Xunlei Limited 2026 Q2 Earnings Call

Good morning and good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining Xunlei's Q2 2026 earnings conference call. With me today are Eric Zhou, CFO, and Lili, Vice President of Finance. Our IR website has our earnings press release to supplement our prepared remarks during the call. Today's agenda includes a prepared opening remark from Chairman and CEO, Mr. Jinbo Li, on Q2 operational highlights, followed by CFO Eric Zhou's presentation of financial results details of Q2 before we open up the floor to your questions in the Q&A session. Please note that this call is recorded and can be replayed on our investor relations website at ir.xunlei.com. Before we get started, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that the discussion today will contain certain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor Provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Such statements are based on our management's current expectations under existing market conditions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict, which may cause actual results to differ materially from those made in the forward-looking statements. Please refer to our SEC filings for a more detailed description of the risk factors that may affect our results. Xunlei assumes no obligations to update any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable law. On this call, we will be using both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of non-GAAP to comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings press release. Please note that all numbers are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated. Now, the following is prepared statement by Mr. Jinbo Li, Chairman and CEO of Xunlei Limited. Good morning and good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining our Q2 2026 earnings call.

We are pleased to report continued top-line growth this quarter, building on a solid consumer-focused growth foundations we established in Q1. These results serve as clear validation that our strategic pivot towards a consumer-centric business model is delivering tangible results. Our two primary growth drivers, subscription services and overseas audio live streaming, each posted steady year-over-year increase in revenue. Let me walk you through the performance of these core consumer-facing businesses individually. First, our subscription business remains our stable cash flow foundation and reliable growth anchor. Q2 subscription revenue reached $44.5 million, up 22.6% year-over-year. While the growth rate softened marginally on the sequential basis, this segment maintained resilient user retention and steady monetization performance.

During the quarter, we continued upgrading premium user experiences by rolling out new AI-powered features, optimizing existing functionality, deepening long-term cooperation with leading domestic smartphone partners, and scaling our ecosystem user acquisition channels as planned. Looking ahead, we will continue refining our differentiated member perks to boost user penetration and expand end-device cooperation coverage, capturing incremental user acquisition and revenue growth in the second half of the year. Second, our overseas audio live streaming business once again emerged as our primary growth engine. In Q2, this segment generated $58.2 million in revenue, representing a significant 64.8% year-over-year increase. We continued deploying targeted investments in high potential emerging markets, including Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Turkey, and further expansion into Latin America. Concurrently, we enhanced localized product iteration and operational capabilities, optimizing our product matrix across one-on-one social interaction scenarios and multi-person chat rooms.

Additionally, we saw notable quarterly momentum for our Hupu business, which contributed $9.1 million in Q2 of revenue. Benefiting from the peak advertising season and a slate of major global sporting events, user discussion activity across the platform reached new highs. Our newly rolled out AI-powered features also meaningfully boosted user engagement and deepened interactive activity, creating an additional stream of incremental revenue across our consumer ecosystem. As we communicated in our previous quarterly reports, competition in the overseas entertainment market remains intense. Accordingly, we will stick to our long-term localized operational and marketing strategies instead of chasing near-term scale expansion, fostering sustainable business growth across all our core consumer verticals.

Beyond operational performance to further reinforce market confidence and deliver long-term shareholder returns, we announced a new $20 million share repurchase program at end of June. We believe that this initiative demonstrates our unwavering confidence in the company's solid fundamentals and long-term growth potential. We will maintain disciplined capital allocation, prioritizing investment in core consumer product innovation and international market expansion, while returning excess capital to shareholders when appropriate. Looking ahead, we will stay firmly committed to our user-centric development strategy. We will further accelerate feature iteration for our subscription offerings, deepen market penetration within our established overseas markets, selectively pursue new regional growth opportunities, and uphold strict cost discipline to expand profit margins across all business lines. By balancing growth with profitability and through rigorous capital and operational management, we aim to promote balanced and sustainable corporate development.

Against the backdrop of an evolving global market landscape, our targeted consumer positioning, toC core business structure, advanced technological strengths, and localized operations serve as our key competitive edges. We are optimistic about delivering sustained long-term value to our users and shareholders alike. With that overview, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Eric Zhou, who will walk you through our Q2 financial metrics in detail.

Thank you, Han. Thank you all for participating in today's conference call. I will now walk you through our financial results for the second quarter of 2026. For Q2 2026, total revenues came in at $102.7 million, up 38.9% year-over-year. This steady top-line growth was primarily driven by rising revenues from our subscription business and our overseas audio live streaming business, as well as improved Hupu advertising business. Breaking down our revenue performance. Subscription revenues reached $44.5 million, a 22.6% year-over-year increase. This performance reflected sustained user demand for a full suite of premium product offerings. Revenue from live streaming and other services totaled $58.2 million, representing a 54.8% year-over-year increase. This strong performance was driven chiefly by rapid expansion of our overseas audio live streaming operations, alongside the growth in advertising revenue from our Hupu sports community during the peak sports season.

Cost of revenues was $44.8 million during the quarter, accounting for 43.6% of total revenues. By comparison, in Q2 2025, cost of revenues came to $27 million or 36.6% of total revenues. The uptick in our cost base largely aligned with the expansion of our live streaming revenue, driven mainly by increased revenue sharing expenses for our overseas audio live streaming operations. Turning to profitability, we generated $57.3 million in gross profit during the second quarter of 2026, up 23.1% year-over-year. Gross margin stood at 55.8%, compared with 63% in the prior year period. The gross profit improvement was fueled by both our subscription business and the Hupu advertising revenue. The notable margin decline stems from a structural revenue mix shift. Since live streaming carries a lower gross margin than subscription and advertising business, its larger share of total revenue mix modestly compressed our overall gross margin.

On the expense front, R&D expenses were $21.4 million in Q2 2026, representing 20.8% of total revenues, compared with $16.6 million or 22.4% of total revenues in Q2 2025. The year-over-year increase was mainly due to higher labor costs. Sales and marketing expenses rose to $27.9 million during the second quarter of 2026, representing 27.2% of the revenue, compared with $20.7 million or 28% of total revenues in Q2 2025. The increase in absolute marketing spending reflected ramped-up promotional investment across our subscription and overseas audio live streaming operations, as we continued to proactively prioritize acquisition and brand visibility. G&A expenses came in at $12.7 million, equal to 12.4% of total revenues, versus $8.5 million or 11.6% of total revenue in Q2 2025. The increase was primarily driven by provision for ongoing legal litigations and higher employee-related costs year-over-year.

At the operating level, we posted an operating loss of $4.8 million this quarter, a reversal from operating income of $0.3 million in the same period last year. We posted a net other loss of $230.8 million for the quarter, versus net income of $721.5 million in Q2 2025. The dramatic swing was mainly driven by fair value volatility on our long-term investment in Arashi Vision Inc., which is accounted for on a mark-to-market basis using public stock prices after the company's IPO in June 2025. Unlike Q1, there were no discontinued operations to report for Q2 2026, following the disposal of our Shenzhen Wanxin business last quarter. Our net loss from continuing operations was $218.5 million this quarter, compared with net income of $726.4 million in Q2 2025.

The net loss was mainly due to the material net other loss just mentioned, partially offset by positive growth in our core consumer-facing business. On a non-GAAP basis, we posted a non-GAAP net loss from continuing operations of $2.1 million, down from non-GAAP net income of $7.2 million in the prior year period. On a per-share basis, diluted loss per ADS from continuing operations was $3.43 for the quarter, compared with diluted EPS of $11.47 in Q2 2025. Our non-GAAP diluted loss per ADS from continuing operations came to $0.03, versus non-GAAP diluted earnings of $0.12 per ADS in the same period last year. Finally, on our balance sheet, as of June 30th, 2026, cash equivalents, and short-term investments totaled $276.9 million, down from $303.6 million as of March 31st, 2026.

The sequential decrease was primarily driven by net operating cash outflows, bank loan repayments, disbursements related to our newly announced share repurchase program, and deferred consideration payments related to our Hupu acquisition. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we are now ready to open the line for questions.