UP Fintech Holding Limited (NASDAQ: TIGR), a prominent online brokerage firm and the Tiger Brokers trading brand operator, announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2023 today, highlighting a modest recovery in market activities and significant improvements in profitability.
The company reported total revenues of $66.3 million, marking an increase of 3.9% compared to Q4 2022 and a robust increase of 26% year-over-year (YoY) from Q1 2022.
UP Fintech Announces Financial Results for Q1 2023
UP Fintech's profitability saw an impressive turnaround, as GAAP and non-GAAP net income attributable to the company reached $8.0 million and $10.3 million, respectively. These figures reflect a massive quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) increase of 541% and 129%.
The firm added 30,392 funded accounts during the quarter, reflecting a jump of 11.2% QoQ. At the end of Q1 2023, the total number of funded accounts reached 811,900. Additionally, the company registered a substantial net asset inflow of nearly $1.2 billion during the quarter, causing the total account balance to swell by 15.2% sequentially to $16.1 billion.
Another notable achievement for UP Fintech was the considerable reduction in average customer acquisition cost (CAC) from $271 in Q4 2022 to $171 in Q1 2023.
"This indicates that our ongoing international expansion have been well received by local investors in various regions and ROI remains at an industry-leading level, gives us the flexibility to dynamically adjust customer acquisition strategies in the future," the company commented in a press release.
In terms of operating costs and expenses, the firm spent $45.9 million in Q1 2023, reflecting a YoY decrease of 16.4%. Notably, execution and clearing expenses decreased 16.1% QoQ to 9.6% in Q1 2023, as the company self-cleared more Hong Kong equities.
UP Fintech Continues Investment in R&D
On top of that, UP Fintech stressed its commitment to research and development to improve operational efficiency and user experience. As part of its initiative, the firm soft-launched TigerGPT, a financial AI based on ChatGPT, for beta testing. TigerGPT helps users extract and analyze investment-related data, thus streamlining investment research and reducing the learning curve for new users.
Furthermore, the firm's corporate businesses continued to perform well in Q1 2023. During the quarter, UP Fintech underwrote eight U.S. and Hong Kong IPOs and added 29 new clients to its ESOP business, taking the total number of ESOP clients served to 448.
The first quarter outcome confirms the good results achieved in 2022, which was the third profitable year in a row. Despite global macroeconomic headwinds, the online brokerage posted annual revenue of $225.4 million.
