Image Source: Visual China

BEIJING, May 16 (TMTPOST) — Chinese Internet company Sohu achieved revenues of US$193 million in Q1 2022 thanks to solid online game business performance, according to its quarterly earnings report released on Monday.

The company’s online gaming business brought in US$158 million, making it the largest revenue contributor despite a 11% year-on-year drop. The net profit under non-GAAP was US$9 million, exceeding market expectations.

In Q1, Sohu had two million monthly active users for its PC-based games, falling 13% year-on-year. The number of quarterly active users was one million, registering year-on-year growth of 4%. The company’s mobile game business had 2.4 million monthly active users, showing year-on-year growth of 16%.

“In Q1 2022, although we faced challenges from the Covid-19 pandemic and the overall economic environment, we continued to focus on improving our products and operation efficiency. Thanks to our online gaming business’s excellent performance, the company’s revenues had surpassed expectations. The company achieved profitability,” Zhang Chaoyang, the company"s founder and CEO said.

“In this quarter, Sohu’s media business continued to upgrade its products, improve content quality, attract users and boost interaction. Sohu’s video business had stuck with the ‘double engines’ strategy and focused on bringing the value of live streaming to broader scientific fields,” Zhang said. “We also worked actively to acquire users and explore possibilities of improving the commercialization of Sohu’s media and video business. Our online gaming business had achieved great performance as well. The revenues in this quarter surpassed the expectation.”

Statistics on Sohu’s earnings report show that the company’s revenues, profit margin and profit all faced challenges this year. In 2021, Sohu’s revenues were US$836 million and its net profit was US$79 million. The profit margin was around 9.45%. In Q1 2022, the company’s profit margin slumped to only about 4.67%.