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Operator
Good day, and welcome to NetEase Second Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded.
At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Brandi Piacente. Please go ahead.
Brandi Piacente - Founder and President
Thank you, operator. Please note the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements relating to future performance of the company and are intended to qualify for the safe harbor from liability as established by the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, assumptions and other factors. Some of these risks are beyond the company's control and could cause actual results to differ materially from those mentioned in today's press release and this discussion. A general discussion of the risk factors that could affect NetEase's business and financial results is included in certain filings of the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual report on Form 20-F. The company does not undertake any obligation to update these forward-looking statements and information, except as required by law.
During today's call, management will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures for comparison purposes only. For a definition of non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial results, please see the 2018 second quarter financial results news release issued earlier today. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. In addition, an investor presentation and a webcast replay of this conference call will be available on the NetEase corporate website at ir.netease.com. Joining us today on the call from NetEase's senior management is Mr. William Ding, Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Charles Yang, Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. Ethan Wang, Co-President of NetEase's Games.
I will now turn the call over to Mr. Yang, who will read the prepared remarks on the behalf of Mr. Ding.
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
Thank you, Brandi, and thank you, everyone, for participating in today's call. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that all percentages are based on renminbi. With that said, I will deliver opening remarks on William's behalf.
We are pleased to report a strong quarter with continued growth momentum in each of our core divisions. Our total net revenue reached CNY 16.3 billion, a 15% increase from the previous quarter, and our non-GAAP net income more than doubled from the prior quarter, coming in at CNY 2.7 billion. Our online games reached CNY 10.1 billion, representing 15% sequential growth, the strongest growth rate for this segment since the first quarter of 2017.
Our mobile and PC-client games remain our dual growth engines for online games. On the PC side, our self-developed PC-client game, Justice, was officially launched on June 29. Justice has taken us 5 years to develop. And as one of the very big PC game productions in recent years, it was long anticipated by game players in China. Featuring state-of-the-art technology and stunning graphics, the new game immediately attracted millions of fans and reset expectations for PC games. Justice appeals not only to traditional PC MMO gamers but also the coveted generation regamers, many of whom became first-time PC gamers because of this game. Our primary goal for Justice at this stage is to expand its fan base, establish a strong and stable gamers community and create another valuable IP for NetEase.
On the mobile side, our diversification strategy is progressing smoothly. We launched several new games in non-MMO categories during the second quarter, including Shadowverse, Identity V and QwQ. Each of these titles quickly climbed to the top of the download chart in China. While we continue to dominate the MMO market, we are rapidly finding a place in the non-MMOs space. Importantly, our games in more casual genres are cultivating a completely different and incremental user base. We are fairly new to non-MMO games, but we have come a long way in a very short amount of time. Our decades of focus on technology, creative arts and fostering talent have laid the foundation for us to quickly gauge and adapt with changing trends. We are large but nimble, and we have gone through similar transitions within this ever-evolving technology market. We did it successfully with the PC-to-mobile transition, and we are now doing it again, expanding from MMO to include more casual genres.
Since we began diversifying our product mix, we have already established some huge and successful game titles such as Onmyoji, Knives Out and Terminator 2. In recent quarters, we have started to experience higher success rates than before with many of our new casual titles. Identity V, QwQ and several other games all did very well in their respective categories, and we believe there are still a number of avenues we can pursue to further increase our hit rate.
Moving on to our overseas strategy. Now that we have more non-MMO games in our portfolio, international expansion comes naturally. Our new non-MMO games are typically less impacted by cultural influences, making them more suitable for a global audience. The advanced quality of these games, coupled with our decade-long experience in marketing and operations, have led us to see early signs of success in the global market. In Japan, Knives Out has been consistently ranked in the top 3 on the iOS grossing chart and to the #1 position for most of June. Similarly, Identity V was launched in Japan in early July and has become #1 on iOS and Google Play download chart in Japan. To broaden and deepen our geographic footprint, we will be adding more localized content to our games, specifically to cater to local user appetite. In the U.S., we also had a strong start with the launch of Rules of Survival and Onmyoji arena earlier this year. We are also very encouraged by the performance of Identity V in the U.S. launched in July.
Turning on to our legacy titles. Our leading PC-client and mobile games, such as Fantasy Westward Journey, Westward Journey Online, Onmyoji and Invincible continue to captivate long-time fans. These flagship titles are steady performers, and we expect this trend to continue throughout 2018. The prevailing success of these games demonstrates our remarkable ability to operate games for long periods of time. We have created a massive social community within each game, and we continue to supply our users with engaging content through periodic introductions of high-quality expansion packs. We also host supporting game events and tournaments to maintain community, competition and general enthusiasm around our games.
Our focus remains on quality and innovation as we continue to introduce games that thrill audiences domestically and overseas and strengthen the NetEase brand. We are excited about all of our games in the pipeline, including Ancient Nocturne and Night Falls: Survival, which we currently plan to introduce at the end of the third quarter or the beginning of the fourth quarter.
Looking at our e-commerce business. Both Kaola and Yanxuan continue to thrive. For the second quarter, we grew our e-commerce revenue by 75% year-over-year to CNY 4.4 billion. Our gross margin for this business also improved to 10% from the previous quarter despite a promotional season. Our main objective for e-commerce at this stage is to continue to grow its scale while maintaining a reasonable gross margin. Over the long run, we believe we will achieve a sustainable profit margin through continuous optimization of product mix, upgrading our supply chain management and achieving economies of scale.
With the growing trend of consumption upgrade amongst the rising middle class in China, quality e-commerce is in growing demand. The incumbent e-commerce business model in China has not yet fully addressed this opportunity. Kaola and Yanxuan are designed to fuel this void in the market. Cross-border and private label have been our 2 primary inroads into the e-commerce business, but the entire quality e-commerce market is what we are after. For Kaola, we intend to bring the best products available throughout the world to Chinese consumers.
For Yanxuan, we pioneered the ODM model in China where we are in charge of the design of the product, and our manufacturing partners are the very best manufacturers in their respective categories. Over the past 2 years of operation and even before that, we worked, tested and evaluated thousands of manufacturers and carefully selected top echelons to work with. This is one of the biggest barriers to entry that we have created. Going forward, we will further strengthen our first-mover advantage in supply chain management and continue to upgrade our product offerings to give our Yanxuan customers the best online shopping experience in the market.
Turning on to our other business segments. For advertising services, revenues in the second quarter increased by approximately 7% year-over-year to CNY 634 million or USD 96 million, with automobile, Internet services and real estate sectors as the top-performing verticals. Over 85% of advertising net revenues were generated from selling advertising space on the NetEase News App and NetEase website with a year-over-year increase of nearly 10%. E-commerce and others were CNY 1.2 billion or USD 185 million in the second quarter with a year-over-year increase of 43%.
With our -- within our other services, there are a number of incubated businesses we are very excited about. For Youdao, we set a new record for online education live streaming with close to 50,000 concurrent viewers on one of our online English language test preparation courses. Through our K-12 education offering, we rolled out new summer school classes which were very well received by the market. As a result, our Youdao online education revenue grew considerably.
For music, we continue to run the largest social community for music lovers in China, measured by user engagement and UGC. Our offering reflects our passion for music, attracting the largest consistency of independent musicians and genuine music enthusiasts in China. This community of our users will shape China's future music trend, and our objective is to help them promote their original content. Innovation and craftsmanship continue to serve as the cornerstone of each of our businesses. For more than 2 decades, we have maintained these principles, propelling our relevancy and competitive edge. We believe these core values, our considerable R&D capabilities and strong business acumen will continue to drive our future success.
This concludes William's comment. I will now provide a very brief review of our second quarter 2018 financial results. Given the limited time on today's call, I will be presenting some abbreviated financial highlights. We encourage you to read through our press release issued earlier today for further details.
Net revenues for the second quarter of 2018 were CNY 16.3 billion or USD 2.5 billion. This compares with CNY 14.2 billion and CNY 13.4 billion for the preceding quarter and second quarter of 2017, respectively. The year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter increase was driven by revenue growth across all business segments. Net revenues from online games increased by approximately 15% quarter-over-quarter due to the strong performance from Chu Liu Xiang, Knives Out and Identity V. Mobile games accounted for approximately 75% of net revenues from online games for the second quarter of 2018 compared with 72% for both the preceding quarter and the second quarter of 2017.
Our gross profit for the second quarter of 2018 was CNY 7.2 billion or USD 1.1 billion compared to CNY 6 billion and CNY 6.7 billion for the preceding quarter and the second quarter of 2017, respectively. Our gross profit for our online games segment increased year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter in the second quarter, primarily due to the increased revenue contribution from some of our aforementioned self-developed mobile games. Consequently, gross margin for our online games segment improved to 64% in the second quarter compared with 63% a year ago and 62% in the preceding quarter.
During the second quarter, gross profit for our e-commerce business increased as we continued our rapid expansion of Kaola and Yanxuan. Gross profit margin for our e-commerce business was 10.1% in the second quarter compared with 9.5% and 12.6% for the preceding quarter and the second quarter of 2017, respectively. The quarter-over-quarter increase in e-commerce gross profit margin was primarily due to improved product mix and procurement process. The year-over-year decrease in e-commerce gross profit margin was primarily due to certain sales discounts in the second quarter of 2018 to support the rapid development of Kaola and Yanxuan.
Gross profit margin for advertising services for the second quarter of 2018 was 67%. This compares with 59% and 68% for the preceding quarter and the second quarter of 2017, respectively. The quarter-over-quarter increase was primarily due to seasonality. Gross loss margin for our e-mail and others business for the second quarter of 2018 was 7.3%. This compares to gross loss margin of 9.9% and gross profit margin of 7.7% for the preceding quarter and the second quarter of 2017, respectively. The year-over-year decrease in gross margin was primarily due to decreased revenue contribution from certain online platform businesses, which have relatively higher gross profit margin as well as higher licensed music content cost related to our Cloud Music business in the second quarter.
As we have mentioned before, our businesses include many promising business initiatives that we are incubating such as Youdao, Cloud Music and our live broadcasting services like CC, amongst others. Many of these businesses are undergoing an investment phase as they require upfront spending to acquire content and talent. We believe their upside potential in the longer term will more than justify our current spending.
Total operating expenses for the second quarter were CNY 4.9 billion or USD 742 million. This compares to CNY 4.7 billion and CNY 3.3 billion for the preceding quarter and the second quarter of 2017, respectively. The year-over-year increase in operating expenses was mainly due to the overall increase in business scale. The quarter-to-quarter increase was mainly due to increased R&D cost, which is partially offset by decreased marketing expenditures related to online games. E-commerce-related shipping and handling costs included in selling and marketing expenses for the second quarter of 2018 were CNY 387 million or USD 58 million. This compares to CNY 326 million and CNY 281 million for the preceding quarter and the second quarter of 2017, respectively.
The effective tax rate for the second quarter of 2018 was 16% compared to 26% and 19% for the preceding quarter and the second quarter of 2017, respectively. The year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter changes in the effective tax rate were mainly due to the fact that certain of our subsidiaries having recognized related tax credits in the second quarter of 2018. As explained in the previous quarters, due to the rapid expansion of some of our loss-making subsidiary, we expect the effective tax rate for 2018 on an annual basis to be in the high 20s.
We incurred a foreign exchange gain of CNY 233 million or USD 35 million in the second quarter of 2018. This compares to exchange losses of CNY 375 million and CNY 131 million for the preceding quarter and the second quarter of 2017, respectively. The changes in foreign exchange gains and losses were primarily due to the unrealized exchange gains and losses arising from the U.S. dollar-denominated bank deposits and short-term loan balances as the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar against the renminbi fluctuates over the period.
Our net income attributable to shareholders for the second quarter of 2018 was CNY 2.1 billion or USD 318 million. This compares to CNY 752 million and CNY 3 billion for the preceding quarter and the second quarter of 2017, respectively. Non-GAAP net income attributable to our shareholders for the second quarter 2018 totaled CNY 2.7 billion or USD 412 million. This compares to CNY 1.3 billion and CNY 3.5 billion for the preceding quarter and the second quarter of 2017, respectively. For the second quarter of 2018, our basic and diluted earnings per ADS were USD 2.45 and USD 2.44, respectively. Our non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per ADS were USD 3.17 and USD 3.15, respectively, for the second quarter of 2018.
Our cash position remains strong. As of June 30, our total cash and cash equivalents, current and noncurrent time deposits and short-term investment balance totaled CNY 44 billion or USD 6.7 billion. This compares with CNY 43 billion as of December 31, 2017. Returning value to our shareholders remains a top priority. For the second quarter of 2018, we plan to pay a dividend of $0.61 per ADS, representing 25% of the net income attributable to our shareholders. Under our current share repurchase program, which began on November 16, 2017, and the amendment announced on June 11, 2018, authorizing a total repurchase amount up to USD 2 billion. We had repurchased approximately 3.4 million ADS for approximately USD 912 million as of June 30, 2018.
Thank you for your attention. We would like now to open the call to your questions. Operator, please go ahead.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question today comes from Thomas Chong with Credit Suisse.
Yiu Hung Chong - Regional Head of Internet
I have a question about our second half mobile games outlook. Given the fact that you showcase our top games, more than 20 games in ChinaJoy, should we expect mobile games revenue to remain in strong momentum in second half? And how should we think about the deferred revenue in Q2? And my follow-up question is about our overseas strategies. How should we think about our overseas mobile games revenue contribution over the next few years?
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
Okay. Thomas, I will translate the question for William and management. (foreign language)
Lei Ding - Founder, CEO & Director
(foreign language)
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
So I'll translate the answers for the questions, Thomas. For your first question, we remain confident for our second half mobile games outlook. As you have noticed, on ChinaJoy, we have announced quite some new products in the diversified game genres as well as some very promising upgrades of our existing titles. So those are -- we believe those are the foundation for a very solid second half. For the overseas strategies, Knives Out and Identity V have so far achieved very successful performance, in particular, in Japanese market. Going forward, we plan to bring more products across more genres and hopefully also diversifying the overseas market. So that summarizes our overseas strategy.
Operator
Our next question comes from Eddie Leung with Merrill Lynch.
Eddie Leung - MD in Equity Research and Analyst
I'm just wondering if you could share a bit of color on what you have seen on the user profile difference between your MMO games and non-MMO games. (foreign language)
Lei Ding - Founder, CEO & Director
(foreign language)
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
So Eddie, to translate for the answers, well, as you all know, since last year, we have successfully introduced a couple of hit games in the non-MMO genre. That has attracted a differentiated and incremental user base to our core MMO user base. The users who play our non-MMO games are, generally speaking, younger and covers a more diversified geography. All these new incremental users actually serve as a very good data point and guidance towards our future R&D development and introducing new non-MMO games.
Lei Ding - Founder, CEO & Director
(foreign language)
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
So Eddie, William further commented that, in our view, MMO and non-MMO, these 2 core categories are equally important in the China's game market. So for us, while maintaining dominance in MMO, we are also expanding more and more into the non-MMO genre.
Operator
Our next question will come from Alicia Yap with Citigroup.
Alicia Yap - MD and Head of Pan-Asia Internet Research
I have questions related to the overall PC games industry, so if you can give us some insight into how you view the PC games industry. So given your recent success of the new PC game Justice, have you -- despite the whole industry facing some declining trends of the PC gamers shifting to mobile, could you share with us some of the success factor? Is it because of the game genre or the promotional effort that you guys have? And then similarly, on some of these user profiles, are these more hardcore players that always play PC games or you actually have attracted some mobile gamers that actually go back and play the PC game? And is Justice also attractive to younger group or the older group? So just in general, how do you see the PC game industry outlook in China?
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
(foreign language)
Lei Ding - Founder, CEO & Director
(foreign language)
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
So to translate the answers, first of all, when you look at PC and mobile, you can't look at them from a rigid framework because it's on a relative terms, and the main driver for the outlook of the PC industry is highly dependent on whether the industry witnesses high-quality products game content, such as Justice we've introduced or last year when PUBG is another good example of the high-quality PC products. So in a way, maybe mobile games are easier choice for amateur level beginner gamers. But for a real hard core gamer and a game enthusiast, it is very common to have multiple devices: PC, mobile, even console and switch devices. And to attract these users, what you need is high-quality content. And going back to your other half of the question on Justice, the game is designed as a top-notch high-quality PC game, highly attractive to the hard-core gamers. So we are seeing some of the real hard core gamers even in their 40s, 50s, relatively older as well as the game is highly appealing to the younger generation post '95 because some of those users may have experienced MMO mobile games in the past. Now when they are seeing a high-quality state-of-the-art top-notch MMO games that is available on the PC device, it is also very attractive to convert them into a Justice user.
Operator
In our next question will come from Natalie Wu with CICC.
Yue Wu - Analyst
I just have a follow-up question on your PC game, Justice. Can management share some color on how should we think about the longevity or the lifespan of Justice and the future revenue contribution to the PC game? Could we expect PC game revenue to grow again with the help of Justice from the next quarter?
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
(foreign language)
Lei Ding - Founder, CEO & Director
(foreign language)
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
So Natalie, let me translate the answer for the broader audience. So Justice has been launched for slightly over a month now. We saw the data gathered so far, it indicates good signs of a confident success. Particularly, 2 remarks. One is that we are seeing the community, the user community around the game is largely being established. And secondly, we are also seeing very good progress on the new user growth. So we saw these data points. It gives us confidence that -- we are confident that Justice will perform in line with many of our other legacy PC games for a very long longevity and lifespan.
Operator
And our next question will come from Alex Poon with Morgan Stanley.
Chun Man Poon - Equity Analyst
I have -- so for different segments, it looks like most have gone through the investment phases in the past 2, 3 years, including Yanxuan, Kaola, CC, live music, et cetera. And also, game diversification are seeing good progress overseas, gaining user base, brand establishment, and margin has started to improve. Are you -- do you think we are at a stage that you can accelerate the monetization in second half '18 and 2019, for example, for -- across all these businesses and we could see accelerated margin expansion in the coming quarters? Could you please touch on a bit on every segment? And finally, could you give us a separate, say, for noncore business, how -- what is the net -- roughly, what is the net profit level so we can have a better sense of valuation, so everybody can push their price higher?
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
(foreign language) Okay. Thank you, Alex. Let me take this question. So as you know, for our games, that is the longest track record, and we have commented quite a bit just now on the previous questions, we are confident that for our games segment, while maintaining a steady performance of our legacy titles, the growth will be mainly driven by the performance of our newly launched games, and we are confident about maintaining a strong momentum into the second half of this year. With respect to the other incubated businesses, e-commerce, music, Youdao, et cetera, we believe it is still in the relatively early phase of investment. So the near-term focus on this business segment is not solely focused on monetization. We think in the near term, for the second half next year, the top priority is still to grow its scale, maintaining its leading position amongst user reputation and user recognition because, for us, we have full confidence about the potential future upside of all these businesses that we are incubating. And we want to do it right, do it in a healthy way to ensure a sustainable longer-term growth of all these respective segments.
Operator
And moving on to Han Joon Kim with Deutsche Bank.
Han Joon Kim - VP and Research Analyst
I have just one on my hand. We continue to hear about some delays to game approvals even outside of PUBG in China. So do you think there's a risk that there is some slowness in game releases into 2019? And wondering if that may affect first half or second half of '19 or if you see no problems at all getting approvals from the government.
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
(foreign language)
Lei Ding - Founder, CEO & Director
(foreign language)
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
So Han Joon, to answer your question, to NetEase, the impact is insignificant because as you all know, all the games actually go through a relatively long phase of development and testing. So for our games, particularly the games in our pipeline, it's not so much affected by the current delay on the game approval due to the government bureau restructuring.
Operator
And our next question will come from Karen Chan with Jefferies.
Karen Chan - Equity Analyst
So first, we saw a sequential decline in sales and marketing expense. Just wondering if we should be expecting similar trajectory in second half as we adjust our sales and marketing strategy. Secondly, on the deferred revenue, we noticed around 10% sequential drop there. It seems to be coming from a higher-than-usual game revenue recognition. Can management share more color on why is that so?
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
(foreign language) So Karen, for our selling and marketing expenses, we made a comment that it's been -- we will start normalizing the selling and marketing expenses. Doesn't necessarily mean that we are decreasing it. We will still continue to invest into selling, marketing, R&D and all the operating expenses that is required by the ordinary course of business, for instance, new game launches, game development, et cetera. So in this way, we think increased investment is the trend. However, from a margin, from a percentage of net revenue perspective, we don't think we are deviating too much from our historical levels. On your second question on deferred revenue because this is again -- deferred revenue is an accounting treatment, so part of the gross billing is recognized in the quarter. Some of the gross billings are deferred and recognized in future quarters. So a decline in deferred revenue indicates some of the games experienced some decline in the gross billing. But I think with all the new games, in particular, many of the games, we only launch towards the end of the second half. So its financial contribution or -- is not fully released in the second quarter. So we still remain fairly confident about our second half performance on the games side and the overall business segment.
Operator
And moving on to Marcus Yang with Macquarie.
Marcus Yang - Research Analyst
My first question is we understand that NetEase had a series of investments in overseas company, such as Bungie and Improbable, in the first half of this year. Can you talk about your investment status on these companies and your strategy with them going forward? And also on financial-wise, you mentioned that the gross margin expansion in your e-commerce business was primarily driven by the improved product mix and also procurement process. Can you elaborate more about that? And do you consider that as kind of gross margin level sustainable?
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
(foreign language)
Lei Ding - Founder, CEO & Director
(foreign language)
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
Our investment thesis and strategy still remains very prudent and more focused on the strategic side. When we are screening and exploring potential investment targets or potential partnership collaboration, the main focus is to look at our own product portfolio, R&D pipeline, finding companies and partners that are synergistic to us either by supplementing our existing products or filling some of the relative weaknesses that we do -- we need to further improve. So that is the overall kind of investment thesis and strategy. For your second question on the gross profit margins, as explained, for e-commerce, our near-term primary focus is continue to grow its scale and to expand its addressable user market in further enhancing its brand awareness and user reputation. So with that in mind, our focus is not -- in the near term is not to expand its gross profit margin. Having said that, while we are growing our scale in a robust way, we are also cautious to maintain the gross profit margin at a relatively steady level.
Operator
And our next question comes from Bill Liu with Goldman Sachs.
Chong Liu - Associate
I have one question about our R&D expense. So I understand that we have probably 2, 3 dozens of games in the pipeline, and we are actively expanding into more genres. So how should we think about this R&D expense going forward?
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
(foreign language) Bill, for the R&D expenses, as you have noticed that starting from Q1, we have increased our investment into R&D. But I think that's what a tech company should do to invest into its core competence. After all, I think comparing to our top line growth, if you look at the R&D from a ratio perspective, it is still in a very controllable manner. But we think with the increased investment into R&D, it is hugely beneficial for our longer-term sustainable growth. And by the way, the R&D increase is mainly driven by the headcount. So in a way, the company's growing, company is expanding, and we are attracting more and more talent into NetEase.
Operator
And moving on to Jin Yoon with New Street Research.
Jin-Kyu Yoon - Analyst
So gross margins fared across all your segment lines much better than expected. Just kind of want to touch upon your music business. I was wondering if you guys could or are ready to share some metrics behind that in terms of membership growth, usage and the trajectory we should see for that business going forward.
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
(foreign language) Jin, for music, so first of all, music has been growing. The total registered user has surpassed 500 million. And paying ratio, for the whole industry, the music paying ratio is still at a relatively low level even comparing to the live streaming and video sites. So there's huge potential of enhanced monetization potential from the subscription base. And with the growing scale in user and the increased focus on the content, we think our Cloud Music is doing -- what we are doing is building a very solid foundation for a lot of monetization potentials in the near term.
Operator
And we have a question from Bill Leung with Haitong International.
Ka Wai Leung - VP & Sector Coordinator
Just one question on Minecraft. I think we discussed this last time, but there seems to be a lack of information this time around. So I was just wondering if there's any updates, development on Minecraft and any changes in terms of the amortization strategy we discussed last time.
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
(foreign language)
Lei Ding - Founder, CEO & Director
(foreign language)
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
So over the last year, we have brought quite some innovative and new experiences to the Chinese Minecraft users that is different from the offshore global version of Minecraft. Going forward, we will work -- we will continuously to work closely with Microsoft to enhance the user experience. And also in our earnings release, we believe we also announced that Minecraft registered users has already crossed over 100 million user benchmark.
Operator
And we'll take the next question from John Choi with Daiwa.
Hyungwook Choi - Head of Hong Kong & China Internet and Regional Head of Small/Mid Cap
Just quickly on your live broadcasting, NetEase CC. I know that NetEase has been starting to invest quite a bit here. Can you -- is there any metrics that you could share? And what kind of development procedures that management has put in place? And secondly, now also just to follow up on your overseas strategy, right now, you guys have been doing pretty well in Japan. Any other regions or countries that you will be focusing in the near term?
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
(foreign language)
Lei Ding - Founder, CEO & Director
(foreign language)
Zhaoxuan Yang - CFO
Okay. To translate the answers, so for CC, it is a strategic platform to our overall NetEase games ecosystem. So we will continue to invest into CC and making the game broadcasting platform a strategic asset to our game profiles. Secondly, to your overseas strategy. So aside from Japan, our focus will also be on the North America and European market. We think that our game has the potential to also excel and prove itself amongst those mainstream Western markets.
Operator
And that does conclude our question-and-answer session. I'll now turn the conference back over to management.
Brandi Piacente - Founder and President
Thank you, once again, for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please contact NetEase's IR Director, Margaret Shi, based in Hangzhou, or TPG Investor Relations. Have a great day.
Operator
Thank you. That does conclude today's conference. We do thank you for your participation today.