Zhihu Inc (ZH) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Zhihu Inc fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial results conference call. (Operator Instructions) Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Yolanda Liu, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, ma'am.

女士們、先生們，感謝你們的支持並歡迎參加知乎公司 2023 年第四季和全年財務業績電話會議。（操作員指示）今天的會議正在錄音。現在，我想把會議交給投資者關係總監Yolanda Liu。請繼續，女士。

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial results conference call. Participants on today's call include Mr. Zhou Yuan, our Founder, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Wang Han, our Chief Financial Officer.

謝謝你，接線生。大家好。歡迎參加我們的 2023 年第四季和全年財務業績電話會議。今天電話會議的參與者包括我們的創辦人、董事長兼執行長週原先生；以及我們的財務長王瀚先生。

Before we continue, please note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the US Private Securities and Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, our results may be materially different from the views expressed today. Further information regarding these and other risks and uncertainties is included in our public filings with the US SEC and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The Company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable law.

在我們繼續之前，請注意，今天的討論將包含根據 1995 年美國私人證券和訴訟改革法案的安全港條款做出的前瞻性陳述。前瞻性陳述涉及固有風險和不確定性。因此，我們的結果可能與今天表達的觀點有重大差異。有關這些以及其他風險和不確定性的更多資訊包含在我們向美國證券交易委員會和香港證券交易所提交的公開文件中。除適用法律要求外，本公司不承擔更新任何前瞻性聲明的義務。

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 earnings release issued earlier today.

在今天的電話會議上，管理階層還將討論某些非公認會計準則財務指標，僅供比較之用。有關非 GAAP 財務指標的定義以及 GAAP 與非 GAAP 財務表現的調整表，請參閱今天稍早發布的收益報告。

In addition, a webcast replay of this conference call will be available on our website at ir.zhihu.com.

此外，本次電話會議的網路直播重播將在我們的網站 ir.zhihu.com 上提供。

I will now turn the call over to Mr. Wang Han, CFO of Zhihu Inc. Please go ahead.

我現在將電話轉接給知乎公司財務長王涵先生，請您接聽。

Thank you, Yolanda. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining Zhihu's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. I'm pleased to deliver today's opening remarks on behalf of Mr. Zhou Yuan, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Zhihu.

謝謝你，尤蘭達。大家好。感謝您參加知乎第四季和 2023 年全年財報電話會議。我很高興代表知乎創辦人、董事長兼執行長週原先生致今天的開幕辭。

In 2023, we faced a blend of challenges and opportunities. Despite the dynamic macro environment and competitive industry landscape, we achieved substantial progress in the commercialization and efficiency, both in the fourth quarter and throughout the year. Furthermore, we made considerable strides in improving our bottom line while actively exploring and investing in AI technology.

2023年，我們面臨挑戰與機會並存。儘管宏觀環境不斷變化，行業格局競爭激烈，我們在第四季度和全年都在商業化和效率方面取得了實質進展。此外，我們在積極探索和投資人工智慧技術的同時，在提高盈利方面取得了長足進步。

Our primary focus in 2023 was motivating our content creators through a variety of incentives plans. As a result, the cumulative content creators on our platform increased by 13% year over year, reaching 71.3 million by the end of 2023. Cumulative pieces of content grew to 774.7 million, up 19.3% year over year. Additionally, the average MAUs for the full year increased by 4% year-over-year.

我們 2023 年的主要重點是透過各種激勵計畫激勵我們的內容創作者。截至2023年底，平台累計內容創作者數量較去年同期成長13%，達到7,130萬人。累計內容成長至7.747億條，較去年成長19.3%。此外，全年平均每月活躍用戶數較去年同期成長 4%。

Our monetization progress remained robust throughout the year. We achieved a 16.5% year-over-year increase in our full year revenues to RMB4,199 million. With enhanced operating efficiency, our overall gross margin for 2023 improved by more than four percentage points year-over-year to 54.7%. Furthermore, our operating loss margin for 2023 significantly narrowed by 19 percentage points and adjusted net loss decreased by 44.9% both on a year over year basis.

我們的貨幣化進展全年保持強勁。全年收入人民幣41.99億元，較去年成長16.5%。隨著營運效率的提高，我們2023年的整體毛利率年增四個以上百分點至54.7%。此外，我們2023年的經營虧損率大幅收窄19個百分點，調整後淨虧損較去年同期下降44.9%。

During the fourth quarter, our dedication to user growth, resource allocation and operating efficiency improvement began to pay off. As high-quality content continued to thrive across the community, we proactively refined our user growth strategy and significantly reduced acquisition costs for new users. Our focus shifted towards driving efficient and sustainable organic user growth by elevating engagement and retention rate among our highly active core users.

第四季度，我們對用戶成長、資源配置和營運效率提升的努力開始得到回報。隨著高品質內容在社群中持續蓬勃發展，我們主動完善了用戶成長策略，並大幅降低了新用戶的獲取成本。我們的重點轉向透過提高高度活躍的核心用戶的參與度和保留率來推動高效和可持續的有機用戶成長。

We also continued to fortify our monetization model's resilience through diverse growth drivers. Our total revenue for Q4 of 2023 reached RMB1.1 billion, primarily fueled by the strong growth in our paid membership and vocational training businesses. Our increasing brand influence and expanded program offerings have strengthened these divisions' competitiveness extending our revenue growth beyond Zhihu community. Together, these two segments achieved robust revenue growth of 28.3% year-over-year for fourth quarter of 2023.

我們也透過多元化的成長動力繼續增強我們的貨幣化模型的彈性。2023年第四季度，我們的總收入達到人民幣11億元，主要得益於付費會員和職業訓練業務的強勁成長。我們日益增強的品牌影響力和不斷擴大的節目內容增強了這些部門的競爭力，將我們的收入成長擴展到知乎社群之外。2023 年第四季度，這兩個細分市場的營收年增 28.3%。

Enhancing cost control effectiveness and operating efficiency remained as our key strategic priorities during the fourth quarter. We continue to invest judiciously in cutting-edge technologies such as AI, while optimizing our fixed cost structure. These initiatives resulted in expanded gross margin of 59.1% for fourth quarter. They also drove a significant 31.9% year over year reduction in adjusted net loss, which reached its narrowest quarterly level since our US IPO.

提高成本控制有效性和營運效率仍然是我們第四季的策略重點。我們繼續明智地投資於人工智慧等尖端技術，同時優化我們的固定成本結構。這些措施使第四季毛利率擴大至 59.1%。他們還推動調整後淨虧損年減 31.9%，達到我們美國 IPO 以來的最低季度水準。

As we move through 2024, we will further optimize our financial performance, while elevating trustworthiness within the Zhihu community. We're confident that in the era of AI generated content, users will increasingly value professional, in-depth and authentic content as well as discussion and feedback among real users. By fostering an environment of trust, we can stimulate user interactions and inspire content creator's passion and creativity, ultimately driving organic community growth. Meanwhile, we also believe that the prudent application of AI large language models can improve user experience and strengthen the feedback mechanism for content creators, enhancing our community's atmosphere and operating efficiency.

進入 2024 年，我們將進一步優化財務業績，同時提升知乎社區的可信度。我們相信，在人工智慧生成內容的時代，使用者將越來越重視專業、深入、真實的內容以及真實用戶之間的討論和回饋。透過營造信任的環境，我們可以刺激使用者互動並激發內容創作者的熱情和創造力，最終推動社群的自然發展。同時，我們也相信，AI大語言模式的審慎應用可以改善使用者體驗，加強對內容創作者的回饋機制，提升我們的社群氛圍與運作效率。

Now I'd like to delve into the details of our initiatives and achievements in 2023 across content and creators as well as our commercialization progress. Let's start with our content and content creators.

現在我想詳細介紹我們 2023 年在內容和創作者方面的舉措和成就，以及我們的商業化進展。讓我們從我們的內容和內容創作者開始。

As I just mentioned, we revisited our user growth strategy in 2023 to promote organic community growth through high quality content and a thriving community ecosystem. We shifted our focus to boosting our core user's activeness and retention rates, while also reducing user acquisition costs. Consequently, our average MAUs in the fourth quarter were 99 million, a slight decrease of 1.6% year over year. However, we reduced user acquisition costs in fourth quarter by more than 40% year-over-year, accounting for less than 35% of total promotion and advertising expenses.

正如我剛才提到的，我們在 2023 年重新審視了用戶成長策略，透過高品質的內容和繁榮的社群生態系統促進社群的有機成長。我們將重點轉向提高核心用戶的活躍度和保留率，同時降低用戶獲取成本。因此，我們第四季的平均每月活躍用戶數為 9,900 萬，年比小幅下降 1.6%。然而，我們第四季的用戶獲取成本年減了40%以上，佔推廣和廣告費用總額的比例不到35%。

This shift drove sequential increases in our daily active users' time spent. Additionally, in the fourth quarter, we saw a significant year-over-year improvement in both the content creation contribution rate and next month retention rate for our highly active users.

這種轉變推動了我們日常活躍用戶的花費時間的連續增加。此外，在第四季度，我們看到高活躍用戶的內容創作貢獻率和下個月留存率均較去年同期顯著提高。

Regarding content, we further refined our content operations by deeply integrating trending topics and user demands while continually strengthening recommendation technology. These initiatives, combined with our diverse incentive plans for content creators, propelled rapid growth in our community's high-quality content pool. As of the end of 2023, the cumulative pieces of content increased to 774.7 million, among which the cumulative number of Q&A reached 592.8 million.

內容方面，我們進一步精細化內容運營，深度融合熱門話題和用戶需求，同時不斷強化推薦技術。這些舉措與我們針對內容創作者的多樣化激勵計劃相結合，推動了我們社區高品質內容池的快速成長。截至2023年底，累計內容條數增加至7.747億條，其中累計問答條數達5.928億條。

We also leveraged Zhihu's position as China's leading content-centric community to encourage extensive professional discussions on trending topics. For instance, in 2023 the cumulative discussion volume relating to generative AI large language models and their application, surpassed 1.2 billion across the Zhihu community. A distinguished group of founders and key developers from leading LLM companies joined the discussions on Zhihu contributing their valuable insights. Science and engineering related content was another standout increasing by 85.6% year-over-year in 2023.

我們也利用知乎作為中國領先的以內容為中心的社區的地位，鼓勵對熱門話題進行廣泛的專業討論。例如，2023年，知乎社群有關生成式人工智慧大語言模型及其應用的累積討論量超過12億。來自領先的法學碩士公司的一群傑出的創始人和主要開發人員加入了知乎上的討論，貢獻了他們的寶貴見解。科學與工程相關內容是另一個亮點，2023 年年增 85.6%。

Our "Haiyan plan" continues to serve as a crucial incentive for content creators. Since the release of Haiyan 5.0 in May 2023, we have consistently promoted professional content creation driving creativity and productivity through initiatives such as our Blue Label certification. In 2023, this program covered 130 verticals with nearly 200,000 users certified. Furthermore, we provided a broad array of avenues for content creators to earn income. During the fourth quarter, the total number of content creators who earned income on our platform increased by 17.4% year over year.

我們的「海燕計畫」仍然是對內容創作者的重要激勵。自 2023 年 5 月發布海燕 5.0 以來，我們透過藍標認證等舉措，持續推動專業內容創作，推動創造力和生產力。2023年，該計畫涵蓋130個垂直產業，認證用戶近20萬人。此外，我們為內容創作者提供了廣泛的創收途徑。第四季度，在我們平台上獲得收入的內容創作者總數較去年同期成長17.4%。

As I previously mentioned, one of our top priorities for 2024 is to enhance the trustworthiness within the Zhihu community. To that end, we have been prudently empowering our community with AI, leveraging large language models to better connect human knowledge, experience and insights and make them more accessible to a broader audience.

正如我之前提到的，我們 2024 年的首要任務之一是增強知乎社群的可信度。為此，我們一直審慎地利用人工智慧為我們的社群賦能，利用大型語言模型更好地連結人類知識、經驗和見解，讓更廣泛的受眾更容易理解它們。

At our recent Discovery Conference on March 20th, we introduced a new search feature called Discovery, leveraging our "Zhihaitu" large language model. This significant advancement in the search scenario allows our users to initiate discussions directly with content creators across the entire Zhihu community with a single question. The content featured in "Discovery" comes from professional content creators within the community. This feature facilitates more efficient knowledge sharing by enhancing search efficiency and a content consumption experience for Zhihu users, while also providing feedback to our content creators. With enhancements like "Discovery", we aim to strengthen community development and drive the continued emergence of high-quality trustworthy content.

在 3 月 20 日舉行的 Discovery 會議上，我們利用我們的「智海圖」大語言模型推出了一項名為 Discovery 的新搜尋功能。搜尋場景的這一重大進步使我們的用戶可以透過一個問題直接與整個知乎社群的內容創作者發起討論。《發現》的內容來自社群內的專業內容創作者。此功能透過提高知乎用戶的搜尋效率和內容消費體驗來促進更有效的知識共享，同時也為我們的內容創作者提供回饋。透過「發現」等增強功能，我們的目標是加強社區發展並推動高品質可信賴內容的持續湧現。

We firmly believe that the combination of professional in-depth authentic content, our culture of sincerity and respect, as well as our transparent and efficient information mechanism, will further enhance our community's trustworthiness. This in turn will drive user engagement and retention throughout the Zhihu community, fueling the efficient and sustainable organic growth of our user base in the long run.

我們堅信，專業深入的真實內容、真誠和尊重的文化以及透明高效的資訊機制相結合，將進一步增強社區的可信度。這反過來將提高整個知乎社群的用戶參與度和保留率，從長遠來看，推動我們用戶群的高效和可持續的有機成長。

Moving to our multi-engine commercialization. In the fourth quarter, our total revenue increased by 2.2% year-over-year to RMB1.1 billion. Empowered by our thriving community, paid membership and vocational training maintained their robust growth. Together, they expanded our monetization capability beyond the Zhihu community, contributing more than 50% to total revenue for both the fourth quarter and full year 2023. This strong performance underscores the resilience and effectiveness of our business model and diversified revenue growth engine.

轉向我們的多引擎商業化。第四季度，我們的總營收年增2.2%至人民幣11億元。在我們蓬勃發展的社區的推動下，付費會員和職業培訓保持了強勁增長。他們共同將我們的變現能力擴展到知乎社區之外，為第四季和 2023 年全年的總收入貢獻了 50% 以上。這一強勁表現凸顯了我們業務模式和多元化營收成長引擎的彈性和有效性。

In terms of revenue growth by sector vocational training and paid membership revenues led the way increasing by 28.3% to RMB625.2 million. Notably revenue from vocational training doubled compared to Q4 last year. As revenue contribution remained at over 10% throughout 2023.

從產業收入成長來看，職業培訓和付費會員收入領先，成長28.3%至人民幣6.252億元。值得注意的是，職業培訓收入與去年第四季相比翻了一番。2023年全年營收貢獻維持在10%以上。

While marketing services had yet to fully recover on a yearly basis, it picked up sequentially with quarter over quarter growth of 21.5% in Q4, particularly display-based advertising delivered sequential growth of over 33%. In addition, we saw rapid year-over-year growth in various verticals that requires a longer decision making process such as IT3C and home appliances. This highlights the vital role of Zhihu's professional in-depth and authentic content in consumer decision-making. We continued to streamline and upgrade our CCS business's offerings throughout 2023 to drive further marketing efficiency improvements and unlock greater commercial potential in this business segment.

儘管行銷服務尚未完全按年恢復，但第四季度環比增長 21.5%，特別是基於展示的廣告實現了超過 33% 的環比增長。此外，我們也看到IT3C和家電等需要較長決策過程的垂直產業較去年同期快速成長。這凸顯了知乎專業、深入、真實的內容對消費者決策的重要角色。2023年，我們持續精簡升級CCS業務的產品，以進一步推動行銷效率的提高，並釋放該業務領域更大的商業潛力。

The increasingly diverse premium content has contributed to consistent growth in our paid membership business. In the fourth quarter, our paid membership revenue increased by 13.3% year-over-year to RMB455.9 million. In the fourth quarter of 2023, average monthly subscribers reached 14.2 million, representing a 9.2% year-over-year increase. Average revenue per user (ARPU) also improved year over year. There were two primary growth drivers:

日益多元化的優質內容促進了我們付費會員業務的持續成長。第四季度，我們的付費會員收入年增13.3%至人民幣4.559億元。2023年第四季，平均每月訂閱用戶達1,420萬，較去年同期成長9.2%。每位用戶平均收入 (ARPU) 也逐年提高。有兩個主要的成長動力：

First, the expansion of both our high-quality content categories and our target audience. Zhihu's vast and diverse library of premium content encompasses not only knowledge-based content like columns, research papers and ebooks, but also short stories that are gaining popularity among users. As of the end of 2023, our content library amassed 4.9 million pieces, an increase of 15.7% year over year. Additionally, the number of premium content creators who earn income on Zhihu in '23 Q4 surged by 36.8% year-over-year.

首先，擴大我們的優質內容類別和目標受眾。知乎龐大且多元的優質內容庫不僅包含專欄、研究論文和電子書等知識型內容，也包含越來越受使用者歡迎的短篇故事。截至2023年底，內容庫數量達490萬條，年增15.7%。此外，23年第四季在知乎上獲得收入的優質內容創作者數量較去年同期激增36.8%。

Drawing on our massive content library, many of our short stories originate from professional discussions in the Zhihu Q&A community. Since the launch of Zhihu's "Yanyan Story" in May 2023. It has emerged as a frontrunner in the multi-billion-dollar short story markets, in terms of both content production and consumption.

借助我們龐大的內容庫，我們的許多短篇故事都源自於知乎問答社群的專業討論。自2023年5月知乎《妍妍故事》上線以來。無論是在內容製作還是消費方面，它都已成為數十億美元短篇小說市場的領導者。

To date, the cumulative number of content creators on Yanyan Story exceeds 600,000 with a cumulative of over 100,000 short stories published. Topical coverage has expanded beyond the platforms original romance, professional and suspense genres to encompass over 180 subcategories. While the content categories popular among female users continued to grow, we are also expanding into categories favored by male users such as science fiction and mystery.

截至目前，「艷艷故事」累積內容創作者超過60萬，累計發布短篇小說超過10萬篇。話題涵蓋範圍已超出平台原有的愛情、專業和懸疑類型，涵蓋 180 多個子類別。在女性用戶喜愛的內容類別持續成長的同時，我們也拓展科幻、懸疑等男性用戶喜愛的類別。

Meanwhile, the Zhihu community's financial rewards effectively motivated our premium content creators. Over 100 paid content creators on Zhihu have earned more than one million RMB, also in 2023 average monthly income of signed content creators on Yanyan was close to ten thousand RMB, nearly doubling the average income on other platforms.

同時，知乎社群的經濟獎勵有效激勵了我們的優質內容創作者。知乎上超過100名付費內容創作者收入超過百萬元，而2023年燕燕簽約內容創作者平均月收入也接近萬元，是其他平台平均收入的近一倍。

Second, media format diversification and IP monetization have continued to bolster our users' long-term value. In the fourth quarter, we introduced a variety of formats to boost content consumption, including audiobooks and radio dramas. These initiatives are carefully designed to provide our subscribers with an immersive and fulfilling storytelling experience.

其次，媒體格式多元化和IP變現持續提升用戶的長期價值。第四季度，我們推出了多種形式來促進內容消費，包括有聲書和廣播劇。這些舉措經過精心設計，旨在為我們的訂閱者提供身臨其境且充實的講故事體驗。

By leveraging our expanded media formats and deepening our penetration across the value chain, we are expanding from short story market to a broader IP monetization market. The success of our short form blockbusters clearly reflects strong IP development potential within the Yanyan Story platform. Moving forward, we will harness the power of AI large language model technology to explore and develop integrated content formats, further unleashing the value of Zhihu's premium content. This approach will help enhance our subscribers' LTV in the long term.

透過利用我們擴展的媒體格式並深化對價值鏈的滲透，我們正在從短篇小說市場擴展到更廣泛的智慧財產權貨幣化市場。我們短篇大片的成功充分體現了燕燕故事平台強大的IP開發潛力。下一步，我們將藉助AI大語言模型技術的力量，探索並發展一體化的內容業態，進一步釋放知乎優質內容的價值。從長遠來看，這種方法將有助於提高我們訂戶的 LTV。

Our vocational training business continued to grow robustly with Q4 revenue surging by 100.1% year-over-year. Looking ahead, we officially announced our development strategy focusing on digital empowerment for our "Zhixuetang" brand at our annual "Zhihu Education Conference" in January 2024.

職業培訓業務持續強勁成長，第四季營收年增100.1%。展望未來，我們在2024年1月的年度「知乎教育大會」上正式宣布了以數位賦能為核心的「知學堂」品牌發展策略。

"Zhixuetang" is a vocational training platform dedicated to providing comprehensive and practical learning services for new generation professionals throughout their life long personal development journey. Currently, its expanded course offerings cover three main categories, academic improvements such as post graduate exams, english proficiency test, career enhancements such as CFA, accounting and ESG exams and other vocational skills interest such as writing, IT skills, and AGI courses.

「知學堂」是一個職業訓練平台，致力於為新生代專業人士的終身個人發展歷程提供全面、實用的學習服務。目前，其擴展的課程涵蓋三大類：研究生考試、英語能力測驗等學術提升，CFA、會計和ESG考試等職業提升，以及寫作、IT技能和AGI課程等其他職業技能興趣。

The vocational training sector offers immense opportunities for advancing, digitalization. AI large language models are poised to revolutionize the industry, leading to efficiency improvements and a significant shift in user experience. By leveraging AI LLM and AI agent applications in vocational training scenarios, we can advance the digitalization of processes such as job selection, exam practice and homework correction.

職業培訓產業為推進數位化提供了巨大的機會。人工智慧大語言模型有望徹底改變產業，從而提高效率並顯著改變使用者體驗。透過AI LLM和AI代理在職業訓練場景的應用，我們可以推動擇業、考試練習、作業批改等流程的數位化。

Our vocational training business success underscores Zhihu's unique position: " we started as a community, but we are expanding beyond it." Moreover, its rapid revenue growth will bring us greater scale advantages in terms of cost dilution and efficiency improvement. We'll continue to control and optimize this business's cost and expenses to continually boost its overall operating efficiency.

我們的職業培訓業務的成功凸顯了知乎的獨特地位：“我們最初是一個社區，但我們正在超越它。”而且，其收入的快速成長將為我們在成本攤薄和效率提升方面帶來更大的規模優勢。我們將持續控制和優化該業務的成本和費用，並持續提升其整體營運效率。

In the fourth quarter, marketing services revenue decreased by 18.7% year over year, but increased by 21.5% quarter over quarter. The year-over-year decline can be attributed to the challenging economic environment and heightened market competition, as well as our proactive efforts to prioritize user experience by reducing the distribution of commercial content that may negatively impact our users.

第四季行銷服務營收年減18.7%，但季增21.5%。同比下降可歸因於充滿挑戰的經濟環境和加劇的市場競爭，以及我們積極努力透過減少可能對用戶產生負面影響的商業內容的分發來優先考慮用戶體驗。

However, the cornerstone verticals of our community continued to demonstrate robust growth. This reaffirms our core users' recognition of our professional contents value, particularly in the current environment, emphasizing cost effective and rational consumption. Specifically, the IT/3C vertical grew by nearly 40% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2023. This trend is also evident in other consumer verticals involving significant decision making processes such as home, renovation, pets and outdoors activities which appeals to our core users. Zhihu's unique content advantages and ongoing product efficiency upgrades empower brand and merchants to gain deep insights into users' evolving mindsets, allowing them to influence decision making and purchase behavior.

然而，我們社區的基石垂直行業繼續表現出強勁的成長。這再次證實了我們的核心使用者對我們專業內容價值的認可，特別是在當前強調性價比和理性消費的環境下。具體而言，IT/3C 垂直產業在 2023 年第四季年增近 40%。這種趨勢在涉及重要決策過程的其他消費垂直領域也很明顯，例如家居、裝修、寵物和戶外活動，這些都吸引了我們的核心用戶。知乎獨特的內容優勢和持續的產品效率升級使品牌和商家能夠深入洞察用戶不斷變化的心態，從而影響決策和購買行為。

Furthermore, we have established a feedback mechanism for data collaborations with e-commerce platforms like Taobao and JD.com. Leveraging visualized data, we help brands and merchants achieve their business objectives more effectively by boosting add to cart rates, store visits and category penetration rates, as well as lowering customer acquisition costs. Our Marketing Services made substantial progress during the Double 11 period with the average conversion rate from Zhihu to brands' online stores reaching 6% across our verticals. Moreover, both transaction rates and new customer acquisition rates outperformed the industry.

此外，我們也與淘寶、京東等電商平台建立了數據協作回饋機制。利用視覺化數據，我們透過提高添加購物車率、商店訪問量和品類滲透率以及降低獲客成本，幫助品牌和商家更有效地實現其業務目標。我們的行銷服務在雙11期間取得了長足的進步，整個產業從知乎到品牌網上商店的平均轉換率達到了6%。此外，交易率和新客戶獲取率均優於同業。

As we progress through 2024 and elevate the community's trustworthiness we will also continue to build out our scientific trust based marketing system across two primary aspects:

隨著 2024 年的進展並提升社群的可信度，我們也將繼續在兩個主要方面建立基於科學信任的行銷體系：

First, we will continue to upgrade our underlying capabilities to further improve the efficiency of commercial content recommendation. Since the beginning of this year, we have sought to cover major advertising categories with a library of rated and labeled SPUs, so that we can establish a user evaluation system empowered by AI. This will allow more suitable products to be recommended by a broader base of content creators.

首先，我們將持續升級底層能力，進一步提升商業內容建議的效率。今年以來，我們力求建立涵蓋主要廣告品類的評級標籤SPU庫，建立人工智慧賦能的使用者評估體系。這將使更廣泛的內容創作者推薦更合適的產品。

Second, we will strive to maintain a high level of user experience, especially for our highly active users. If a user submits a feedback indicating no interest for a piece of content, the user will no longer see commercial content for that product.

其次，我們將努力保持高水準的用戶體驗，特別是對於我們的高度活躍的用戶。如果使用者提交的回饋顯示對某一內容不感興趣，則該使用者將不再看到該產品的商業內容。

Moving on to our key strategies for 2024. Enhancing operating efficiency and accelerating profitability remain our core strategic objectives for sustainable growth. Alongside ongoing efforts to improve our commercialization efficiency, we are committed to optimizing our cost and expense structure. Efficiency will be a pivotal performance indicator at each BU level. This approach will expedite our journey toward profitability. Meanwhile, we'll prioritize initiatives that contribute significantly to the community's long-term growth and sustainability.

繼續討論我們 2024 年的關鍵策略。提高營運效率和加速獲利仍然是我們永續成長的核心策略目標。除了不斷努力提高商業化效率之外，我們還致力於優化我們的成本和費用結構。效率將成為每個業務單位層級的關鍵績效指標。這種方法將加快我們獲利的腳步。同時，我們將優先考慮對社區長期成長和永續發展做出重大貢獻的措施。

Additionally, we will deepen our commitment to protecting our core users, engagement and creative contributions, reflecting the growing value we place on our trustworthy community culture and professional, in-depth and authentic content.

此外，我們將深化對保護核心使用者、參與度和創意貢獻的承諾，反映我們對值得信賴的社群文化和專業、深入和真實內容的日益重視。

Finally, in terms of AI investment, we'll shift our focus to developing application scenarios. We will prudently integrate AI into our diverse professional and trustworthy community to provide Zhihu users with efficient access to our massive library of trustworthy answers and unlock greater expansion opportunities beyond it.

最後，在人工智慧投資方面，我們將把重點轉向應用場景的開發。我們將謹慎地將人工智慧融入我們多元化的專業和值得信賴的社群中，讓知乎用戶能夠有效率地存取我們龐大的值得信賴的答案庫，並釋放除此之外更大的擴展機會。

This concludes Mr. Zhou Yuan's remarks.

周元先生的發言到此結束。

Now I will review the details of our fourth quarter financials. For a complete overview of our fourth quarter and full year 2023 results. Please see our press release issued earlier today.

現在我將回顧我們第四季度財務狀況的詳細資訊。了解我們第四季和 2023 年全年業績的完整概述。請參閱我們今天早些時候發布的新聞稿。

While we continued to face various challenges, we remained resilient and devoted to our multi-engine monetization strategy. Our total revenues increased by 2.2% and 16.5% year over year for Q4 and full year, respectively. We were also pleased to deliver measurable progress in refining our cost controls and operating leverage, achieving a record high gross margin since our U.S. IPO and a significantly narrowed net loss for the fourth quarter.

儘管我們繼續面臨各種挑戰，但我們仍然保持彈性並致力於我們的多引擎貨幣化策略。第四季和全年我們的總營收分別年增 2.2% 和 16.5%。我們也很高興在完善成本控制和營運槓桿方面取得了可衡量的進展，實現了自美國首次公開募股以來的歷史最高毛利率，並且第四季度的淨虧損大幅收窄。

Our paid membership revenue for the quarter increased 13.3% year-over-year to RMB455.9 million. This growth was primarily driven by continued expansion of our subscribers, which increased by 9.2% year-over-year to 14.2 million as a result of content enhancement and user experience improvement.

本季我們的付費會員營收年增 13.3% 至 4.559 億元。這一增長主要是由於內容增強和用戶體驗改善所致，用戶數量持續增長，年增 9.2% 至 1,420 萬。

Our vocational training business revenue for the fourth quarter surged by 100.1% year-over-year to RMB169.3 million. This impressive growth can be attributed to our ongoing efforts to expand our course offerings. All our courses are specifically designed to meet our users' evolving demands covering areas such as academic improvement, career advancement and other vocational skills and interests. We continued to garner market recognition for our programs and drive its sustainable development.

第四季職業培訓業務收入年增100.1%至人民幣1.693億元。這一令人印象深刻的成長可歸因於我們不斷努力擴大我們的課程。我們所有的課程都是專門為滿足用戶不斷變化的需求而設計的，涵蓋學術進步、職業發展以及其他職業技能和興趣等領域。我們的項目不斷贏得市場認可，並推動其永續發展。

The overall macro environment and uncertainties in the advertising market pressured our marketing services throughout 2023. In the fourth quarter, marketing services revenue declined by 18.7% year over year. However, it recovered by 21.5% quarter over quarter, driven by our product enhancement and sustained increasing performances in verticals such as IT & 3C and home appliances.

2023年整體宏觀環境和廣告市場的不確定性給我們的行銷服務帶來了壓力。第四季行銷服務營收年減18.7%。然而，在我們的產品改進以及IT&3C和家電等垂直行業業績持續增長的推動下，環比恢復了21.5%。

Gross profit for the fourth quarter increased by 7.1% year-over-year to RMB673.1 million, with gross margin expanding to 59.1%, it's highest level since our U.S. IPO. The Gross margin improvement reflects our enhanced monetization efforts, as well as improved efficiency in cloud services and bandwidth utilization.

第四季毛利年增7.1%至人民幣6.731億元，毛利率擴大至59.1%，為自美國以來的最高水準。首次公開募股。毛利率的提高反映了我們增強的貨幣化努力，以及雲端服務和頻寬利用率效率的提高。

Total operating expenses were RMB851.3 million for the fourth quarter compared with RMB844.8 million for the same period of 2022.

第四季總營運費用為人民幣 8.513 億元，而 2022 年同期為人民幣 8.448 億元。

Selling and marketing expenses for Q4 increased to RMB527.6 million from RMB509.2 million for the same period of 2022, as we continued to invest in product and service offering promotions with a prudent ROI-based approach.

由於我們以基於投資回報率的審慎方法繼續投資於產品和服務促銷，第四季度的銷售和營銷費用從 2022 年同期的人民幣 5.092 億元增至人民幣 5.276 億元。

Research and development expenses slightly increased to RMB232.6 million for Q4 from RMB212.5 million for the same period of 2022. The increase was primarily attributable to our increased spending on technology innovation.

第四季研發費用從 2022 年同期的 2.125 億元小幅增加至 2.326 億元。這一增長主要歸因於我們在技術創新方面的支出增加。

General and administrative expenses for the quarter decreased by 26% to RMB91.1 million from RMB123.1 million in the same period of 2022, primarily attributable to a decline in personnel-related expenses as we continued to improve operating efficiency.

本季的一般及管理費用從 2022 年同期的 1.231 億元下降 26% 至 91.1 百萬元，主要由於我們持續提高營運效率，導致人員相關費用下降。

Driven by our ongoing efforts to control costs and enhance operating efficiency, our GAAP net loss for the quarter narrowed significantly year-over-year by 42.6% to RMB103.1 million.

在我們持續努力控製成本和提高營運效率的推動下，本季 GAAP 淨虧損年減 42.6% 至 1.031 億元。

Our non-GAAP adjusted net loss, which primarily excludes share-based compensation expenses and amortization of intangible assets resulting from business acquisition narrowed by 31.9% year-over-year to RMB91.3 million for Q4. Moving forward as we continue to optimize our cost structure, control our operating expenses and record growth driven by our multi engine monetization model, we expect to further enhance our operating leverage.

第四季度，我們的非公認會計準則調整後淨虧損（主要不包括股權激勵費用和業務收購產生的無形資產攤銷）較去年同期收窄 31.9% 至人民幣 9,130​​ 萬元。展望未來，隨著我們繼續優化成本結構、控制營運費用並在多引擎貨幣化模型的推動下創紀錄的成長，我們預計將進一步提高我們的營運槓桿。

As of December 31, 2023, we had cash and cash equivalents, term deposits and short-term investments of RMB5.5 billion compared with RMB6.3 million as of December 31, 2022.

截至2023年12月31日，我們的現金及現金等價物、定期存款及短期投資為人民幣55億元，而截至2022年12月31日為人民幣630萬元。

Also, as of December 31, 2023, we had repurchased 26.3 million Class A. ordinary shares for the ADS for a total of USD58.5 million on both the New York Stock Exchange and the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong.

此外，截至 2023 年 12 月 31 日，我們在紐約證券交易所和香港聯合交易所回購了 2,630 萬股 A​​ 類普通股，總金額為 5,850 萬美元。

This concludes my prepared remarks on our financial performance for this quarter. So let's turn the call over to the operator for the Q&A session.

我準備好的關於本季財務表現的評論到此結束。因此，讓我們將通話轉交給接線員進行問答環節。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員說明）

Vicky Wei, Citi.

維姬·韋，花旗銀行。

(interpreted) Thank you, management, for taking my question. Will management share some color about the key strategic focus of Zhihu for 2024? Thank you.

（解釋）謝謝管理層提出我的問題。管理階層是否會分享一些關於知乎 2024 年策略重點的資訊？謝謝。

(interpreted)Thank you, Vicky, for the question. This is Zhou Yuan, CEO of Zhihu. Moving forward to 2024, our key strategic focus will be on achieving profitability as soon as possible. To achieve this, we will optimize cost and expense structures to prioritize efficiency as the pivotal goal across our daily operations and for each business unit.

（解釋）謝謝你，Vicky，提出這個問題。我是知乎執行長周原。展望2024年，我們的策略重點將是盡快實現獲利。為了實現這一目標，我們將優化成本和費用結構，將效率作為我們日常營運和每個業務部門的關鍵目標。

And secondly, our key focus will be to protect the professional and in-depth consumption experience for Zhihu's core users. We will focus on to enhance the retention and reputation for our high quality and trustworthy content, and to enhance a sincere and friendly atmosphere for communication between individuals.

其次，我們的重點在於保障知乎核心使用者專業、深入的消費體驗。我們將致力於提高高品質、值得信賴的內容的保留率和聲譽，並增強人與人之間真誠、友善的溝通氛圍。

Last but not least, we will continue to shift our focus on AI development to different applications scenarios. We will continue to enhance the search function, the convenience and the efficiency of our search function, and also to establish a feedback system that connects the designing and establishing of these functions with the feedback system.

最後但同樣重要的是，我們將繼續將人工智慧開發的重點轉向不同的應用場景。我們將持續增強搜尋功能，提高搜尋功能的便利性和效率，並建立一個回饋系統，將這些功能的設計和建立與回饋系統連結起來。

To summarize in the next year, we will focus on our key objective that we started from a community, but we are expanding beyond it. Moving forward around our multi engine growth, we will try to narrow the losses for some of our business that is still emerging and to achieve the overall profitability in the future.

總而言之，明年我們將專注於我們從社區開始的關鍵目標，但我們正在超越它。圍繞多引擎成長，未來我們將努力縮小一些新興業務的虧損，實現整體獲利。

Thank you for your question.

謝謝你的問題。

Xueqing Zhang, CICC.

張學慶，中金公司。

Thank you for taking my question. The company just mentioned that the primary goal in 2024 is to achieve profitability. So what's our timetable for breakeven? And could management elaborate a bit more on the path to achieve it. Thank you.

感謝您回答我的問題。公司剛才提到，2024年的首要目標是獲利。那麼我們實現收支平衡的時間表是什麼？管理階層能否詳細說明實現此目標的途徑。謝謝。

(interpreted) Thank you, Xeuqing, for the question. This is Wang Han, CFO of Zhihu. To first start, we aim to achieve quarterly breakeven on a non-GAAP net profit level in the fourth quarter this year.

（翻譯）謝謝學清的提問。我是知乎財務長汪涵。首先，我們的目標是在今年第四季實現非公認會計準則淨利潤水準的季度損益平衡。

As we all know, Zhihu has grown into a widely known name over the past 13 years. I believe many of you on this call, like myself, have been spontaneously opening the Zhihu app on our phone rather than being directed through any promotional link.

眾所周知，13年來知乎已成為家喻戶曉的名字。我相信參加這次電話會議的許多人，就像我一樣，都是自發地打開手機上的知乎應用程序，而不是通過任何促銷鏈接來引導的。

Before I joined the Company, I believed that Zhihu possesses a large base of genuine and loyal users. After I joined the company, I have reconfirmed this fact with numbers, the majority of active users in 2023 are those who have been with Zhihu since 2022, which is even larger than previously expected.

在加入公司之前，我相信知乎擁有大量真實、忠實的用戶。我加入公司後，用數字再次證實了這個事實，2023年的活躍用戶大部分是2022年以來就在知乎的用戶，這個數字比之前的預期還要大。

Additionally, as a user-generated content community Zhihu has much lighter operating costs compared to other business model of other companies. Our gross margin has maintained at over 50% for five consecutive quarters, reaching 59.1% in the fourth quarter last year. It is obvious that Zhihu core users will contribute notably high profits.

此外，知乎作為一個用戶生成的內容社區，與其他公司的其他商業模式相比，其營運成本要低得多。我們的毛利率連續五季維持在50%以上，去年第四季達到59.1%。顯然，知乎核心用戶將貢獻相當高的利潤。

In other words, as long as we proactively and prudently reduce brand promotion expenses with lower ROI, prioritizing user quality over quantity. We believe that Zhihu can continue to narrow losses and progress towards profitability.

換句話說，只要我們積極、審慎地減少投資報酬率較低的品牌推廣費用，優先考慮使用者品質而不是數量。我們相信知乎能夠持續縮小虧損並邁向獲利。

Meanwhile, in terms of our commercialization model, Zhihu has developed its own approach, which breaks through the limits of users scale by leveraging the community's advantages. Our Yanyan Story and Zhixuetang brand has shown us great potential on this regard.

同時，在商業化模式上，知乎也有自己的做法，利用社群的優勢，突破使用者規模的限制。我們的燕燕故事和知學堂品牌在這方面為我們展示了巨大的潛力。

We also expect similar potentials with our AI empowered search discovery function through real-time, conversation based interaction built on top of our high-quality long-form text and graphic Q&A can unlock greater user and commercial potentials.

我們還期望透過基於高品質長格式文字和圖形問答的即時、基於對話的交互，我們的人工智慧支援的搜尋發現功能具有類似的潛力，可以釋放更大的用戶和商業潛力。

To summarize, Zhihu will gradually explore a path to scalable profitability that it differs from other social media platforms. Thank you.

綜上所述，知乎將逐步探索一條有別於其他社群媒體平台的規模化獲利之路。謝謝。

Daisy Chen, Haitong International.

陳黛西，海通國際。

I'll translate myself. Thank you management for taking my question. First of all, congratulations on the profitable achievement of Zhihu's efficiency improvement strategy. I saw that the Q4 loss ratio also narrowed to a single digit level, since 2021, but my question is about the membership business. I noted that the growth rates of the monthly paying users decelerated in recent two quarters. But the number of the MPU and the paying ratio still remains above $14 million and 40% this quarter. Can I ask about how the management consider about the ceiling of paying users and how does management expect growth rate of the membership in the next one or two years and what are those growth drivers?

我自己來翻譯一下。感謝管理層回答我的問題。首先，祝賀知乎效率提升策略取得獲利。我看到自2021年以來，第四季度的虧損率也收窄至個位數水平，但我的問題是關於會員業務的。我注意到近兩個季度月付費用戶的成長速度有所放緩。但本季MPU的數量和付費比例仍維持在1,400萬美元以上和40%以上。請問管理階層如何考慮付費用戶的上限？

Thank you.

謝謝。

(interpreted)Thank you, Daisy, for the question. This is Wang Han CFO of Zhihu. I understand your question may involve three underlying sub-questions. Firstly, whether the percentage of paying members to Zhihu MAU has already become relatively high. And secondly, what is the potential growth ceiling of the short story sector. And thirdly, would be the competitive landscape within the online literature sector.

（解釋）謝謝黛西提出的問題。我是知乎財務長汪涵。我了解您的問題可能涉及三個基本的子問題。首先，知乎MAU的付費會員比例是否已經變得較高。其次，短篇小說產業的潛在成長天花板是多少。第三，網路文學領域的競爭格局。

So firstly, the traditional logic of paying members is based on the concept of converting a subset of users from the entire user base. The ceiling would be the total number of users.

因此，首先，付費會員的傳統邏輯是基於從整個用戶群中轉換出一部分用戶的概念。上限是用戶總數。

However, Zhihu has pioneered a new growth trajectory for paying member growth Zhihu premium content can attract users beyond the community to subscribe within the Zhihu community. This not only eliminate the growth ceiling imposed by user base within the app, but also brings in additional users to the community.

然而，知乎開創了付費會員成長的新成長軌跡。這不僅消除了應用程式內用戶群所施加的成長上限，也為社群帶來了更多用戶。

In addition, these users' consumption of non-story contents actually surpass that of story content, driving the overall content consumption growth.

此外，這些用戶對非故事內容的消費實際上超過了故事內容，帶動了整體內容消費的成長。

Secondly, regarding the competitive landscape, Zhihu is the largest platform to both produce and consume short stories across the entire Internet. It is the preferred platform for many short story content creators to submit their work. Zhihu leading market position can be attributed to two factors: the support from the community and our distinctive value proposition.

其次，從競爭格局來看，知乎是全網路最大的短篇小說生產與消費平台。它是許多短篇小說內容創作者提交作品的首選平台。知乎領先的市場地位可歸因於兩個因素：社區的支持和我們獨特的價值主張。

Content creators of Zhihu can find inspiration, engage in topic discussion and develop plots in the course of Q&A discussion, to naturally creates innovative, high quality and high volume content. This value of the ecosystem is irreplaceable.

知乎的內容創作者可以在問答討論的過程中尋找靈感、參與話題討論、展開劇情，自然而然地創造出創新、高品質、高流量的內容。生態系的這種價值是不可取代的。

Additionally, most of the online literature apps available in the market, operate through an advertising model, focusing on maximizing users' time spent, often resulting in lengthy, slow paced and low information density.

此外，目前市場上的網路文學應用大多採用廣告模式運營，注重最大限度地利用用戶的時間，往往導致內容冗長、節奏緩慢、資訊密度低。

But in contrast, Zhihu operates through a subscription model, which prioritize the delivery of high-quality content that users are willing to pay for. This unique value proposition has established to Zhihu distinct content characteristics and better position in the market.

但相較之下，知乎透過訂閱模式運營，優先提供用戶願意付費的優質內容。這種獨特的價值主張為知乎確立了鮮明的內容特色和更好的市場地位。

In terms of growth ceiling, the short story segment represents emerging sector where Zhihu has taken part in establishing it as a pioneer, we have been actively expanding and striving to expand this ceiling.

從成長天花板上來說，短篇小說是一個新興領域，知乎作為先鋒參與建立了它，我們一直在積極拓展並努力擴大這個天花板。

Currently, our premium content primarily consists of text and graphics based formats. However, here is some larger audience base and greater commercial potential in audio and video contents such as radio play, audio books and short drama.

目前，我們的優質內容主要由基於文字和圖形的格式組成。但廣播劇、有聲書、短劇等影音內容的受眾群更大，商業潛力更大。

Such stories actually share some similarities with short drama than longer narrative. Zhihu stories are known for brevity, engaging plots, rapid creation and real-world relevance. These are essential elements to produce blockbuster short dramas. We already possess them.

與長篇敘事相比，這類故事實際上與短劇有一些相似之處。知乎故事以簡潔、情節引人入勝、創作迅速和與現實世界相關而聞名。這些都是製作大片短劇的必備要素。我們已經擁有它們。

We recently announced a partnership with Kuaishou in the area of short drama. A great array of high-quality short story IPs will be increasingly valuable for Zhihu. Some of the short drama adapted from Zhihu IPs have already achieved remarkable market performance, and we anticipate more success in the future.

我們最近宣布與快手在短劇領域達成合作。大量優質短篇小說IP對於知乎的價值將越來越大。一些知乎IP改編的短劇已經取得了不俗的市場表現，我們期待未來能取得更多成功。

Additionally, revenue from our IP copyrights currently only represents a small percentage of our total revenue. As the market increasingly recognizes the value of our Yanyan's IP, revenue share from film and television copyrights will gradually increase.

此外，我們的智慧財產權版權收入目前僅占我們總收入的一小部分。隨著市場對我們燕燕IP價值的日益認可，影視版權的收入佔比將會逐漸提升。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Eileen Lin, China Renaissance.

林愛玲，中國文藝復興。

(interpreted) Well, thanks for taking my question. I have a question relating to the education. Can management share more color on Zhihu's education development, such as student scale, strategic focus and how AI can be integrated into the education business.

（解釋）好的，感謝您提出我的問題。我有一個關於教育的問題。管理階層能否就知乎的教育發展分享更多的色彩，例如學生規模、策略重點以及人工智慧如何融入教育業務等。

Thank you.

謝謝。

(interpreted) Thank you for your question. This is Zhou Yuan, CEO of Zhihu, as we all know that our vocational training business has been growing rapidly in the recent quarters. And it has achieved synergies between our self operated vocational training business and our acquired vocational training business.

（翻譯）謝謝你的提問。我是知乎CEO週源，眾所周知，我們的職業培訓業務最近幾季增長迅速。並且實現了自營職業訓練業務與收購職業訓練業務之間的綜效。

Firstly, our self-operated business is closely tied to our community, yielding higher profits and swiftly responding to evolving user demands, while our acquired business segments offer greater demand certainty and a larger addressable market.

首先，我們的自營業務與我們的社群緊密聯繫，產生更高的利潤並快速回應不斷變化的用戶需求，而我們收購的業務部門提供了更大的需求確定性和更大的潛在市場。

Our community has continually empowered our vocational training business. Firstly, we'll be able to discover the specific evolving demands of our users and achieve greater certainty in terms of our course offerings compared to other industry players.

我們的社區不斷增強我們的職業培訓業務。首先，與其他行業參與者相比，我們將能夠發現用戶不斷變化的具體需求，並在我們的課程設定方面獲得更大的確定性。

Some of our cornerstone course offerings, for example, the writing courses, the multimedia training courses, the artificial general intelligence courses, the actually stemmed from the Q&A discussions within the community and cater to the evolving demands of our users.

我們的一些基礎課程，例如寫作課程、多媒體培訓課程、通用人工智慧課程，實際上源自於社群內的問答討論，迎合了我們用戶不斷變化的需求。

In the future, we will continue to leverage our advantages is to expand our course offerings, especially to expand beyond the evolving needs and also the demand with greater certainty for our courses.

未來，我們將繼續利用我們的優勢來擴大我們的課程設置，特別是超越不斷變化的需求以及對我們課程的更大確定性的需求。

Beyond our community empowerment, the users and content creators within the community can not only inspire and support the research and development of our new course offerings, but also empower multiple existing premium courses.

除了我們的社群賦權之外，社群內的使用者和內容創作者不僅可以激發和支持我們新課程產品的研究和開發，還可以賦予多個現有的優質課程。

Our labor productivity stays at a top rank in the industry. And as our course offerings become mature, the scale of economies will continue to strengthen, and moving forward, we can further cultivate our content creators in our community to become our teachers, helping all content creators to achieve their financial goals.

勞動生產力維持在產業前列。而且隨著我們的課程逐漸成熟，經濟規模會不斷增強，未來我們可以進一步培養我們社群的內容創作者成為我們的老師，幫助所有內容創作者實現他們的財務目標。

So, the users of our course offerings, they come to Zhihu with aim to improve themselves, and they also serve as the users for our vocational training business. Our vocational training is actually expanding beyond our community now.

所以，我們課程的用戶，他們來到知乎是為了提升自己，他們也是我們職業培訓業務的用戶。我們的職業培訓實際上正在擴展到我們的社區之外。

Users will not only generate word of mouth effects, but also generate high-quality commercial content based on the learning experience, attracting new students. This greatly improved our acquired business also improved the conversion rate and our tool to continue to maintain a dynamically optimal customer acquisition ROI in their respective segments.

使用者不僅會產生口碑效應，還會根據學習體驗產生優質的商業內容，吸引新學員。這極大地改善了我們的收購業務，也提高了轉換率，並提高了我們的工具，以繼續在各自的細分市場中保持動態最佳的客戶獲取投資回報率。

Beyond that, our trusted brand actually forms a closed-loop ecosystem that can empower our self operated business in return.

除此之外，我們值得信賴的品牌實際上形成了一個閉環生態系統，可以反過來為我們的自營業務賦能。

We believe that the expenses and costs with our expenditure will be further diluted with the growth of our revenue from the vocational training business and our commercialization efficiency will be further elevated. We believe that also AI technology will highly enhance our efficiency and revolutionized our user experiences.

我們相信，隨著我們職業培訓業務收入的成長，我們支出的費用和成本將進一步攤薄，我們的商業化效率將進一步提高。我們相信人工智慧技術也將大大提高我們的效率並徹底改變我們的用戶體驗。

We will start from the core needs of our users and promote the application of AI large language model to empower the full process of our different application scenarios.

我們將從使用者的核心需求出發，推動AI大語言模型的應用，並賦予我們不同應用場景的全流程。

We believe that in the next one or two years, we aim to expand the application of AI large language model across the full process of our vocational training business.

我們相信，未來一兩年，我們的目標是將AI大語言模式的應用拓展到職業訓練業務的全流程。

Thank you very much.

非常感謝。

Luqing Zhou, Goldman Sachs.

週魯慶，高盛。

Thanks, management, for taking my question. And I'm asking about advertising business on behalf of Lincoln Kong. Will management share more light on advertising business, including strategic priorities and outlook for online marketing services for 2024. Thank you.

謝謝管理層回答我的問題。我代表林肯公司詢問廣告業務。管理層是否會分享更多關於廣告業務的信息，包括策略重點和 2024 年線上行銷服務的前景。謝謝。

(interpreted) Thank you for your question. This is Wang Han, CFO for Zhihu. In the fourth quarter of 2023, in addition to the external and macro factors, the main reason for delayed year over year recovery is that we have proactively enhanced the commercial content governance. In order to foster the trustworthiness reading the Zhihu community. We chose to phase out some near term low-quality business income.

（翻譯）謝謝你的提問。我是知乎財務長汪涵。2023年第四季度，除了外部宏觀因素外，年比復甦延遲的主要原因是我們主動加強了商業內容治理。為了培養知乎社區的可信度。我們選擇逐步淘汰一些近期低品質的業務收入。

However, at the same time, we have made remarkable strides across our businesses. So to start with, the retention rate, average revenue per user and content consumption volume of high-quality users across our core verticals have all been steadily increasing.

然而，同時，我們的業務也取得了顯著的進步。首先，我們核心垂直領域的優質用戶留存率、每位用戶平均收入和內容消費量都在穩定成長。

Secondly, the consumption power and high quality of Zhihu users have been further recognized in the industry. According to third party surveys, 72% of Zhihu users are willing to pay a higher price for quality products.

其次，知乎用戶的消費能力和高品質得到了業界的進一步認可。根據第三方調查顯示，72%的知乎用戶願意為優質產品支付更高的價格。

In addition, as much as 86% of Zhihu users have made repeat repurchases on JD.com during the past year with a target group index, namely TGI. reaching an impressive 502, significantly outperforming the industry leverage.

此外，高達86%的知乎用戶過去一年曾在京東進行重複購買，目標群體指數為TGI。達到了令人印象深刻的 502，顯著優於行業槓桿。

In addition, we are optimizing our closed-loop data ecosystem. We have strengthened our data partnership with e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and JD.com through initiatives such as Xingzhi Plan and Jingzhi Plan. By providing visualize data, we assist brands and merchants to better validate the value and ROI of their promotional efforts to drive further increase in marketing services, order placement.

此外，我們正在優化我們的閉環數據生態系統。透過行知計畫、精知計畫等舉措，加強與淘寶、京東等電商平台的數據合作。透過提供視覺化數據，我們幫助品牌和商家更好地驗證其促銷活動的價值和投資報酬率，以推動行銷服務、訂單投放的進一步增加。

In 2024, we expect to remain in a period of product upgrading and adjustments for our marketing services business. We will continue to explore business models that can foster stronger trustworthiness, while optimizing our data infrastructure.

2024年，我們預期行銷服務業務仍處於產品升級調整期。我們將繼續探索可以增強可信度的商業模式，同時優化我們的資料基礎設施。

Thank you very much.

非常感謝。

Cici Cheng, CLSA

鄭茜茜，里昂證券

Thanks, management, for taking my question. Can management share some color on our user growth target for 2024 and how can we model the long-term sales and marketing ratio.

謝謝管理層回答我的問題。管理層能否分享一些有關 2024 年用戶成長目標的信息，以及我們如何對長期銷售和行銷比率進行建模。

Thanks.

謝謝。

(interpreted)Thank you for your question. This is Wang Han, CFO of Zhihu. This year, we took a proactive approach to adjust our user growth strategy. Instead of simply pursuing larger scale MAU, we will be focused on improving our core users retention rate and further enhancing the trustworthiness within our community.

（解釋）謝謝你的提問。我是知乎財務長汪涵。今年，我們積極調整用戶成長策略。我們不會簡單地追求更大的每月活躍用戶數，而是專注於提高核心用戶保留率，並進一步增強社群內的可信度。

Ultimately, we will establish a commercialization model that is unique to Zhihu. It is worth mentioning that although our sales and marketing expenses as a proportion of revenue may seem significant. The direct user acquisition cost for our app were less than half of the total promotional expenses.

最終，我們將建立一個知乎獨有的商業化模式。值得一提的是，儘管我們的銷售和行銷費用佔收入的比例可能看起來很大。我們應用程式的直接用戶獲取成本不到總推廣費用的一半。

The absolute amount of customer acquisition costs in the fourth quarter of 2023 decreased by only 40% year over year, where our MAU only experienced a slight decline. That demonstrates loyalty of Zhihu's core users.

2023 年第四季的獲客成本絕對金額較去年同期僅下降了 40%，而我們的每月活躍用戶數僅略有下降。這體現了知乎核心用戶的忠誠度。

Zhihu has a group of users with the highest quality and greatest value. We believe that serving them well will yield substantial commercial rewards.

知乎擁有一批最優質、最大價值的用戶。我們相信，為他們提供良好的服務將帶來豐厚的商業回報。

We do not need to follow the other mass-market social entertainment platform to pursue user growth at any cost, we should follow our own path.

我們不需要跟隨其他大眾社交娛樂平台不惜一切代價追求用戶成長，我們應該走自己的路。

As we approach an era of AI generated content, authentic and trustworthy human-generated content will become increasingly scarce across the Internet. Zhihu represents the place to generate and share genuine, high-quality content, protecting the unique value proposition in the market. AI technology will enable us to blaze a trail that is different from traditional time spent framework and explore new business models with greater potential.

隨著我們進入人工智慧生成內容的時代，真實且值得信賴的人類生成內容在網路上將變得越來越稀缺。知乎代表了產生和分享真實、高品質內容的地方，保護了市場上獨特的價值主張。人工智慧技術將使我們走出一條不同於傳統花時間框架的道路，探索具有更大潛力的新商業模式。

The way that Zhihu formed is actually the place that is demanded by the market in the age of AI technology.

知乎形成的方式，其實就是AI科技時代市場所需求的地方。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Thank you. That concludes Q&A session. At this time, I will turn the conference back to Yolanda for any additional closing remarks.

謝謝。問答環節到此結束。此時，我將把會議轉回由約蘭達（Yolanda）進行任何補充的閉幕致詞。

Thank you, operator, and thank all of you once again for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please contact our IR team directly for Piacente Financial Communications. Thank you.

謝謝運營商，再次感謝大家今天加入我們。如果您有任何其他疑問，請直接聯絡我們的 Piacente Financial Communications IR 團隊。謝謝。