Weimob Inc Aktie

Good day everyone. Welcome to join us for Weimob Group 2025 Annual Results Announcement. [Operator Instructions] We now proceed with following disclaimer. [indiscernible] invited investors online audio recording transcript is for meeting for internal use by participants not be made in public. Weimob Group has not authorized any media outlet to redistribute any content of this event. Any unauthorized reproduction or redistribution constitute an infringement and Weimob Group reserved the rights to pursue legal actions. We don't assume any liabilities for the loss and damages arise from such unauthorized redistribution. Investment decision must be made with caution.

Before we begin, we'd like to remind all of you there will be a Q&A session following the presentation. Now let's welcome the company.

Hello, everyone. I'm Sun from Weimob. I would like to welcome all of you to join us for the annual results announcement. Joining me here today are also Mr. You Fengchun, the Executive Director and President; and Cao Yi, our CFO. We're going to walk you through the overall business first, and then our CFO will walk you through the financials. I believe many of you have already read the overall statistics of our business in 2025. Overall speaking, the company has been pretty satisfied with the report we made in 2025.

Throughout 2025, the company has carried out a strategic transformation work on all in AI. In 2024, and we also launched the picture for high-quality growth strategy. And now I see high-quality development and ALL in AI strategy all achieved some good results. Let's first take a look at the business results. In 2024, some low-quality, low-margin or profit-losing business being further narrowed. So that's the reason. In 2024, the revenue was going down. But in 2025, our revenue started to rebound. Our overall revenue grew by 8.9%, reaching CNY 1.592 billion, which is extremely great in the existing market.

And another highlight is our GP margin. Our GP margin grew by 100% on Y-o-Y basis, which actually reaching CNY 1.2 billion. Our GP margin rate is also grow by 31%, reaching 75.1%. In other words, the company exercised a great strategy for high-quality development. Our revenue from the customer and the customer base are all being optimized, and we now all have contribution from the key accounts. While at the same time, even if we see a slight decrease on the subscription solution, the reason is because for SaaS revenue, it may have some deferral. In 2025, it's being deferred from 2024. So we can see in H2 of 2025, the overall subscription revenue started to see month-on-month improvement and the impact is going to be further diminished in the near future.

More worth noticing is that our AI-related revenue reached CNY 160 million, which is actually something that is quite gratifying to the whole company. And you can also see month-on-month growth also be further doubled in H2 of this year, while at the same time, you can also see that our retail business also started to see significant month-on-month growth.

For the Merchant Solution, the revenue grew by 65.1%. In '24, due to the take rate reduction, the revenue we made from the Merchant Solutions has been heavily impacted. But in 2025, after adjusting the strategy, the merchant solution revenue has been normalized. And we noticed -- and we will be reaching a reasonable level for the platform revenue, while at the same time, the GP margin for the Merchant Solution also reaching 90%. Besides gross profit, let's take a look at the profit of the company as a whole. Our adjusted profit for the first time turned around. Even if you can see, overall speaking, there are some losses because the investment companies may have some empowerment. But deducting those factors, the company's profit has been adjusted to RMB 42 million. Our cash flows will also be more positive and the adjusted net profit and cash flow are all turning positive. All those data can help to demonstrate the solid scorecard we will be able to make right after the strategic transformation.

Next, let me just walk you through the subscription business one by one. I believe majority of the investors may keep an eye on our SaaS business because I noticed investors really would like to know whether artificial intelligence is going to challenge SaaS business or even revolutionize the SaaS business. According to our financials, we don't think AI is impacting the SaaS business. AI is actually bringing some positive impact over the SaaS business. I'm going to give you more elaborations later. I think the key impact on SaaS is still the macro environment. The overall retail industry spending over software being continue to go down starting from 2024. The impact has been led through the year of 2025. The company made the strategic transformation. You can see our SaaS revenue contribution continued to go up. It was accounted for 67%. So generally speaking, I think we do have less impact from the macro environment.

But at the same time, our key accounts, especially the merchants, their GMV is growing significantly. They are just using our all-in-one solution. All-in-one solution means the merchants who purchase multiple products from us. No matter the account number or the revenue are all improving for those multiple product clients with us, where the company also started to launch more solutions, especially for local life. For example, we do have the intelligent life and intelligent service, and we also move into different verticals like pets as well as the fitness industry. And starting from this year on, the company will continue to work for local life and the corresponding solutions in specific verticals. The company is also going to continue to build the multichannel ecological synergy.

Starting from last year, we leveraged the mini program from WeChat as a key channel, and we're now also working with Taobao, Xiaoho. And we also started to work with Meituan, The Red Book, Alipay and Douyin with corresponding coupon coverage. We actually leverage multiple channels to cover different use case and the different formats of the business to help the companies to better reach their customer business and also bring AI to retail industry. The AI intelligent shopping assistant can help the customer for some good opportunities. For example, intelligent generations for recommendations and operational decisions and automatic decision-making to support the operational efficiency. So in other words, some of the users, they only need to upload their personal portrait within 5 seconds, it can actually have a rendering of whether the clothes being on the customer. We find out the refund rate is being further reduced after using AI feature for the clothing industry. That was talking about the subscription revenue.

Well, regarding the Weimob marketing, in 2025, we are seeking for the high-quality growth. Our gross revenue was not increasing significantly, and we actually shut down some of the low margin or non-margin clients. So the GP margin growth was not significant. But you can see the overall GP margin rate and the revenue from the merchant solution was growing significantly. This also serves as a proven step for our high-quality growth. Besides the advertisement, we have the WeChat where at the moment, we also have the advertisement for the video account as well as the advertisement for Alipay and Little Red Book. By the end of last year, we also got the license from Douyin. So in other words, we got the license for region and also for the whole market coverage.

Starting from 2026, we're going to continue to increase the volume we do with omnichannel merchant solution besides working on advertisement and we're also going to bet on the future growth on the Red Book and the TikTok for our future growth. We'll also be able to leverage AI to continue to reduce cost and improve efficiency for our marketing business. Our internal system and even the external AI adoption will help us to continue to reduce the marketing content generation by leveraging AI. That can also help to improve the overall profit margin. The third point I'm going to share with you is our ALL in AI strategy, which achieved remarkable results in AI commercialization. And you can see our AI-related business, the revenue was reaching CNY 160 million. We don't have the comparable data from 2025. And you can see the H2 growth was 137%. And you can also see AI can help to further reduce the cost for marketing content, and that can help to further contribute to GP margin and the net profit of the company as a whole.

Well, let's talk about our ALL in AI business deployment. First of all, we have a key product named WAI, that is W-A-I. We call it Weimob AI. WAI is actually using the AI features to support merchants to improve efficiency and reducing cost. You can see that for WAI because large language model adoption has been further improved, the growth of WAI is also growing very much. The shopping assistant can support our customers to identify the opportunities, automatically execute the movement to finish the conversion of the potential clients. And we also have the [indiscernible] Intelligent management, providing the marketing pitch, helping customers to executing their marketing strategy. While at the same time, you can see WAI it can actually help to mobilize agent capacities into our SaaS to allow the merchants to access to those resources. merchant, they can actually purchase value-added service for corresponding support. They can actually use the tool to actually help to commercialize on the business.

We have another business named WIME. WIME means not many program merchants from WeChat can also use WIME. WIME is actually providing support to the micro e-commerce merchants. We can help them to take care of the marketing content generation. We can help to generate the product image or even help to do the picture cutouts, change in the background, one-click claims of the product posters and even the one-click replacement of the pictures or even the digital. So WIME is actually an independent product. The existing registered user is already 510,000. The active user number is also improving. WIME can help merchants to faster generate marketing content. So for merchants, they don't need to use the tech-savvy tools to make the marketing content available.

Besides WAI and WIME, we also have WAI Pro. Some merchants, they are in need of the personalized support. So we provide AI consultation, system evaluation and even the multi-modalities of the large language model to provide a customized AI solution to merchants. That is why we have WAI Pro. And starting from this year, we also have GEO. The GEO business is growing very fast now, and which has been launched from December of 2025, the GEO business was growing very fast. GEO can help different brands in improving their AI recommendation presence on AI engines. In other words, the users will be able to search for the product and improve the presence on different platforms. Recently, because of the 350, the Consumer Rights Day, you may started to pay much attention to GEO. There are some fraud products that are actually play over the technologies to be sent on the search engine. But you can see that for Weimob clients, no matter from KYC or our product compliance, many of the brands are quite compliant, large number of our customers used to be the way marketing customer. They made some advertisement placement. They really want to build more for AI initiative. So majority of our customers are the compliant customers. They're not going to be the one that has been mentioned by the Consumer Rise Day kind of TV.

So generally speaking, our consumers are quite positive on GEO. And we also have some 2 consumer tools. For example, AI Work365, and we also have some intelligent hardware support that can help to build our AI product metrics. This is our introduction regarding AI business. WOS is actually a heavy investment we made during the COVID-19, which can help to build our technical foundation to literate the business. For Weimob, we do have many new products and new vertical solutions being built upon WOS, where even you can see the very popular open cloud, it can also leverage the WOS interface to call for the AI agent in the upper layer. So API interface could be packaged into scale. Merchants, no matter they use the open cloud outside or the in-built AI, they will be able to call for those AI agents very easily. The merchants can enjoy a very easy access to the support.

Coming next, please allow me to walk you through our business outlook for 2026. For the company, we still work on 2 major strategies, fully embrace AI and go for international expansion. We -- that is what we see stepping up way more overseas. Regarding AI, we have WAI, WAI Pro, WIME and GEO and AI Work365. We have new products in the pipeline targeting the existing customers to provide more AI-related products. Probably many of you know open floor has been quite popular. Many people may doubt how open cloud may relate to existing software. I think actually open cloud made a positive impact over the vertical-specific SaaS solution. The reason is because if you take a look at the market, the open cloud source, they are still in need of many skills.

Well, for those skills, let me just give you an example. The so-called smart shopping assistant intelligence, it still need to have it depends on the industrial know-how, the underlying layer API interface as well as data interface and authorities. We can actually have a smart laser as operational and scheduling, even just like the L4 smart operation. Still the vertical-specific SaaS underlying infrastructure is the key. When AI is becoming more smarter, its use over the software going to be more automatic, less human intervention will be needed. So in other words, underlying system and infrastructure or the platform need to allow AI to make every capacity a reality. However, open cloud would be able to provide intelligent scheduling laser based upon the existing software, all the interface data, industrial know-how and even the memory could be well controlled by this intelligent scheduling layer. So that's the reason I believe accelerated development of AI can really benefit the vertical-specific SaaS platform is not going to replace the existing software as far as I know because I have the computer science background.

If you ask AI to do a standardized program, mini program, even a browser or coder, it's okay because those are the so-called public competency. However, if you ask AI to help you to write a shopping assisted agent, well, for shopping assistant, it need the industrial know-how. It's very hard for you to tell the know-how to AI, where at the same time, you still need to make sure the agents being connected to different systems. It's quite challenging. AI is very good at producing a single and stand-alone tour. For example, if I have all the data ready, AI can help me to do an analytical framework. But if I'm going to ask AI to coordinate between different skills, understanding the context, it's not easy. I believe we do need a well-established platform to do intelligent scheduling that can only maximize the performance of AI agent. Even the preference and the decision-making of the merchants are within Weimob. So we believe based upon our Weimob platform, the vertical-specific open cloud makes merchants easy access to the solution. We will also be able to open up our competency, leveraging the open cloud to allow the merchants to access to the service. We may have the open source open cloud. After using our solution, the merchants can check for the data, their operational report and making decisions based upon the data we provide to them. But the underlying skills still are going to have many MCP and APIs for intelligent scheduling. So I think for Weimob, what we're going to do is to leverage the existing AI capacity and making sure the software is getting more intelligent.

Well, secondly, what we're going to do is to continue to embrace the e-commerce ecosystem and seizing new growth opportunities. As you may know that Tencent is investing heavily on the e-commerce on WeChat, especially the mini shop, making sure mini programs probably being connected with mini shops, help to actually nurture the KOL providing corresponding service, helping brands for distribution and even help some brands operating their business in mini shops. All those are the business we are working on now. The third point is that expanding multichannel deployment to tap into the commercial potential of the local life. We will continue to increase potent of the key accounts merchants. I also would like to tap into the commercial potential of the local life, especially local service like the leisure, health care, sports, pets as well as the housekeeping maintenance. Our product will be worked with Meituan and Red Book and continue to make sure the merchants can leverage the service we provide for well connections with the mini program.

Well, coming next, please allow me to walk you through the Weimob overseas strategy. We have already set up a business unit of working on Weimob overseas strategy. Besides owing AI, Weimob international expansion would be our key. We really can support the Chinese enterprises for global expansion. First of all, what we do is the traffic through diversified media channels in international markets. For example, like Google Ads, Meta and TikTok, helping the Chinese companies to work on traffic, the international social platform. And for the e-commerce, we're also going to provide the exclusive strategy partnership, and we are supporting the merchants building their independent or DOC and Weimob is also just AI's exclusive strategic partners. And all the Chinese brands, if we're going to work for -- just AI and Weimob would be the bridge. We now have many brands that is using just AI. We provide the overall operations and service. So besides working and providing traffic for Chinese brands for their international expansion, we're also going to provide integrated marketing and operation solution. For example, like POL as well as the traffic, we provide a one-stop solution for the Chinese brands for their international expansion, including marketing, traffic, international strategy making, social operations as well as international traffic placement. What we provide is indeed a one-stop solution and full chain capabilities.

What I'd like to emphasize on for Weimob overseas, our key strategy would be a wrapped model. We don't want to follow the traditional ways of working on traffic. We really would like to leverage the strength of AI agent for that. For example, for social media content generation for GEO and SEO content generation, we can leverage our AI agent to help the companies for execution. Even international marketing strategy of our brand -- of the brand partners can also leverage the open cloud to help to generate an executable plan to maximally reduce the cost for the enterprises and also making sure their branding deliverables and execution will be fast in order to further reduce the cost. So besides one-stop solution to the brands, and we also have our own brands, the Genstore.ai to go for international expansion. We're supporting brands like Miniso for their global expansion, and we're also supporting brands like for their international expansion, we also provided them the ERP service as a whole.

Okay. Just now I walk you through our business highlights. Let me just do a brief summary. I think in 2025, the company did a very good job for the business, especially for strategic transformation, where in 2026, we'll continue to embrace AI and work for our international overseas expansion. Those are going to be the new 2 engine for our future growth.

Coming next, I'm going to ask Cao Yi to walk you through the financials, please.

Dear investors and analysts, good evening. My name is Cao Yi. I'm the CFO of Weimob. Coming next, please allow me to walk you through our 2025 financials with some highlights and the trends. Overall speaking, as you can see in 2025, the macro trend has been further stabilized. But we also noticed the retail consumption is being affected by deflation, the expenditure made by -- or budget made by the merchants is still quite tight. AI is developing very fast. Large language model has been well established as well in face of the complicated market environment. The group continued to work for all AI strategic transformation. On one side, we insist on the business transformation, reducing costs, improve efficiencies and shut down the nonprofit business, while at the same time, we are working on the AI adoptions for e-commerce and retail business to work on the new growth curve. So overall speaking, I think if we look back the full year of 2025, Weimob Group leveraged our own concerted efforts to deliver a score card to the market that we believe is satisfying.

The overall revenue of the company was CNY 1.592 billion, grew by 90%. Subscription revenue was CNY 900 million, a slight decrease. And the Merchant Solution revenue was CNY 690 million, grew by 65%. In 2025, for advertisement business, we further optimized the client structure, reducing the contribution from the nonprofit-making customers. The GP margin was CNY 16.7 million Y-o-Y increase and the business quality has been further improved. The take rate is being rebounded. In 2025, the merchant revenue contributed to 43.6% of the overall revenue, while for subscription, as we continue to advance strategic transformation, we're exploring AI technology and commercialization.

In 2025, AI business bring the company CNY 1.116 billion revenue accounted for 30% of the overall revenue. The cost initiative for the past few years made positive impact on our profit. The sales cost being decreased by 46.6%. Sales expenses were CNY 708 million, down by 23.3%. Administrative cost being reduced by 27.3%, reaching CNY 450 million. By the end of 2025, the team size was 3,507 people, stable. The salary expenditures being further reduced by 80.6%. By the end of 2025, the total assets of the entire group made RMB 6.96 billion. Cash and cash equivalents reached CNY 2.1 billion. In the year 2025, through the external client optimization and internal efficiency gain, our free cash flow has been positive. The company did a very good credit track record. Our credit loans within the banks being normalized. And now you can see that our debt structure has been further optimized. Our liability rate has been further reduced to 64%.

Let me just take you a look at the revenues and profit. In 2025, for subscription and merchant solutions, the revenue are all rebouncing. For subscription solution revenue, it was down by 2.3% compared with 2024 due to 2 reasons. The first reason in the beginning of 2024, the company has been proactive at adjusting the business. We actually withdraw from the low-margin, low-quality subscription business for third-party micro merchants, but the history order and still bring an actual shared revenue in the first and the second half of 2024. So that's the reason the baseline has been elevated. The second reason is because from '23 to '24 due to economic pressure and the consumption deflations the weakened subscription business also result in a deferred reduction of the decrease in the deferred revenue. And even if the subscription revenue was going down, but 2025 still present a few highlights. If we exclude the low-quality order in history for the subscription revenue, if we take a 6 months assessment in 2025, in H1 to H2, we actually made a two half year continued growth with the new orders being rebounded, the subscription revenue would be resumed quite good. And AI-related revenue become a new growth engine. In 2025, it brings us a revenue of CNY 160 million, becoming a new growth curve in the near future. For merchant-related revenue, it was growing by 65%, which is pretty good.

For Merchant Solution revenue growth, besides the significant growth from the revenue itself, one thing I'd like to mention is that the revenue growth is not coming from the expanded GP margin. It was coming from the ever-increasing quality of the clients and the GP margin. As Mr. Sun has already mentioned, we eliminated some low margin and long payable period clients. The gross revenue has been decreased by CNY 1.32 billion on a Y-o-Y basis. But starting from 2025, as we continue to reduce the take rates for the downstream channel and actually, our net rebate rate has been increased by 1.5% to 1.6%. In 2024, in merchants solution revenue, it also includes CNY 80 million financial and income. In 2025, the merchant revenue improvements are all coming from the customer quality and efficiency gains.

Well, let's also take a look at the GP margin. In 2025, the GP margin has been normalized. In '24, due to the empowerment provisions as well as the take rate reduction, the GP margin was unhealthy in 2024. But in 2025, you see subscription GP margin rebounded to 63%. Merchants GP margin rebounded to 91%. Why the GP margin of the subscriptions being rebound? The reason is because in 2024, the provisions for the empowerment of the capitalized corresponding R&D expenditure has been done in 2024. Starting from 2025, all R&D expenses would be deemed as general and administrative expenses, not cost. And at the same time, the subscription revenue was growing up. It's been stabilized. For merchants GP margin in 2025, we don't have the low-margin TSOs and financial revenue. All clients are for the high margin and high-quality ones.

If you take a look at the advertising and the GP margin, starting from 2025, when the customer base being further optimized, we have already changed our traditional gross revenue. In '25, even the revenue -- gross revenue was declining, but still the net revenue was going up. As revenue and gross margins being stabilized and rebound, the cost also be further optimized. In 2025, our adjusted net profit become positive. If we break into different business, and you can see for the past few years, leveraging the efficiency gains and the cost initiative, we will be able to continue to improve and reduce financial losses. In cost, we don't have the R&D cost and the capitalization, which can actually help to reduce the financial loss. The advertisement profit has been jumped from CNY 50 million to CNY 300 million because the rebate has been further improved, which can also help to show our clients optimization initiative can really help to work and also the take rates from the downstream advertiser is also working positive. The adjusted net profit has also become a positive. In 2025, our free cash flow has been positive, which has been CNY 300 million optimized compared with last year. And you can see for the full year, the free cash flow has been positive. In the 2024 full year, you may already noticed the group experienced many special impact. For example, the unexpected take rates down in the advertising platforms, SaaS business structure optimization and the empowerment proportions. In 2024, our financial loss was pretty significant. But in 2025, we develop our business, fighting the new growth engine, reducing the cost and improving the efficiency. That can help us to further reduce the financial loss.

There are a few events of reducing the financial loss. First of all, for advertisement, we optimize client structure and also reducing the take rates for the downstream, improving the rebate rate, where we also have the efficiency gains and cost initiative to help to reduce CNY 104 million financial loss. But at the same time, R&D expense has been deemed as the administrative expenditure rather than the cost, which can help to further reduce CNY 187 million in 2025. And the credit loss impairment provisions be also reduced by CNY 55 million compared with 2024. So that's the reason we will be able to turn a positive trend now as well in face of the ever-changing industry and the technological advancement. We're still working very hard to achieve the business transformation and sustainable growth. The management team is very confident over our business. And hope in 2026, we're going to have a more significant growth. That's a brief introduction about the 2025 financials.

Now let's leave some time for investors and analysts to raise your question, please.

[Operator Instructions] Coming next [indiscernible].

Mr. My name is Yuan Liao. I'm the analyst from Citic Securities. Congratulate on the company of having a profitable business now, and I see your efficiency optimization also generate tangible results. My question is regarding the AI business you have. We see in 2025, your AI-related revenue see explosive growth, reaching RMB 160 million. Is it possible for the management team to work us through what is your revenue? What's your business model? What is the source of the revenue? How you're going to foresee your future AI-related revenue?

My second question, can the management team of talking about your product on AI agent and commercialization? What's the plan in the near future? My second question, just now Mr. Sun has already mentioned, no matter it's a secondary market or the overall capital market, people were all talking about how AI impact vertical-specific SaaS. What is the challenges and opportunities of the SaaS industry in China in face of AI? Thank you.

Thanks for both questions. Let me help to answer those questions first. Regarding the first question, I think I have already touched upon that. I was talking about AI-related business. For Weimob Group as a whole, we believe our wide product would be the key. Many of the agent applications be embedded into SaaS. We can provide value-added service or even customer purchase the credit to actually use our product. It's the payment and it's also commercialization to us. There are many details. For example, shopping assisted agent, smart operational agent or even triclose agent. They are the agent feature that has been built into the workflow of our product. And we also have the text to image and the marketing content, including image and marketing words. Those are all the source of the revenue for AI business.

The second product is WIME. WIME is a product for the SME merchants. It's actually a text-to-image marketing content generation. It can help merchants to generate the product image, profile of the product or even one click to change the cloths and one click to change the back stage. In the past, many merchants, they have to spend a lot in shooting the marketing content. They need a model. They need a backdrop to have the product presented. But now as you have the digital humans, you can replace a backdrop and objects in one picture by using AI. It's actually a huge demand made by the merchants.

And we also have the GEO business. You can see GEO is targeting the merchants. The merchant is going to come to GEO separately, making sure the merchants brands increasing its brand visibilities and presence in AI recommendation. In other words, the brand to follow the topic of the keywords. If they pay for the corresponding topic or keywords, we can then support the brand of distributing the content on different content platform. We also have the monitoring tools to help to fine-tune the advertisement content of the brand. So AI can help to notice the words and keywords related to brand to make the brand truly visible and present on Internet. This is actually what we see most.

Delivery would still be the bottleneck. I think our delivery capacity is ramping up now. You see the clients' demand, especially we see the demand is quite huge. Many of the clients are still queue for the solution to be ready for them. We're going to continue to improve our concurrent capacity improvement, providing more support. I do believe this business is going to be a nice growth engine for our business. And we also have WAI Pro. We have some merchants who are in need of the customized AI solution. What we provide them is to leverage their internal business platform using their AI strategy, helping the clients to build AI within our internal system to improve their business flow with AI adoption.

Well, regarding the product development, I have to see AI technology is developing very fast. In 2025, we were still talking about multi-agent, but now it's already the time for us to talk about the skill-based AI development. Open cloud impact the industry a lot. Technical framework is going to be fundamentally shifted. In the past, when we provide use case solution, we will actually have multi-agent or workflow-based solution. When clients face any problem, we can help to identify their intent, then providing corresponding workflow to ask the agent to provide solution. But industry technology is changing. We are upgrading our underlying technical framework. We call it agent Framework 2.0. It's actually a framework that can allow agent to do autonomous planning and all the skills would be packaged into one. Besides the open source skills from the third party, we also have some unique skills being given to merchants. So merchants would be intelligently call and scheduling for those skills to well operate their stores.

Let me just give you one example. In the past, when we're providing agent for shopping assistant, and we will be able to have a well-fed workflow for the merchants. But imagine if today, the merchants came to me and said, can you help me to change my product descriptions in batches into something else? For agent, it will be very hard to provide such a workflow because clients need are going to be a long time. It's going to be quite specific. But for the new agent Framework 2.0, the AI large language model going to break down those task force and call for the skills. We may have a skill called goods, and it's going to call for all the good skills based upon the unit needs. Those goods and skills are going to help to change or modify the descriptions of the product based upon this new framework. It can be done very quickly. For example, now, if I'm going to ask the AI to send me a data sheet at 9 a.m. every day, we can also build this as a daily workflow. Based upon our existing AI agent framework, as long as you tell the AI, what it is supposed to do, it's going to have the report on time every day. There are actually a good feed for well-established merchants to operate the e-commerce.

So for our future product operation, I believe, besides the product metrics as well as the WAI Pro, besides our own product, we're also going to improve our technical framework to make sure it can well fit into the skills hub ecosystem represented by open cloud because in the past, majority of the ability has been built by ourselves, by it's quite slow. But now as we have open source skills, those single skills could form into a wealth strategy. They could be seamlessly integrated into our system after the coding audit or safety verification, those skills would be a part of our product, making our product more intelligent. So I believe in the near future, the third-party product or skills would be something supporting the merchants to well manage their stores for intelligent operation for intelligent schedulings or even for automatic task execution. That is what we have for WIME. Well, besides so, besides our own product piles, we're going to launch more AI-related product including some products related to the intelligent hardware. Those are all built upon our existing customer, supporting them to find more solutions for their product and needs. This is my response regarding your first question for AI product pipelines and future outlook.

How AI is going to impact the SaaS? Your second question, I think AI still impact many SaaS, the general tools. Why should I say so? In the past, you see SaaS, many of them are the general tools. They can help to take care of the ability efficiency. For example, SaaS can help you to read PDF, analyze the content and then to do a summary. Such competency would be an easy task made by AI. AI can help to read the document, do analytics, AI can also build you collaborative tools. And even sometimes, there are some of these scenarios who are in need of the multi accounts. In the near future, companies may don't need so many employees and multiple accounts. Companies can call for API and rather than need a huge number of accounts.

For Weimob in China, we are not operating a multi-account system. What we do is still an annual subscription plus value-added service model. So number of accounts won't impact our business that much. But at the same time, you should also notice in the underlying infrastructure, the industrial know-how or vertical solution is very important, which can be hardly generated by AI. For example, product orders, promotional events, those very specific things with industrial know-how is hard to be replaced by AI. And more importantly, we now have the product like open cloud which is actually provide a single point capacities in resolving problems. But if you need multiple skills, including skills collaboration, take care of the contacts, then it's not easy. For many of the merchants, the preference, the decision-making, their history record or the data authorities are all within our platform. So I believe the Weimob open cloud may understand the merchants better.

In the near future, if merchants, they don't want to use Weimob open cloud, if they want to use their own open cloud, we also have the skills being placed into an open source community, allow the merchants to use it. But it's part of the capacities, we won't be able to embed all of our capacities into the open source system. Those capacities are just help to check the orders, products or data. If merchants really want to have a comprehensive and contextual solution with good memories that open cloud needs within our own platform. Only in that way, the underlying capacities would be well scheduled and. So I surely believe artificial intelligence, when we are reaching certain industry-specific solution, and we believe AI is going to be a catalyst for our future business growth.

For Chinese merchants, when they are using AI, when they are doing business, when they open stores, they need operational experts, designers, analytics, where in the near future, our intelligent scheduling layer, if the AI is powerful enough, if we have mobile skills within that layer, the merchants, they don't need so many people in their team. Just 1 to 2 people is enough to use the data to operate the business. But fundamentally, in the underlying leisure, we still need multiple APIs. Those APIs being packaged into MCP or the script. There are going to be the ability. The skills are not being realized by code. It's still going to call for the API service from the underlying infrastructure. If people are using AI more, I think a typical use case is smart operations of the store in the layer and intelligent scheduling in the underlying leisure that can help the merchants to run the business right and good because they still need to depend on our platform. So I think for AI, it's going to have a positive impact for companies like us who do the e-commerce specific solution in one vertical.

Coming next, let's welcome phone number with 7416.

Mr. My name is [indiscernible] from [indiscernible] Securities Overseas. I have 2 questions. The first question is regarding your international business. Mr. Sun has already mentioned about your strategic investment. I'd like to know more about your overseas strategy. For example, regarding product, what are the products you are going to operate in overseas market, who you are going to serve? And if there are any key regions or market you go for? And for overseas business, whether it's going to be a catalyst for your 2026 business growth? This is my first question.

My second question is regarding the marketing business. Mr. Sun, you mentioned about the multichannel operation working with Douyin for multiple licenses. So is it possible for me to ask you for your 2026 guide of the business, what will be the growth for different marketing channels, especially the profit and rebates?

Thank you. Thanks for both questions. Regarding overseas strategy, I will help to answer that. Well, for marketing, I will ask Mr. You to give you the answer. Regarding overseas business, we're still going to serve the Chinese merchants go for international expansion. The Chinese merchants, probably they are in the 3C industry, in digital industries or even some electronics companies or solutions or merchants. What we hope to provide is one-stop solution. We find out many of the customers when they first go for international market, if they'd like to do the independent websites, they don't have good tools to help to build their independent websites. And sometimes, they also need to invest in traffic, for example, on Google Ads, Meta or TikTok. And some of them may also need the KOLs and especially the influencers to help them to do the marketing in international market. So I believe this really in need of the industrial know-how and resource. For example, if you're going to seek for the influencers, international influencers is different from what we have in China.

How the brands access to those influencers, how they're going to talk to the influencers effectively, language would be a barrier. But at the same time, when brands are working with international influencers, if they're operating in multiple markets, multiple currency and multiple language, they have to be adapted through the market. They need some localized support and professional tools to be truly localized. And the brands are also in need of the professional service provider for traffic replacement. We provide one-stop solution to merchants, even providing an all-in-one integrated marketing to help the brands to kick off their global expansion as quickly as possible. There are also some companies who actually are in need of the ERP in the offline channel, identified international distributors to work with. For Weimob, we will be able to provide them the ERP solution that can really tap into the local market. For example, we're now supporting [indiscernible] and Miniso of expanding their business in Southeast Asia and in Middle East countries.

Well, regarding the performance and the revenue target of overseas initiative, let me see starting from the end of 2025, we built the Weimob overseas business unit. In the past, what we're serving the clients who go for international expansion, we provide corresponding service. By then, our solution is not systematic. But after having Weimob overseas business unit, now we have an independent team to serve the international business. We may have some overlapping between the Chinese customer and customer for international expansion. Some of the clients, they are actually a global clients from day 1. We're just helping them for international expansion. So in other words, we have independent sales and operational team for overseas market. We are also going to continue to have the all the license from TikTok being ready. And we're now also working with many influencers worldwide to help the brand access to the influencer service and resources.

So in 2026, I think our overseas business revenue will continue to grow. But until now, we're still in the early stage for overseas business. We do hope as we continue to grow the overseas business. I hope in the near future, it could be or at least the market could be around 20% to 30% of the overall market. Well for this year, we hope actually, we will be able to make RMB 150 million or close to RMB 1 billion for the advertisement placement business. Mr. You might be the right one to answer your second question. Please.

Dear investors and analysts, good evening. My name is You Fengchun, regarding how the marketing is going to be, especially for the multichannel development and AI supportive marketing, and we have already made the business plan. In 2025, we made good progress for multichannel strategy. In October, we started to restart our cooperation with Douyin. And in 2025 for our international and domestic full channel service are available on Douyin. In domestic China, we're working with Douyin and even for Douyin, we are actually working with and also the local life. We got all the license from Douyin and The Red Book will also be a platform with very nice volume growth. You can see for the Red Book, we'll also be able to get the KFS as well as the regional development. And within the region, we will be able to get the Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Chongqing operational license.

Our business going to do the 3 tasks. First of all, continue to improve the penetration ratio regarding customer budget. We also would like to penetrate into more verticals and cover more regions. Because our expertise on Tencent advertisement, our sales expense has been further reduced and our service cost is being significantly reduced. And secondly, regarding AI, we are improving the efficiency. In the past, you can see AIGC was developing very fast. No matter for short videos or pictures or the copyright content, the service efficiency is being further improved. So we are leveraging the multichannel and AI, the strategies to continue to accelerate the business. For 2026, according to our conservative idea, the overall revenue growth will be around 10% to 20%. Well, because we now have the multichannel strategy, the overall sales cost are not increasing that much. Our operational cost is also declining. So for 2026, we're still very confident over our overall profit. I think compared with 2025, overall profit are going to grow steadily in 2026. That's my response to the multichannel marketing strategy. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for Mr. Sun and Mr. You. Okay. Thanks for all the investors, and thanks for the management team. The meeting has been lasted for 1 hour. We have very insightful communications. Thanks for attending this result announcement. And here comes to the end of the meeting. Hope you happy life. See you next time. Bye.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Weimob Inc.'s 2025 Interim Results Conference Call. A copy of the interim results announcement can be found and downloaded from the company's Investor Relations website. [Operator Instructions] This call will be conducted in Mandarin and English simultaneous interpretation will be provided. Please note that this conference may cover non-IFRS metrics and refer to the company's results announcement. Joining us today on the call are Mr. Sun Taoyong, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. You Fengchun, Executive Director and President of Weimob Group; and Mr. Cao Yi, Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Sun.

Investors, analysts, good evening. Now let me do a review of our company's 2025 first half results and the second half outlook. I believe you have already read our half yearly report. So I would like to go through the salient points with you. In the past 3 years, all along, we have been striving to lower cost and improve efficiency and high-quality development. AI technology is the core drive, and we are enhancing our marketing as well as operational efficiency, and we have achieved some results. Now let me present our financial results. First, revenue. So looking back in 2024, perhaps you are aware from our financial statements, our revenue declined quite a lot and loss expanded. And there are 2 major reasons. The first is advertising media platforms change of rebate policy.

Now actually, our policy adjustment lagged behind until the second half of last year. So actually, in the first half, if you talk about advertising merchants revenue, it has to be adjusted. Second reason, last year, we did cost control and efficiency improvement, and we exited from a lot of low-margin businesses and lost businesses. So as a result, revenue also came down for the whole year. If we exclude the impact about media policies, then overall revenue was up 7.8% year-on-year. So revenue had achieved a turnaround. If we exclude impact from small- to medium-sized businesses, our revenue should reach double digits growth. And if we look at second half of last year on a half-on-half basis, our revenue growth was 29%. So that's about our first half revenue. And then about gross profit. This year, actually, we achieved a very good number for gross profit.

Last year, it's RMB 6.64 billion, and we're up 75 -- we are up 8.7 percentage points to RMB 7.5 billion. Adjusted gross profit, that is after excluding last year's rebate impact, we're up 36% year-on-year. And this is mainly because in the past few years, we achieved high-quality development, and we have also phased out some low-margin businesses. Then about profit, I think you are most concerned about this. So we are happy to say that in the first half this year, we achieved the first turnaround since 2021, adjusted EBITDA at RMB 72 million, adjusted net profit, RMB 17 million. And operating cash flow also improved a lot from the end of last year. So there is only small outflow. In the past 3 years, we cut cost and improved efficiency. We achieved high-quality development. AI is our new growth direction. And so far, we have seen achievements and effectiveness. And then concerning subscription revenue, for subscription revenue on a year-on-year basis, there is a 10% decline.

Major reason is that last year, we phased out many small- to medium-sized revenue. And for subscription revenue, there is, as a result, some impact -- some deferred impact. At the end -- at the second half of 2023, there is some base impact in relation to revenue deferment. And so there is further impact on subscription revenue, leading to a small decline. However, on a half-on-half basis, in fact, subscription revenue has stabilized and achieved growth. Two main reasons. For our key accounts, Smart Retail revenue is very stable. This year, for Smart Retail, there is more decline in the revenue. Overall speaking, it is because of the overall macro economy and some enterprises have cut their budget and then demand is also deferred. As a result, there is a slight decline. But then for Smart Retail, overall speaking, revenue is stable, RMB 286 million. So the overall retention rate is very high. Merchants operation is very good. Merchants mind share is very good.

Now some merchants have reduced store count. So overall speaking, revenue is stable for key accounts. At the same time, for the first time, we disclosed this number, and that is AI-related revenue. In the first half this year, it reached RMB 34 million. So as a result, our SaaS business had stabilized and achieved growth. So as a result, this is a new growth driver for our SaaS business. And then in relation to Merchant Solution revenue in the first half this year, gross billing was RMB 8.8 billion, up 3 percentage points. Now this year, we still insist on high-quality development. So for low gross margin and long credit cycle businesses and customers, we have phased them out. So our gross billing comparing with the same period last year was quite good. And last year, because platforms adjusted their rebate policy, we have adjusted the policy correspondingly. And then for customer rebates, they have decreased.

This year, the rebate gap has gone back to positive. So RMB 338 million is the Merchant Solution revenue comparing with second half of last year, there is more than a onetime growth. Last year, in the first half, we had to adjust the media revenue rebates. Well, if we exclude this adjustment, then Merchant Solutions revenue growth was 45.3%. Merchant Solutions gross profit is high, 91%. So for TSO and financial businesses, we have actually decreased these businesses. Overall speaking, if you look at revenue, gross profit and profit, overall speaking, I think that in the past 3 years, by lowering cost and improving efficiency and by insisting on high-quality development, we have achieved quite good results. Now let's take a look at our business specifically. First of all, moving upmarket, that is Smart Retail. Right now, it is very stable and sound. For some large industries like property, commercial property, retail, fashion retail and so on, their shares are very high. Overall revenue is stable, accounting for 65.2% of total subscription revenue.

For merchants, GMV growth, it is also very good. On a year-on-year basis, it's up 13.4%. And then GMV results and also number of GMV merchants grew a lot. And then when we face key customers and also integrated solutions, our solutions are well received by many merchants. The year-on-year growth is very satisfactory. In the first half of the year, we worked on multi-platform operation. So you have read our media information. Together with some mini shop, we are doing a lot of integration. So for example, inventory, merchandise, members' benefits and so on, these are all integrated and synergized. And then on WeChat e-commerce, we have achieved in-depth integration for Weimob mini program on Douyin and Meituan, we have achieved connection. So TikTok and Meituan, the voucher issue systems have been connected already. And we are also integrated with RedNote and also Alipay. Recently, we have connected to these platforms.

And for business scenarios and vertical industries, this year, for pet industry, we have offered a solution for the pet industry, now this industry is in a leading position. And also for other, for example, shopping department store, shopping guidance and so on, we are doing a good job. And also, we are doing a good job with the property sector. So here, you can see our business solution matrix. In the past, for example, wholesale business, membership services, sales guidance services, enterprise WeChat business, our revenue with big customers showed stable growth.

Next, let's talk about the focus of this year, and that is AI. I'm sure everyone is paying attention to it. Starting 2023, we began to prepare for our AI product WAI. So here, we have 3 product matrices, WAI SaaS, WAI Pro, and WIME. So for WAI SaaS, it is based on the existing SaaS customers. So we offer the WAI product. And basically, there are store, construction store decoration and also image generation. Altogether, there are 15 agents that can help merchants to build their stores very quickly and achieve online operation. Now in the past, we sold software to merchants, but now we offer to merchants and we deliver to merchants. An operation team with digital employees, so 15 agents are -- like 15 digital agents. In the past, we meet a designer and shopping guide and customer service person and also digital data analysts and so on. Now they have been turned into a digital employee being delivered to merchants.

So merchants only need very small manpower. Even one person may be enough. So with the integration between AI and the digital employee, merchants can very quickly operate their stores. So we can see that store building is a lot faster. So merchants stores building agent, utilization rate was up by 5x and active level of merchants is also a lot higher. So that's about our WAI SaaS product. And then for WAI Pro, we offer a customized AI service to merchants. Some merchants may have very special scenarios. For example, in terms of health service and also digital person. So there are some specific agents based on our own experience, we can do customization and AI service for them. So this is one breakthrough that we have achieved.

Finally, for [2C] segment, consumers or professional type consumers, they can be individuals or they can be sole proprietors and we offer WIME product. For WIME, it is not only based on WeChat's mini program. E-commerce customers can use our WIME. Besides, for example, product image generation, product posters and also one-click change for everything, all these can be generated with WIME. In the past, merchants incurred a lot of costs in the generation of their product images. They may have to hire models for photography.

So this entails a lot of cost. But with WIME, we can quickly generate the necessary images. And then we have already 116,000 registered WIME users and revenue growth month-on-month was 172%. So that's our progress in WIME. Now let me talk about our marketing segment. So for Weimob marketing, overall, gross revenue was up 3.4% year-on-year. Merchant Solution revenue was up 45%. One important growth point is our video account advertising. So consumption is up 46% year-on-year. If you take a look at gross billing of video accounts every year, it achieved rapid growth for Weimob. In terms of video account advertising market share, it is very high. Besides, we have multiple channels, we have RedNote advertising. Consumption is up 67%. And internally, through AI, we can lower cost and improve efficiency. Internally, we have 4 different systems. So [indiscernible] and so on, so they can help our overall advertising efficiency and lower cost for us.

At the same time, we have integrated a lot of media offering total solutions for our customers. So that is an important breakthrough for our merchant solutions. And finally, let me talk about outlook. First of all, the most important point is that we embrace AI. I personally think that Weimob upon our establishment was a company with 10-year mobile Internet cycle. In the coming 10 years, it is going to be a big AI cycle and Weimob fully embraces AI. And we will also promote the utilization and implementation of AI agent applications. Now we already have 15 agents. In the future, we will continue to work more on new scenarios, and we will offer more agent utilization for customers. No matter whether we're talking about WAI SaaS, WAI Pro and WIME, we are continuously iterating. So they will be incorporated into merchants, e-commerce and operations.

Besides, we dig deep into WeChat e-commerce ecosystem. Last year -- at the end of last year, for WeChat gift-giving function after it was launched, WeChat e-commerce achieved a very good effect. So this year, when we look at WeChat e-commerce, it is continuing to strengthen, for example, recommendation -- purchase recommendation and so on. And then we are preparing a lot of other related businesses. In the future, in the whole WeChat e-commerce ecosystem, its robust development will help our SaaS business overall speaking. Third, we expand multichannel business possibilities. We can see that overall speaking, in the past, regarding SaaS, we already expanded on RedNote, Meituan and also TikTok. And in the future, we will focus more to enhance each ecosystem. When it comes to precise marketing, in the past, on RedNote and Kuaishou, we already achieved rapid growth.

And this year, in Q4, we may start our TikTok business. In 2021, regarding TikTok business, we achieved RMB 3 billion GMV scale. And in the future, we will restart the TikTok business. And we believe that in Q4 or next year, for our overall merchant solution revenue, it will give a big drive. And number four, we will strive to expand local life services market. Right now, online e-commerce retail business many customers have gradually reached saturation. But for off-line, no matter whether you talk about F&B or beauty services and also on-demand home services, there are a lot. So now we are working, focusing on on-demand home services scenarios and also for retail, leisure, health care, clinic, pet services and also home repair, maintenance, we are offering corresponding solutions. So in terms of local life services market, it will become a main growth engine for our overall SaaS business in the future.

Finally, internationalization. For our international business, in the past all along, we have been planning and making deployments for our overseas business. We are an important service provider for Shopify. We offered a lot of applications to overseas customers. At the same time, in the future, we will set up a Weimob global business department to help Chinese brands to go global. And then for Weimob going global, we will incorporate overseas marketing. And then there are a lot of advanced overseas tools, including our integrated operation service. In the future, in September, roughly, we will announce to the public our business progress in terms of Weimob going global. And then for heading, in Southeast Asia, Middle East, Europe and Africa and North America, we have achieved quite good progress. So for example, Pop Mart and also MINISO and so on, we focus on these businesses going global. So the above are some highlights of financial performance and also business outlook. Next, our CFO, Mr. Cao, will go through in detail our financial results. Thank you.

Analysts, investors, good evening. Now I'm going to present to you our first half overall financial performance. In 2025, we faced very complicated volatile external environment, and there is the AI technology revolution. We focused on cost control and improvement of efficiency. We wanted to achieve turnaround. At the same time, in relation to e-commerce AI technology application, we wanted to use technology to drive growth and transformation. In the first half, total revenue was RMB 780 million. Looking at the financial statements, it's down 10.6%. As Mr. Sun just said, in 2024, on advertising platform, there was the decrease in rebate and the timing was quite late. So there is a big difference between the ratio in the first half and second half. So looking at the full year rebate percentage and after making adjustments between first half and second half, in first half, comparing with first half 2024, we are up 7.8% in revenue.

For subscription revenue, RMB 440 million, down 10.1%. But on a half-on-half basis, subscription revenue had stabilized. There is slight growth. For Merchant Solution revenue, RMB 340 million, down 11.3% year-on-year. However, as I said earlier, if we try to readjust the rebate impact, then the adjusted revenue achieved 45.3% growth, which is quite a big growth. In first half 2025, revenue share was stable. Revenue breakdown was stable. But then for subscription revenue, apart from retail revenue, which is stable at 60-plus percent, our company actively explored AI technology used around e-commerce, and we achieved commercial monetization. AI-related revenue in first half '25, RMB 34 million, accounting for 7.9% of subscription revenue. Besides, in terms of costs and expenses, we insisted on per capita efficiency coming first. So results have been very clear. As of 30th June 2025, we had 3,400 employees. Total salary expenses was RMB 617 million in first half '24, and it declined to RMB 466 million, down 24.5%.

So we are able to further lower operating expenses. S&D expenses, RMB 190 million -- RMB 390 million was the selling expenses and then general and administrative expenses, RMB 220 million, down 24.5%. As of mid-2025, our total assets was RMB 6.67 billion, cash and equivalent, RMB 1.57 billion receivables, RMB 1.81 billion. As of middle of the year, our short-term debt, including short-term bank borrowings, RMB 1.95 billion, including 50 million of collateral loan and RMB 370 million syndicated loans and RMB 1.54 billion of other loans. So these are based on healthy growth of our advertising business. And as a result, there is a funding need. For advertising business operating capital, there was healthy growth and credibility of customers is healthy. And this year, we did a good job about cash flow management in first half of the year, advertising net cash inflow, RMB 220 million.

So basically, cash outflow was a small amount, more or less the same as last year. Now let's take a look at some important indicators. In 2025 for our 2 revenues, as Mr. Sun just said earlier, let me supplement. First of all, in first half '25, our subscription revenue, RMB 440 million, looking at the financial statements, is down 10.1%. This is mainly because in early 2024, we took the initiative to adjust our business structure. We phased out low gross margin, low-quality subscription businesses. However, historical orders for the whole 2024 also led to some revenue, RMB 30 million and RMB 20 million for the first and second half. But for these orders, they did not cause any sharing impact for 2025. So as a result, there is a gap of RMB 30 million. But if we exclude such gap, then in the first half this year, on a year-on-year basis, the gap is not that big for this revenue. And comparing with the second half last year, there is growth.

Besides, we actively explored new businesses, new technologies. In the first half, through AI application revenue was RMB 34 million. So on a half-on-half basis, we have stabilized this part. Merchant Solution revenue, RMB 338 million in the first half, and we talked about the rebate ratio difference between first half, second half after reinstating it, then on an adjusted basis, it's up 45.3%. This is a big growth, mainly because of 2 reasons. In first half 2025, gross billing was RMB 8.6 billion, up RMB 280 million. And a big growth is from our early 2025 work for the downstream, so there is a rebate gap. Last year, it is 2.1%, and it rose significantly to 3.85% this year. And there is 1.7% rebate gap or an increase in net rebate. So RMB 8.6 billion gross billing caused a very important impact on our sales profit. In first half last year, there was RMB 66 million TSO and financial revenue. But this year, there is no longer such revenue. So our growth is very big. And then about gross profit.

In the first half of the year, gross margin achieved overall rise. So subscription gross margin 66%, 67% in 2023. And in 2024, it came down to 68% to -- and 51% in first half, second half. In first half this year, it was reversed. Subscription gross margin went back to 63%. One driving factor is the historical capitalized R&D expenses. So in 2024, for intangible assets, they had been provisioned already. And R&D expenses in 2025 went into general and administrative expenses. So the impact on cost was greatly reduced. For subscription revenue, as explained earlier, there's a RMB 30 million gap, but then it is because of historical orders and legacy reasons. On a half-on-half basis, we have stabilized. So subscription gross margin rose back. Merchant Solutions gross margin change is for high-margin advertising rebates and TSO financial business split.

In the first half this year, Merchant Solutions was almost all high-margin businesses. There is no low-margin business. So it's at 91% gross margin for this segment. In first half this year, our result is that revenue stabilized, gross profit went back and costs and expenses have been optimized. So in the first half this year, adjusted net profit achieved a turnaround. If we do a split by business segments, then there is continuous improvement. For SaaS in the past 2.5 years by continuous cost control, we reduced the loss. In the first half this year, loss was RMB 130 million, down RMB 26 million. And then in terms of costs and expenses, we no longer have the sharing of R&D expenses and there is optimization of staff costs. As a result, it drove the reduction in loss. For advertising, in the first half, it lost RMB 30 million. Now there is a profit of RMB 180 million. Now our net rebate was up 1.7% as a result. It drove big profit growth.

So this shows that at the beginning of the year for advertising platforms, we have adjusted our operating strategies, and we have adjusted the discount policy as well. So the effects are very significant. Adjusted net profit achieved a turnaround. Our free cash flow is balanced. In the first half for SaaS cash outflow, RMB 220 million comparing with the past half year period, it is narrowing continuously. For advertising, there is cash inflow of RMB 220 million. So in the first half free cash flow, there was only a small outflow of RMB 30 million. Basically, it achieved a breakeven. And then in 2024, we actually saw that in March this year, when we communicated with you, our 2024 advertising platform, lowered rebates and then there is structure optimization for SaaS. So adjusted loss was RMB 533 million. It was quite big. During March results announcement, we said -- we presented our road map to achieve turnaround in 2025.

After half a year's effort, I think I can give you a preliminary report. If you refer to these 2 slides on the right, well, this is the turnaround forecast given at that time. And on the left-hand side, after the first half, this is the revised picture. So if you look at the actual completion results, what we did well in the first half is, first, in relation to reduction in rebate for the advertising platform, it can improve profit margin. Gross billing is stable. As a result, profit grew RMB 170 million for the whole year. On this basis, profit will continue to grow by RMB 190 million. Secondly, cost control and improvement of efficiency. We optimized staff costs and related expenses at the end of last year, during results announcement and during March results announcement, we said that the impact would be RMB 1.18 billion. Now for the whole year, impact will be RMB 138 million. And then the third point is R&D expenses. And also in 2024, that was the provisioning. And then there is a reduction of loss of RMB 100 million that was achieved in the first half. For the whole year, we can narrow loss by RMB 187 million.

In 2024, for the whole year, we made a one-off bad debt provision and there are other one-off impairments. This year, these will not happen. So with all these items together, for the whole year, we have confidence that we can achieve a turnaround. And after what we have done in the first half, our confidence is even stronger than that in March. And then in the second half of the year, for SaaS organic growth, we have to work harder. We face macroeconomic challenge and contraction of consumption. So for medium- to large-sized customers, we may see some headwinds. So in terms of sales strategy and product innovation, we will do more in the market. For innovative AI businesses and commercialization opportunities, we'll continue to explore the development of AI agents. After half a years of effort, our turnaround plan has been quite smooth. So we believe that in the future, we will see better prospects. So that's my presentation about our financial performance. Now we are happy to take questions from investors and analysts.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from [indiscernible] from Citic Securities.

Congratulations to your company for achieving breakeven and excellent results in this first half year. I have 2 questions to ask. First, looking at your first half subscription solutions have stabilized. What are some new highlights for the subscription revenue? In the financial statements, you talked a lot about AI products. So in which scenarios will you see new changes about AI products in the second half of the year? How should we look forward to the growth and profitability of these products?

Second question, now for Tencent ecosystem, they have launched WeChat Mini Store. It has been 1 year or so. So in relation to these mini stores, what have you done? What about the activity level of merchants? And how are they utilizing such mechanism? What will be the drive to your business? And in the second half of the year for WeChat e-commerce ecosystem development, what will be the impact on your company?

Thank you for the questions. Let me take the first question. The second question will be taken by Mr. You. Okay. First question is about our overall revenue in the first half. First of all, Smart Retail revenue from key customers, it is very stable at the same time. Our overall AI revenue achieved good progress. So on a half-on-half basis, we have stabilized and achieved growth. In the second half, our subscription revenue year-on-year would also grow because in the first half, there was a year-on-year decline. About RMB 30 million was because of deferred revenue. So at the second half of last year, there was still deferred revenue, but the base is very small already. So with this base effect, in the second half of the year, for subscription, I think the impact of deferment will be very small besides for large customers, we will gradually increase investment into retail business and local service market.

Subscription revenue will enhance the share of smart retail. So on product end, sales end, we're increasing revenue share of Smart Retail in the past. In the sales end, we have small to medium-sized team and channel team and key customers team. For these 3 teams, now they focus on Smart Retail and also key customer business or upmarket business. So upmarket revenue will increase in share. So for this revenue, I think retention will be more stable. We'll continue to increase revenue share of Smart Retail. This can also raise our revenue -- our subscription revenue. We will develop a lot of local live service fields, for example, pet industry, service at home or on-demand home service and so on. In relation to pets or shop guidance, there will be more industry solutions to be launched and that can enhance our Smart Retail revenue. One important revenue is AI. In the past, after our deployment in the past 2 years, in terms of AI commercialization, we have seen preliminary results.

This year is the beginning year of AI commercialization for us. So for AI commercialization, we have enjoyed some revenue. As I mentioned earlier, WAI SaaS, WAI Pro and WIME, these are the 3 major products. They cover many scenarios, and they mainly focus on e-commerce scenarios. For e-commerce, I can see a lot of product services, product posters, product pages, AI creative posters, smart profile writing, smart copywriting and so on. So there are many scenarios in which our AI products will be used. Besides, we use a lot of AI capabilities to develop many agents. As I mentioned earlier, so with our designer agents, well, the merchants by means of some prompts can already ask the agent to generate product images. And then there can be automatic response in customer service area. These capabilities can help merchants lower their cost and improve their efficiency.

Besides, the overall activity level can also increase. For our AI revenue, now the base is not high. So in the second half, I believe there will still be half-on-half growth. In the second half of the year for subscription revenue, we are still optimistic on a year-on-year basis, I think there will be positive growth. And then for the mini stores, perhaps I'll ask Mr. You to take the questions.

Regarding WeChat Mini stores after they are launched for 1 year, Weimob Mini stores, what have we done in terms of our products? Actually, in the first half of the year, we already launched WeChat Mini Store and Weimob Mini Program integrated solution. So with product pass, inventory pass, membership pass, order pass and so on, we help our merchants to get one-stop management on our back office. So mini programs, WeChat Mini stores, orders, membership, all these can be managed. And then after the launch of our service, our solution penetration rate is high, around 15%. And when it comes to development of functions, mini stores, mini programs, the accounts are opened at the same time. Growth is quite fast, around 27% and increase in number of [DAU] is also fast, 26%. And with this capability, our merchants can also utilize our service in their operation, for example, receiving of gifts and so on.

I think the company's operation and services can be enhanced. Based on WeChat Mini store, market is developed, and we can place our WIME market on the mini stores service market for small to micro businesses because they have also needs for content, images and also site building, we can help enhance their building efficiency. For the second half of the year, regarding WeChat Mini Store development and the impact on us, at present, for WeChat Mini stores, they are very important for Tencent. So we hope that this kind of merchants can be -- come out incremental market as well. We'll continue to optimize this solution. That is WeChat Mini stores and also mini programs -- Weimob Mini Program solutions. In this way, we can enhance overall merchants operating efficiency and user experience. For WeChat Mini stores, they are also working a lot on products and also gift giving. So when WeChat Mini stores have more capabilities, we'll actively embrace them and integrate them into our ecosystem opportunities. That's my answer.

Next question is from , [indiscernible] Securities.

Congratulations for your excellent results in the first half. I have 2 questions about Merchant Solutions. First, in relation to advertising operation, this year, there is much improvement. So can you let us know the rebate and profit situation in the first half? And what about the second half? What will be gross billing? And what is your plan and projection about profit? Do you have more opportunities to expand to more advertising channels? Second question is about impact of AI development. AI development is fast and it can lower operating expenses for advertising business very fast. So when it comes to advertising platform like Tencent, what are some scenarios where these services can be utilized?

Let me take the first question, and then -- I will take the second question. Mr. Cao will take the first question.

Second question about AI in the future, will it replace advertising agency business? Well, let me comment with my own opinion. At present, AI technology has achieved a lot of achievements and progress. For example, text to image and text to video, but then will it actually replace professional advertising agencies. So if you look at production of materials, well, agents still have a lot of functions. We need strategies, creativity and also insights. So regarding production of materials and exploration, there is still the need for human creativity, and then for robots to produce. So in the future, I think there will be a man machine integrated model.

So AI may become a super entity or individual and then AI will be responsible for data and then humans will be analyzing the data and so on. So AI is like a brain in the future, AI will implement some replicable standardized work, and then we still rely -- we still need to rely on the human brain. This is the best approach. In the future, for Internet service providers, I think staff costs will gradually lower. In the past 2 years, when it comes to creative materials production, the cost has been lowered significantly, and there is a big decrease in manpower. But overall speaking, if we look at Internet media platforms and overall advertising spend, we still need a lot the role of agencies. In the future, we will continue to embrace AI, and we will integrate AI capabilities and various tools to enhance efficiency and effectiveness of our touch with customers. And each employee will become a super individual. And then regarding Merchant Solution revenue and profits, I will defer to my colleague.

In the first half, overall Merchant Solutions business, we mentioned earlier in our presentation in the first half, it is mainly about advertising rebates. There is no other financial revenue. For advertising business, as I said earlier, starting earlier this year, actually, last year, we encountered something out of expectation that is the decrease in rebates. And last year, we made a lot of operation adjustments, but then they came quite late already. And starting 1st January this year, we made very active operating strategy adjustment, especially regarding discount for downstream. We have made a one-off adjustment. We mentioned that for advertising profit and also net rebate ratio, there is a significant increase. In the first half, gross billing was RMB 8.6 billion. There is growth year-on-year at the same time, because of adjustment to the rebate policy, even though upstream advertising platforms have reduced rebates for us. But for downstream, our rebate decrease extent is much bigger than the drop for upstream in rebate.

So the gap in rebates, the total differential on average is 3.85%. Last year in the first half, 2.1%. So it's up 1.7 percentage points in first half this year. And gross billing, RMB 8.6 billion. So for overall impact or improvement to profit, it is very significant. In first half this year, we achieved a turnaround. Because of SaaS subscription, the loss is being narrowed. And one important drive is our advertising profits rebound. So it became a very good business. In the first half, we achieved a turnaround as a result. Regarding our forecast, we are still very optimistic. We believe in the second half of the year, overall revenue based on the first half level will grow and net rebate ratio will be at least the same as in the first half, will maintain profitability of the first half, and then we will make ends meet. We will explore new channels.

In the second half, we expect that merchants revenue on a year-on-year basis, where last year, the base was rather low on the financial statements, but that should be at least 90% growth. After adjustment, that should be a 10 point growth. And then for media channel expansion, I'll defer to Mr. You.

This year, for marketing, we adopt multichannel approach, which has been in place in the past few years. As Mr. Sun said, in the past, Tencent advertising was one of our major channels on RedNote and Kuaishou, we are operating, and we are actively promoting collaboration with TikTok. In Q4 this year, we will be connected to TikTok channel to identify more commercialization, opportunities and growth opportunities. So the above is about channel expansion and development. And for overseas, at present, we have the internationalization strategy. Now we are integrating with Google and other companies and TikTok. We will also be looking at TikTok overseas. So overseas media channels and systems will be gradually developed and enriched. So the above is our channel expansion and development plan and work in relation to advertising platforms.

Because of time, we will conclude the event here. On behalf of Weimob Group management, thank you for joining this conference call. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact the IR team of the company. Thank you.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]