Duolingo Inc (DUOL) 2023 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, and welcome to Duolingo second quarter earnings webcast. We hope you enjoyed that celebrity compilation which complements the themes we discussed in this quarter's shareholder letter, which was released today after market close. You can find that letter on our IR website at investors.duolingo.com.

下午好，歡迎收看 Duolingo 第二季度財報網絡廣播。我們希望您喜歡這份名人彙編，它補充了我們在今天收市後發布的本季度股東信中討論的主題。您可以在我們的投資者關係網站 Investors.duolingo.com 上找到這封信。

On today's call, we have Luis von Ahn, our Co-Founder and CEO; and Matt Skaruppa, our CFO. We will begin -- they will begin with some brief remarks before opening the call to questions. (Operator Instructions) And please note that this event is being recorded, and all attendees are in listen-only mode.

出席今天的電話會議的有我們的聯合創始人兼首席執行官路易斯·馮·安 (Luis von Ahn)；和我們的首席財務官馬特·斯卡魯帕 (Matt Skaruppa)。我們將開始——他們將首先進行一些簡短的評論，然後開始提問。 （操作員說明）請注意，該活動正在錄製中，所有與會者均處於僅聽模式。

Just a reminder that we'll make forward-looking statements regarding future events and financial performance, which are subject to material risks and uncertainties. Some of these risks have been set forth in the risk factors of our filings with the SEC. These forward-looking statements are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of today, and we have no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events.

請注意，我們將對未來事件和財務業績做出前瞻性陳述，這些陳述會受到重大風險和不確定性的影響。其中一些風險已在我們向 SEC 提交的文件的風險因素中列出。這些前瞻性陳述基於我們認為截至目前合理的假設，我們沒有義務因新信息或未來事件而更新這些陳述。

Additionally, we'll present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures on today's call. These non-GAAP measures are not intended to be considered in isolation from, a substitute for or superior to our GAAP results. And we encourage you to consider all measures when analyzing our performance.

此外，我們將在今天的電話會議上介紹公認會計原則和非公認會計原則財務指標。這些非公認會計原則衡量指標不應被視為孤立、替代或優於我們的公認會計原則結果。我們鼓勵您在分析我們的績效時考慮所有措施。

And now I'll turn it over to Luis.

現在我將把它交給路易斯。

Thank you, Debbie, and welcome, everyone. I'm pleased to share that we had another record quarter. In Q2, we achieved our highest-ever daily and monthly active users, revenue, profitability and free cash flow, and we surpassed 5 million subscribers. We also just celebrated our 2-year anniversary of becoming a public company, and I'm very proud that we have outperformed the lofty goals we set for ourselves at the time of the IPO. Thanks to our continued strong performance, we're raising our top line and profitability guidance for the year. Matt will walk you through our updated outlook shortly.

謝謝你，黛比，歡迎大家。我很高興地告訴大家，我們的季度又創下了紀錄。第二季度，我們實現了有史以來最高的日活躍用戶數和月活躍用戶數、收入、盈利能力和自由現金流，訂閱用戶數超過 500 萬。我們還剛剛慶祝了成為上市公司兩週年紀念日，我非常自豪我們已經超越了我們在 IPO 時為自己設定的崇高目標。由於我們持續強勁的業績，我們提高了今年的營收和盈利指引。馬特很快就會向您介紹我們更新的展望。

Our strong results are a testament to our relentless focus on making our product more fun, engaging and effective. We delight our learners who tell their friends and family about us, which drives our organic word-of-mouth growth. Add to that our unique and efficient, though at times unhinged, approach to marketing, and you get a brand that has become synonymous with language learning. And that creates opportunities for us to be part of cultural moments, like you saw this past month when we were referenced in the Barbie movie. I should mention that this was an inbound request to us. We didn't seek out being in the film, which I think is a reflection on the strength of our brand.

我們的強勁業績證明了我們不懈地致力於讓我們的產品變得更有趣、更有吸引力和更有效。我們讓那些向朋友和家人介紹我們的學習者感到高興，這推動了我們口碑的有機增長。再加上我們獨特而高效（儘管有時有些瘋狂）的營銷方法，您將獲得一個已成為語言學習代名詞的品牌。這為我們創造了成為文化時刻一部分的機會，就像上個月芭比電影中提到我們時所看到的那樣。我應該指出，這是向我們發出的入站請求。我們並沒有尋求出現在電影中，我認為這反映了我們品牌的實力。

Over the past 8 quarters, we've seen very strong DAU growth, and that growth has been high quality and has been broad-based with users coming from all regions of the world. The U.S. continues to grow nicely, and some of our fastest growth have come from the wealthier European countries. This growth not only validates the huge addressable market of language learners, but because of the power of our freemium business model, which I've discussed in previous shareholder letters, strong user growth drives strong financial performance. We attract free users primarily through word of mouth. We delight them through product improvements driven by experimenting and optimizing the app, and then we convert them to paid subscribers. This playbook for growing subscribers has worked exceptionally well.

在過去的 8 個季度中，我們看到了非常強勁的 DAU 增長，而且這種增長是高質量的，並且基礎廣泛，用戶來自世界各個地區。美國繼續保持良好增長，而我們增長最快的一些國家來自較富裕的歐洲國家。這種增長不僅證明了語言學習者的巨大潛在市場，而且由於我在之前的股東信中討論過的免費增值業務模式的力量，強勁的用戶增長推動了強勁的財務業績。我們主要通過口碑吸引免費用戶。我們通過試驗和優化應用程序推動產品改進，讓他們滿意，然後將他們轉化為付費訂閱者。這本針對不斷增長的訂閱者的手冊效果非常好。

Last quarter, the focus of our shareholder letter was on how AI has been part of our strategy for a long time. We have been using artificial intelligence for years to make our product more personalized and engaging. We're also embedding the recent advances in this type of technology throughout our products and the company.

上個季度，我們股東信的重點是人工智能如何長期以來成為我們戰略的一部分。多年來我們一直在使用人工智能來使我們的產品更加個性化和有吸引力。我們還將此類技術的最新進展融入到我們的產品和公司中。

For example, we're using generative AI to speed up our script writing for Duolingo Stories and to more efficiently scale our course content. We're using generative AI to continue to innovate on Duolingo Max, which is a higher tier offering. We will continue improving Max features and testing pricing and packaging before rolling it out more broadly, as we do with all our major changes. Using new technologies to make excellent products takes time to get right, but it's exciting to think about how the acceleration in AI can help us achieve our vision of teaching you as well as the human tutor.

例如，我們正在使用生成式人工智能來加快 Duolingo Stories 的腳本編寫速度，並更有效地擴展我們的課程內容。我們正在使用生成式人工智能繼續在 Duolingo Max 上進行創新，這是一個更高級別的產品。我們將繼續改進 Max 功能並測試定價和包裝，然後再更廣泛地推出它，就像我們對所有重大更改所做的那樣。使用新技術來製造優秀的產品需要時間來完成，但想到人工智能的加速如何幫助我們實現我們的願景，即教你和人類導師，這是令人興奮的。

And with that, I'll turn it over to Matt.

有了這個，我會把它交給馬特。

Thanks, Luis. In the second quarter, we outperformed our expectations for user growth with DAU and MAU increasing 62% and 50% year-over-year, respectively. [This got] DAU to an all-time high of 21.4 million and MAU to an all-time high of 74.1 million, respectively. On our total paid subscribers, we increased them by 59% to 5.2 million. Our strong user and subscriber growth fueled our top line performance with bookings and revenue increasing 41% and 44% year-over-year, respectively, or 42% and 46% on a constant currency basis.

謝謝，路易斯。第二季度，我們的用戶增長超出了我們的預期，DAU 和 MAU 同比分別增長 62% 和 50%。 [這使得] DAU 和 MAU 分別達到歷史新高 2140 萬和 7410 萬。我們的付費訂戶總數增加了 59%，達到 520 萬。我們強勁的用戶和訂戶增長推動了我們的營收業績，預訂量和收入同比分別增長 41% 和 44%，按固定匯率計算分別增長 42% 和 46%。

We continue to manage the business with cost discipline, and this quarter, we delivered our highest quarterly profit. Our net income totaled $3.7 million compared to a net loss of $15 million in the year ago quarter. Note that our net income benefited from a $1.3 million noncash tax benefit. We also posted a record high adjusted EBITDA of $20.9 million or a 16.5% adjusted EBITDA margin. Note that we moved some marketing spend from Q2 to the back half of the year and that this increased our adjusted EBITDA this quarter by about 0.5 point -- or 1.5 points.

我們繼續按照成本紀律來管理業務，本季度我們實現了最高的季度利潤。我們的淨利潤總計 370 萬美元，而去年同期淨虧損為 1500 萬美元。請注意，我們的淨利潤受益於 130 萬美元的非現金稅收優惠。我們還公佈了 2090 萬美元的調整後 EBITDA 創歷史新高，調整後 EBITDA 利潤率為 16.5%。請注意，我們將一些營銷支出從第二季度移至今年下半年，這使我們本季度調整後的 EBITDA 增加了約 0.5 個百分點，即 1.5 個百分點。

Based on our strong results and trends, we are raising our full year guidance and issuing the following for Q3 2023: $136.5 million to $139.5 million in total bookings; $129.5 million to $132.5 million in revenue; and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 13% to 14%.

基於我們強勁的業績和趨勢，我們提高了全年指導，並發布了 2023 年第三季度的以下內容： 總預訂量從 1.365 億美元增至 1.395 億美元；收入1.295億至1.325億美元；調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率為 13% 至 14%。

For the full year 2023, we are raising our guidance to $569 million to $575 million in total bookings, $510 million to $515 million in revenue, and we are updating our adjusted EBITDA margin range to 14% to 15%. Our full year guidance calls for a 33% year-over-year bookings growth and 39% year-over-year revenue growth at the midpoint.

對於 2023 年全年，我們將總預訂量指引提高至 5.69 億至 5.75 億美元，收入指引至 5.10 億至 5.15 億美元，並將調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率範圍更新至 14% 至 15%。我們的全年指引要求預訂量同比增長 33%，收入同比增長 39%。

We feel confident raising our top line guidance because of our strong user growth and continued strong free-to-paid conversion. And because we've achieved significant operating leverage year-over-year across the business, that gives us confidence to raise our full year adjusted EBITDA margin guidance by about 300 basis points compared to what we issued on our last call.

由於我們強勁的用戶增長和持續強勁的免費到付費轉化，我們有信心提高我們的營收指引。由於我們在整個業務中同比實現了顯著的運營槓桿，這讓我們有信心將全年調整後 EBITDA 利潤率指引比我們上次電話會議發布的指引提高約 300 個基點。

Let me go through how our Q3 operating expenses are expected to compare to Q2. We expect non-GAAP R&D as a percentage of revenue to increase by about 1 point. And we expect non-GAAP sales and marketing to increase by about 2 points due to the sales and marketing spend that I mentioned that we shifted from Q2 to Q3. Non-GAAP G&A will be relatively stable as a percentage of revenue in Q3.

讓我來看看我們第三季度的運營費用預計與第二季度相比如何。我們預計非 GAAP 研發佔收入的百分比將增加約 1 個百分點。由於我提到我們從第二季度轉移到第三季度的銷售和營銷支出，我們預計非 GAAP 銷售和營銷將增長約 2 個百分點。第三季度非 GAAP 管理費用佔收入的比例將相對穩定。

In Q2, our average subscription revenue per subscriber declined by about 7% year-over-year, driven by foreign exchange impacts and regional pricing. At current exchange rates, we expect that the year-over-year decline in this metric has bottomed out and that the year-over-year change will approach 0 by Q4 as we finish lapping FX and regional pricing impacts.

第二季度，受外匯影響和區域定價的影響，我們每名訂閱者的平均訂閱收入同比下降約 7%。按照目前的匯率，我們預計該指標的同比下降已經觸底，並且隨著我們完成外彙和區域定價影響的研究，到第四季度同比變化將接近於 0。

Our guidance assumes current prevailing foreign exchange rates. And as a reminder, roughly half of our revenue comes from outside the U.S. So every 1% increase or decrease in the value of the dollar versus our basket of currencies has about a $1 million headwind or tailwind, respectively, on total bookings for the second half of the year.

我們的指導假設當前的現行外匯匯率。提醒一下，我們大約一半的收入來自美國以外的地區。因此，美元相對於我們一籃子貨幣的價值每升值或貶值1%，第二個季度的總預訂量就會分別受到約100 萬美元的逆風或逆風影響。半年。

As Luis mentioned, we're excited by generative AI's potential to help us accelerate our mission, and we are experimenting with that in Duolingo Max or higher tier subscription. We have not yet included any material amount of booking revenue from Max on our guidance, and we'll keep you updated on our progress in the coming quarters.

正如 Luis 提到的，我們對生成式人工智能幫助我們加速完成任務的潛力感到興奮，我們正在 Duolingo Max 或更高級的訂閱中進行試驗。我們尚未將 Max 的任何實質性預訂收入納入我們的指導中，我們將在未來幾個季度向您通報我們的最新進展。

Finally, we ended the quarter with approximately 48.8 million fully diluted shares outstanding using the quarter end closing price. We continue to expect to end the year with about 2% dilution from equity issued to employees.

最後，按照季末收盤價計算，本季度末，我們已發行約 4880 萬股完全稀釋的流通股。我們仍然預計，到年底，向員工發行的股權將被稀釋約 2%。

And with that, I'll turn it back to Luis.

說到這裡，我會把它轉回給路易斯。

Thank you, Matt. I'd like to thank our team of amazing and talented Duos for all their hard work and helping us deliver another record quarter. These results would not be possible without their dedication and passion.

謝謝你，馬特。我要感謝我們由令人驚嘆且才華橫溢的二人組組成的團隊的辛勤工作，並幫助我們創造了另一個創紀錄的季度。如果沒有他們的奉獻和熱情，這些成果是不可能實現的。

And now we would be happy to take your questions. I'll turn it back to Debbie to manage the queue.

現在我們很樂意回答您的問題。我會將其交還給黛比來管理隊列。

All right. Thanks, Luis. (Operator Instructions) So the first question comes from Ryan MacDonald of Needham.

好的。謝謝，路易斯。 （操作員說明）第一個問題來自 Needham 的 Ryan MacDonald。

Congrats on an excellent quarter. Luis, I wanted to start with a commentary around social marketing that you talked about in the shareholder letter. You've always done a really great job of being able to drive usage and users to the platform from some of the social media channels. And so given that we have a new channel that's emerged really quickly in Threads, I'd be curious what you're doing there from a marketing perspective and wondering how you think this can be sort of an additional tailwind to users to your platform based on those (inaudible).

祝賀您度過了一個出色的季度。路易斯，我想首先對您在股東信中談到的社交營銷進行評論。您一直做得非常出色，能夠通過一些社交媒體渠道推動使用和用戶到該平台。因此，考慮到我們有一個在Threads 中很快出現的新渠道，我很好奇你們從營銷角度來看在那裡做了什麼，並想知道你們如何認為這可以成為基於你們平台的用戶的額外推動力。關於那些（聽不清）。

Well, thank you, great question. So yes, Threads, I mean, on the day it launched, our social media team was all over it. We actually got quite a good number of engagements with it. So we're looking into it. I mean in the end, if Threads becomes a very powerful social network, you bet we'll be there. I think right now, it's significantly smaller than things like TikTok or YouTube. So we're not seeing the impact there. But we're definitely -- you will see us experimenting there for sure. I mean we have an excellent social media team.

嗯，謝謝你，很好的問題。所以，是的，Threads，我的意思是，在它推出的那天，我們的社交媒體團隊就全力以赴。事實上，我們與它進行了大量的合作。所以我們正在調查它。我的意思是，最終，如果 Threads 成為一個非常強大的社交網絡，我們肯定會實現這一目標。我認為現在它的規模比 TikTok 或 YouTube 等要小得多。所以我們沒有看到那裡的影響。但我們肯定——你肯定會看到我們在那裡進行實驗。我的意思是我們有一支優秀的社交媒體團隊。

What I'll say in addition to this is it's important for people to understand all of this marketing is not paid for us. I mean usually, we just do all this organically, and we're going to be unhinged there, too.

除此之外我還要說的是，重要的是讓人們了解所有這些營銷活動都不是為我們付費的。我的意思是，通常情況下，我們只是有機地做這一切，我們也會在那裡精神錯亂。

We'll wait to see more about that. Second question is on the use of AI and how it's being built into the product. I'd be curious to hear some of the additional feedback of what you're hearing from customers so far that are using the Duolingo Max features. And then how do you see the AI integration evolving over time?

我們將拭目以待，看看更多相關信息。第二個問題是關於人工智能的使用以及如何將其構建到產品中。我很想听聽您迄今為止從使用 Duolingo Max 功能的客戶那裡聽到的一些額外反饋。那麼您如何看待人工智能集成隨著時間的推移而演變？

We're starting to see newer models where maybe instead of leveraging OpenAI and that functionality and sort of having to bear the cost on a per interaction, that some vendors are starting to build customized large language models for their own content, which can potentially save on costs and create some proprietary nature of the AI. But just curious how that continues to evolve for you.

我們開始看到更新的模型，一些供應商開始為自己的內容構建定制的大型語言模型，而不是利用 OpenAI 和該功能以及必須承擔每次交互的成本，這可能會節省成本。成本並創造人工智能的一些專有性質。但只是好奇這對你來說如何繼續發展。

Yes. These are excellent questions. So first of all, for Max, just to remind everyone where we are. So Max is a higher tier subscription offering. It is -- we're testing the price. But right now, roughly 2x the price of Super, although you really are going to see us test the price all over the place because we're testing everything.

是的。這些都是很好的問題。首先，對於麥克斯來說，只是提醒大家我們在哪裡。因此，Max 是一種更高級別的訂閱產品。我們正在測試價格。但現在，大約是 Super 價格的兩倍，儘管你確實會看到我們到處測試價格，因為我們正在測試一切。

We're testing Max on a very small fraction of our users, and this is very standard of our future development, especially for very large features. So what we do is we start with a tiny fraction of our users, and we start making the features better and better. And as they get better and better, we start giving it to larger and larger fractions of our users.

我們正在一小部分用戶上測試 Max，這是我們未來開發的非常標準，特別是對於非常大的功能。所以我們所做的就是從一小部分用戶開始，然後我們開始讓功能變得越來越好。隨著它們變得越來越好，我們開始將其提供給越來越多的用戶。

For a large thing like Max, just as an example, the last very large change we did was whenever we change to a new home screen, we did the past home screen, that took us about a year to roll it out from the first test to finally giving it out to our users. I don't know how long Max will take, but it is something like that.

對於像Max這樣的大東西，舉個例子，我們最後一次做的非常大的改變是，每當我們更換新的主屏幕時，我們都會做過去的主屏幕，從第一次測試到推出，我們花了大約一年的時間最終將其分發給我們的用戶。我不知道麥克斯需要多長時間，但事情就是這樣。

And it has -- when we first started testing Max, we had 2 features. One was called Roleplay, which allowed users to practice conversation. And the other one was called Explain My Answer, which gives you an explanation for when you make a mistake. We've been working on making those 2 features better. For example, Roleplay is a lot -- now it's a lot more interesting, whereas before, it was probably a dry conversation where you have to maybe just order a croissant. Now you may order a croissant but something weird happens in the middle where like, I don't know, something like a burglar enters and something weird happens in the middle. So mayhem happens, and it's a much more interesting conversation. So we're improving those features.

當我們第一次開始測試 Max 時，我們有 2 個功能。其中一種稱為“角色扮演”，它允許用戶練習對話。另一個叫做“解釋我的答案”，它會在你犯錯時為你提供解釋。我們一直在努力改進這兩個功能。例如，角色扮演有很多——現在它更有趣了，而以前，這可能是一場枯燥的對話，你可能只需要點一個羊角麵包。現在你可能點了一個羊角麵包，但中間發生了一些奇怪的事情，我不知道，像竊賊之類的東西進入了，中間發生了一些奇怪的事情。所以混亂發生了，這是一個更有趣的對話。所以我們正在改進這些功能。

And then the other thing that we just did for Max is we added another feature, which is an in-lesson coach. Basically, before you submit your answer in a lesson, you can tap this thing, and it will give you some hints about how to answer or give you some grammar hints about how to answer. The reception is very good. I mean I'm very happy with it. And so far, we're very happy with it. And -- but we're just testing our way so that by the time we give it to all our users, we will have found what we believe to be close to an optimal price and close to optimal kind of features to give it out with. But so far, so good.

然後我們剛剛為 Max 做的另一件事是我們添加了另一個功能，那就是課堂教練。基本上，在你在課程中提交答案之前，你可以點擊這個東西，它會給你一些關於如何回答的提示，或者給你一些關於如何回答的語法提示。接待非常好。我的意思是我對此非常滿意。到目前為止，我們對此非常滿意。而且 - 但我們只是測試我們的方式，以便當我們將其提供給所有用戶時，我們將找到我們認為接近最優價格和接近最優類型的功能來提供它。但到目前為止，一切都很好。

In terms of costs and in terms of developing our own model, for now, we're sticking -- we're using OpenAI, and we're very happy with it. Our belief internally is that the cost of these models is going to go down. And for now, we're spending most of our effort on just making the best possible features out there rather than on saving this -- on this because our belief is that we could save at any point -- basically starting to optimize the cost of this is what we would do after we're super happy with all the features. And we just haven't gotten there yet.

在成本和開發我們自己的模型方面，目前我們堅持使用 OpenAI，我們對此非常滿意。我們內部相信這些模型的成本將會下降。目前，我們將大部分精力花在盡可能提供最好的功能上，而不是節省成本——因為我們相信我們可以在任何時候節省成本——基本上開始優化成本這就是我們對所有功能非常滿意後會做的事情。我們只是還沒有到達那裡。

Congrats again on a strong quarter.

再次祝賀本季度的強勁表現。

Thank you. Thank you, Ryan.

謝謝。謝謝你，瑞安。

Thanks, Ryan. Next question comes from Mario Lu at Barclays.

謝謝，瑞安。下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的 Mario Lu。

Great. The first one is on the average subscription revenue [per se]. So Matt, I think you mentioned by the end of this year, it's going to be with flattish growth. I was just curious to share your thoughts on just Duolingo's pricing power overall and the thought of increasing pricing on the core products and synergies going forward as we have seen from other kind of consumer mobile apps.

偉大的。第一個是平均訂閱收入[本身]。所以馬特，我想你提到到今年年底，增長將會持平。我只是想分享一下您對 Duolingo 整體定價能力的看法，以及提高核心產品定價和未來協同效應的想法，正如我們從其他類型的消費者移動應用程序中看到的那樣。

Yes. No, it's a great question. And Mario, you're exactly right. We expect that by the year-end, to your point, the year-over-year growth in ARPU will be essentially flattish. And then when you talk about pricing power, I think it goes back to what we've said a bunch of times on these calls, which is we experiment with price and packaging a lot around the world.

是的。不，這是一個很好的問題。馬里奧，你說得完全正確。我們預計，按照您的觀點，到年底，ARPU 的同比增長將基本持平。然後，當你談論定價能力時，我認為這可以追溯到我們在這些電話會議上多次說過的內容，即我們在世界各地對價格和包裝進行了大量實驗。

So like in the U.S. or Western Europe, raising price will be just a normal experiment. That's just a normal course thing we'll test from time to time. There are times when we do bigger pricing tests like Q2 of last year when we did the regional pricing tests in about 100 countries at once. But we're always, I guess, fine-tuning our price, and that includes raising prices over time in certain places. So yes, we're definitely going to consider that, and it's something that could happen in the future.

因此，就像在美國或西歐一樣，提高價格將只是一個正常的實驗。這只是我們會不時測試的正常過程。有時我們會進行更大規模的定價測試，比如去年第二季度，我們同時在大約 100 個國家/地區進行了區域定價測試。但我想，我們總是在微調我們的價格，其中包括隨著時間的推移在某些地方提高價格。所以，是的，我們肯定會考慮這一點，而且這是未來可能發生的事情。

Great. And then maybe just a high-level one. I saw on your blog that you guys had an article in terms of streaks by user age. And I think it said that users over 60, like 30% had a streak of over a year, whereas like users 13 and 17 was less than 5%. I guess why is that? And any learnings that could be applied to kind of the younger users from the older generation?

偉大的。然後也許只是一個高級的。我在你的博客上看到你們有一篇關於按用戶年齡劃分的條紋的文章。我認為它說 60 歲以上的用戶（例如 30%）的連續使用時間超過一年，而 13 歲和 17 歲的用戶則不到 5%。我想這是為什麼呢？有什麼經驗教訓可以應用於老一代的年輕用戶嗎？

You probably don't have teenage children. It's harder to get them to do something. I mean it's just the case that we have noticed that people who are older just are more constant in their habits. And that's that. Now I'll say, I mean, we are very happy with our results for younger audience. I mean we are much more well known among younger audiences than we are with older people. It just so happens that older people are a lot more committed.

您可能沒有十幾歲的孩子。讓他們做某事更難。我的意思是，我們注意到，年齡越大的人的習慣就越穩定。就是這樣。現在我想說，我的意思是，我們對年輕觀眾的結果感到非常滿意。我的意思是，我們在年輕觀眾中的知名度比在年長觀眾中的知名度要高得多。碰巧的是，老年人更加忠誠。

But I don't know if we can change that, but we're always working just in general, not necessarily per age. We're just always working to make the product more engaging. And you can see that in a number of ways. For example, our DAU-to-MAU ratio keeps getting better and better. It's now up 29% essentially. And it just keeps getting better and better every quarter.

但我不知道我們是否可以改變這一點，但我們總是在一般情況下工作，不一定按照年齡進行。我們一直致力於讓產品更具吸引力。你可以通過多種方式看到這一點。例如，我們的 DAU 與 MAU 比率不斷提高。現在基本上上漲了29%。而且每個季度它都變得越來越好。

And the other thing that keeps getting better and better is the number of people with long streaks. So the number of people with streaks longer than a year, that just keeps -- that number keeps growing, and it's multiple millions. So yes, I mean just generally, we just keep making the product more engaging.

另一件不斷好轉的事情是連續不斷的人數。因此，連續出現超過一年的人數一直在增長，並且已經達到數百萬。所以是的，我的意思是一般來說，我們只是不斷讓產品更具吸引力。

Next question comes from Ralph Schackart of William Blair.

下一個問題來自威廉·布萊爾的拉爾夫·沙卡特。

Since your IPO, you delivered very strong system performance, particularly on the top line, but even more so on the bottom line this year. New guidance somewhere in the range of 1,000 basis points increase year-over-year was just exceptional. Just philosophically, how are you thinking about margins going forward without quantifying it? Are you willing to let them run? Will you reinvest for new products? That's the first question. I have a follow-up.

自首次公開募股以來，你們提供了非常強勁的系統性能，特別是在營收方面，但今年在淨利潤方面更是如此。新的指導意見同比增長 1,000 個基點，這是非常罕見的。從哲學上來說，在不量化的情況下，您如何看待未來的利潤率？你願意讓他們跑嗎？您會再投資新產品嗎？這是第一個問題。我有一個後續行動。

Yes. Thanks, Ralph. And definitely agree. We -- since we've gone public, top to bottom, our performance has been strong, strong user growth, strong top line, and this year in particular, strong adjusted EBITDA performance. As we said before, we're glad that the business is both getting more profitable, more cash generative, et cetera. And the way we think about it is we always want to invest back in the business first because the growth opportunities ahead of us are so robust. I mean we're at the start of monetizing our own user base and monetizing a very large market. So we're going to continue to invest. That's why I think this year, we're proving that we can grow nicely and become materially more profitable.

是的。謝謝，拉爾夫。並且絕對同意。自從我們上市以來，從上到下，我們的業績一直強勁，用戶增長強勁，營收強勁，尤其是今年，調整後的 EBITDA 業績強勁。正如我們之前所說，我們很高興業務變得更加有利可圖，產生更多現金，等等。我們的想法是，我們總是希望首先投資於業務，因為我們面前的增長機會非常強勁。我的意思是，我們正處於通過我們自己的用戶群和一個非常大的市場貨幣化的開始。所以我們將繼續投資。這就是為什麼我認為今年我們將證明我們可以實現良好的增長並獲得更多的利潤。

So it's a yes and for us. If you're thinking about your comment around letting margins run, if you look at other companies in our industry, kind of our IPO cohort, roughly our time when we went public, when they first become materially profitable, their first year of real profitability, it's usually a big step change, kind of like ours is looking to be. And then after that, they make steady progress towards their long-term EBITDA targets. And I think that's more in line with what we're thinking over time.

所以這對我們來說是肯定的。如果你正在思考關於讓利潤不斷增長的評論，如果你看看我們行業中的其他公司，我們的IPO 隊列，大約是我們上市的時間，當他們第一次實現實質性盈利時，他們真正盈利的第一年，這通常是一個很大的改變，有點像我們所希望的那樣。此後，他們朝著長期 EBITDA 目標穩步前進。我認為這更符合我們長期以來的想法。

Great. And Luis, I think you've been asked this before, maybe a couple of quarters ago, just in terms of size of the TAM in terms of users. And some people do compare us to the dating apps or companies. Maybe just kind of go back to that, give you an opportunity -- do you have any updated thoughts on sort of like the long-term penetration there?

偉大的。 Luis，我想您以前曾被問過這個問題，也許是在幾個季度前，只是就 TAM 的用戶規模而言。有些人確實將我們與約會應用程序或公司進行比較。也許只是回到那個，給你一個機會——你對那裡的長期滲透有什麼最新的想法嗎？

Yes. I mean it's an excellent question. So for one, this language learning as a whole, I mean our best estimate, there's about 2 billion people in the world learning a foreign language. And collectively, they spend about $50 billion a year. So that's a standard answer, but it's a little more complicated than that because in many countries, for example, in the U.S., 80% of our users were not learning a language before Duolingo. So it's kind of really hard to know exactly how many people we can get to. I mean we're getting close to 100 million MAUs. We're like getting close there. I think we can get much farther than that. But it's just hard to know exactly how much because we are growing the market.

是的。我的意思是這是一個很好的問題。因此，就整個語言學習而言，我的意思是我們的最佳估計，世界上大約有 20 億人在學習外語。他們每年總共花費約 500 億美元。這是一個標準答案，但比這要復雜一點，因為在許多國家，例如在美國，我們 80% 的用戶在 Duolingo 之前沒有學習過語言。因此，很難確切地知道我們可以接觸到多少人。我的意思是，我們的月活躍用戶數已接近 1 億。我們就像接近那裡一樣。我認為我們可以走得更遠。但很難確切知道有多少，因為我們正在擴大市場。

Thanks, Ralph. Next question comes from Eric Sheridan of Goldman Sachs.

謝謝，拉爾夫。下一個問題來自高盛的埃里克·謝里丹。

Maybe come back to the element of what you see as some of the most critical investments in content. As we look out not only this year but just longer term, that could be elements of driving incremental user growth and spend, engagement and also monetization of the user base. And how -- I know you talked a little bit about it earlier, Luis, but how AI can sort of lower some of the frictions creating content versus some of it that might just be sort of elements of sort of building away from the AI initiatives as well.

也許回到你所認為的一些最關鍵的內容投資元素。我們不僅在今年而且從長遠來看，這可能是推動用戶增量增長和支出、參與度以及用戶群貨幣化的因素。我知道你之前談到過，路易斯，但是人工智能如何能夠減少創建內容的一些摩擦，而其中一些內容可能只是遠離人工智能計劃的一些元素以及。

Yes. Excellent. Thank you, Eric. So let's see. In terms of content, the major things that we need to invest on in terms of content are: number one, more advanced content for some of our courses. So like we said in the past, not all our courses cover the same -- to the same level of proficiency. I mean for example, our course to learn French covers a lot more than our course to learn Italian. So we need to basically get all our courses to teach through pretty high levels of proficiency. So that's one place where we're adding content.

是的。出色的。謝謝你，埃里克。那麼讓我們看看。在內容方面，我們需要在內容方面進行投資的主要內容是：第一，我們的一些課程的更高級內容。因此，就像我們過去所說的那樣，並非所有課程都涵蓋相同的內容 - 達到相同的熟練程度。我的意思是，例如，我們學習法語的課程比我們學習意大利語的課程涵蓋的內容要多得多。因此，我們基本上需要讓所有課程都達到相當高的熟練程度。這就是我們添加內容的地方。

In particular, we are interested in adding a lot more content to our English courses, our courses that teach English because we know there's a large opportunity there of English learners. In general, in the world, English learners, if you take just an average English learner, they're usually more advanced than an average Spanish learner because just kind of worldwide, they usually have some previous knowledge for English, the English learners. So there's a lot of content that we are adding to our English courses but to all of our courses to be more advanced. That's kind of one big chunk.

特別是，我們有興趣在我們的英語課程和教授英語的課程中添加更多內容，因為我們知道英語學習者有很大的機會。一般來說，在世界範圍內，英語學習者，如果你只看一個普通的英語學習者，他們通常比普通的西班牙語學習者更先進，因為在世界範圍內，他們通常有一些英語知識，英語學習者。因此，我們在英語課程中添加了很多內容，但我們所有的課程都更加高級。這是一大塊。

Another big chunk is just making our content more interesting and in particular making it have kind of a narrative with all of our characters. So we've been working on adding stories and storylines for all of our characters and making them better and better over time.

另一大塊就是讓我們的內容變得更有趣，特別是讓它對我們所有的角色都有一種敘事性。因此，我們一直致力於為所有角色添加故事和故事情節，並隨著時間的推移讓它們變得越來越好。

So those are kind of 2 big initiatives. In both of those cases, AI can help us, and we've been working hard to make it so that with AI, we can generate it faster and cheaper. And the hope is that it's also of the same quality. I would say for things like creating stories that are fun, we can probably do it faster and cheaper. I don't think we're quite yet there at -- of the same quality yet. That's very -- essentially Hollywood writers or something like that. We're getting there, but it's not quite there yet. So that's kind of what we're working on, and we do think that AI can help us really do much better there. Yes, I think that's what -- I'll stop there. I think that's what I'd say.

這是兩項重大舉措。在這兩種情況下，人工智能都可以幫助我們，我們一直在努力實現這一目標，以便通過人工智能，我們可以更快、更便宜地生成它。希望它也具有相同的質量。我想說，對於創作有趣的故事之類的事情，我們可能可以做得更快、更便宜。我認為我們還沒有達到同樣的質量。這基本上是好萊塢作家或類似的人。我們正在實現這一目標，但還沒有完全實現。這就是我們正在做的事情，我們確實認為人工智能可以幫助我們在這方面做得更好。是的，我想就是這樣——我就到此為止。我想這就是我要說的。

Okay. So next question comes from Andrew Boone at JMP.

好的。下一個問題來自 JMP 的 Andrew Boone。

I wanted to go back to one of the IPO disclosures and just talk about the 40% kind of annual retention rate that you guys talked about back then. Can you talk about how that's trended? And then maybe how do we think about kind of updating models today now that we're kind of 2 years out from pretty significant cohorts? How do we think about maybe year 2 or year 3?

我想回到 IPO 披露的一項內容，談談你們當時談論的 40% 的年度保留率。您能談談它的趨勢嗎？那麼，既然我們距離相當重要的群體已經過去兩年了，那麼也許我們今天如何考慮更新模型呢？我們如何考慮第二年或第三年？

Yes, yes. It's a great question. So the way we think about retention in general is not in an end in itself. It's a piece of what we optimize for on the platform, which is lifetime value, which is a combination of pricing, packaging and retention. So when you look at since the IPO, it's -- our platform LTV has increased a lot because we've shifted retention up on a blended basis because we have more annual subscribers and they have better retention. That's increased platform LTV.

是的是的。這是一個很好的問題。因此，我們對保留的一般思考方式本身並不是目的。這是我們在平台上優化的一部分，即終身價值，是定價、包裝和保留的組合。因此，自 IPO 以來，我們的平台生命週期價值 (LTV) 增加了很多，因為我們在混合基礎上提高了留存率，因為我們擁有更多的年度訂戶，而且他們的留存率也更高。這就是平台生命週期價值的增加。

We also have a brand-new SKU, a Family Plan, which is a higher price and higher retention SKU. So that has also shifted platform LTV. So on a platform LTV basis, we've increased that value. When you look at overall blended retention, it's about the same as it was when we went public. Some of the plans like annual plan or monthly, some of those retentions have moved around. But when you blend it all together, it's basically the same as we went public. And we think that's likely to be stable, at least throughout the rest of the year. So that's how we're thinking about retention as part of increasing platform LTV.

我們還有一個全新的SKU，即家庭計劃，這是一個更高的價格和更高的保留SKU。因此，這也改變了平台生命週期價值。因此，在平台生命週期價值的基礎上，我們增加了該價值。當你觀察整體混合保留率時，你會發現它與我們上市時大致相同。有些計劃如年度計劃或月度計劃，其中一些保留已經轉移。但當你把它們混合在一起時，它與我們上市時基本相同。我們認為這可能會保持穩定，至少在今年剩餘時間內如此。這就是我們如何考慮將保留作為增加平台生命週期價值的一部分。

And then, Luis, you talked about more of the advanced learner market earlier. What are the key product levers that you need to unlock there to really open up that market? And then just help us size that, right? Is that the majority of the $60 billion? Or is that a minority? Like how do you think about the potential for that?

然後，路易斯，您之前談到了更多高級學習者市場。您需要解鎖哪些關鍵產品槓桿才能真正打開該市場？然後幫我們確定尺寸，對嗎？這是 600 億美元中的大部分嗎？或者說這只是少數？您如何看待這方面的潛力？

Yes. That's a great question. It is a huge opportunity. If you look at just the total language learning market, the majority of it is people learning English. And many of these people do want something more advanced than just beginner stuff. So this is why we're working a lot on adding a lot more content to our English courses. And yes, that's the -- I think it's just a major opportunity.

是的。這是一個很好的問題。這是一個巨大的機會。如果你只看整個語言學習市場，就會發現其中大部分是學習英語的人。其中許多人確實想要一些更高級的東西，而不僅僅是初學者的東西。這就是為什麼我們正在努力為我們的英語課程添加更多內容。是的，這就是——我認為這只是一個重大機會。

And it's a weird thing because if you look at where our revenue comes from, the majority of our revenue comes from -- for example, half our revenue roughly comes from the United States. These are usually not people learning English. They're learning kind of Spanish or French, et cetera. But if you look at the language learning market as a whole, it's highly skewed towards people learning English in non-English-speaking countries. So you see them. They're in Asia, Latin America, Western Europe, et cetera, non-English-speaking countries.

這是一件奇怪的事情，因為如果你看看我們的收入來自哪裡，我們的大部分收入都來自——例如，我們一半的收入大致來自美國。這些人通常不是學習英語的人。他們正在學習西班牙語或法語等。但如果你把語言學習市場作為一個整體來看，就會發現它非常偏向於在非英語國家學習英語的人。所以你看到了他們。他們在亞洲、拉丁美洲、西歐等非英語國家。

So we're kind of flipped, but it's because -- in part because we are a digital product, and we make our revenue kind of like how digital products make their revenue. If you look at where Spotify or Netflix and stuff like that make their revenue, it's kind of similar to us. We make it from the U.S. and kind of English-speaking countries, et cetera.

所以我們有點翻轉，但這是因為——部分是因為我們是數字產品，我們的收入有點像數字產品的收入方式。如果你看看 Spotify 或 Netflix 之類的公司的收入來源，就會發現它與我們有點相似。我們是從美國和一些英語國家等生產的。

So there's that. But because of the language learning market, we think there's a huge opportunity to make a lot of our money from different markets. And the unlocks that we need to do there, one is we just need to have all of our English courses reach more advanced levels. We are working on that. And it will be a few more months until we have that. But that's -- that, by itself, is not the only thing that will unlock more revenue from English learners. That's one thing that's needed.

所以就是這樣。但由於語言學習市場的存在，我們認為有巨大的機會可以從不同的市場賺到很多錢。我們需要在那裡做的解鎖，一是我們只需要讓我們所有的英語課程達到更高級的水平。我們正在努力解決這個問題。我們還需要幾個月的時間才能做到這一點。但這本身並不是唯一能為英語學習者帶來更多收入的事情。這是需要的一件事。

Another thing that's needed is truthfully in our product, we need to get better at whenever you come in with prior proficiency, we need to get better at placing you. That's another big unlock that we need to do. We just need to get better at that. And then after that, we need to get better at convincing, especially English learners, that we have this more advanced content. So we need to do that.

我們的產品需要的另一件事是真實的，每當您以先前的熟練程度進來時，我們都需要做得更好，我們需要更好地安置您。這是我們需要做的另一項重大解鎖。我們只需要在這方面做得更好。之後，我們需要更好地說服尤其是英語學習者，我們擁有更高級的內容。所以我們需要這樣做。

And then after that, or around that same time, we also need to get to the point where in some of these countries, we have not yet [crafted] how we're going to get them to pay because in many of these countries, the -- there's just a lot more -- a lot less likelihood to pay even if you reduce the price to something that makes sense in GDP per capita. They're just -- they're always in defense of like, well, I'm not going to pay if I don't have to.

然後在那之後，或者大約在同一時間，我們還需要達到這樣的程度：在其中一些國家，我們還沒有[制定]如何讓他們付款，因為在其中許多國家，即使你將價格降低到人均GDP 合理的水平，支付的可能性也會大大降低。他們只是——他們總是捍衛這樣的觀點，好吧，如果不需要的話我不會付錢。

And our product is freemium. And many of them, they are just like, well, the free product is kind of good enough. So we need to unlock that. And we've seen a few companies do a better job than us. For example, Spotify has done a better job than us at that. So I think we just need to experiment on how to do that. So there's a number of things that need to happen. But once all of those things happen, which we are working on, we think this is a major opportunity for us. I mean it's the majority of the market.

我們的產品是免費增值的。他們中的許多人只是想，免費產品已經足夠好了。所以我們需要解鎖它。我們已經看到一些公司做得比我們更好。例如，Spotify 在這方面就比我們做得更好。所以我認為我們只需要嘗試一下如何做到這一點。所以有很多事情需要發生。但一旦我們正在努力的所有這些事情發生，我們認為這對我們來說是一個重大機會。我的意思是它佔據了市場的大部分。

Next, we have a question from Arvind Ramnani at Piper Sandler.

接下來，我們有來自 Piper Sandler 的 Arvind Ramnani 的提問。

I want to ask about this daily average users. I mean certainly, it's been kind of -- kind of tracking at a really healthy kind of pace. How should we think like externally of like -- I mean the higher the numbers, obviously better, but what's like a healthy number either in terms of growth rate or in terms of like total numbers?

我想問一下這個日均用戶數。我的意思是，當然，這是一種以非常健康的節奏進行的跟踪。我們應該如何從外部看待類似的事情——我的意思是數字越高，顯然越好，但是無論是從增長率還是從總數來看，一個健康的數字是什麼樣的呢？

I mean...

我是說...

Go ahead, Luis. Do you want to take the first stab at it?

繼續吧，路易斯。你想先嘗試一下嗎？

Well, that's a very hard question to answer. I mean look, the way we see it is this is the main thing we are optimizing for. Because of our freemium model, the more daily active users we have, the more people we can convert to payers, et cetera. I mean it's just generally good. And also the more daily active users we have, the more data we have to run more experiments to be able to personalize things for you better, et cetera. So it's just the gift that keeps on giving when we have more daily active users.

嗯，這是一個很難回答的問題。我的意思是，我們認為這是我們優化的主要目的。由於我們的免費增值模式，我們擁有的每日活躍用戶越多，我們可以將更多的人轉化為付費用戶，等等。我的意思是，總體來說還不錯。而且我們擁有的日常活躍用戶越多，我們就需要運行更多實驗的數據就越多，以便能夠更好地為您提供個性化服務，等等。因此，當我們擁有更多的日常活躍用戶時，這就是我們不斷贈送的禮物。

So for us, that's just -- the more we can grow it, the better. We're very happy with the fact that for the last 8 quarters in a row, our growth has been either accelerating or remaining very high. It's very hard to say how many more quarters we're going to have like this. And obviously, we cannot have accelerating user growth forever. That's just -- at some point, you run out of humans. So -- but it is -- on our end, I don't know. For me, it's very hard to say what's a healthy number. We just need to continue growing, and we've been.

所以對我們來說，那就是——我們種植得越多越好。我們非常高興的是，在過去的連續 8 個季度中，我們的增長要么加速，要么保持非常高的水平。很難說我們還會有多少這樣的季度。顯然，我們不可能永遠加速用戶增長。只是——到了某個時候，人類就會耗盡。所以——但對我們來說，我不知道。對我來說，很難說什麼是健康的數字。我們只需要繼續成長，我們一直在成長。

Yes. I mean in many ways, it's like money, right? Like more of it is good. It solves a lot of problems. But like I'm just trying to figure out like is that like -- is there a ratio in terms of like paid users versus like -- I mean, I'm sure there's some thought of like what's the number where below -- it gets below a particular level, you're going to get more aggressive in terms of like paying for users or any of that?

是的。我的意思是在很多方面，它就像金錢，對吧？喜歡多一點就好了。它解決了很多問題。但就像我只是想弄清楚，類似的付費用戶與類似的用戶之間是否存在比率——我的意思是，我確信有人會想到下面的數字是多少——它低於特定水平，您會在為用戶付費或其他方面變得更加積極嗎？

Yes. One way to approach this, Arvind, was before we went public, we had a lot of years of data. And user growth then was in the 25%, 30%-ish range. And that was really healthy. It got us to a nice scale. Now I don't think that anyone on this call, Luis and I and our teams, will be super happy because this next quarter, that's where growth went to. But certainly, that was healthy pre-IPO. So at some point, that will be a healthy growth rate in the future.

是的。 Arvind，解決這個問題的一種方法是在我們上市之前，我們擁有很多年的數據。當時的用戶增長率在 25% 到 30% 左右。這真的很健康。它讓我們達到了一個很好的規模。現在，我認為這次電話會議中的任何人，路易斯和我以及我們的團隊，都會非常高興，因為下個季度，這就是增長的方向。但可以肯定的是，這在首次公開募股前是健康的。因此，在未來某個時刻，這將是一個健康的增長率。

Again, I don't think that's in the next quarter. But you can still produce an enormous amount of subscribers, revenue, bookings and profit if your growth rate was in that level. And we think that level should be attainable or achievable for over the long term. So that's one way to kind of approach what's like healthy or not healthy. By the way, right now, it feels healthy though.

再說一遍，我認為這不會發生在下個季度。但如果你的增長率處於這個水平，你仍然可以產生大量的訂閱者、收入、預訂和利潤。我們認為，從長遠來看，這個水平應該是可以達到或可以實現的。所以這是處理健康或不健康問題的一種方法。順便說一句，現在感覺很健康。

Okay. And then just on AI, you've given us several commentary on AI. And Duolingo Max is sort of the first sort of tangible kind of product. Is there anything you can provide to us in terms of like where do you think like applications of -- where do you look to apply in the next 6 to 12 months in terms of like a tangible product where you're able to, let's say, charge for it?

好的。然後就人工智能而言，您給了我們一些關於人工智能的評論。 Duolingo Max 是第一種有形產品。您可以向我們提供什麼信息嗎？您認為在未來 6 到 12 個月內您希望在哪些方面進行應用，比如您能夠在哪些方面應用有形產品？ ，收費嗎？

I mean in terms of what we're going to be charging for, the majority of our efforts are going to be on Duolingo Max. There are other places where we're applying AI within the company, and we've been -- I mean, for example, we're making our content faster. We're making our content creation cheaper. We're doing a lot of things inside the company to do that. But in terms of things that we're going to sell to users, I think most of the effort is going to be on Duolingo Max.

我的意思是，就我們的收費而言，我們的大部分工作將集中在 Duolingo Max 上。我們在公司內的其他地方應用了人工智能，我們一直在——我的意思是，例如，我們正在使我們的內容更快。我們正在降低內容創作的成本。為此，我們在公司內部做了很多事情。但就我們要向用戶銷售的產品而言，我認為大部分精力都集中在 Duolingo Max 上。

Yes. By the way, great start to the earnings call. I don't know if you can top that on the next one. But I thought bringing out the (inaudible) last earnings call was good, but you outdid yourself. Let's see if you can top that next earnings.

是的。順便說一句，這是財報電話會議的良好開端。不知道下一篇能不能補上。但我認為召開（聽不清）最後一次財報電話會議很好，但你超出了自己。讓我們看看您能否超越下一個收入。

I should say all of these. We do not pay celebrities for doing that. They use us.

這些我都應該說。我們不會為此付錢給名人。他們利用我們。

Thanks, Arvind. Next question comes from Mark Mahaney at Evercore.

謝謝，阿爾文德。下一個問題來自 Evercore 的 Mark Mahaney。

Okay. I had 1 or 2 for Matt and 1 or 2 for Luis. Matt, this really strong growth in MAUs, do you want to give us any color as to whether there's anything unusual in terms of where these MAUs are coming from? Any reason to think that the most recent kind of surge in growth that you've seen in MAUs comes from markets that are more dependable or less dependable than what you've seen in the past?

好的。我為馬特准備了 1 或 2 個，為路易斯準備了 1 或 2 個。 Matt，MAU 的增長非常強勁，您是否願意告訴我們這些 MAU 的來源是否存在任何異常情況？有什麼理由認為您所看到的月活躍用戶數最近的增長激增來自於比您過去所看到的更可靠或更不可靠的市場？

And the second finance question for you is it's the first quarter in which your incremental margins were actually above your 30% to 35% long-term EBITDA margins. So [change] seems pretty positive into the back half of the year. I don't know. At what point do you reconsider where your margins can go long term? Or is it that you may want to just -- you may want to be leaning more into investments -- you feel like near term you're over-earning and you want to lean more into investments as we go through the next kind of 12 to 18 months?

您面臨的第二個財務問題是，您的增量利潤率實際上高於 30% 至 35% 的長期 EBITDA 利潤率的第一季度。因此，今年下半年的[變化]似乎相當積極。我不知道。您在什麼時候會重新考慮長期利潤率？或者你可能只是想——你可能想更多地傾向於投資——你覺得短期內你的收入超額，並且當我們經歷下一個 12 世紀時，你想更多地傾向於投資到18個月？

Yes. Thanks, Mark. Great questions as always. In terms of the user growth, I'll say 3 things. So the first one is that we saw a great top-of-the-funnel user growth and great kind of current user or active user retention and growth. So it's really across the funnel we saw really strong growth and have for the past several quarters.

是的。謝謝，馬克。一如既往的好問題。關於用戶增長，我會說三件事。因此，第一個是我們看到了漏斗頂部用戶的巨大增長以及當前用戶或活躍用戶的保留和增長。因此，在過去的幾個季度中，我們確實在整個漏斗中看到了非常強勁的增長。

The second thing is that it has been broad-based geographically. So one of the things we look at is, is it lopsided? Or is it basically all around the average? Obviously, around the average things move. There's some that are going faster, some that are going slower. But it's still broad-based, meaning that like the U.S. is growing really, really well. Western Europe is growing very fast, and then plenty in Asia is growing fast as well. So broad-based.

第二件事是它具有廣泛的地理基礎。所以我們要關注的一件事是，它是否不平衡？還是基本上都在平均水平附近？顯然，事物在平均水平附近移動。有的走得更快，有的走得更慢。但它仍然具有廣泛的基礎，這意味著美國的增長非常非常好。西歐的增長速度非常快，亞洲的很多地區也在快速增長。基礎如此廣泛。

And then the last thing we look at is how strong are these cohorts in terms of free-to-paid conversion. And we've seen great trends on free-to-paid conversion as well. So we feel not only is the user grow fast and impressive, but it's high quality and broad-based. So we feel really good about that performance to date, and then we feel good about the forward on it as well.

我們最後要關注的是這些群體在免費到付費轉化方面的實力有多強。我們也看到了免費向付費轉化的巨大趨勢。因此，我們認為用戶不僅增長迅速且令人印象深刻，而且質量高且基礎廣泛。所以我們對迄今為止的表現感覺非常好，而且我們對前鋒也感覺很好。

On your second question, the incremental margin is the right one to think about it. And I'm glad you framed it in terms of the long-term margin. We have not updated our view on long-term margin. We still think it's the same as it was when we went public, 30% to 35% long-term adjusted EBITDA margins. What we've shown this year is that there's power in this model. It's a very profitable model, and so we can we get to that level of incremental profit, slightly above this quarter. But I think, again, I'll just go back to our capital allocation strategy that I mentioned in the answer to another question.

關於你的第二個問題，增量利潤是考慮它的正確選擇。我很高興你從長期利潤的角度來闡述它。我們尚未更新對長期利潤率的看法。我們仍然認為這與我們上市時一樣，長期調整後 EBITDA 利潤率為 30% 至 35%。我們今年所展示的是這個模型的力量。這是一個非常有利可圖的模式，因此我們可以達到略高於本季度的增量利潤水平。但我想，我會再次回到我在另一個問題的答案中提到的我們的資本配置策略。

First and foremost, we're at the early stages of growing this business. It can be a very large business. And so we're going to continue to invest into the business while also maintaining that profitability threshold that we talked about, getting towards the long-term margins. But you should not read into this quarter as us redefining the long term on that.

首先也是最重要的是，我們正處於發展這項業務的早期階段。這可能是一項非常大的業務。因此，我們將繼續投資該業務，同時保持我們談到的盈利閾值，以獲得長期利潤。但您不應該在我們重新定義長期目標時解讀本季度。

Okay. And then Luis, 2 quick questions. Just any update on my favorite math subject. Just what kind of traction you're seeing. And then your comment about building out more content made me think about like vertical language. There's English and then there's legal English. Or there's English and then there's medical English. Like is that something that you think about long term? Like I know there's different terminology. It can get very sophisticated, very complicated. I would also think highly profitable for any company that can solve learning medical English for somebody coming, I'm making this up, from India or from Guatemala, whatever the example is. So is that a possibility, kind of verticalizing and really getting to kind of, I don't know, whatever that is, professional English for different industries?

好的。然後路易斯，問兩個簡單的問題。只是我最喜歡的數學科目的任何更新。你所看到的是什麼樣的牽引力。然後你關於構建更多內容的評論讓我想到了垂直語言。有英語，還有法律英語。或者有英語，然後有醫學英語。這是您長期考慮的事情嗎？就像我知道有不同的術語。它可以變得非常複雜。我還認為，對於任何能夠為來自印度或危地馬拉的人解決學習醫學英語問題的公司來說，利潤都是很高的，我正在編造這個，無論是來自印度還是來自危地馬拉，無論是什麼例子。那麼，這是否有可能，某種垂直化，並真正達到某種，我不知道，不管是什麼，針對不同行業的專業英語？

Yes. So both great questions. I mean in terms of math, we're very happy with the progress so far. Like it continues being the case that the app is growing and the growth looks a lot like early Duolingo. So we're very happy with that.

是的。所以這兩個問題都很好。我的意思是在數學方面，我們對迄今為止的進展感到非常滿意。該應用程序一直在增長，而且增長看起來很像早期的 Duolingo。所以我們對此非常滿意。

In terms of what we're doing and what we need to do, we know we need to add more content to it. I just kind of -- just more subjects within math, and we're working hard on doing that. So you'll see us over the next few months, there will just be significantly more content. And that's the main thing. But the growth looks good. I'm very happy with it.

就我們正在做的事情和需要做的事情而言，我們知道我們需要向其中添加更多內容。我只是——只是更多的數學科目，我們正在努力做到這一點。因此，您將在接下來的幾個月內看到我們，內容將會顯著增加。這是最重要的。但增長看起來不錯。我對此非常滿意。

In terms of kind of verticals of English, we know that this is a big business kind of thing, like business English, medical English, et cetera. For now, that is not something we're addressing. In the future, we may. But right now, we're just a lot more keen on really getting all of our English courses to get to teach pretty advanced English even though it may not be specialized, but pretty advanced English. At some point, we may get into specialized English.

就英語的垂直類型而言，我們知道這是一個大商業類的事情，比如商務英語、醫學英語等等。目前，這不是我們要解決的問題。未來，我們可能會。但現在，我們更熱衷於真正讓我們所有的英語課程教授相當高級的英語，儘管它可能不是專業的，但相當高級的英語。在某些時候，我們可能會接觸專業英語。

The one thing that I'll say about specialized English is the audiences start getting pretty small, and we do much better with large audiences. I mean if you think about it, we're an app business. It's rare to find apps where people pay a ton of money. Like a single person pay thousands of dollars to learn on an app, that's rare to find. And when the audiences are small, if you want to make a lot of money, you need to charge a lot. And so we're more in the business of getting very large audiences. And so that's why we haven't done it yet. But at some point, we'll probably investigate it.

關於專業英語，我要說的一件事是觀眾開始變得很小，而我們在面對大量觀眾時做得更好。我的意思是，如果你仔細想想，我們是一家應用程序公司。很少有應用程序需要人們支付大量費用。就像一個人花費數千美元在應用程序上學習一樣，這種情況很少見。而當觀眾少的時候，如果你想賺很多錢，你就需要收取很多費用。因此，我們更關注的是吸引大量受眾。這就是我們還沒有這樣做的原因。但在某個時候，我們可能會對此進行調查。

Thanks, Mark. And now we have a question from Justin Patterson of KeyBanc.

謝謝，馬克。現在我們有來自 KeyBanc 的 Justin Patterson 的問題。

[Congrats on good results]. Stories and big picture, just kind of want to go back to something both Andrew and Mario brought up on their questions. (inaudible) is obviously a great focal point on the app. On the one side, you've got younger generations, perhaps shorter attention span. On the other hand, you've got older consumers who also have limited time to spend on the app.

【恭喜取得好成績】。故事和大局，只是想回到安德魯和馬里奧在他們的問題上提出的問題。 （聽不清）顯然是該應用程序的一個重要焦點。一方面，年輕一代的注意力可能更短。另一方面，老年消費者花在應用程序上的時間也有限。

So if you look at something like the Duolingo Max, the premium tier, how can we really kind of position this to unlock some of those pain points while also, Luis, being congruent with what you told to Andrew, finding that right price point to really exceed in the international markets that have lower propensity to pay and to succeed on that commitment of making it a global education platform?

因此，如果你看看像 Duolingo Max 這樣的高端產品，我們如何才能真正定位它來解決其中一些痛點，同時路易斯，與你告訴安德魯的內容一致，找到合適的價格點真的能夠超越支付傾向較低的國際市場，並成功兌現成為全球教育平台的承諾嗎？

I mean I think generally, we're going to be testing a lot of -- the way we work with all of our products is we kind of test our way into things. I'm not entirely sure how exactly we're going to be addressing younger versus older audiences with Max, et cetera. I think we'll just test a lot and find a sweet spot where because of the price and because of the features that are being offered, a pretty large number of people are buying Max. But ultimately, I'll refer to just the fact that for all of these, it's hard for us to know in advance what things will resonate with which users.

我的意思是，我認為一般來說，我們將進行很多測試——我們處理所有產品的方式就是我們測試我們的方式。我不完全確定我們將如何通過《麥克斯》等來準確地迎合年輕觀眾和年長觀眾的需求。我想我們會進行大量測試，然後找到一個最佳點，因為價格和所提供的功能，相當多的人會購買 Max。但最終，我只想提及這樣一個事實：對於所有這些，我們很難提前知道哪些內容會引起哪些用戶的共鳴。

So this is why we test. And part of the reason is that our user base is just so broad. It's not just older versus younger. I mean we have users in the lower economic or in the higher economic end of the spectrum. We have users in every single country in the world, et cetera. So it's just hard to think about in terms of, for us, a priority. But in the end, we just test our way to it. That's what we'll find.

這就是我們測試的原因。部分原因是我們的用戶群非常廣泛。這不僅僅是年長與年輕的問題。我的意思是，我們的用戶處於較低經濟水平或較高經濟水平。我們在世界上每個國家都有用戶，等等。因此，對於我們來說，很難考慮優先事項。但最終，我們只是測試我們的方法。這就是我們會發現的。

And it looks like we have a question from Zach Morrissey of Wolfe Research.

沃爾夫研究中心的紮克·莫里西 (Zach Morrissey) 向我們提出了一個問題。

Just curious on an update in terms of -- you called out paid influencer spend in Asia and LatAm last quarter kind of working well. Just curious for an update there and if you see an opportunity to kind of translate that kind of strategy also to kind of core Western markets as well, if you're seeing kind of good returns.

只是對最新情況感到好奇——您稱上個季度亞洲和拉丁美洲的付費影響者支出運作良好。只是對那裡的更新感到好奇，如果您看到了將這種策略也轉化為西方核心市場的機會，如果您看到了良好的回報。

Yes. I mean generally, I'll say for our marketing -- per our shareholder letter this time, the vast majority of our marketing is geared towards just viral stuff that we don't even pay for. In some cases, particularly in Asia and LatAm, we have found that working with paid influencers actually makes a lot of sense. And we've gotten really good results with that. We have not gotten as good results in places like the U.S. for influencers. And in part, that's because influencers in the U.S. are just very expensive, and we don't see the returns.

是的。我的意思是，總的來說，我想說的是我們的營銷——根據我們這次股東的信，我們的絕大多數營銷都是針對病毒式傳播的東西，而我們甚至不付錢。在某些情況下，特別是在亞洲和拉丁美洲，我們發現與付費影響者合作實際上很有意義。我們已經取得了非常好的結果。在美國等地，我們對於影響者的影響還沒有取得那麼好的結果。部分原因是美國的影響力人物非常昂貴，而且我們看不到回報。

I mean for similar types of video views or something like that in the U.S. versus in a place like Brazil or something, the difference in price that you have to pay an influencer, I don't know off the top of my head, but it's something like 10x. And you just don't get the 10x returns. It's just much more expensive to get a -- pay Beyonce to do something versus to pay whatever the equivalent in Brazil is of a Beyonce. It's just much cheaper. So we have not cracked that, and I don't know if we ever will. For now, our -- in markets like the U.S., our marketing is just much more our owl doing unhinged stuff on TikTok or on YouTube Shorts and stuff like that, and that has worked really well.

我的意思是，對於類似類型的視頻觀看次數或類似的內容，在美國與在巴西等地，你必須向有影響力的人支付的價格差異，我不知道，但它是大約 10 倍。而你就是得不到 10 倍的回報。只是付錢給碧昂斯做某事比在巴西付錢給碧昂斯做任何同等的事情要貴得多。只是便宜得多。所以我們還沒有破解這個問題，我也不知道我們是否會破解這個問題。目前，在美國等市場，我們的營銷更像是我們的貓頭鷹在 TikTok 或 YouTube Shorts 等上做一些瘋狂的事情，而且效果非常好。

Got it. That makes sense. And then just one on gen AI, right. I think you kind of talked about a healthy product road map for Max. Do you see an opportunity for in-app purchases products from gen AI? Or is the primary focus right now just driving kind of a premium here on Max and maybe in-app purchase is something down the road that you can kind of layer in over time?

知道了。這就說得通了。然後就是關於人工智能時代的一個，對吧。我認為你談到了 Max 的健康產品路線圖。您是否看到了 gen AI 的應用內購買產品的機會？或者現在的主要焦點只是推動 Max 的溢價，也許應用內購買是你可以隨著時間的推移而分層的東西？

It's the latter. I mean there's definitely an opportunity for in-app purchases for almost everything we do. But historically, we just -- our subscription business is just so good. That's where we're putting our effort in. And at some point, once we've really nailed what Max will be like, we may start selling some of these features a la carte or we may start having kind of power-ups or something like that. But for now, the effort is going into the higher tier subscription.

是後者。我的意思是，我們所做的幾乎所有事情肯定都有應用內購買的機會。但從歷史上看，我們的訂閱業務非常好。這就是我們正在努力的地方。在某個時候，一旦我們真正確定了 Max 的樣子，我們可能會開始按菜單銷售其中一些功能，或者我們可能會開始提供某種能力提升或其他東西像那樣。但目前，我們的努力正在轉向更高級別的訂閱。

All right. So I'm not showing any other further questions. So I'll turn it back to Luis to wrap up.

好的。所以我不會提出任何其他進一步的問題。所以我會把它轉回給路易斯來總結。

Thank you, Debbie. I'd just like to thank everyone for joining us, and we look forward to speaking to you in November. If you haven't watched it, watch the Barbie movie. We're there. And have a great evening.

謝謝你，黛比。我只想感謝大家加入我們，我們期待在 11 月份與您交談。如果您還沒有看過，請觀看芭比娃娃電影。在那裡。祝您度過一個美好的夜晚。

Goodbye.

再見。