Bilibili today released its financial report for the second quarter of 2024 as of June 30: The total net revenue was 6.127 billion yuan, an increase of 16% year-on-year. The net loss was 608 million yuan, narrowing by 61% year-on-year. Excluding US generally accepted accounting principles, the adjusted net loss was 271 million yuan, narrowing by 72% year-on-year.
After the release of the financial report, Bilibili's chairman and CEO Chen Rui, vice chairman and chief operating officer Li Ni, and CFO Fan Xin and other company executives attended the subsequent earnings conference call to interpret the key points of the financial report and answer analysts' questions.
Daniel Chen, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase: My question is about the company's advertising business. The advertising growth rate of Station B in the second quarter is relatively bright. Can you share the driving force behind it? And then how to look forward to the development trend of the advertising business in the second half of the year?
Chen Rui: In the environment full of challenges in the macro economy in the second quarter, our advertising business still achieved a year-on-year growth of 30%, and the single-quarter revenue exceeded 2 billion for the first time, contributing one-third of the company's overall revenue. The advertising business of Station B has also achieved high-speed growth for several consecutive quarters. In our opinion, the underlying logic of strong growth is essentially the growth of our platform traffic, plus the gradual release of the commercial value of our users. The DAU (daily active user count) in the second quarter increased by 6% year-on-year, and the video playback volume increased by 18% year-on-year, which means that the bottom layer of commercial traffic is continuously growing.
At the same time, we also know that more than 70% of young people in China are using Station B, and the average age of our users has reached 25 years old, which is at a stage where consumption demand and consumption capacity are growing and releasing rapidly. This can actually be seen from the video categories related to Station B that our users watch. In the second quarter, the video playback volume of categories such as furniture, real estate, automobiles, and fashion and beauty on our platform increased by more than 30% year-on-year, and the playback volume of the mother and child category increased by more than 80% year-on-year.
In addition to the underlying logic mentioned above, I think the strategy of our advertising business, that is, the one horizontal N vertical strategy that we have been mentioning before, has also played a role. One horizontal refers to the infrastructure construction of our advertising business, and N vertical refers to the solutions for vertical industries. We have been continuously improving the infrastructure of our advertising platform so that our advertisements can better match the user needs.
For example, we upgraded the PC-side placement platform in the first half of the year and provided a one-stop professional placement tool, so the number of large-effect advertising customers increased by 50% year-on-year in the first half of the year. Another example is in the aspect of advertising placement materials. The newly launched creative center of materials in our application has applied the latest artificial intelligence-generated content technology to help advertising customers diagnose and optimize materials. After the upgrade of the creative center, our advertising placement materials achieved a CVR (click-through rate) increase of more than 30%.
Let me talk about N vertical, that is, vertical industries. The top five advertising customers in the second quarter before us are from five vertical industries such as games, e-commerce, digital home appliances, food and beverages, and automobil es, among which e-commerce and digital home appliances are the two largest drivers of advertising growth in the second quarter.
I focus on e-commerce and transactions, because our e-commerce has always adhered to the large open-loop strategy. During the 618 promotion period this year, Station B achieved a more in-depth integrated marketing and advertising cooperation with various e-commerce platforms and also obtained the budgets of more e-commerce merchants. During the 618 period this year, the advertising placement of e-commerce customers on Station B increased by 300% year-on-year, and the sales amount created by our带货 increased by more than 140%. During the 618 period this year, we also brought a 50% new customer rate for industry merchants, among which the mother and child industry brought a new customer rate of more than 70%.
In terms of transactions, nearly 40 million users watched the 带货 content on Station B in the second quarter, an increase of 70% year-on-year. The number of daily 带货 UP masters on Station B in the second quarter increased by more than 130% year-on-year, and the number of 带货 manuscripts increased by more than 330% year-on-year, and the number of live 带货 sessions increased by 270% year-on-year. In addition, half of the users on Station B are female users, and the consumption potential of our female users is gradually being released. For example, the sales amount of the clothing category in the second quarter increased by more than four times year-on-year. The above is the reason for the rapid growth of the advertising revenue of the company in the second quarter.
Looking forward to the second half of this year, we are very confident to maintain a growth rate higher than that of the industry in the second half of the year. On the one hand, the potential released by the optimization of the advertising product infrastructure can still continue; on the other hand, we will also upgrade the solutions of vertical industries and obtain more increments in industries such as online services, education, medical care, and mother and child on the basis of consolidating the existing industry shares. Finally, the revenue of Station B is not only dependent on advertising. We have always been a model of simultaneously promoting C-end (consumer) user payment and B-end (enterprise) advertising customer payment.