Sohu.com (SOHU) Q1 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2022

May 16, 2022 7:30 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and good evening. Thank you for joining Sohu’s First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Today’s conference call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at any time. I would now like to turn the conference over to our host the conference call, Huang Pu, Investor Relations Director of Sohu. Please go ahead.

Huang Pu

Thanks, operator. Thank you for joining us to discuss Sohu’s fourth quarter two results. On the call are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Charles Zhang; CFO; and Vice President of Finance, James Deng. Also with us are Changyou’s CEO, Dewen Chen; and the CFO, [indiscernible].

Before management begins their prepared remarks, I would like to remind you of the company’s safe harbor statement in connection with today’s conference call. Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed on this call may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current plans, estimates and projections.

And therefore, you should not place undue reliance on them. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. We caution you that A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those containing any forward-looking statements. For more information about the potential risks and uncertainties, which refer to the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the most recent annual report on Form 20-F. With that, I will now turn the call over to Dr. Charles Zhang. Charles, please proceed.

Dr. Charles Zhang

Thanks,[indiscernible] Jane, and thank you, everyone, for joining our call. In the first quarter of 2022, despite the negative impact of COVID-19 and the challenging macroeconomic environment, we continue to focus on product requirements and improving optimal efficiency. Thanks to the excellent performance of our online game business, we delivered better-than-expected bottom line performance and achieved profitability for the quarter.

For Sohu Media Portal, we carried out product upgrades and improvements in the overall quality of our news and content, all of which continued to draw users to our platform and keep them engaged. For Sohu Video, continuous execution of our twin-engine strategy. We proactively extended our live broadcasting to a greater number of scientific fields. We also focused on user acquisition for our key mobile products and explore ways to improve monetization for both Sohu Media Portal and Sohu Video.