 16 years, translating across PC and mobile platforms and sustaining interest with continuous expansion packs and new content. A cartoon series based on this IP has been airing on CCTV since October this year. In a recent report published by a renowned domestic [indiscernible] Institute, Fantasy Westward Journey its ranks the 6th most valuable IP in China's entertainment sector. We are now looking to develop another iteration of this IP on mobile, Fantasy Westward Journey 3D scheduled for launch in 2019. This pipeline game will be realized as a real time MMO in 3D format and reserve the classic gameplay and social system while bringing brand's new experiences to mobile users in the 3D world. In addition to our ability to maintain a strong existing portfolio, NetEase is also one of the very few companies in the world that has consistently created a distinct new game IP for both PC client and mobile platforms. A few recent titles that fit this profile are our PC client game Justice that we launched at the end of June, mobile game Ancient Nocturne, which we launched at the beginning of September and mobile game Night Falls Survival which we launched in early November. For justice, we recently launched a new expansion pack which contains a sophisticated set of social systems including faction systems, marriage systems, brotherhood et cetera, all of which how to produce and solidify an active and deeply integrated user community. This in turn creates another powerful IP for NetEase. On the mobile side, Ancient Nocturne is an innovative mix of roleplaying and collectible card games. The storyline was written by our in-house team of producers with a dedicated assets to what's promoting Chinese culture and Asian's mythology. Ancient Nocturne was featured by the iOS App Store. And shortly after its release, it climbed to the top of the iOS growth in China. Night Fall Survival was launched in early November and became an instant hit. The game is an original cooperative survival RPG setting a doomsday world. This game took us over three years of in-house R&D effort. Upon release, this innovative gameplay immediately impressed the market and Night Fall Survival quickly became the number one downloaded game on the iOS App Store and monetization is also ramping up smoothly. Some of our other newer titles launched in the third quarter include Butterfly Sword and Fiba Basketball both launches for diversify the genres we offer in our mobile game portfolio. These games also received positive feedback in their respective categories. For Minecraft, in just over a year, we now have attracted over 150 million registered users in China, most of them being K-12 students. Minecraft is of great strategic importance to us as it gives us access to a much younger demographic that we never had before. We consider Minecraft an educational asset that stimulates children's creativity, promotes traditional cultures and allows them to explore different types of arts and sciences. In many schools and universities, Minecraft is also used for teaching purposes. For example, students in 19 University of Aeronautics and Astronautics uses our game in their classes to explore the mysteries of the universe. More recently, Minecraft hosted a science fair in partnership with NASA China using the game to raise public interest in understanding outer space. We continue to welcome talented and imaginative developers to create more interesting play modules that inspire our younger users. As of today, we have more than 2,000 third party developers on our platform. For many of these kids, Minecraft is the first game that they were exposed to and we take a heightened approach to our social responsibility with new content for this target audience. As with all our games, we take very proactive measures to monitor the time spent and money spent by our users to ensure sustainable growth of our games business. Moving onto our overseas expansion efforts. We are taking a much more global approach to our online games business. We see excellent overseas opportunities to expand our brand and expand our games outreach to a global audience. In the third quarter, we took this a step further and for the first time in our company's history, our overseas games revenue accounted for more than 10% of our total games net revenue. Our success in Japan has been widely witnessed, Knives Out has consistently ranked among the top 5 games on Japan's iOS revenue grossing chart. We continue to add more localized content to broaden and deepen our geographic footprint in this important market. In August, we introduced some iconic content with Attack on Titan, a popular Japanese anime manga series. This in game collaboration gained overwhelming popularity among users. And in October, Knives Out reached the People's Choice Award by Google Play in Japan and Taiwan. Similarly Identified was ranked number one on the iOS download chart in Japan for 18 consecutive days and was featured by iOS App Stores in 50 countries. Out of the three largest online games markets in the world, we now have reached critical claiming tool being China and Japan. The United States market is a next frontier for NetEase. Earlier this month, Blizzard Entertainment announced that we are collaborating to develop Diablo Immortal. We are very proud that Blizzard has chosen us to help bring one of their largest game franchise to mobile. We consider this a huge opportunity to show the world and particularly western gamers NetEase's strong R&D capabilities. Turning to our e-commerce business. This continues to be our fastest growing business segment. In the third quarter, revenues from our e-commerce business grew 67% year-over-year well outpacing the industry average. While this business is rapidly expanding, we are conscious of our margin profile. We maintained a disciplined approach to spending and our gross margins were capped at 10% in the third quarter. We continue to look for efficiency enhancement particularly with supply chain integration and fulfillment solution upgrades. We recently signed a contract with global shipping giant Maersk to support and improve our Kaola global transportation and logistics services. With this agreement in place, we expect deliveries of overseas procurements to be timely and Kaola's cross border logistics to be more smoothly. Kaola and Yanxuan are complementary components of our e-commerce ambitions. Kaola is a platform and Yanxuan is our private label brand. We continue to focus on running a one key e-commerce business model, built on our differentiated approach and strong consumer recognition. For Kaola, our goal is to bring the best brands across the world to Chinese consumers who are looking for quality and authenticity in their purchases. At the very first China International import expo that took place in Shanghai last week, the government shared its intention to encourage import trade, increase consumer confidence, reduce tariffs and promote cross border e-commerce. Over the next 15 years, China is expected to import of the U.S. dollar 400 trillion goods and services from overseas, which means a growing number of brands from all over the world will benefit from this trend. At the expo, we connected with a great number of internationally renowned brands committing purchase agreements totaling approximately RMB20 billion. Additionally, we signed strategic partnership upgrade agreements with ten brands including Nestlé, Suisse and Sanofi which will give our users better access to their products and in turn further strengthen our competitive advantage as a global supply chain provider. Under the long term strategic support of Kaola, some of our partners have achieved better than expected revenue growth in the third quarter such as Rossmann one of Germany's largest house and beauty chains and Woolworths, Australian's grocery chain. Our Asian side, we pioneered innovative e-commerce business model in China. We are responsible for the design of our products with dedication to the authentic, style, material and craftsmanship of each item that we offer. We work with carefully selected manufacturers to produce the products we design and offer these more affordable, yet high quality items to our consumers. On the design side, we are partnering with more art institutions that supply us with original ideas. We also bring in products designed by independent designers from both China and overseas. On the manufacturing side, after two years of hard work, we now work with over 500 manufacturers each of which is top ranked in their own field. Going forward, we plan to take a more concentrated approach and focus on working with the very back partners possible. Moving on to our other study businesses that helped to put NetEase on the map and continue to support our growth. Our advertising services revenue in the third quarter increased by approximately 2% year-over-year to RMB644 million or U.S. $94 million with Internet services automobile and real estate sectors as top performing verticals. Net revenues from our e-mail and others businesses were RMB1.40 billion or U.S. $204 million in the third quarter with a year-over-year increase of 32%. We see tremendous value in many of our incubated businesses. NetEase Cloud Music and Youdao are just a few of these business lines with initiatives underway that are yet to be fully realized. For Youdao, our K-12 online education initiative continue to see robust growth. We believe our strengths in AI technology will give us an upper hand in further delivery best-in-class online learning experiences. For example, we have recently launched a new AI hardware Youdao smart pen which will recommend personalized academic exercise questions targeting students weak areas based on their historical study habits, pattern and results. For Music, we are pleased to have completed a new round of financing in NetEase Cloud Music. We believe this financing underscores the value of our proprietary platform and with more external shareholders in place, we are ready to take the business to the next level. We believe China's digital online music market has tremendous potential for continued growth as younger generations embrace the convenience of streaming music services and online music becomes a way of life style. Focusing on delivering a differentiated and premium user experience, we now have created what is commonly perceived as China's most engaging music platform with massive leading user retention rates and user time spent on the platform, as well as one of the largest catalogues of user generated content. As of now, we have over 600 million registered users adding 200 million alone over the last 12 months. To conclude, content creation and user experience differentiation is deeply embedded in our corporate DNA. Our focus on quality and craftsmanship is prevalent in all of our product offerings, including online games, e-commerce, media, music, Youdao and others. We strive to further build our brand in China and overseas with content that entertains and gratifies our users and shareholders alike. This concludes William's comments. I will now provide a very brief overview and review of our third quarter 2018 financial results. Given the limited time on today's call, I will be presenting some abbreviated financial highlights. We encourage you to read through our press release issued earlier today for further details. Net revenues for the third quarter of 2018 were RMB16.9 or U.S. $2.5 billion. This compares with RMB16.3 billion and RMB12.5 billion for the preceding positive and third quarter of 2017 respectively. The year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter increases were driven by revenue growth across all business segment. Net revenues from online games increased by approximately 28% year-over-year, due to strong performance from both PC client games and mobile games such as Justice, Fantasy Westward Journey Online, Chu Liu Xiang, Knives Out and Identity V. Mobile games accounted for approximately 68% of net revenues for this quarter compared with 75% and 68% for the preceding quarter and the third quarter of last year. Our gross profit for the third quarter of 2018 was RMB7.5 billion or U.S. $1.1 billion compared to 7.2 billion and 5.9 billion for the preceding quarter and the third quarter of 2017 respectively. Our gross profit for online games segment increased year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter as a result of increase in revenue. Gross margin for our online games improved to 65% in the third quarter compared with 64% in the preceding quarter and 63% a year ago. The quarter-over-quarter increase in gross profit margin was mainly due to increased revenue contribution from PC client games which have relatively higher gross profit margins the mobile games. The year-over-year increase was due to increasing revenue. During the third quarter, gross profit for our e-commerce business increased due to the expansion of both Kaola and Yanxuan. Gross profit margin for our e-commerce business was 10% in the third quarter compared with 10% and 11.5% for the preceding quarter and the third quarter of 2017 respectively. We strive to keep a disciplined balance of rapid topline growth and steady gross profit margin for our e-commerce business. Gross profit margin for advertising services for the third quarter of 2018 was 64%. This compares with 67% and 68% for the preceding quarter and the third quarter of 2017 respectively. The decreases were mainly due to higher staff related cost and content purchase expenditures. Gross loss margin for our e-mail and others business for the third quarter was 3%. This compares to gross loss margin of 7% last quarter and gross profit margin of 13% for the third quarter of 2017 respectively. The year-over-year decrease in gross margin was primarily due to decreased revenue contribution from certain online platform businesses which have relatively higher gross profit margins, as well as higher licensed music content costs related to our Cloud Music businesses in the third quarter. The quarter-over-quarter improvement was primarily due to higher revenue contribution from certain online platform businesses, which is relatively higher margin in this quarter. As we have mentioned before, our other businesses include many promising incubated businesses such as Youdao, Cloud Music and CC Live broadcasting among others. Many of these businesses are undergoing investment phase as they require upfront spending to acquire content and talent. We believe their upside potential in the long term will more than justify our current investment. Gross margin will continue to improve as we further expand our scale. Total operating expenses for the third quarter of 2018 were RMB5.4 billion or U.S. $792.1 million. This compares to 4.9 billion and 3.4 billion for the preceding quarter and the third part of last year. The year-over-year increase in operating expenses were mainly due to increased staff related costs, R&D investments and marketing expenditures. The quarter-over-quarter increase were mainly due to headcount expansion during the summer recruitment season and our G&A expense included a bad debt provision relating to advertising business. E-commerce related shipping and handling cost including in selling and marketing expenses for the third quarter were RMB385.5 million or U.S. $56.1 million, 8.6% of the net revenues from e-commerce businesses, which is an improvement from 8.9% in the preceding quarter and 11.1% in the third quarter of last year. Effective tax rate for this quarter was 34.2% compared to 15.7% and 8.1% for the preceding Potter and the third quarter of last year. The year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter changes in the effective tax rate were mainly due to certain subsidiaries of ours that received tax credits recognizing different periods, as well as the expansion of some of our last making subsidiaries. As we have discussed on prior calls, we expect the effective tax rate for 2018 on an annual basis to be in the high 20, and the effective tax rate will grow higher in 2019. Our net income attributable to shareholders for the third quarter was RMB1.6 billion or U.S. $232.4 million. This compares to 2.1 billion and 2.5 billion for the preceding quarter and the first quarter of last year. Non-GAAP net income attributable to our shareholders for this quarter totaled RMB2.3 billion or U.S. $328.9 million. This compares to 2.7 billion and 3.0 billion for the preceding positive and the third quarter of last year. For this quarter, our diluted earnings per ADS were RMB12.43 or U.S. $1.81. Our non-GAAP diluted earnings per ADS were RMB17.50 or U.S. $2.55 respectively. Our cash position remains strong. As of September 30th 2018, our total cash and cash equivalents, current and non-current time deposits and short term investment balance totaled RMB42.6 billion or U.S. $6.2 billion. This compares with 43.2 billion as of the end of last year. Returning value to our shareholders remains a top priority. For this quarter, we plan to pay a dividend of $0.45 per ADS, representing 25% of the net income attributable to our shareholders. Under our current share repurchase program, which began on November 16, 2017 and amendment announced on June 11, 2018 authorizing a total repurchase amount up to U.S. $2 billion. We had repurchased approximately 4.5 million ADS for approximately U.S. $1.2 billion as of September 30. Immediately upon the expiration of the current plan, our board has approved a new share repurchase program for up to U.S. $1 billion of our outstanding ADS for the next 12 months beginning November 16, 2018. Thank you for your attention. We would like now to open a call to your questions. Operator, please go ahead.