Agora Inc (API) 2021 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Agora, Inc. Fourth Quarter 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. (Operator Instructions)

美好的一天，感謝您的支持。歡迎來到 Agora, Inc. 2021 年第四季度財務業績電話會議。 （操作員說明）

I would now like to hand the call over to your first speaker today, Ms. Fionna Chen. Thank you. Please go ahead.

我現在想把電話轉給今天的第一位發言人陳菲奧娜女士。謝謝你。請繼續。

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Agora's fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings conference call. Our earnings results press release, SEC filings, and a replay of today's call can be found on our IR website at investor.agora.io. Joining me today are Tony Zhao, Founder, Chairman and CEO; and Jingbo Wang, our CFO. Reconciliations between our GAAP and non-GAAP results can be found in our earnings press release.

謝謝你，接線員。大家早上好，感謝您參加 Agora 2021 年第四季度和全年財報電話會議。我們的收益結果新聞稿、SEC 文件和今天電話會議的重播可以在我們的投資者關係網站investor.agora.io 上找到。今天加入我的是創始人、董事長兼首席執行官Tony Zhao；和我們的首席財務官王靜波。我們的 GAAP 和非 GAAP 結果之間的調節可以在我們的收益新聞稿中找到。

During this call, we will make forward-looking statements about our future financial performance and other future events and trends. These statements are only predictions that are based on what we believe today and actual results may differ materially. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors that could affect our financial results and performance of our business and which we discuss in detail in our filings with SEC, including today's earnings press release and the risk factors and other information contained in the final prospectus, relating to our initial public offering. Agora remains no obligation to update any forward-looking statements we may have on today's call.

在本次電話會議中，我們將對我們未來的財務業績以及其他未來事件和趨勢做出前瞻性陳述。這些陳述只是基於我們今天所相信的預測，實際結果可能存在重大差異。這些前瞻性陳述受風險、不確定性、假設和其他可能影響我們的財務業績和業務業績的因素的影響，我們在提交給 SEC 的文件中詳細討論了這些因素，包括今天的收益新聞稿和風險因素和最終招股說明書中包含的與我們的首次公開募股有關的其他信息。 Agora 沒有義務更新我們在今天的電話會議上可能擁有的任何前瞻性陳述。

With that, let me turn over to Tony.

有了這個，讓我轉給托尼。

Yes. Thank you, Fionna, and welcome everyone to our earnings call. 2021 was a year of great opportunities and challenges for Agora. I am extremely proud to see how hard our team worked together across the board, and of course, every vertical to drive Agora forward. It is exciting to see how much we have accomplished and how much innovation we have fostered with our real-time engagement platform.

是的。謝謝你，菲奧娜，歡迎大家參加我們的財報電話會議。 2021 年對 Agora 來說是充滿機遇和挑戰的一年。我非常自豪地看到我們的團隊在各個方面共同努力，當然還有在每個垂直領域推動 Agora 向前發展。很高興看到我們已經取得了多少成就，以及我們通過我們的實時參與平台培育了多少創新。

I am proud to say, that as of the end of 2021, the Agora SDK were installed globally in more applications than any other real-time video or voice SDK by a very large margin, according to data.ai, previously known as App Annie.

我可以自豪地說，根據 data.ai（以前稱為 App Annie）的數據，截至 2021 年底，Agora SDK 在全球範圍內安裝的應用程序數量超過任何其他實時視頻或語音 SDK。 .

Our technology and product innovation are what distinguish as a pioneer and the leader in real-time engagement. Today, we are powering the new norm of engagement and the emotional human connection, both virtually and in real-life.

我們的技術和產品創新是實時參與的先驅和領導者的區別。今天，我們正在推動新的參與規範和情感人際關係，無論是在虛擬生活中還是在現實生活中。

Now let's shift to our earnings; we delivered another quarter of strong result. Our revenue for the first quarter was $40.4 million, up 21% year-over-year. At the end of December, we had more than 400,000 registered apps on our platform, and our number of active customers reached nearly 2,700, adding nearly 600 year-over-year. For the full year of 2021, we powered more than 600 billion minutes of real-time engagement in total and our revenue was $168 million, which represents an increase of 26% from 2020.

現在讓我們轉向我們的收入；我們又取得了四分之一的強勁業績。我們第一季度的收入為 4040 萬美元，同比增長 21%。截至 12 月底，我們平台上的註冊應用超過 40 萬個，活躍客戶數量達到近 2700 家，同比增加近 600 家。 2021 年全年，我們的實時互動總時長超過 6000 億分鐘，收入為 1.68 億美元，比 2020 年增長 26%。

If we look at our key markets, revenue from United States and APAC excluding China, recorded the strongest growth in this quarter. We are now powering many leading metaverse platforms in South Korea, many leading online education companies in South Asia, and many highly innovative interactive e-commerce, audio live cast, and virtual event platforms in the U.S.

如果我們看看我們的主要市場，美國和亞太地區（不包括中國）的收入在本季度錄得最強勁的增長。我們現在為韓國許多領先的虛擬世界平台、南亞許多領先的在線教育公司以及美國許多高度創新的互動電子商務、音頻直播和虛擬活動平台提供支持。

In China, our market leadership was clearly demonstrated by our recent IDC report, which ranked Agora as the number one real-time video and voice API provider with a market share greater than the next 7 providers combined. In this quarter, despite the impact of the new regulation on K-12 after-school tutoring etcetera, revenues from other sectors remained healthy.

在中國，我們最近的 IDC 報告清楚地展示了我們的市場領導地位，該報告將 Agora 列為第一的實時視頻和語音 API 提供商，其市場份額超過了接下來的 7 家提供商的總和。本季度，儘管新規對 K-12 課後輔導等產生了影響，但其他行業的收入依然穩健。

As real-time engagement use case continued to expand across regions, our revenue source have also become more diversified. In this quarter, revenue contribution from usage outside of China was 35%, the highest in our history.

隨著實時參與用例在各個地區不斷擴展，我們的收入來源也變得更加多元化。本季度，中國以外使用的收入貢獻為 35%，是我們歷史上最高的。

Moving on to new use cases; one of my favorite use case in 2021 is this, Blue Frog Robotics. This amazing company powered by Agora technology, is changing the way hospitalized students interact with teachers, classmates, friends and families through this emotional robot named Buddy. In France, Buddy the robot was deployed to nearly 2,000 school children and the First Lady of France has been a supporter in expanding this program across the country. In 2022, you will be seeing much more from Blue Frog, Buddy and how Agora is powering the world for the better.

繼續使用新用例； 2021 年我最喜歡的用例之一是 Blue Frog Robotics。這家由 Agora 技術提供支持的神奇公司正在通過這個名為 Buddy 的情感機器人改變住院學生與老師、同學、朋友和家人互動的方式。在法國，機器人 Buddy 被部署到近 2000 名學童身上，法國第一夫人一直支持在全國范圍內推廣該計劃。 2022 年，您將看到更多來自 Blue Frog、Buddy 以及 Agora 如何讓世界變得更美好的故事。

In the Netherlands, Conference Compass, a hybrid event engagement platform focused on global scientific and medical conferences, leveraged Agora's interactive live streaming technology to double their revenue, and a bit closer to home, across the country from our Santa Clara, California headquarters, the University of Maryland's medical system built a fully integrated app into all their back-end system to obtain patient information. They named it TelePort. TelePort is used across 14 and 200 departments. Agora is embedded in this platform for all video and audio engagement between doctors and patients, as well as between providers and staff.

在荷蘭，Conference Compass 是一個專注於全球科學和醫學會議的混合活動參與平台，它利用 Agora 的交互式實時流媒體技術將他們的收入翻了一番，而且離家更近了一點，從我們位於加利福尼亞州聖克拉拉的總部，馬里蘭大學的醫療系統在其所有後端系統中構建了一個完全集成的應用程序，以獲取患者信息。他們將其命名為 TelePort。 TelePort 用於 14 和 200 個部門。 Agora 嵌入在該平台中，用於醫生和患者之間以及提供者和員工之間的所有視頻和音頻互動。

In the longer term, I believe metaverse will become one of the most important use cases for Agora. We have made significant investment in this field and recently announced several solutions tailor-built for metaverse, for example, MetaKTV and MetaChat.

從長遠來看，我相信元界將成為 Agora 最重要的用例之一。我們在這一領域進行了大量投資，最近宣布了幾款專為元界量身定制的解決方案，例如 MetaKTV 和 MetaChat。

Our MetaKTV solution is an expansion of our one-stop online karaoke solution that I mentioned in previous earnings call, on top of our technology that enables users to sing together at ultra-low latency and our usage based copyright solution for hundreds of thousands of soundtracks. MetaKTV reproduces an old-school karaoke room in the virtual world, with avatar singers and audiences, stages, party lights and screens, all with beautiful 3D rendering. In this virtual karaoke room, users are able to sing and dance on the stage or wave and cheer in front of it and hear and see each other in real time.

我們的 MetaKTV 解決方案是我在之前的財報電話會議中提到的一站式在線卡拉 OK 解決方案的擴展，我們的技術使用戶能夠以超低延遲一起唱歌，以及我們基於使用的版權解決方案，用於數十萬首音軌. MetaKTV 在虛擬世界中再現了一個老式的卡拉 OK 房間，有虛擬的歌手和觀眾、舞台、派對燈光和屏幕，所有這些都有漂亮的 3D 渲染。在這個虛擬的卡拉OK房中，用戶可以在舞台上唱歌跳舞，或者在舞台前揮手歡呼，實時聽到和看到對方。

Our MetaKTV solution allows users to create and customize avatars with hundreds of options, meet friends in a virtual bar or cafe, and engage with each other through voice chat in the shared virtual space. Both MetaKTV and MetaChat are supported by our largest 3D spatial audio technology -- by our latest 3D spatial audio technology, which allows users to perceive sound that's coming from different locations and descents around the user in the virtual space.

我們的 MetaKTV 解決方案允許用戶創建和自定義具有數百個選項的頭像，在虛擬酒吧或咖啡館與朋友會面，並通過共享虛擬空間中的語音聊天相互交流。 MetaKTV 和 MetaChat 都得到我們最大的 3D 空間音頻技術的支持——我們最新的 3D 空間音頻技術，它允許用戶在虛擬空間中感知來自用戶周圍不同位置和下降的聲音。

Technically, this is a very challenging task, because all the sounds generated by users and the environment need to be updated in real-time as users move inside the virtual space. Despite the technical challenge, I believe 3D spatial audio is an important technology that makes the virtual world feel real. With spatial audio, users will feel more present and engaged, whether they are in a live cast session or during a game play.

從技術上講，這是一項非常具有挑戰性的任務，因為用戶和環境產生的所有聲音都需要隨著用戶在虛擬空間內移動而實時更新。儘管存在技術挑戰，但我相信 3D 空間音頻是一項讓虛擬世界感覺真實的重要技術。借助空間音頻，無論是在現場直播還是在玩遊戲時，用戶都會感到更加臨場和參與。

These R&D investments have enabled fast go-to-market for our customers. We are seeing many innovative metaverse use cases from all over the world, leveraging our RTE technology. For example, we helped Oasis, a popular metaverse platform in Brazil to enable house parties at the users' virtual home, powered by our MetaKTV solution. A company called XRSPACE built an online karaoke platform called PartyOn, and I welcome you to experience this for yourself. It's available on all smartphones and AR devices.

這些研發投資使我們的客戶能夠快速進入市場。利用我們的 RTE 技術，我們看到了來自世界各地的許多創新元宇宙用例。例如，在我們的 MetaKTV 解決方案的支持下，我們幫助巴西流行的 Metaverse 平台 Oasis 在用戶的虛擬家中啟用家庭聚會。一家叫XRSPACE的公司搭建了一個叫PartyOn的在線卡拉OK平台，歡迎大家親身體驗。它適用於所有智能手機和 AR 設備。

Now, moving onto security, compliance, and privacy protection; as always, they are critical to our success. Recently, we were awarded the ISO-27701 certificate on our information security management system. We also partnered with Bishop Fox, to improve our ability to defend real-world sophisticated attacks. Looking forward, we will continue to work with leading experts, to ensure that our security practice remains best in class.

現在，轉向安全性、合規性和隱私保護；一如既往，它們對我們的成功至關重要。最近，我們的信息安全管理體系獲得了 ISO-27701 證書。我們還與 Bishop Fox 合作，以提高我們防禦現實世界複雜攻擊的能力。展望未來，我們將繼續與領先的專家合作，以確保我們的安全實踐保持一流的水平。

Lastly, I would like to take the opportunity to thank our customers and our developer community for their innovation and passion to build RTE all the way with us. I also want to say thank you to all the Agorans for their hard work and dedication to our customers' success. I feel incredibly confident to embrace the promising future of real-time engagement. Let's create and enjoy it together.

最後，我想藉此機會感謝我們的客戶和我們的開發者社區，感謝他們的創新和熱情，與我們一起構建 RTE。我還要感謝所有 Agorans 的辛勤工作和對客戶成功的奉獻。我對擁抱實時參與充滿希望的未來充滿信心。讓我們一起創造和享受它。

Now let me turn things over to Jingbo who will review our financial results.

現在讓我把事情交給靜波，他將審查我們的財務業績。

Thank you, Tony. Hello, everyone. Let me start by first reviewing financial results for Q4 and then I will discuss our outlook for the fiscal year of 2022. Total revenues grew 21% year-over-year to $40.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. Total revenues for the fiscal year of 2021 were $168 million, which represented a 26% year-over-year growth and exceeded the high end of our guidance range by $3 million. Number of active customers reached more than 2,600, excluding growth for Easemob, up 27% year-over-year. The growth in revenue and active customers was mainly driven by continued adoption of our technology by worldwide developers, as well as emergence and growth of new use cases.

謝謝你，托尼。大家好。讓我首先回顧第四季度的財務業績，然後我將討論我們對 2022 財年的展望。2021 年第四季度的總收入同比增長 21% 至 4040 萬美元。本財年的總收入2021 年為 1.68 億美元，同比增長 26%，超出我們指導範圍的高端 300 萬美元。活躍客戶數量達到 2,600 多個，不包括 Easemob 的增長，同比增長 27%。收入和活躍客戶的增長主要是由於全球開發人員繼續採用我們的技術，以及新用例的出現和增長。

As we mentioned in previous earnings calls, our revenue growth in the quarter was negatively impacted by the new regulation on K-12 academic tutoring sector in China. We expect such impact to continue and hopefully bottom out in the first quarter of 2022. Our trailing 12-month constant currency dollar-based net expansion rate is 104% excluding Easemob at the end of 2021. We also calculated adjusted expansion rate, to exclude the impact from COVID-19 in the first half of 2020, and the adjusted expansion rate would be 124%.

正如我們在之前的財報電話會議中提到的，我們本季度的收入增長受到中國 K-12 學術輔導行業新法規的負面影響。我們預計這種影響將繼續存在，並有望在 2022 年第一季度觸底。截至 2021 年底，不包括 Easemob，我們過去 12 個月基於固定貨幣美元的淨擴張率為 104%。我們還計算了調整後的擴張率，以排除2020 年上半年 COVID-19 的影響，調整後的擴張率為 124%。

Moving on to costs and expenses. For my following comments, I will focus on non-GAAP results, which exclude share-based compensation expenses, acquisition-related expenses, amortization expenses of acquired intangible assets, and income tax related to acquired intangible assets.

繼續討論成本和費用。對於我的以下評論，我將重點關注非公認會計原則的結果，其中不包括股權補償費用、收購相關費用、收購無形資產的攤銷費用以及與收購無形資產相關的所得稅。

Non-GAAP gross margin for the fourth quarter was 64%, which was 3.5% higher than Q4 2020. As we mentioned in previous earnings calls, the increase was mainly driven by technical and infrastructure optimizations we have been implementing since the beginning of 2021. Non-GAAP R&D expenses were $23.5 million in Q4, up 80.2% year-over-year, as we continue to hire talented employees and strengthen our R&D team, as well as consolidation of Easemob's R&D team.

第四季度非美國通用會計準則毛利率為 64%，比 2020 年第四季度高 3.5%。正如我們在之前的財報電話會議中提到的，這一增長主要是由我們自 2021 年初以來一直在實施的技術和基礎設施優化推動的。第四季度非美國通用會計準則研發費用為 2350 萬美元，同比增長 80.2%，因為我們繼續聘用有才華的員工並加強我們的研發團隊，以及整合 Easemob 的研發團隊。

Non-GAAP R&D expenses were 58.1% of total revenues in the quarter compared to 39.2% in Q4 last year. Our strategy is to focus on long-term growth opportunities and innovation, instead of maximizing short-term profitability. We will continue to invest significant resources in our R&D capabilities, in order to further strengthen our technology leadership, provide a more diverse product portfolio, and empower emerging use cases around the world.

本季度非美國通用會計準則研發費用佔總收入的 58.1%，而去年第四季度為 39.2%。我們的戰略是專注於長期增長機會和創新，而不是最大化短期盈利能力。我們將繼續在研發能力上投入大量資源，以進一步加強我們的技術領先地位，提供更多樣化的產品組合，並賦能全球新興用例。

Non-GAAP sales and marketing expenses were $12.2 million in Q4, up 76.1% year-over-year, mainly attributable to team expansion and increased advertising and event expenses, including expenses related to our RTE 2021 conferences. Sales and marketing expenses represented 30.2% of total revenues in the quarter, compared to 20.8% in Q4 last year.

第四季度非 GAAP 銷售和營銷費用為 1220 萬美元，同比增長 76.1%，主要歸因於團隊擴張以及廣告和活動費用增加，包括與我們的 RTE 2021 會議相關的費用。銷售和營銷費用佔本季度總收入的 30.2%，而去年第四季度為 20.8%。

Non-GAAP G&A expenses were $7.3 million in Q4, up 29.5% year-over-year, mainly due to team expansion and expected credit losses -- credit loss provisions. G&A expenses represented 18.1% of total revenues in the quarter compared to 17% in Q4 last year. Non-GAAP operating loss was $15.4 million, translating to a 38.2% non-GAAP operating loss margin fourth quarter compared to an operating loss margin of 14.4% in Q4 last year.

第四季度非美國通用會計準則 G&A 費用為 730 萬美元，同比增長 29.5%，主要是由於團隊擴張和預期信用損失——信用損失準備金。 G&A 費用佔本季度總收入的 18.1%，而去年第四季度為 17%。非美國通用會計準則營業虧損為 1540 萬美元，相當於第四季度非美國通用會計準則營業虧損率為 38.2%，而去年第四季度的營業虧損率為 14.4%。

Turning to cash flow, operating cash flow was positive $5.1 million in Q4 compared to positive $2 million last year. Free cash flow was positive $2.9 million, compared to negative $1.4 million last year.

談到現金流，第四季度的經營現金流為正 510 萬美元，而去年為正 200 萬美元。自由現金流為正 290 萬美元，而去年為負 140 萬美元。

Moving on to balance sheet. We ended Q4 with $755 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments compared to $767 million as we end of Q3. Net cash outflow in the quarter was mainly due to consideration paid for Easemob acquisition of $13.9 million.

繼續資產負債表。我們在第四季度末的現金、現金等價物和短期投資為 7.55 億美元，而第三季度末為 7.67 億美元。本季度的淨現金流出主要是由於收購 Easemob 支付的 1390 萬美元的對價。

Now turning to guidance. COVID-19 is still an unprecedented variable to our business model where historical experience may not apply. Our guidance on full year revenues reflect various assumptions that are subject to change based on uncertainties related to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, as mentioned before, we expect new regulation on K-12 tutoring sector in China will continue to have a significant marked impact our revenues in the near term. With that, we currently expect total revenues for the fiscal year of 2022 to be in the range of $176 million to $178 million, which would represent approximately 5.4% year-over-year growth at midpoint.

現在轉向指導。對於我們的商業模式而言，COVID-19 仍然是一個前所未有的變量，歷史經驗可能並不適用。我們對全年收入的指導反映了各種假設，這些假設可能會因與 COVID-19 大流行影響相關的不確定性而發生變化。此外，如前所述，我們預計中國 K-12 輔導行業的新規定將在短期內繼續對我們的收入產生顯著影響。鑑於此，我們目前預計 2022 財年的總收入將在 1.76 億美元至 1.78 億美元之間，中點同比增長約 5.4%。

Today, we announced that our Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase program of up to $200 million. The program demonstrates our confidence in the fundamentals, strategies, and long-term growth potential of Agora and our commitment to enhancing shareholder value. With more than $750 million of cash on hand at the end of 2021, we believe we will be able to continue to invest in our technology and business expansion at the same time.

今天，我們宣布我們的董事會已批准一項高達 2 億美元的股票回購計劃。該計劃表明了我們對 Agora 的基本面、戰略和長期增長潛力的信心，以及我們對提高股東價值的承諾。到 2021 年底，手頭有超過 7.5 億美元的現金，我們相信我們將能夠同時繼續投資於我們的技術和業務擴展。

In closing, we are very proud of the execution and strong performance in this remarkable year. Regardless of all the difficulties and challenges, we are confident about long-term prospect of our business. Thank you to the entire Agora team for your hard work and everyone attending the call today. Hope you are healthy and safe.

最後，我們對這一非凡年份的執行力和強勁表現感到非常自豪。儘管面臨所有困難和挑戰，我們對業務的長期前景充滿信心。感謝整個 Agora 團隊的辛勤工作以及今天參加電話會議的所有人。希望你健康平安。

Let's open it up for questions.

讓我們打開它來提問。

(Operator Instructions) First question comes from the line on Yang Liu from Morgan Stanley.

（操作員說明）第一個問題來自摩根士丹利的 Yang Liu。

I have 2 questions on -- regarding to the overseas business opportunities. The first one is, how do management think about the growing opportunities? With current guidance range, what is the growth for the overseas market and contribution -- or full year revenue contribution in 2022 for overseas market? And the second question is, could management update us in term of the overseas market gross margin profile in 4Q and 2022 outlook?

我有兩個關於海外商機的問題。第一個是，管理層如何看待增長機會？在目前的指導範圍內，海外市場的增長和貢獻——或2022年全年對海外市場的收入貢獻是多少？第二個問題是，管理層能否就第四季度的海外市場毛利率和 2022 年展望更新我們？

Sure. I will talk about the first part, outlook on overseas opportunities. I'm actually very excited about opportunities for us, in like North America, Europe and APAC excluding China. Many countries in these regions have largely reopened their economies, but we continue to see strong usage numbers. It is clear to me that, the pandemic has permanently changed how people work, collaborate and study.

當然。我將談談第一部分，對海外機會的展望。實際上，我對我們在北美、歐洲和亞太地區（不包括中國）的機會感到非常興奮。這些地區的許多國家已經在很大程度上重新開放了經濟，但我們繼續看到強勁的使用量。我很清楚，大流行已經永久性地改變了人們的工作、協作和學習方式。

I'll mention a few areas where we see enormous growth opportunities. First, future of work. This would include virtual office platforms, virtual event platforms, online collaboration platforms for creating graphics, documents, and music and so on. In the past year, we added many virtual event customers, that hold all kinds of events from quiz shows to celebrity (inaudible) through our platform. We also have several collaborative design platform, to enable live discussions between users, while working on a design project. We are working with virtual office platforms, such as Loop and Virbela to define how distributed teams will work together in the future.

我將提到一些我們看到巨大增長機會的領域。第一，工作的未來。這將包括虛擬辦公平台、虛擬活動平台、用於創建圖形、文檔和音樂的在線協作平台等。在過去的一年裡，我們增加了許多虛擬活動客戶，通過我們的平台舉辦從智力競賽到名人（聽不清）的各種活動。我們還有幾個協作設計平台，可以在用戶之間進行實時討論，同時進行設計項目。我們正在使用 Loop 和 Virbela 等虛擬辦公平台來定義分佈式團隊在未來如何協同工作。

Most recently, we also helped one of the largest company in the world by market cap to launch an audio live cast platform for the workplace, reflecting that the trend of a lot of the real-time engagement features previously only available in social apps, are now coming to professional apps. With this customer, we went through a very rigorous vendor selection process and have proven -- and have proved, that our product can meet the requirements of large enterprise customers in the U.S. I believe, this will open door for us in many more enterprise opportunities in the future.

最近，我們還幫助全球市值最大的公司之一為工作場所推出了音頻直播平台，這反映了許多以前僅在社交應用程序中提供的實時參與功能的趨勢，現在來到專業應用程序。對於這個客戶，我們經歷了非常嚴格的供應商選擇過程，並且已經證明 - 並且已經證明，我們的產品可以滿足美國大型企業客戶的要求，我相信，這將為我們打開更多企業機會的大門將來。

Second, around education. Recently, we see strong usage growth from education customers in South Asia, Middle East, Europe, and U.S., even after the reopening. We now power many of the largest education technology unicorns in South Asia. What we see is that, they are basically replicating what EDU and the TAL did successfully in the past in China, which is leverage Agora's capabilities to build branded and proprietary apps that offer better online classroom experience than standard conferencing apps. This market has huge -- these markets have huge population and the penetration of RTE empowered online education is still very low, which means there is huge revenue potential for Agora.

二是圍繞教育。最近，我們看到南亞、中東、歐洲和美國教育客戶的使用量強勁增長，即使在重新開放之後也是如此。我們現在為南亞許多最大的教育技術獨角獸提供支持。我們看到的是，他們基本上是在復制 EDU 和 TAL 過去在中國成功的做法，即利用 Agora 的能力構建品牌和專有應用程序，提供比標準會議應用程序更好的在線課堂體驗。這個市場很大——這些市場人口眾多，RTE 賦能在線教育的滲透率仍然很低，這意味著 Agora 有巨大的收入潛力。

Third, metaverse-related use cases. I already talked a lot about metaverse in my opening remarks. Now we have already powered several leading metaverse platforms in South Korea and Brazil and we will -- and we also just announced solutions such as MetaKTV and MetaChat. However, I believe we are only at the beginning of a multiple year trend that will change how people live their lives online. As I summarize, the opportunities for Agora are very clear. It's now up to us to execute well to on our strategy and convert these opportunities into business outcome. Jingbo may add on more financial side.

第三，與元節相關的用例。在我的開場白中，我已經談了很多關於元宇宙的事情。現在，我們已經為韓國和巴西的幾個領先的虛擬世界平台提供了支持，我們將——我們還剛剛宣布了 MetaKTV 和 MetaChat 等解決方案。但是，我相信我們只是處於多年趨勢的開始，它將改變人們在線生活的方式。正如我總結的那樣，Agora 的機會非常明顯。現在由我們來很好地執行我們的戰略並將這些機會轉化為業務成果。京波可能會增加更多的財務方面。

Thank you, Tony. So yes, the guidance at the midpoint represent about a 5% year-over-year growth, but I think to understand what it means -- what the guidance means, we need to really break down our business into 3 parts. First is the non-China business, as Tony just discussed; then it's China K-12 business, and finally the China non-K-12 business.

謝謝你，托尼。所以是的，中點的指導代表了大約 5% 的同比增長，但我認為要理解這意味著什麼——指導意味著什麼，我們需要真正將我們的業務分解為 3 個部分。首先是托尼剛才討論的非中國業務；然後是中國 K-12 業務，最後是中國非 K-12 業務。

So the K-12 business in China last year represented about 25% of total revenues and we expect to lose almost all of that revenue stream, almost entirely in 2022. So it's not really an apple-to-apple comparison between the $158 million and the guided range for next year. A more apple-to-apple comparison would be, 2022 guidance versus 2021 revenue, excluding K-12 in China. And in that case, the guidance was to imply a healthy growth rate.

因此，去年在中國的 K-12 業務約佔總收入的 25%，我們預計將在 2022 年幾乎完全失去所有收入來源。因此，1.58 億美元和明年的指導範圍。 2022 年的指導與 2021 年的收入（不包括中國的 K-12）進行更全面的比較。在那種情況下，指導是暗示健康的增長率。

So if we break down the 3 parts of our business, the China non-K-12 business, we expect to do moderate growth in 2022, driven by verticals such as IoT, traditional enterprises, record digital transformation, and also by new products like Fusion CDN and (inaudible), and also a lot of the new solutions recently released like MetaKTV and MetaChat. So that's the sort of the policy in China.

因此，如果我們分解我們業務的三個部分，即中國非 K-12 業務，我們預計在物聯網、傳統企業、創紀錄的數字化轉型等垂直行業以及新產品（如Fusion CDN 和（聽不清），以及最近發布的許多新解決方案，如 MetaKTV 和 MetaChat。這就是中國的政策。

Out of China, Tony even talked about this, so we are quite confident we will be able to deliver very strong growth outside China. So in terms of the margins, actually in the latest quarter, the gross margins outside China are almost the same. And as we mentioned before, we expect -- as we continue to expand footprint in different regions and continue to scale our infrastructure, we should get additional cost benefit and in the end, we expect our GP would be actually higher outside China.

在中國之外，托尼甚至談到了這一點，所以我們很有信心我們將能夠在中國以外實現非常強勁的增長。所以就利潤率而言，實際上在最近一個季度，中國以外的毛利率幾乎是一樣的。正如我們之前提到的，我們預計——隨著我們繼續擴大在不同地區的足跡並繼續擴大我們的基礎設施，我們應該獲得額外的成本效益，最終，我們預計我們的 GP 在中國以外的地區實際上會更高。

(Operator Instructions) Next question comes from the line of Vincent Yu from Needham & Company.

（操作員說明）下一個問題來自 Needham & Company 的 Vincent Yu。

Can you hear me?

你能聽到我嗎？

Yes.

是的。

Okay. Sure. I have -- thank you management for taking my question. I have 2. So the first question is on lower expenses, especially for the marketing expenses. How we think of viewing -- the growth of our marketing expenses going forward? Should we expect more and more expenses on this part, because of the development in the overseas market? My second question is on the utilization of the cash. And in addition to the stock -- I just would like to know, do we have any idea or plan to make more investments or acquire some non-China business to expand the overseas business development?

好的。當然。我有 - 感謝管理層提出我的問題。我有 2 個。所以第一個問題是關於降低費用，尤其是營銷費用。我們如何看待觀看——我們未來營銷費用的增長？由於海外市場的發展，我們是否應該期望這部分的費用越來越多？我的第二個問題是關於現金的使用。除了股票——我只想知道，我們是否有任何想法或計劃進行更多投資或收購一些非中國業務以擴大海外業務發展？

Sure. I guess I'll take both questions. So the first one, I think in the near term, our sales and marketing expenses will increase at a moderate pace in absolute dollar terms, as we continue to invest in branding, marketing, developer community, especially in markets like the United States. So -- but in the medium to long term, we think we'll enjoy a strong operating leverage here. Once we take that developer mindshare and once our platform is adopted -- integrated into our customers' apps, it becomes quite sticky and we won't need as much marketing or sales expense compared with now. So we do think in the longer term, sales and marketing expenses as a percentage of revenue should be at a lower level, especially if you consider the complex and developer-driven nature of our products.

當然。我想我會回答這兩個問題。所以第一個，我認為在短期內，我們的銷售和營銷費用將以絕對美元計算以適度的速度增長，因為我們將繼續投資於品牌、營銷、開發者社區，特別是在美國等市場。所以 - 但從中長期來看，我們認為我們將在這裡享受強大的運營槓桿。一旦我們接受了開發者的關注並且一旦我們的平台被採用——集成到我們客戶的應用程序中，它就會變得非常有粘性，與現在相比，我們不需要那麼多的營銷或銷售費用。因此，我們確實認為從長遠來看，銷售和營銷費用佔收入的百分比應該處於較低水平，尤其是考慮到我們產品的複雜性和開發者驅動的性質。

On the balance sheet, yes, we do have a pretty strong balance sheet and will continue to invest in our business, especially in markets outside China. We're investing in things like brand marketing, developer community, customer support, product localization, security and compliance and so on. We expect the size of the team in Silicon Valley, Singapore, India to grow rapidly here, while the total headcount in China would remain more or less flat. We will not -- in terms of acquisition, we will not rule out the possibility, but it needs to complement our current product portfolio and product strategy. So there is no guarantee, we will be able to find a suitable target.

在資產負債表上，是的，我們確實擁有相當強勁的資產負債表，並將繼續投資於我們的業務，尤其是在中國以外的市場。我們在品牌營銷、開發者社區、客戶支持、產品本地化、安全和合規等方面進行投資。我們預計矽谷、新加坡、印度的團隊規模將在這裡快速增長，而中國的總人數將基本保持不變。我們不會——在收購方面，我們不會排除這種可能性，但它需要補充我們目前的產品組合和產品戰略。所以不能保證，我們一定能找到合適的目標。

(Operator Instructions) We've got new questions from the line of Bing Duan from Nomura.

（操作員說明）我們收到了來自野村的 Bing Duan 的新問題。

Can you hear me?

你能聽到我嗎？

Yes.

是的。

So I have 2 questions. One is about the competition landscape. We -- you've mentioned in the opening remarks that the -- Agora now has over 40% of the market share. So can you give us more colors on how do you think about the competition in future? And so for the demand change in China and overseas market, do we expect more competitors in this market -- in the RTE market going forward? And do we see any, like pricing pressure in the next couple of quarters?

所以我有2個問題。一是關於競爭格局。我們——你在開場白中提到——Agora 現在擁有超過 40% 的市場份額。那麼您能否就您如何看待未來的競爭給我們更多的色彩？那麼對於中國和海外市場的需求變化，我們是否預計這個市場會有更多的競爭者——RTE市場未來？我們是否看到任何，例如未來幾個季度的定價壓力？

And my second question is about -- also about the overseas expansion. So can we say that the gross margins and expense profiles will continue to be under pressure in the next couple of quarters, because we do need to tap into the new opportunity within the overseas market?

我的第二個問題是關於 - 也是關於海外擴張。那麼我們是否可以說毛利率和費用狀況在未來幾個季度將繼續承受壓力，因為我們確實需要在海外市場挖掘新機會？

Yes. Let me talk about the competition side. I think the overall competitive landscape wasn't changed much in the past few quarters and I don't expect it to change drastically going forward. With that said, I did see more players trying to enter the RTE market from different angles. For example, Cloudflare from a CDN live-streaming angle, and Dolby from an audio processing angle. However, so far I think none of our competitors can match the overall QOE and complete feature set of our product portfolio. As such, serious developers who really understand RTE technology, tend to choose Agora.

是的。先說一下比賽方面。我認為整體競爭格局在過去幾個季度沒有太大變化，我預計未來不會發生巨大變化。話雖如此，我確實看到更多的玩家試圖從不同的角度進入 RTE 市場。比如CDN直播角度的Cloudflare，音頻處理角度的杜比。但是，到目前為止，我認為我們的競爭對手都無法與我們產品組合的整體 QOE 和完整功能集相媲美。因此，真正了解 RTE 技術的認真開發者傾向於選擇 Agora。

This was confirmed, as I mentioned, by the latest data -- for example, the latest App Annie data, which shows that Agora SDK has been integrated into more unique apps than any other competitors by a very large margin, and in almost every geography. In 2021, we actually invested $111 million in R&D, more than any other competitors in the RTE space. In the future, we will continue to be the most (technical difficulty). Hello?

正如我所提到的，這一點得到了最新數據的證實——例如，最新的 App Annie 數據表明，Agora SDK 已被集成到比任何其他競爭對手都多的獨特應用程序中，而且幾乎在每個地區. 2021 年，我們實際上在研發上投入了 1.11 億美元，比 RTE 領域的任何其他競爭對手都多。未來，我們將繼續成為最大的（技術難度）。你好？

Telephone line problem. Give us a few...

電話線路問題。給我們幾個...

Yes. Why don't I answer the second question first?

是的。我為什麼不先回答第二個問題？

I was cutting off right?

我打斷了對嗎？

Yes, you are back.

是的，你回來了。

From which part? Sorry, from which part I can continue?

從哪個部位？抱歉，我可以從哪個部分繼續？

Why don't we just start from the beginning?

為什麼我們不從頭開始呢？

Okay. Okay...

好的。好的...

After you talked about the App Annie data, you were cut off.

在你談到 App Annie 數據之後，你就被打斷了。

Okay. All right. App Annie data was a latest sort of industry kind of data to prove our market-leading positions, and I was trying to speak that in 2021, we actually invested $111 million on R&D, more than any other competitors in the RTE space. In the future, we will continue to be the most focused the company on RTE and continue to invest the most R&D resources. So we are very confident that Agora will continue to lead this market. And Jingbo?

好的。好的。 App Annie 數據是一種最新的行業數據，可以證明我們的市場領先地位，我想說的是，在 2021 年，我們實際上在研發上投入了 1.11 億美元，比 RTE 領域的任何其他競爭對手都多。未來，我們將繼續做RTE最專注的公司，繼續投入最多的研發資源。所以我們非常有信心 Agora 將繼續引領這個市場。靜波呢？

Yes, sure. So in terms of the profit outlook for this year, as we mentioned earlier, right, our priority this year is to invest in -- especially in the markets outside China, and we do expect this to cause pressure on the margin in the near term. As you can imagine, a lot of the expenses, the marketing expense, the R&D expense, the G&A expenses, these are not directly correlated with revenue. With the loss of revenue from the K-12 sector in the near term, so as we continue to expand on expenses, so -- as that will cause pressure on the net margin. But with our balance sheet, we do think we will be able to weather through this period and we think it's in the best interest of the company and our shareholders to invest for the future. I don't know if that answered your question?

是的，當然。所以就今年的利潤前景而言，正如我們之前提到的，對，我們今年的首要任務是投資——尤其是在中國以外的市場，我們確實預計這會在短期內對利潤率造成壓力.可以想像，很多費用，營銷費用，研發費用，G&A費用，這些都與收入沒有直接關係。由於短期內 K-12 部門的收入損失，因此隨著我們繼續擴大支出，這將對淨利潤率造成壓力。但憑藉我們的資產負債表，我們確實認為我們將能夠度過這段時期，並且我們認為為未來進行投資符合公司和股東的最佳利益。不知道這是否回答了你的問題？

Sorry about the previous technological problem. We're actually doing this call in 2 separate locations. Tony is currently in the quarantine hotel, coming back to China. So operator, if we experience another outage of this telephone line, please let me know.

抱歉之前的技術問題。我們實際上是在 2 個不同的位置進行此調用。托尼目前正在隔離酒店，即將返回中國。所以接線員，如果我們再次遇到這條電話線中斷的情況，請告訴我。

We'll move on to the next questions from the line of Allen Li of J.P. Morgan.

我們將繼續討論摩根大通的 Allen Li 提出的下一個問題。

I have a follow-up question on the competition and pricing. So I understand that you have a clear edge in technology, but still want to get a sense on what's your pricing strategy, especially in overseas market, given the revenue drivers seem to shift to overseas increasingly. And also I'm wondering, what's the revenue price trend in China, given all the relatively weak demand due to regulation and macro slowdown?

我有一個關於競爭和定價的後續問題。因此，我了解您在技術方面具有明顯優勢，但仍想了解您的定價策略是什麼，尤其是在海外市場，因為收入驅動因素似乎越來越多地轉移到海外。我還想知道，鑑於監管和宏觀經濟放緩導致需求相對疲軟，中國的收入價格趨勢如何？

Okay. Maybe I'll take this question. So what we see in the non-China market so far, especially in more developed markets like United States and Europe, is that -- I am quoting a sales leader within Agora. He said, no customer choose Agora because we are cheap. So customer always choose Agora because of our quality, our feature set. And in this market because RTE experience is so critical to the success of many applications and the fact that users can perceive that difference very clearly. Once you have a [hiccup], immediately all the participants in that session will feel that very clearly. So actually, what we see is customers are willing to pay for a higher quality, a more stable service, and better security and privacy protection standards. So we -- I think it's fair to say in these more developed markets, we don't think pricing is the -- kind of the number one factor, in terms of competition.

好的。也許我會接受這個問題。所以到目前為止，我們在非中國市場看到的，尤其是在美國和歐洲等更發達的市場，是——我引用了 Agora 的一位銷售領導者的話。他說，沒有客戶選擇 Agora，因為我們便宜。所以客戶總是選擇 Agora，因為我們的質量和功能集。在這個市場上，因為 RTE 體驗對於許多應用程序的成功至關重要，而且用戶可以非常清楚地感知到這種差異。一旦你有一個[打嗝]，那次會議中的所有參與者都會立即感到非常清楚。所以實際上，我們看到的是客戶願意為更高質量、更穩定的服務以及更好的安全和隱私保護標準付費。所以我們 - 我認為公平地說，在這些更發達的市場中，我們不認為定價是 - 在競爭方面的第一因素。

In less developed markets, sometimes we do run into price competition. However, it's still largely in very orderly fashion. People do take into -- take pricing into consideration, but it's normal considerations. In China, as we mentioned before, this market has been around for several years now, and what we are seeing is similar to many other types of services, pricing is -- we have cutoff pricing in terms of discount almost every year. The year-on-year change has been in the range of 10% to 15% in the past 4, 5 years and the last year was no different. Our strategy is try to, at the same time, cut our incremental cost at a similar pace, so that we can maintain a relatively stable margin.

在欠發達市場，有時我們確實會遇到價格競爭。然而，它仍然在很大程度上以非常有序的方式進行。人們確實考慮-考慮定價，但這是正常的考慮。在中國，正如我們之前提到的，這個市場已經存在好幾年了，我們所看到的與許多其他類型的服務類似，定價是——我們幾乎每年都有折扣的截止價格。過去4、5年的同比變化在10%到15%之間，去年也不例外。我們的策略是同時嘗試以類似的速度削減我們的增量成本，以便我們能夠保持相對穩定的利潤率。

(Operator Instructions) There are no further question at this time. I would like to hand the call back to the management for closing remarks.

（操作員說明）目前沒有進一步的問題。我想把電話交還給管理層以結束髮言。

Well, thank you operator and thank you everyone for attending today's call. Later on, we will have the transcript of the call to be posted on our website, which is investor.agora.io, also along with our earnings filings and the presentation of this call. Well, thank you. Have a great day ahead.

好吧，謝謝接線員，謝謝大家參加今天的電話會議。稍後，我們將在我們的網站investor.agora.io 上發布電話會議記錄，以及我們的收益文件和此次電話會議的介紹。嗯，謝謝。祝您有美好的一天。

Thank you.

謝謝你。

Thank you.

謝謝你。

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。您現在可以斷開連接。