YY (YY) Q4 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

YY (YY 1.15%)
Q4 2021 Earnings Call
Mar 15, 2022, 9:00 p.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the JOYY Inc.'s fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings call. [Operator instructions] After the management's prepared remarks, there'll be a question-and-answer session. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your host today, Jane Xie, the company's senior manager of investor relations. Please go ahead, Jane.

Jane Xie -- Senior Manager, Investor Relations

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone. Welcome to JOYY's fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings conference call. Joining us today are Mr.

David Xueling Li, chairman and CEO of JOYY; Ms. Ting Li, our COO; and Mr. Alex Leo, the general manager of finance. For today's call, management will first provide a review of the quarter, and then we will conduct a Q&A session.

The financial results and webcast of this conference call are available at ir.joyy.com. A replay of this call will also be available on our website in a few hours. Before we continue, I would refer you to our safe harbor statement in our earnings press release, which applies to this call as well as we will make forward-looking statements. Finally, please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during this conference call are on U.S.

dollar. I will now turn the call over to our chairman and CEO, Mr. David Xueling Li. Please go ahead, sir.

David Xueling Li -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Hello, everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter 2021 earnings call. Let me start the call with an overview of our fourth quarter results. We grew our total revenues by 16.8% year over year to 663.7 million.

Specifically, BIGO's revenue increased by 30.2 year over year to 576.1 million. Meanwhile, we further improved our non-GAAP profitability at the group level when excluding YY Live as we earned a non-GAAP net profit of 98.3 million and improved our non-GAAP net margin to 40.8%. BIGO's non-GAAP net profit expanded to 103.5 million, while its non-GAAP net margin improved to 18%, from 8.7% in the previous quarter. As a result, for the full year of 2021, we generated 2.62 billion in total revenue, an increase of 36.5% from 2020.

Notably, we've grown BIGO's full year 2021 revenues by 34.1% to 2.32 billion. At the group level, our global business reached another major milestone as we attained full year non-GAAP profitability for the first time when excluding the YY Live, having booked 108.9 million in non-GAAP net profit, with a 4.2% non-GAAP net margin. This was mainly attributed to BIGO's strong financial performance as it turned profitable for the full year for the first time by generating 182 million in non-GAAP net profit, with a corresponding non-GAAP net margin of 7.8%. Looking back, 2021 is a year marked by growth, strategic adaptation, and breakthroughs.

On the growth front in 2021, we continued to expand our revenue, driven by our enhanced monetization capabilities across multiple social entertainment products. Consequently, for the full year of 2021, Bigo Live's revenue grew by 31.3%, Likee's revenue grew by 97.8%, and Hago's revenue grew by 40 -- 54.6%, all contributing to the 36.5% top-line growth at the group level. On the strategic adaptation front, we proactively implemented some strategic realignments in early 2021 because we value the long-term growth, health, and sustainability of our products. We made certain adjustments to Likee and Hago's marketing strategies and prioritized investment in our -- in their content and social ecosystems, which we believe are fundamental to the user experience and the long-term competitiveness of our products.

After a few quarters of executing those adjustments under a more prudent marketing strategy, we are pleased to report a significant improvement in the monetization efficiency, financial and operational healthiness of these products. As a result, we substantially narrowed their operating losses even though their MAUs experience few short-term fluctuations. The combination of the increased monetization of the aforementioned products, our proactive adjustment in marketing strategies, the growing strategy among our products, and our enhanced operational efficiency across the board had led us to an important breakthrough, enabling us to achieve full year profitability for our global business for the first time since the deconsolidation of YY Live. Our healthy cash flows demonstrate that we have entered into a new phase of sustainable development.

Following positive operating cash flow of 77.6 million in the third quarter, we generated another positive operating cash flow of 150.2 million in the fourth quarter. Looking back, we continue to achieve innovative breakthroughs, as evidenced by our proven track record of incubating, developing, and monetization of our products. With our existing global market presence, healthy cash flows, and sustainable growth momentum, we are confident in our future prospects as we continue to reinvent ourselves, explore the global market, increase our global market share, and capture future growth opportunities in the social entertainment industry. Next, let me share greater details of the progress we've made in each of our product lines during the fourth quarter.

Let's start with Bigo Live. Our efforts include in cultivating a diversified global content ecosystem have been fruitful in expanding our product reach as Bigo Live's MAU grew by 11.9% year over year to 72.2 million in the fourth quarter. Despite the macroeconomic uncertainties, challenges posted by the resurgence of COVID-19, and some depreciation of certain currencies against the U.S. dollar that partially offset our growth momentum, our business demonstrated superb resilience.

On a year-over-year basis, Bigo Live's livestreaming revenue and paying users increased by 12.5% and 10.3%, respectively, in the fourth quarter as we continue to make headway with Bigo Live's growth trajectory in multiple geographic regions. In particular, revenues and the paying user from Europe increased by 42.2% and 40.7%, respectively; while revenues and paying users from Southeast Asia and other emerging markets increased by 16.6% and 24.4%, respectively. In the fourth quarter, we made additional progress in diversifying our content ecosystem, enriching our localized content offerings, increasing our supply of premium content, and improving user engagement. In December 2021 and January 2022, we hosted a series of online events in multiple regions across the globe, such as Europe and Middle East.

Those events featured many popular regional artists, musicians, singers, and dancers in addition to the region's top livestreamers. To provide user with a refreshing and immersive social experience, we launched the innovative product features in the fourth quarter, incorporating computer vision, virtual reality, augmented reality, and many other cutting-edge technologies. In December, we introduced a brand new feature called Virtual Live, which enabled users to create customized 3D digital avatars as they are virtual representations and that mirror their live body movements and facial expressions via a camera when streaming on Bigo Live. We plan to operate the Virtual Live feature continuously in the future to increase our user personalization, push user interactions, and enhance user engagement.

Beyond that, we also introduced into Bigo Live a virtual background feature for single-user livestream rooms and implemented a tiered system for granting special user privileges in multiuser livestreaming rooms. All of these technology innovations have produced encouraging results as average and the cumulative duration of livestreaming sessions increased year over a year by 12.1% and 8.3%, respectively, in the fourth quarter. To enhance our brand influence, we continued to organize signature events by leveraging the extensive localized operational experience of our international talent. For example, in January this year, we hosted the Bigo Live Annual Gala, inviting around 100 streamers from a variety of cultural backgrounds to perform through video feeds in front of their global fans.

During the annual gala, through the grand [Inaudible] of our recently launched Virtual Live 3D Avatar feature in collaboration with The Toys, a Thai singer, Bigo Live delivered a brand new real experience through seamless integration of physical and virtual realities. As is the tradition for this annual event, we selected Bigo Live's most influential streamers of the year and featured them on advertisement billboards at famous landmarks around the world, including Times Square in New York and many more. Going forward, Bigo Live will continue executing its globalization strategy to enhance its leadership position in the social and pan-entertainment livestreaming industry across the world. It will continue to focus on key regions like North America, Europe, and the Middle East, and the Eastern Pacific while accelerating investments in emerging markets.

Bigo Live will also continue to localize, diversify its social content ecosystem, with a focus on content categories such as music, dance, comedy, games, and e-commerce, and then further increase the proportion of its premium content to elevate user expansion and engagement. Meanwhile, through content product innovation and localized operations, Bigo Live will seek to construct interest-based online communities to help users establish more fulfilling social connections on the platform. We believe that to diversify the content and positive social relationships on the platform will further enrich our users' social entertainment experience, attract more users all through our community, cultivate their spending habits, and ultimately, drive Bigo Live's monetization growth. Next, let me share some recent updates on Likee.

As discussed on our previous earnings calls, we have been fine-tuning Likee's marketing strategies since the first quarter of 2021 and prioritizing our investment in our content and social ecosystem. Although Likee's overall MAU experienced some short-term fluctuations, as a result -- and reached 67 million. The downward trend moderated further during the fourth quarter, especially in the Gulf states, in the Middle East region. Likee's livestreaming revenue continues to grew -- grow during the fourth quarter, increasing by 26.5% year over year.

Its revenue from the Middle East increased by 59.1% year over year. With a focus on identifying and cultivating talented content creators via its comprehensive creator support program, Likee continue its efforts on -- efforts in fostering a friendly and vibrant content creation community, motivated by a series of incentive programs. The number of certified creators on Likee increased by 22%. Consequently, in the fourth quarter, the number of certified creators for the gaming category, which are widely popular among general Z users increased by 176 -- 173% consequently, and the average quantity of premium gaming content produced per day increased by 97% consequently.

As part of our effort to cultivate and support creators, Likee rolled out a series of upgrades of its product features. During the fourth quarter, Likee expands the implementation of SuperLike feature to a broader user base, leaving SuperLike to become a unique icon for users to publicly endorse their series to -- series creators and support the premium content. Meanwhile, certified creators received nearly six times more incentives through the SuperLike feature in December than September. In addition, we introduced another feature called SuperFollow to enable creators to publish exclusive content for their Super Followers by earning a monthly subscription fee on Likee.

All of these new features provide more diverse monetization channels to creators, enrich their interactions with fans, and incentive them to produce more individualized and high-quality content. In 2022, we will continue to invest more resources in identifying and nurturing talented creators. We will provide these creators across various content vertical with abundant user-traffic support, service in the content creation tools, professional support for our localized operation teams, and diverse monetization measures to pave a pass for their long-term personal growth and career development. We believe vibrant content in the community and Likee interactions between creators and fans are fundamental to sustaining Likee's monetization growth and reversing Likee's user downward trend in the future.

In addition to monetization via livestreaming, we are also steadily steering the growth of Likee's brand advertising business and further diversifying its revenues streams -- stream. Going forward, we are confident that Likee will be able to maintain its top-line growth trajectory, further narrow its operation loss, and gradually resume user expansion over a long period of time. Last on Hago. During the fourth quarter, Hago continued its monetization growth momentum as its livestreaming revenue and the paying user increased by 32.1% and 33.9% year over year, respectively, mainly driven by the optimizing of several fan engagement features and the launch of a new couple of features in [Inaudible] livestreaming rooms.

We also upgraded Hago's products to better satisfy the user demands for multiple players' social interactions. Considering the difference in user lifecycles and user regions, we implement and update recommendation algorithm for user to easily locate their favorite livestreaming rooms. As a result, in the fourth quarter, the penetration rates for Hago's featured channels increased by 2.2% sequentially. In 2021, Hago will continue to provide users with better multiplayers interactive entertainment experience by optimizing its product features, enhancing user-matching capabilities, and diversifying user interactions to culture and interest-based social entertainment community.

We believe that we will continue to drive Hago's monetization growth, further narrow its operation loss, and make further progress on its path toward breakeven in 2022. In summary, 2021 was a fruitful year for JOYY. The enhanced monetization capability across multiple products helped us achieve full year revenue growth of 36.5%. The combination of our increased monetization for the aforementioned products, proactive adjustment in marketing strategies, better synergy among multiple products, and the enhanced operational efficiency across the board led us to full year profitability, not only for BIGO but also for the whole group.

On capital return front for the full year, our board of directors has authorized the additional share repurchase program for [Inaudible] of 1.2 billion. As of December 31, 2021, we have bought back a cumulative 393 million of our shares, 236 million of which was out of the 1.2 billion newly added repurchase plan. Additionally, we have paid out a total of 160 million in dividends. These efforts are to demonstrate our confidence in the company's long-term growth prospects and to reward our shareholders for their long-term support of the company.

Looking ahead, we will continue to localize our diversified global social entertainment ecosystem, expand our market reach, and fortify our leadership position in core geographic regions. As an innovator and a pioneer, we remain committed to our mission of bridging communications among people from all around the globe and bringing them joyful and youthful experience. This concludes my prepared remarks. I will now turn the call to our general manager of finance, Alex Leo, for a more detailed explanation of our financial results.

Alex Leo -- General Manager of Finance

Thanks, David. Hello, everyone. As JOYY's finance general manager, I'll talk about the financial results. Since the majority of our revenues and expenses are now denominated in USD, starting from January 1, 2021, we have changed our reporting currency from renminbi to U.S.

dollar to better illustrate our operational results. Please note that the financial information and non-GAAP financial information disclosed in our earnings press release is presented on a continuing operations basis, unless otherwise specifically stated. As the sale of YY Live was substantially completed on February 8, 2021, with certain customary matters to be completed in the near future, the historical financial results of YY Live are reflected in the company's consolidated financial statements as discontinued operations accordingly, starting from the fourth quarter of 2020. During the fourth quarter of 2021, despite the recent volatility in the macroenvironment and increased uncertainty due to COVID-19 and some depreciation of certain currencies against the U.S.

dollar that partially offset our growth momentum, our business growth remains resilient. Our total revenues for the fourth quarter increased by 16.8% year over year to $663.7 million, from $568.2 million in the same period of 2020, primarily attributable to the enhanced monetization capabilities across multiple products, including Bigo Live, Likee, and Hago. In particular, our livestreaming revenues for the fourth quarter increased by 15% year over year to $620.9 million. And other revenues in the fourth quarter increased by 50.3% to $42.8 million.

Cost of revenues for the fourth quarter increased by 9.6% year over year to $440.2 million. Revenue sharing fees and content costs increased to $297.3 million in the fourth quarter, from $254.2 million in the same period of 2020. This was in line with the increase in livestreaming renewals. Bandwidth costs decreased to $20.6 million, from $27 million in the same period of 2020, primarily due to the company's improved efficiency in bandwidth usage, partially offset by the increased bandwidth usage as a result of continued user base expansion of Bigo Live.

Gross profit increased by 34.2% year over year to $223.5 million. Gross margin in the fourth quarter of 2021 improved to 33.7%, from 29.3% in the same period of 2020. Operating expenses for the fourth quarter decreased to $168.2 million, from $251.6 million in the same period of 2020. Among the operating expenses, sales and marketing expenses decreased to $112.6 million, from $146.4 million, due to disciplined spending on user acquisition via advertisements for certain products, including Likee and Hago.

Through the combination of improved synergy among multiple products, enhanced operating leverage, and prudent marketing strategy, we continued to achieve a steady expansion in profitability for both BIGO segment and for the entire group. Our GAAP operating income for the fourth quarter was $60.6 million, compared to operating loss of $83.8 million in the same period of 2020. Operating income margin for the fourth quarter was 9.1%, compared to operating loss margin of 14.7% in the same period of 2020. Our non-GAAP operating income for the fourth quarter, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, amortization of intangible assets from business acquisitions, as well as impairment of goodwill and investments, and gain on disposal of subsidiaries and business, was $83.5 million in this quarter, compared to non-GAAP operating loss of $33.2 million in the same period of 2020.

Our non-GAAP operating income margin for the fourth quarter was 12.6%, compared to non-GAAP operating loss margin of 5.8% in the prior-year period. GAAP net income from continuing operations attributable to controlling interest of JOYY in the fourth quarter of 2021 was $73.2 million, compared to a net loss of $118.9 million in the same period of 2020. Net income margin was 11% in the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to a net loss margin of 20.9% in the corresponding period of 2020. At the group level, we continued to achieve a positive non-GAAP net income from continuing operations attributable to controlling interest of JOYY in the fourth quarter, with a non-GAAP net income of $98.3 million, compared to non-GAAP net loss of $22.4 million in the same period of 2020.

For group, non-GAAP net income margin was 14.8% in the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to non-GAAP net loss margin of 3.9% in the same period of 2020. Notably, BIGO also continued to achieve a positive non-GAAP net income as its non-GAAP net income expanded to 103.5 million in the fourth quarter, with non-GAAP net income margin improved to 18%, from non-GAAP net loss margin of 0.4% in the prior-year period. Now, turning to other result for the full year of 2021, our total net revenues increased by 36.5% year over year to $2.62 billion. Our net loss attributable to controlling interest of JOYY for the full year 2021 was $115.9 million, compared to $18.7 million in 2020.

We have attained the first full year non-GAAP profitability at the group level since we deconsolidated YY Live. Our non-GAAP net income attributable to controlling interest and common shareholders of JOYY for the full year of 2021 was $108.9 million, compared to non-GAAP net loss of $164 million in 2020. Non-GAAP net income margin for the full year of 2021 was 4.2%, compared to a non-GAAP net loss margin of 8.6% in 2020. This is in accordance with our quarterly dividend [Inaudible] approved on August 11, 2020, and on November 16, 2020.

We will be distributing a dividend of $0.51 per ADS for the fourth quarter of 2021, which is expected to be paid on April 29, 2022, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on April 14, 2022. Next, our update on our execution of the share repurchase program. In September and in November 2021, our board of directors has authorized additional share repurchase plans in which the company may repurchase up to $1.2 billion of its shares in total. As of December 31, 2021, the company had repurchased approximately $235.7 million of its shares under these programs.

This means that for the full year of 2021, we've bought back a cumulative $393 million of our shares. These efforts demonstrate our confidence in the company's long-term growth prospects and our sincerity to reward our shareholders for their long-term support of the company. We will continue to actively utilize share repurchase to create value for our shareholders. Going forward, we will continue to further expand our global market reach, cultivate a highly engaged user community, and enhance our high-quality content offerings.

Beginning in the second quarter of 2021, we had anticipated some negative impacts on user' online social entertainment activities from the gradual lift of pandemic-related lockdowns in certain countries. We expect our net revenues for the first quarter of 2022 to be between $601 million and $616 million, excluding the revenue contribution from the YY Live in the same period of last year. We currently have limited visibility surrounding the COVID-19 epidemic's long-term impacts and geopolitical uncertainties on our business and the markets in which operate. Therefore, this forecast only reflects our current and preliminary views on the market and operational conditions, which are subject to change.

That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we would now like to open up the call to questions. Thanks.

Questions & Answers:

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator instructions] Our first question comes from Alex Poon at Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Alex Poon -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

[Foreign language] Thanks management for taking my question. My first question is related to our revenue growth outlook in 2022, which of how are the major countries' performance doing and what's the outlook for 2022? And my second question is regarding our margins. Margin in the last few quarters have been on an uptrend. And from here onwards, any cost savings we can continue to do? And for the YY core segment, when can we see a break-even point? Thank you very much.

David Xueling Li -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

[Foreign language] Thank you, Alex, for the question. As the world enters the post-pandemic area, the macroenvironment that we encounter has become of increased uncertainty and volatility. On the one hand, you see that with multiple countries gradually lifting lockdown bans, there has been negative impact on users' online social entertainment activity. And on the other hand, the resurgence of COVID-19 in certain areas both increased uncertainty on the potential economic growth, and together with the ongoing high inflation pressure across multiple regions, we do see weakened consumer confidence and capacity, which have negative impact on users' paying behavior.

Despite the above complex macroenvironment, we have achieved a 36.5% revenue growth for the year 2021, which indicates that our diversified globalization strategy, which focused on various numbers of different regions across the world; and our diversified growth engines, empowered by multiple social entertainment products, are effective, enabling our global businesses to have greater resilience. So, looking forward to '22, we will continue to execute the above-mentioned strategy. We expect to have a resilient and steady top-line growth, driven by multiple key regions, including Europe, North America, Middle East, East Pacific, and Southeast Asia; and also by monetization growth across multiple products, including Bigo Live, Likee, Hago, and other products. But we like to remind you that the current outlook for our first quarter 2022 do reflect some fluctuation related to seasonality of our business.

So, we expect our business growth to accelerate gradually in the second half of '22. So, in terms of the latest growth trends for the key regions, we do see promising trends in Europe, East Pacific, including countries like Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and also the Southeast Asia region, to be good in Q4. And in 2022, we expect our business to continue to be diversified among the above-mentioned regions. Thank you.

Alex Leo -- General Manager of Finance

Alex [Foreign language] Thank you. And this is Alex Leo. I will take your second question. As David just mentioned, we proved the profitability of our global business by achieving a 7.8% non-GAAP net profit margin for BIGO segment for the full year for the -- and also a 4.2% non-GAAP net profit margin for the whole group in 2021.

So, this means that we have officially entered into a sustainable growth stage. In 2022, we want to balance growth and profit. And this means that on the one hand, we will seize the opportunity, continue to invest and explore the global markets, and continue to increase the influence and market share of our products. And on the other hand, we expect to remain profitable and steadily improve the profitability level of our business.

So, specifically for BIGO segment, on top of the non-GAAP net margin that we achieved in the year of '21, we expect to continue to steadily improve BIGO's non-GAAP profitability for the full year in the year '22. And this is based on the assumption that Bigo Live continues to maintain a relatively stable level of operating profitability, while the losses of other product lines such as Likee are continuing to narrow. In terms of the cost and expense margins, with the increased monetization across multiple products, and the improvement of enhanced operational efficiencies, we believe that cost savings could happen across various expense items. And for the other segment, we have successfully narrowed its full year non-GAAP loss by 35% in the year '21.

In '22, as the monetization of Hago and also other products continue to pick up, we expect that the non-GAAP net losses of this segment to be further narrowed in the year of '22. Thank you. Next question.

Operator

Our next question comes from Thomas Chong at Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Thomas Chong -- Jefferies -- Analyst

[Foreign language] Thanks management for taking my questions. My first question is about the competitive landscape in overseas market. How should we envision the changes in this year and how should we think about the seasonality? And my second question is about the YY Live transaction. Can management share about the progress, as well as any contingency plan or any strategies that can be shared? Thank you.

David Xueling Li -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

[Foreign language] Thank you, Thomas. Regarding your first question on the competitive landscape, I've shared my views multiple times in our previous earnings calls as well. So, I've just mentioned that our global business turned profitable in the year '21, and we have officially entered into a sustainable growth stage. So, this means that under the current complex -- increasingly complex macroenvironment, this makes our business more resilient and allow us to gain additional competitive advantages on top of our already existing extensive global business presence and also our proven global and localized operational capacity.

So, turning losses into profits means that we have more space and time to think and plan our business from a longer-term development perspective. As we have said before, there is still a lot of potential for the global social entertainment market. We believe that with the support of our abundant cash flow and also with our healthy growth model, we will be better positioned to seize market opportunity and further increase the market share and influence of our multiple products. And regarding our business seasonality, we have to admit that the outbreak and resurgence of the pandemic has actually disrupted the normal pattern from time to time.

And according to our limited observation of our business trends in the past, the first half of the year is usually a lower season, and business growth usually accelerate in the second half of the year. The current outlook for our first quarter 2022 reflects such seasonality fluctuation, and we expect our business growth to accelarate gradually in the second half of '22. [Foreign language] And regarding your second question about the sale of YY Live, the deal is still ongoing, and if there's any update, further information will be disclosed when as required by applicable law. Thank you.

Next question.

Operator

Our next question comes from Yiwen Zhang at China Renaissance. Please go ahead.

Yiwen Zhang -- China Renaissance Securities -- Analyst

[Foreign language] Thanks management for taking my question. So, I have a couple of questions, both of them regarding Likee. So, what's our plan for the user [Inaudible] pace this year? And additionally, what's our expectation on the Likee monetization of those [Inaudible] and also user trend? Secondly, can you share more about non-livestreaming revenues [Inaudible] target for this year? Thank you.

David Xueling Li -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

[Foreign language] Regarding your first question about Likee, as I just mentioned in the prepared remarks, in the year '21, we took some proactive changes to Likee's -- to adjust Likee's marketing strategy and focus on the identification and cultivation of content creators. As a result, although Likee's MAU did suffer some fluctuation, after several quarters of executing the marketing adjustments, Likee has also achieved several key results. In the past year, we see that Likee's livestreaming revenue has increased by nearly 100%, and its operating loss for the full year was significantly narrowed by 67% compared to the year of 2020, meaning that the product's overall growth model has become much more healthier. So, for 2022, we believe that Likee will continue to invest more resources into identifying and nurturing the content creators.

We believe that a vibrant content community and the lively interaction between the creators and the fans are fundamental to sustaining Likee's monetization growth and also reversing Likee's user downward trend in the future. And in terms of monetization, Likee will continue to increase the penetration rate of livestreaming and improve its monetization efficiency in the year '22, so expect Likee to maintain steady monetization growth in the year '22. In terms of its marketing strategy, we'll continue to observe the performance of Likee in multiple core markets, including the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and its user engagement level retention, and also content progress in these markets. At the right time, we might consider increasing investment on its user acquisition, but we do expect Likee's operating loss for the full year to be further narrowed and will have the opportunity to be one step closer toward self-sustainability.

[Foreign language] And regarding your second question about our non-livestreaming revenue, our non-livestreaming revenue in year '21 increased by 39% throughout the year, accounting for 5.4% of our total revenue, mainly from our advertising and also membership subscription revenues. So, monetization contribution from the recently launched features such as Likee's SuperLike and SuperFollow are still very, very small, as their primary focus at this stage is still to provide additional support to our KOL pool. So, as mentioned before, in the previous quarters, the growth of our advertising revenue is closely related to our content pool and also the scale of our user base. So, at this stage, we will prioritize the cultivation of our content pool and our product experience, and also steadily advancing our diversified monetization plan.

I believe that the newly introduced -- the latest product features have demonstrated our efforts toward this direction. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you.

Jane Xie -- Senior Manager, Investor Relations

And that's the end of our Q&A.

Operator

Thank you, management. I'll hand it back to you for closing comments.

Jane Xie -- Senior Manager, Investor Relations

So, thank you for joining our call. We look forward to speaking with everyone next quarter. Thanks.

Duration: 65 minutes

Call participants:

Jane Xie -- Senior Manager, Investor Relations

David Xueling Li -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Alex Leo -- General Manager of Finance

Alex Poon -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Thomas Chong -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Yiwen Zhang -- China Renaissance Securities -- Analyst

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