Weibo Corporation 2026 Q2 Earnings Call
Review the key takeaways and the transcript of this earnings call.
- Weibo reported second quarter 2026 total revenue of $453.8 million, a 2% year-over-year increase.
- Total advertising revenue was $381 million, down 1% year over year, impacted by consumption market headwinds and tighter advertiser budgets in some sectors.
- Value-added service revenue grew 19% year over year to $72.9 million, driven by offline ticket purchases and membership services.
- Non-GAAP operating income was $125.4 million, with a 28% operating margin.
- Monthly active users reached 561 million in June 2026, with average daily users at 254 million.
- Advertising revenue growth was solid in automobile, internet services, and food and beverage sectors, while e-commerce and handset sectors faced challenges.
- Video content consumption showed double-digit year-over-year growth in time spent and average time per user.
- AI integration improved advertising creative generation, placement efficiency, and reduced negative feedback rates by over 30% in e-commerce ads.
- Cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments totaled $2.64 billion as of June 30, 2026.
- Operating cash flow was $15.5 million in the quarter, with capital expenditures of $3.1 million.
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Transcript
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Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Weibo Report Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, please press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to the conference over to a speaker, Sandra Zhang, IR.
Please go ahead. Thank you, operator.
Welcome to Weibo Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today, our Chief Executive Officer, Gaofei Wang, and our Chief Financial Officer, Fei Cao. This conference call is also being broadcasted on 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 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 would cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Weibo assumes no obligation to update 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 day hereof. Weibo assumes no obligation to update such information, except as required under applicable laws. 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 future prospects. Our non-GAAP financials exclude certain expenses, gains or losses and other items that are not expected to result in future cash payments 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 open the lines for a brief Q&A session. With this, I would like to turn the call over to our CEO, Gaofei Wang.
Thank you. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Weibo Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. On today's call, I will share with you highlights on Weibo's product and monetization in the second quarter 2026. On the user front, in June 2026, Weibo's average 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 toward improving the conversion rate of newly acquired channel users into active users. And currently, as the homepage information feed revamp is still in the phase of continuous optimization, some low-frequency user will need time to adapt to the changes. As a result, our DAU base declines slightly year-over-year in June, but remain largely flat quarter-over-quarter. Now let me walk you through the financials.
Our total revenue in the second quarter reached $453.8 million, an increase of 2% year-over-year. Our total ad revenue reached $381 million, a decrease of 1% year-over-year. That revenue 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 revenue from Automobile, internet service, and food and beverage still achieved solid year-over-year growth this quarter. Ad revenues from celebrity marketing also maintained year-over-year growth trend. Our non-GAAP operating income in the second quarter reached $125.4 million, representing a non-GAAP operating margin of 28%.
让用户打开微博后能够更及时地获得热点、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，我们更继续完善视频、兴趣社区和搜索等核心场景，提升用户在视频内容消费、兴趣互动和兴趣方面的体验，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 will 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 will 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 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、社交和消费体验的同时，重点增强推荐流、关系内容、热点流和视频内容的分发和承接能力，让推荐流在提升内容效率的同时，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持续提升，平台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上的整体提升。与此同时，我们也看到部分低频用户对新的推荐流分发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一般消费指标的改善，停留和留存面临一定挑战。后续继续优化整体体验，在提升效率的同时，更好地兼顾用户的使用习惯，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 discussions, and high-quality video content receive 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 since second quarter. At the same time, we have observed that for some low-frequency users, they still take time to adapt to new product format, and thus the recovery of their visit frequency and retention continue to lag behind the improvement in the overall consumption metrics, posing challenges in time spent and retention.
Going forward, we will continue to optimize product experience, keeping a better balance between improving recommendation efficiency and accommodating different users habits, thereby strengthening the homepage feed 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，随着手机推荐能力的增强，平台可以更有效地识别和分发优质视频，并推动流量向平台优质的内容倾斜，减少低质视频对于整体的影响。二季度视频播放量、消费时长同比保持两位数的增长。人均播放量、消费时长增长更明显，视频消费深度也进一步提升。在供给侧，二季度全网优级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侧的投入。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，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.
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