Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and good evening. Thank you for joining Sohu's Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there'll be Q&A session. Today's conference call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I'd now like to turn the conference over to your host for today's call, Huang Pu, Investor Relations Director of Sohu. Please go ahead. Thanks, operator. Thank you for joining us to discuss Sohu's second quarter 2023 results. On the call, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Charles Zhang, CFO Joanna Lv, and Vice President James Deng. Also with us are Changyou CEO, Dewen Chen, and CFO Yaobin Wang. 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 contained in any forward-looking statements. For more information about the potential risks and uncertainties, please 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 Charles Zhang. Charles, please proceed. Thanks, Huang Pu, and thank you, everyone, joining our call. In the second quarter of 2023, we delivered stable performance with both revenues and the bottom line, meeting our expectations. At Sohu Media, we enhanced the user experience through continuous refinements to our products and technology, and by offering users a steady stream of reliable content in real time. At Sohu Video, with consistent execution of our Twin Engine strategy, we expanded our portfolio of long and short-form video content, and proactively improved their social distribution. Leveraging our advanced live broadcasting technology and the Sohu product metrics, metric- matrix, we hosted traditional flagship events and innovative content marketing campaigns, which generated abandoned, abundant premium content and attracted more users. This also put us in a position to explore more monetization opportunities, and again, advertising dollars. Online games remain steady, generating revenues in line with our prior guidance. Let me first give a quick overview of the financial performance. For the second quarter of 2023, total revenues, $152 million, down 22% year-over-year, and 6% quarter-over-quarter. Brand advertising revenues, $24 million, down 4% year-over-year, and up 6% quarter-over-quarter. Online game revenues, $118 million, down 25% year-over-year, and 9% quarter-over-quarter. GAAP net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited was $21 million, compared with the net income of $9 million in the second quarter of last year, and net loss of $18 million in the first quarter of 2023. Non-GAAP net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited was $18 million, compared with a net income of $12 million in the second quarter of last year, and the net loss of $13 million in the first quarter of this year. Now, I'll go through our key businesses in more detail. First, Media Portal and Sohu Video. At Sohu Media Portal, we continue to focus on refining our product and optimizing the algorithms. We further enhanced the user experience by integrating cutting-edge technology into our products and expanding premium content and the various forms of presentation. Thanks to our continuous dedication and integration of rich media resources, we strengthened our advantage and influence as a mainstream media platform. At Sohu Video, we continue to execute our Twin Engine strategy. For the long form video content, we released the crime-themed idol romance, Love of Replica, during the quarter, to widespread popularity and further expanded our audience base. At the same time, we launched several reality shows like This Is Me, which is the sixth season of our On Her Way Home, and Hi, Summer Friend. These shows have created a lot of engaging discussions online and attracted millions of viewers across various social media platforms. In terms of short-form content and live streaming, we kept concentrating on knowledge and science-related live broadcasters, driven by our distinctive IP of, you know, myself, Physics Class, Charles Physics Class, which is becoming very popular. We further promoted high quality content generation and its social distribution, attracting more users to produce video content and interact with each other on our platform. On the monetization side, we closely monitored market trends and explored potential opportunities, leveraging our advanced live broadcasting technology and the dual platform of Sohu Media and Sohu Video. We provided advertisers with unique and diversified online and offline marketing strategies that cater to their needs and boosted our advertising dollars. In the second quarter of this year, we hosted the traditional content marketing event, the 15th Sohu News Marathon in Xi'an, demonstrating the invigoration, reinvigoration of, and the popularity of traditional Chinese culture, as well as Sohu's positive and upward social values. We also proactively developed new monetization opportunities by integrating innovative ideas into diversified events and expanded application scenarios using our advanced live broadcasting technology. We integrated the Charles Physics Class into Sohu Tech Conference, and further expanded this IP into a new series of other activities called, Talk Under the Starry Sky, 星 空 下 的 对 话. These events have generated an abundance of premier content and obtained recognition from advertisers. Turning to the online game business. During the second quarter of 2023, online game revenues were in line with our prior guidance. Within our PC game business, we optimized the character development system of regular TLBB PC to make players' investments more worthwhile, and also improved the social relation system for TLBB Vintage. In our mobile game business, we launched an expansion pack for the anniversary of Legacy TLBB Mobile, with the addition of a limited time, player versus player event, to satisfy demand for additional in-game combat. Next quarter, we'll launch new TLBB Mobile, our next generation TLBB product, along with the expansion packs and content updates for other. Along with expansion packs and content updates for other games to maintain player engagement. Nowadays, as technology in the gaming industry advances rapidly and market demand become deeper and more diversified, we intend to stick to our top games strategy, allocating more resources for research and development to generate ideas, professional talent development, as well as content and technology innovation, in order to roll out our more high-quality mobile games. In terms of games pipeline, we will maintain our core competitiveness in the MMORPGs, while also producing various game, other game types, including card-based RPGs, sports, and casual games. Now, I'll turn over the call to our CFO, Joanna, who will walk you through our financials. Joanna? Thank you, Charles. I will now walk you through the key financials for our major segments for the second quarter of 2023. All the numbers are on a non-GAAP basis. You may find a reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP measures on our IR website. For Sohu Media Portal, quarterly revenues were $17 million, compared with revenues $20 million in the same quarter last year. The quarterly operating loss was $35 million, compared with an operating loss $44 million in the same quarter last year. For Sohu Video, quarterly revenues were $15 million, compared with revenues of $16 million in the same quarter last year. Quarterly operating loss was $32 million, compared with an operating loss $25 million in the same quarter last year. For Changyou, for Changyou's online game business and the 17173, quarterly revenues, $119 million, compared with revenues $159 million in the same quarter last year. Quarterly operating profit was $49 million, compared with an operating profit of $85 million in the same quarter last year. For third quarter of 2023, we expect from advertising revenues to be between $21 million and $24 million. This implies annual decrease of 7%-18%, and a sequential decrease of nil to 12%. Online game business, online game revenues to be between $108 million and $180 million. This implies annual decrease of 21%-27%, and a sequential decrease of nil to 9%. Non-GAAP net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited, to be between $20 million-$30 million. and the GAAP net loss attributable to Sohu.com Limited to be between $23 million-$33 million. Our guidance reflects our current and the preliminary view, which is subject to substantial uncertain. Also, please be noted that the above, above guidance excludes projections for the new TLBB Mobile game, which is scheduled to launch in the third quarter of 2023. Given that the game is not yet launched, revenue projections for the game remain uncertain. Therefore, the company believes that it's appropriate to take a conservative approach with the third quarter guidance. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we would now like to open the call for questions. Thank you. To ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Thomas Chong from Jefferies. Please ask your question, Thomas. Hi, good evening. Thanks management for taking my questions. I have a question on the advertising, first, because when I look into the Q3 guidance, it seems that the low end of the guidance and the high end seems the range is quite high. If I try to exclude the foreign exchange, exchange impact, looking into a local currency, it seems that there's a chance that we would have a positive sequential growth. I just want to ask management about how's the advertising sentiment so far we are seeing in the month of July versus June, and how we should think about the advertising trend across different categories like auto, FMCG and internet services? Thank you. You said, sequential growth, but is that? Yes. Sequential growth for, for Q3? Q3, when the guidance, coming range beyond that. In terms of renminbi, right? Yes. Some, some kind of growth. Yes. Overall, for the second quarter, the advertising revenue is not. The overall market is not bouncing back as expected. That's why, compare with last year, the Q2 revenue dropped, right? 4%. We are still holding, holding steady because in terms of RMB, it's still a 2% growth for Q2. Normally, we have a better Q3 normally, right? Yes. In a normal economy situation. Yes. Because of the sluggish economy, as I said, the bounce back is not as expected. We are forecasting a downward. And, revenue for Q3. Yeah, because, we are, we're holding, holding up the revenue because of our, you know, innovative, innovative marketing, solutions to our advertisers, as as I just said, you know in a script. live broadcasting and innovative events. Overall, in terms of the categories, so the real estate is basically, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's none, right? Doesn't exist anymore. So our top advertisers, auto, 26%, internet service 18%, FMCG 16%. With auto, it's not, it seems, not doing well because the automakers are now more hesitant in spending much and not with the big marketing campaigns, not as they did, because the overall economy. Internet service as well, is the same thing. Same because our people are spending less even, and, you know, buying less and online. FMCG seems a little bit, it's okay, but it's still with a smaller percentage of our overall revenue. That's the kind of, that, that's overall picture. Did I answer your question? Thomas? Yes, thank you, Charles, for the detailed answer. May I have a quick follow-up, that is about AIGC and industry LLM? I just want to seek management thoughts about how AIGC can benefit Sohu in the future? What are our strategies and the spending in this area? Thank you. We believe that AIGC is a major technology advancement. It's very, very important. It's revolutionized the way, you know, formerly, it's a search engine, now it's a totally different way of delivering information or, or. It's a very important opportunity, especially for media and information providers like Sohu. We are, we're not investing in the large, you know, large model, big data model, large model. We will, we'll probably outsource the large model, you know, to, to, to use some services, service providers, third-party provider to us. Then we are redeveloped those applications in our in our consumer and services like Sohu News, Sohu News and Sohu and social, you know, social network. Like, for example, we are now before each article, we have a machine-generated- Point. What? Abstract. Abstract. Yeah, exactly, abstract. Also some of our products, actually are using AIGC. We are going to be a heavy user of AIGC, and we're closely monitoring its development to turn those developments into the real practical, you know, applications and turn it into a user, a consumer-side product. Yeah. Got it. Thank you, Charles. I will get back to the queue. Okay. Right. Thank you, Thomas. Our next question comes from Alicia Yap from Citi. Please go ahead, Alicia. Hi. Yes, good evening, Charles, Joanna, and management. Thanks for taking my questions. I have three questions. First, I wanted to follow up on the previous Thomas questions on the advertising, Charles. Can you elaborate, you mentioned it was a little bit sluggish and bouncing back is a little bit weaker than expected. Do, do you expect the situation to actually continue into the next few months and also the rest of the year? You know, internally, is that, is, is that, is, is that worse than what you had previously expected, or is this, like, worse than everybody has expected? This is the first question on advertising, just to follow up. I think it's probably, throughout, throughout, to, to, throughout the year, not just a quarter. Mm-hmm. It's just like everyone, actually, in Q2, you know, you, you probably remember last quarter. P hone call, or conference call, that we have, you know, we, since, you know, after the, you know, three years of, the COVID, COVID lockdown, you know, after, and we, everyone expected a, a stronger, you know, a bounce back of economy. Then now in the middle of Q3, we are seeing, we're not seeing that strong bounce back like everyone did. Like everyone is, you know, seeing, not seeing. It's pretty. I see. I understood. Would you also, you know, kind of attribute some of the reason, natural event, like the flooding, to maybe, you know, kind of like amplify the magnitude? Is, you know, the overall macro sentiment is also getting softer or worse because of some of the natural events that happened as well? The flooding just happened. It's nothing to do with the flooding. Okay. I think it's the overall macroeconomic situation, you know. The export you know, those, the, people's have less disposal income because the people, you know, so not having enough, enough disposable income, people are not buying things. If you don't have export and people are not buying, does not have the money to buying things, then those products have, you know, there's no sale of those products. Those companies, then, stop hiring. J obs opportunity, no job opportunity. It's a, it's a, it's a negative downward, you know, it's a spiral downward, right? Trend. Okay. I still, in terms of internet companies and a company like Sohu, I think, I'm still not that, not that, you know, pessimistic. If our people not spending, have large item spending, like, you know, buying cars or buying, houses, then, in terms of cash, they probably have more cash to buy little things. Like the subscription of the monthly subscription of our video drama membership, or, you know, just playing games, playing online games and consuming the social networks. If the auto and some large item advertisers are kind of their spending is declining a little bit. Probably some small items, FMCG side could, could come up, because, you know, China's economy is still large, and the population and the consumers, number of consumers is still the largest. I'm still kind of optimistic. That's why we are, we are investing to continue to develop our social network and the, and the information delivery, and also social networks, so that at this economic downtime, we take it, take advantage of the, you know, we actually we are more, we are actually cash rich, and we can spend it to grow our user base. It's a good time. I see. To grow our user base. Okay. Thanks, Charles. The second question I, I wanted to ask is gaming. You just mentioned on, you know, the small item spend. I think, I, I understand your guidance hasn't been in the new TLBB launch. Just anything that you can share in terms of your expectation? Is it something that the game potentially is, it, it could be a title that you, you, you guys You haven't seen it for a long time, that you guys actually are looking very much looking forward for, for that launch, that going to, you know, attract back some of the gamers, and also potentially brings in, you know, the, the growth for the gaming business again? Any expectation that you can share would be helpful. Oh, let Dewen Chen share. Yes, the game is developed by Changyou itself and will be published by Tencent. Now before its launch, it's being prepared in a registration phase. Because Tencent is in charge of the process. We just did the monetization test in June, and the testing results met with our prior expectations for the testing phase. For sure, we cannot do any projections for the mid to long-term gaming, games performance. To be conservative, we just didn't put it into our guidance. Okay. Thank you. Lastly, Charles, can you also share with us any updated views or thoughts on the cash use and also the shareholder return policy? For example, any thinking about a regular dividend policy or any upcoming new share buyback program? Thank you. Well, we currently, right now, we don't have any plan for dividend or buyback plans. We are still have a, you know, a huge task of growing our user base. We've been working on our products for the last few years to refine it and to develop the new applications, especially in the social network side, on the social network side. Our battlefield will enter or enter into the stage of a major user acquisition, yeah, stage of user acquisitions. That will, that, that, we need the, the, you know, the, the fund to do that. The use of cash will be continued to be to develop our user base. We don't have any, currently don't have much, other, other plans to investment. Okay. All right. Thank you, Charles. Thank you, management. Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one, one on your telephone keypad. All right, there are no further questions. With that, we conclude today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.