Table of Contents

​

​

​

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

​

FORM 20-F

​

☐ REGISTRATION STATEMENT PURSUANT TO SECTION 12(b) OR (g) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

​

OR

​

☒ ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

​

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021

​

OR

​

☐ TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

​

For the transition period from _________ to _____________.

​

OR

​

☐ SHELL COMPANY REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

​

Date of event requiring this shell company report:

​

Commission file number: 001-39977

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Securities registered or to be registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

​

Securities registered or to be registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

​

None

(Title of Class)

​

Table of Contents

Securities for which there is a reporting obligation pursuant to Section 15(d) of the Act:

​

None

(Title of Class)

​

Indicate the number of outstanding shares of each of the issuer’s classes of capital or common stock as of the close of the period covered by the annual report.

​

An aggregate of 29,260,784 ordinary shares, par value $0.0005 per share (“Ordinary Shares”), as of December 31, 2021.

​

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☐  No ☒

​

If this report is an annual or transition report, indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Yes ☐  No ☒

​

Note - Checking the box above will not relieve any registrant required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 from their obligations under those Sections.

​

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒ No ☐

​

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☒  No ☐

​

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, or a non-accelerated filer. See definition of “accelerated filer and large accelerated filer” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):

​

​

If an emerging growth company that prepares its financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards† provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

​

† The term “new or revised financial accounting standard” refers to any update issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board to its Accounting Standards Codification after April 5, 2012.

​

Indicate by check mark which basis of accounting the registrant has used to prepare the financial statements included in this filing:

​

​

If “Other” has been checked in response to the previous question, indicate by check mark which financial statement item the registrant has elected to follow: Item 17 ☐  Item 18 ☐

​

If this is an annual report, indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ☐ No ☒

​

(APPLICABLE ONLY TO ISSUERS INVOLVED IN BANKRUPTCY PROCEEDINGS DURING THE PAST FIVE YEARS)

​

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed all documents and reports required to be filed by Sections 12, 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 subsequent to the distribution of securities under a plan confirmed by a court. Yes ☐ No ☐

​

​

​

​

​

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

​

1

Table of Contents

​

​

​

​

2

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

​

“We,” “us,” “our,” or the “Company” are to Baosheng Media Group Holdings Limited, a Cayman Islands exempted company with limited liability, and its subsidiaries, as the case may be. Unless the context otherwise requires, in this annual report on Form 20-F references to:

​

Conventions that apply to this annual report

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

3

Table of Contents

​

​

​

​

​

Glossary of Technical Terms

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

4

Table of Contents

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

​

This annual report contains statements that constitute forward-looking statements. Many of the forward- looking statements contained in this annual report can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “expect,” “should,” “plan,” “intend,” “estimate” and “potential,” among others.

​

Forward-looking statements appear in a number of places in this annual report and include, but are not limited to, statements regarding our intent, belief or current expectations. Forward-looking statements are based on our management’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to our management. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements due to of various factors, including, but not limited to, those identified under the section entitled “Item 3. Key Information—3.D. Risk Factors” in this annual report. These risks and uncertainties include factors relating to:

​

5

Table of Contents

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

These forward-looking statements involve various risks and uncertainties. Although we believe that our expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, our expectations may later be found to be incorrect. Our actual results could be materially different from our expectations. Other sections of this annual report include additional factors that could adversely impact our business and financial performance. Moreover, we operate in an evolving environment. New risk factors and uncertainties emerge from time to time and it is not possible for our management to predict all risk factors and uncertainties, nor can we assess the impact of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. You should read thoroughly this annual report and the documents that we refer to with the understanding that our actual future results may be materially different from, or worse than, what we expect. We qualify all of our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements.

​

This annual report contains certain data and information that we obtained from various government and private publications. Statistical data in these publications also include projections based on a number of assumptions. The insurance industry may not grow at the rate projected by market data, or at all. Failure of this market to grow at the projected rate may have a material and adverse effect on our business and the market price of the Ordinary Shares. In addition, the rapidly evolving nature of this industry results in significant uncertainties for any projections or estimates relating to the growth prospects or future condition of our market. Furthermore, if any one or more of the assumptions underlying the market data are later found to be incorrect, actual results may differ from the projections based on these assumptions. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

​

The forward-looking statements made in this annual report relate only to events or information as of the date on which the statements are made in this annual report. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, after the date on which the statements are made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. You should read this annual report and the documents that we refer to in this annual report and exhibits to this annual report completely and with the understanding that our actual future results may be materially different from what we expect.

​

​

6

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Risks Related to Doing Business in China

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

8

Table of Contents

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Risks Related to Our Ordinary Shares

​

Risks and uncertainties related to our Ordinary Shares include, but are not limited to, the following:

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

9

Table of Contents

Risks Related to Our Business and Industry

​

Cutbacks on advertising budgets by advertisers, changes in rebate and incentive policies by the media, failure to maintain and grow our advertiser base and secure emerging media resources could all materially and adversely affect our business and financial condition.

​

We derive our revenue (i) from rebates and incentives offered by media (or their authorized agencies) for procuring advertisers to place advertisements with them, which are usually calculated with reference to the advertising spend of our advertisers and are closely correlated to our gross billing from advertisers, netting of rebates to advertisers (if any); and (ii) from net fees from advertisers, which are essentially the fees we charge our advertisers (i.e. gross billing), net of the media costs and other costs of procuring advertising services we incurred on their behalf. Accordingly, our revenue base and our profitability are very much driven by our gross billing with our advertisers, and the relevant media’s rebate policies which determine, among other things, the rates of rebates we receive from media (or their authorized agencies).

​

The willingness of advertisers to spend their online advertising budget through us is critical to our business and our ability to generate grossing billing. Our advertisers’ demand for advertising services can be influenced by a variety of factors including:

​

​

​

​

A change in any of the above factors may result in significant cutbacks on advertising budgets by our advertisers, which would not only result in a reduction of our revenue, but would also weaken our negotiating position with media on rebate policies and negatively impact our ability to earn advertising spend-driven rebates and incentives from media. As a result, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially and adversely affected.

​

Besides, media (or their authorized agencies) may change the rebate and incentive policies offered to us based on the prevailing economic outlook, competitive landscape of the online advertising market, and their own business strategy and operational targets. For instance, a media may reduce the rate of rebates offered to us due to changes in its business strategies, resource reallocation, increased popularity and demand for their media resources, or may adjust their incentive programs or their benchmarks and measuring parameters for incentive offerings based on their changing marketing and target audience strategies. If media impose rebate and incentive policies that are less favorable to us, our revenue, results of operations and financial condition may be adversely affected.

​

On the other hand, we may offer rebates to our advertisers. The level of rebates we offer to our advertisers is determined case by case with reference to the rebates and incentives we are entitled to receive from the relevant media (or its authorized agency), an advertiser’s committed total spend, our business relationships with such advertiser and the competitive landscape in the online advertising industry. If it emerges that an increase in the rate of rebate to our advertisers is necessary for us to remain competitive or align with the emerging competitive environment, our revenue and profitability may reduce. As a result, our results of operations and financial condition could be materially and adversely affected.

​

10

Table of Contents

Our ability to maintain our advertiser base and attract new advertisers is, to a significant extent, associated with our ability to secure popular and emerging media resources sought after by our advertisers. We believe our authorized agency status with media and the large number of media we work with have helped us attract advertisers and contributed to our revenue and advertiser base. However, there is no assurance that we will be able to maintain such authorized agency status in the future, or that these media will remain popular among our advertisers in the future. The online advertising industry is dynamic. New media and innovative advertising formats are constantly introduced into the market, while existing media may lose market visibility and audience base. If the media with which we have authorized agency status lose their audience popularity or market visibility, or are no longer preferred by our advertisers, or if we fail to secure authorized agency status with new media of emerging popularity or preferred by our advertisers, we may lose our advertiser base and their advertising spend through us. In such event, our business, results of operations, financial condition and future prospects could be materially and adversely affected.

​

If we fail to maintain our relationships with our business stakeholders, mainly advertisers and media, our business, results of operations, financial condition and business prospects could be materially and adversely affected.

​

We regard our business value as revolving around our ability to serve the needs of two major business stakeholders: advertisers and media. Further, our main sources of revenue are (i) rebates and incentives from media (or their authorized agencies); and (ii) the net fees we earn from advertisers. Hence, our success depends on our ability to, among other things, develop and maintain relationships with our existing advertisers and media partners and attract new ones.

​

Relationship with our advertisers

​

Our advertiser base comprises direct advertisers, as well as third-party advertising agencies which places advertisements for their advertiser clients through us. The number of advertisers we served decreased slightly from 438 in 2019 to 410 in 2020, and increased to 462 in 2021.

​

We would usually enter into framework agreements with advertisers who intend to acquire ad inventory through us over a period of time (usually a year or shorter). If we are asked to run a specific advertising campaign for a short period (usually for our social media marketing services), we may enter into one-off agreements with the advertisers. Our contracts with our advertisers generally do not include exclusive obligations to use our services, and our advertisers are generally free to place their ads through other advertising agencies or work with multiple advertising agencies on a specific advertising campaign.

​

If our relationships with our advertisers deteriorate for any reason (for instance, our advertiser is dissatisfied with the effectiveness of the advertising campaigns run through us), or our advertisers switch to other advertiser because they are offer better terms (such as more competitive rebates and discounts), or if our advertisers reduce their advertising budget to be spent through us, they may reduce or cease using our advertising services.

​

Hence, we cannot assure you that our advertisers will continue to use our services or that we will be able to replace, in a timely or effective manner, departing advertisers with potential new advertisers. If we fail to retain our existing advertiser base or increase their advertising spend through us, or to provide effective advertising services or pricing structures to attract new advertisers, the demand for our advertising services will not grow and may even decrease, which could materially and adversely affect our revenue and profitability.

​

Relationship with our media

​

We have established and maintained relationships with a wide range of media and their authorized agencies as well as agencies of KOLs, which offer our advertisers a diverse choices ad formats, including search ads, in-feed ads, mobile app ads and social media ads. Our future growth will depend on our ability to maintain our relationships with existing media partners as well as building partnerships with new media.

​

11

Table of Contents

In particular, we act as authorized agency for some popular online media, such as sm.cn (神马), UC browsers (UC浏览器), and Today’s Headline (今日头条), to help them procure advertisers to buy their ad inventory and facilitate ad deployment on their advertising channels. As media’s authorized agency, our relationships with the media are mainly governed by agency agreements which provide for, among other things, credit periods and the rebate polices offered to us. These agency agreements typically have a term of one year, and are subject to renewal upon expiry. The commercial terms under the agency agreements are subject to renegotiation when they are renewed. Besides, media usually retain the right to terminate the authorized agency relationship based on business needs at their discretion.

​

Hence, there is no assurance that we can maintain stable business relationships with any media or their authorized agencies. Further, there is no guarantee that the media will continue to rely on authorized agencies to acquire and serve advertisers. Besides, our relationships with our media could be adversely affected if we cannot meet the target minimum advertising spend stipulated in the relevant agency agreements.

​

If any media ends its cooperative relationship with us or terminates our authorized agency status, or imposes commercial terms which are less favorable to us, or we fail to secure partnerships with new media partners, we may lose access to the relevant advertising channels, sustain advertiser deflection, and suffer revenue drop. As a result, our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects might be materially and adversely affected.

​

Also, our business depends on our media to deliver their advertising services on their platforms (such as search engines, mobile apps and social media platforms), which in turn rely on the performance, reliability and stability of the internet infrastructure and telecommunications systems. Since we rely on the performance of our media to deliver ads for our advertisers, any interruption or failure of their information technology and communications systems may undermine the delivery of our advertising services and cause us to lose advertisers. All in all, any interruption or failure of the internet infrastructure and telecommunications systems could impair our ability to effectively deliver ads and provide our services, and could cause us to lose advertisers, and our business, financial condition and results of operations would be adversely affected.

​

In addition, we depend on the accuracy and genuineness of advertising performance data and other data provided by media in evaluating the effectiveness of our advertisers’ advertising campaigns and calculating the amount of rebates or incentives that we are entitled to receive from our media. If the advertising performance data or other data provided by media is inaccurate or fraudulent, it may undermine our optimization efforts to achieve better performance for our advertisers’ ads. This could also result in disputes with our advertisers and media, harm to our reputation and loss of our advertisers and media, and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

​

Failure to appropriately evaluate the credit profile of our advertisers or effectively manage our credit risk associated with credit terms granted to our advertisers and/or delay in settlement of accounts receivable from our advertisers could materially and adversely impact our operating cash flow and may result in significant provisions and impairments on our accounts receivable which in turn would have a material adverse impact on our business operations, results of operation, financial condition and our business pursuits and prospects.

​

Our gross accounts receivable increased from $57.1 million as of December 31, 2019 to $69.9 million as of December 31, 2020, and decreased to $62.8 million as of December 31, 2021, of which $16.2 million, $26.7 million and $39.8 million, representing approximately 28.4%, 38.2%, and 63.4% of our gross accounts receivable, respectively, were outstanding for over six months as of the respective period end. As of December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019, we made bad debt allowance of $6.4 million, $4.7 million and $2.5 million against our gross outstanding accounts receivable.

​

The increase in the accounts receivable aging over the fiscal year as of December 31, 2021 was mainly due to the delayed payment from our customers as their business performance was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and their collection of payment from the end advertisers was also adversely impacted. In addition, government authority of Horgos took certain measures to control the development of the COVID-19 pandemic, including prohibiting any express delivery from leaving Horgos, which was lifted subsequently in May 2021. Some of the sales invoices that were issued by Horgos Baosheng could not be delivered to our customers in time, which lengthen the payment process of our customers.

​

12

Table of Contents

We attributed our growth of our gross accounts receivable during the fiscal years ended December 31, 2020 and 2021 to delayed payment from our customers as they were affected by the outbreak of COVID-19. We attributed the substantial growth of our gross accounts receivable during the fiscal years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018, particularly in the fiscal year 2018, partly to the growth in our gross billing (which represented 28.2% of our gross billing of $202.7 million for the fiscal year 2019 and 40.4% of our gross billing of $150.6 million for the fiscal year 2018), and the temporary delay and suspension of issuance of tax invoices by the relevant government authority of Horgos since April 2018, rendering us not being able to invoice our advertisers for their advertising spend, and effectively lengthening the actual collection periods of the receivables due from the affected advertisers. See also “— Risks Related to Our Business and Industry — If our advertisers delay in settlement of our accounts receivable or if we are unable to issue invoices to our advertisers on a timely basis, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.”

​

Regardless, given our “agency-based” business model and that we earn our revenue on a net basis but have accounts receivable from advertisers based on our gross billing, we are particularly sensitive and susceptible to credit risk. Our gross accounts receivable as of December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019 represented 101.7%, 51.8% and 28.2% of our gross billing, respectively, with gross accounts receivable outstanding over six months represented 71.8%, 19.8% and 8.0% of our gross billing for the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively. While we have implemented policies and measures with the aim of improving our management of credit risk and have expanded our efforts in the collection of overdue or long outstanding accounts receivable, and while the effect of the suspension of tax invoice issuance in Horgos has gradually subsided since the second quarter of 2019, there is no assurance that our substantial accounts receivable position with respect to our reported revenue (on a net basis) will not persist in the future given the nature of our business. Any deterioration of credit profile of our advertisers or any failure or delay in their settlement of our accounts receivable could put tremendous pressure on our operating cash flow, and may result in material and adverse impact on our business operations, results of operations and financial condition.

​

As we continue to strive for business growth, we may continue to experience net cash outflow from operating activities, and we cannot assure you that we can maintain sufficient net cash inflows from operating activities.

​

We reported net cash used in operating activities of $31.2 million for fiscal year 2021, net cash used in operating activities of $3.4 million for the fiscal year 2020 and net cash provided by operating activities of $9.4 million for fiscal year 2019. During the fiscal years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019, certain media we procured for our advertisers required prepayment or offer relatively short credit periods to us. While we have used reasonable endeavor to align credit terms granted to us in connection with a particular media when we offered credit terms to advertisers using the relevant media, in cases where we engaged in cross-selling of ad inventories or services of different media to our existing advertisers, we usually aligned the credit terms we offer to such advertisers to the most favorable terms offered to us among the media used. Moreover, we may offer more competitive terms to selected advertisers of established business relationship with us or of significant size, with significant market impact or strategic value, while their choices of media may not offer comparable credit terms to us or at all. In addition, during the fiscal years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019, we were required by certain media (or their authorized agencies) to place deposits as performance security, among other things of a similar nature, and we may elect to pay deposit associated with committed advertising spend on behalf of selected advertisers as required by certain media before running their advertising campaigns. We consider the above practices to be generally in line with industry practice and competitive landscape, and we expect these practices to continue in the foreseeable future.

​

All the above have contributed to a temporal mismatch in our operating cash flow, as such impact is generally positively correlated with our business volume. As we further expand our business, our requirement for business running capital and other payments (such as capital expenditures) will increase. Our operations may not generate sufficient cash flows to meet our operating and capital requirements in the future. Historically we have utilized peer-to-peer and third-party short-term borrowings to supplement our operating cash flow shortage from time to time. See “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects — B. Liquidity and Capital Resources — Cash Flows —Financing Activities.” We cannot assure you that going forward we will be able to reverse back to a net operating cash inflow position, or generate sufficient cash inflow from our operations or obtain adequate debt or equity financing at reasonable costs, or at all, to meet such requirements. If we fail to successfully manage our working capital or acquire adequate funding to finance our expansion, our ability to pay our media and employees and otherwise fund our operations and expansion could be impaired, and our business, financial condition and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.

​

13

Table of Contents

Our limited operating history in a rapidly evolving industry makes it difficult to accurately forecast our future operating results and evaluate our business prospects.

​

We substantially commenced developing our online advertising service business since the arrival of Ms. Wenxiu Zhong, our founder, chairperson of the board, and the chief executive officer of our Company, in 2015, and have since seen rapid growth. We expect we will continue to expand as we seek to expand our advertiser and media bases and explore new market opportunities, including establishing our own KOL network. However, due to our limited operating history, our historical growth rate may not be indicative of our future performance. Our future performance may be more susceptible to certain risks than a company with a longer operating history in a different industry. Many of the factors discussed below could adversely affect our business and prospects and future performance, including:

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

We may not be successful in addressing the risks and uncertainties listed above, among others, which may materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition and future prospects.

​

Certain customers contributed to a significant percentage of our total revenue during the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019, and losing one or more of them could result in a material adverse impact on our financial performance and business prospects.

​

During the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019, we derived most of our revenues from a few customers. Our five largest customers in the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019 accounted for 96.0%, 89.9% and 79.2% of our total revenue, respectively. Sogou, for which we have been an authorized agency since 2016, had been our top customer during the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019, accounting for 41.8%, 68.9% and 45.6% of our revenue, respectively. Our top five customers during the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019 include search engine operators, short-video platform operators, and advertising agencies who place ads for their advertiser clients through us. The identities of our customers vary depending on the type of revenue and the nature of the business transaction, comprising both advertisers and media (or their authorized agencies). See “Item 4. Information on the Company — 4.B. Business Overview — Customers.”

​

We typically enter into agency agreements (in case of media for which we are authorized agency) and framework agreements with these top customers with a term of one year or shorter, which are subject to renewal after expiry. Our top publisher, Sogou, has been acquired by Tencent and its business is currently under restructuring. We have been trying to secure the authorized agency status of Sogou for the year ending December 31, 2022. However, there is uncertainty as to whether and when we can successfully secure an authorized agency status with Sogou. Any failure to renew these agreements or any termination of such agreements may have a material adverse impact on our results of operations.

​

14

Table of Contents

There are a number of factors, including our performance, which could cause the loss of, or decrease in the volume of business from, a customer. Even though we have a strong record of performance, we cannot assure you that we will continue to maintain the business cooperation with these customers at the same level, or at all. The loss of business from one or more of these significant customers, or any downward adjustment of the rates of rebates and incentives paid by media (or their authorized agencies), could materially and adversely affect our revenue and profit. Furthermore, if any significant advertiser or media terminates its relationship with us, we cannot assure you that we will be able to secure an alternative arrangement with comparable advertiser or media in a timely manner, or at all.

​

We are in the highly competitive online advertising service industry and we may not be able to compete successfully against existing or new competitors, which could reduce our market share and adversely affect our competitive position and financial performance.

​

There are numerous companies that specialize in the provision of online advertising services in China. We compete primarily with our competitors and potential competitors for access to quality ad inventory, agency relationships with popular media, and advertiser base. The online advertising industry in China is rapidly evolving. Competition can be increasingly intensive and is expected to increase significantly in the future. Increased competition may result in price reductions for advertising services, decrease in the rates of rebates and incentives offered by media to their authorized agencies, reduced margins and loss of our market share. We compete with other competitors in China primarily on the following bases:

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Our existing competitors may in the future achieve greater market acceptance and recognition, secure authorized agency status with increasing number of popular media, and gain a greater market share. It is also possible that potential competitors may emerge and acquire a significant market share. If existing or potential competitors develop or offer services that provide significant performance, price, creative, optimization or other advantages over those offered by us, our business, results of operations and financial condition would be negatively affected.

​

Our existing and potential competitors may enjoy competitive advantages over us, such as longer operating history, greater brand recognition, larger advertiser base, greater access to ad inventory, and significantly greater financial, technical and marketing resources.

​

We also compete with traditional forms of media, such as newspapers, magazines, radio and television broadcast, for advertisers and advertising revenues.

​

If we fail to compete successfully, we could lose out in procuring advertisers, securing agency relationships with media and acquiring access to ad inventory, which could result in adverse impact to our business, results of operations and prospects. We also cannot assure you that our strategies will remain competitive or that they will continue to be successful in the future. Increasing competition could result in pricing pressure and loss of our market share, either of which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

​

15

Table of Contents

If we fail to improve our services to keep up with the rapidly changing demands, preferences, advertising trends or technologies in the online advertising industry, our revenues and growth could be adversely affected.

​

We consider the online advertising industry to be dynamic, as we face constant changes in audiences’ interests, preferences and receptiveness over different ad formats, evolution of the needs of advertisers in response to shifts in their business needs and marketing strategies, as well as innovations in the means on online advertising. On the other hand, information technology and “big-data” are increasingly being utilized in online advertising, as evidenced by the emergence of “data-driven” and programmatic advertising services. Our success therefore depends not only on our ability to offer proper choices of media, deliver effective optimization services, providing creative advertising ideas, but also to adapt to rapidly changing online trends and technologies to enhance the quality of existing services and to develop and introduce new services to address advertisers’ changing demands. We may experience difficulties that could delay or prevent the successful development, introduction or marketing of our new services. Any new service or enhancement will need to meet the requirements of our existing advertiser base and potential advertisers and may not achieve significant market acceptance. If we fail to keep pace with changing trends and technologies, continue to offer effective optimization services and creative advertising ideas to the satisfaction of our advertisers, or to introduce successful and well-accepted services for our existing advertiser base and potential advertisers, we could lose our advertisers and our revenue and growth could be adversely affected.

​

Limitations on the availability of data and our ability to analyze such data could significantly restrict our optimization capability and cause us to lose advertisers, which may harm our business and results of operations.

​

Our capability to plan and optimize advertising campaigns are partly dependent on the availability of data generated by the media concerned based on the ad interaction behavior between such media and their end users. Our access to such data from media is limited by the relevant media’s data policies. Typically we can only access data that are made available by the media to us or their authorized agencies on their back-end platforms. In addition, there is no assurance that the government will not adopt legislation that prohibits or limits collection of data on the Internet and the use of such data, or that third parties will not bring lawsuits against the media or us relating to internet privacy and data collection. As of the date of this annual report, our business operations are in material compliance with the relevant laws and regulations on data protection and privacy, including the Cyber Security Law of the People’s Republic of China, which was enacted by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on November 7, 2016 and became effective on June 1, 2017. Due to the recent development of laws and regulations on data protection and privacy and evolving interpretation of competent authorities, media and online advertising service providers will be subject to more stringent requirements on data sharing with third-parties, which may limit our ability to obtain data from them. Therefore, we cannot assure you that we will be in full compliance with all applicable laws and regulations on data protection and privacy in the future. See “Item 4. Information on the Company—4.B. Business Overview—Regulation—Regulations relating to Information Security and Privacy Protection.”

​

If any of the above happens, we may be unable to provide effective services and may lose our advertisers, and our business, financial condition and results of operations would be adversely affected. Lawsuits or administrative inquiries relating to internet privacy and data collection could also be costly and divert management resources, and the outcome of such lawsuits or inquiries may be uncertain and may harm our business.

​

The regulatory environment of the online advertising industry is rapidly evolving. If we fail to obtain and maintain the requisite licenses and approvals as applicable to our businesses in China from time to time, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.

​

As confirmed by our PRC counsel, Beijing Dacheng Law Offices, LLP (“Beijing Dacheng”), we have obtained all material licenses, permits or approvals from the regulatory authorities in China that are required for our business undertakings. However, the licensing requirements within the online advertising industry, particularly in China, are constantly evolving and subject to the interpretation of the competent authorities, and we may be subject to more stringent regulatory requirements due to changes in the political or economic policies in the relevant jurisdictions or the changes in the interpretation of the scope of internet culture business. We cannot assure you that we will be able to satisfy such regulatory requirements and we may be unable to retain, obtain or renew relevant licenses, permits or approvals in the future, and as a result, our business operations may be materially and adversely affected.

​

16

Table of Contents

If our advertisers delay in settlement of our accounts receivable or if we are unable to issue invoices to our advertisers on a timely basis, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.

​

As of December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019, our gross accounts receivable amounted to $62.8 million, $69.9 million and $57.1 million, respectively. Our gross accounts receivable turnover days were 442 days, 167 days and 105 days in the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively.

​

Our business operations and cash flow are subject to the risk of delay in payment from our advertisers. Our advertisers’ settlement day will generally be affected by their internal policies. Our efforts in strengthening our accounts receivable collection and management may be in vain, and we cannot assure you that we will be able to fully recover the outstanding amounts due from our advertisers, if at all, or that our advertisers will settle the amounts in a timely manner. As a result, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.

​

Non-compliance with laws and regulations on the part of any third parties with which we conduct business could expose us to legal expenses, compensations to third parties, penalties and disruption of our business, which may adversely affect our results of operations and financial performance.

​

Third parties with which we conduct business with may be subject to regulatory penalties or punishments because of their regulatory compliance failures or may be infringing upon other parties’ legal rights, which may, directly or indirectly, disrupt our business. We cannot be certain whether such third party has violated any regulatory requirements or infringed or will infringe any other parties’ legal rights, which could expose us to legal expenses, compensation to third parties, or compensation.

​

We, therefore, cannot rule out the possibility of incurring liabilities or suffering losses due to any non-compliance by third parties. There is no assurance that we will be able to identify irregularities or non-compliance in the business practices of third parties we conduct business with, or that such irregularities or non-compliance will be corrected in a prompt and proper manner. Any legal liabilities and regulatory actions affecting third parties involved in our business may affect our business activities and reputations, and may in turn affect our business, results of operations and financial performance.

​

Moreover, regulatory penalties or punishments against our business stakeholders (i.e., advertisers and media), even without resulting in any legal or regulatory implications upon us, may nonetheless cause business interruptions or even suspension of these business stakeholders of ours, and may result in abrupt changes in their business emphasis, such as changes in advertising and/or ad inventory offering strategies, any of which could disrupt our usual course of business with them and result in material negative impact on our business operations, results of operation and financial condition.

​

We are subject to, and may expend significant resources in defending against, government actions and civil claims in connection with false, fraudulent, misleading or otherwise illegal marketing content for which we provide agency services.

​

Under the Advertising Law of the PRC (《中华人民共和国广告法》) (the “Advertising Law”), where an advertising operator provides advertising design, production or agency services with respect to an advertisement when it knows or should have known that the advertisement is false, fraudulent, misleading or otherwise illegal, the competent PRC authority may confiscate the advertising operator’s advertising revenue from such services, impose penalties, order it to cease dissemination of such false, fraudulent, misleading or otherwise illegal advertisement or correct such advertisement, or suspend or revoke its business licenses under certain serious circumstances.

​

Under the Advertising Law, “advertising operators” include any natural person, legal person or other organization that provides advertising design, production or agency services to advertisers for their advertising activities. Since our service involve provision of agency services to advertisers, including helping them identify, engage and convert audiences, and create content catering to their potential audience across different media, we are deemed as an “advertising operator” under the PRC Advertising Law. Therefore, we are required to examine advertising content for which we provide advertising services for compliance with applicable laws, notwithstanding the fact that the advertising content may have been previously published, and that the advertisers also bear liabilities for the content in their advertisements.

​

17

Table of Contents

In addition, for advertising content relating to certain types of products and services, such as pharmaceuticals and medical procedures, we are expected to confirm that the advertisers have obtained requisite government approvals, including operating qualifications, proof of quality inspection for the advertised products, government pre-approval of the content of the advertisements and filings with the local authorities.

​

Although we have established internal policies to review the advertising contents before they are distributed to ensure compliance with applicable laws, we cannot ensure that each advertisement for which we provide advertising services complies with all PRC laws and regulations relevant to advertising activities, that supporting documentation provided by our advertisers is authentic or complete, or that we are able to identify and rectify all non-compliances in a timely manner.

​

Moreover, civil claims may be filed against us for fraud, defamation, subversion, negligence, copyright or trademark infringement or other violations due to the nature and content of the information for which we provide agency services. For example, we generally represent and warrant in our contracts with media as to the truthfulness of the advertising content that we place on these media, and agree to indemnify the media for any losses resulting from false, fraudulent, misleading or otherwise illegal advertising content that we place on these media. In the event we are subject to government actions or civil claims in connection with false, fraudulent, misleading or otherwise illegal marketing content for which we provide agency services, our reputation, business and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.

​

If we or our media clients sustain cyber-attacks or other privacy or data security incidents that result in security breaches, we could be subject to increased costs, liabilities, reputational harm or other negative consequences.

​

Our information technology may be subject to cyber-attacks, viruses, malicious software, break-ins, theft, computer hacking, phishing, employee error or malfeasance or other security breaches. Hackers and data thieves are increasingly sophisticated and operate large-scale and complex automatic hacks. Experienced computer programmer and hackers may be able to penetrate our security controls and misappropriate or compromise sensitive proprietary or confidential information, create system disruptions or cause shutdowns. They also may be able to develop and deploy malicious software programs that attack our systems or otherwise exploit any security vulnerabilities. Our systems and the data stored on those systems also may be vulnerable to security incidents or security attacks, acts of vandalism or theft, coordinated attacks by activist entities, misplaced or lost data, human errors, or other similar events that could negatively affect our systems and the data stored on or transmitted by those systems, including the data of our advertisers or our media clients. Further, third parties such as our media, could also be subject to similar risks of security breaches, which are out of our control. If any of our media experiences cyber-attacks and fail to publish advertisements as a result, we may be liable to our advertisers.

​

Although we take measures to protect sensitive data form unauthorized access, use or disclosure, our protective measures may not be effective and our information technology may still be vulnerable to attacks. In the event of such attacks, the costs to eliminate or address the foregoing security threats and vulnerability before or after a cyber-incident could potentially be significant. Our remediation efforts may not be successful and could result in interruptions or delays of services. As threats related to cyber-attacks develop and grow, we may also find it necessary to take further steps to protect our data and infrastructure, which could be costly and therefore impact our results of operations. In the event that we are unable to prevent, detect, and remediate the foregoing security threats and vulnerabilities in a timely manner, our operations could be interrupted or we could incur financial, legal or reputational losses arising from misappropriation, misuse, leakage, falsification or intentional or accidental release or loss of information maintained in our systems. The number and complexity of these threats continue to increase over time. Although we inspect our systems on a regular basis to prevent these events from occurring, the possibility of these events occurring cannot be eliminated entirely.

​

Any negative publicity about us, our services and our management may materially and adversely affect our reputation and business.

​

We may from time to time receive negative publicity about us, our management or our business. Certain of such negative publicity may be the result of malicious harassment or unfair competition acts by third parties. We may even be subject to government or regulatory investigation (including but not limited to those relating to advertising materials which are alleged to be illegal) as a result of such third-party conduct and may be required to spend significant time and incur substantial costs to defend ourselves against such third-party conduct, and we may not be able to conclusively refute each of the allegations within a reasonable period of time, or at all. Harm to our reputation and confidence of advertisers and media can also arise for other reasons, including misconduct of our employees or any third-party business partners whom we conduct business with. Our reputation may be materially and adversely affected as a result of any negative publicity, which in turn may cause us to lose market share, advertising customers, industry partners, and other business partnerships.

18

Table of Contents

​

If we fail to manage our growth or execute our strategies and future plans effectively, we may not be able to take advantage of market opportunities or meet the demands of our advertisers.

​

Our business has grown substantially since our inception, and we expect it to continue to grow in terms of the scale and diversity of operations. We have significantly expanded our headcount and office facilities, and we anticipate that further expansion in terms of advertiser base and media relationships. This expansion increases the complexity of our operations and may cause strain on our managerial, operational and financial resources. We must continue to hire, train and effectively manage new employees. If our new hires perform poorly or if we are unsuccessful in hiring, training, managing and integrating new employees, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be materially harmed. Our expansion will also require us to maintain the consistency of our service offerings to ensure that our market reputation does not suffer as a result of any deviations, whether actual or perceived, in the quality of our services.

​

Our future results of operations also depend largely on our ability to execute our future plans successfully. In particular, our continued growth may subject us to the following additional challenges and constraints:

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

All of these endeavors involve risks and will require significant management, financial and human resources. We cannot assure you that we will be able to effectively manage our growth or to implement our strategies successfully. Besides, there is no assurance that the investment to be made by us as contemplated under our future plans will be successful and generate the expected return. If we are not able to manage our growth or execute our strategies effectively, or at all, our business, results of operations and prospects may be materially and adversely affected.

​

We may not be able to obtain the additional capital we need in a timely manner or on acceptable terms, or at all.

​

Although we believe that our anticipated cash flows from operating activities, together with cash on hand and short-term or long-term borrowings, will be sufficient to meet our anticipated working capital requirements and capital expenditures in the ordinary course of business for the next twelve months, there is no assurance that further on we would not have needs for additional capital and cash resources for our growth and expansion plan. We may also need additional cash resources in the future if we find and wish to pursue opportunities for investment, acquisition, capital expenditure or similar actions. If we determine that our cash requirements exceed the amount of cash and cash equivalents we have on hand at the time, we may seek to issue equity or debt securities or obtain credit facilities. The issuance and sale of additional equity would result in further dilution to our shareholders. The incurrence of indebtedness would result in increased fixed obligations and could result in the required compliance with operating covenants that could restrict our operations. We cannot assure you that additional financing will be available in amounts or on terms acceptable to us, if at all.

​

19

Table of Contents

Seasonal fluctuations in advertising activities could have a material impact on our revenues, cash flow and operating results.

​

Our revenues, cash flow, operating results and other key operating and performance metrics may vary from quarter to quarter due to the seasonal nature of our advertisers’ budgets and spending on advertising campaigns. For example, advertising spend tends to rise in holiday seasons with consumer holiday spending, or closer to end-of-year in fulfilment of their annual advertising budgets, which may lead to the increase in our revenues and cash flow. Moreover, advertising inventory in holiday seasons may be more expensive due to increased demand for advertising inventory. While our historical revenues growth may have, to some extent, masked the impact of seasonality, but if our growth rate declines or seasonal spending becomes more pronounced, seasonality could have a material impact on our revenues, cash flow and operating results from period to period.

​

If we fail to attract, recruit or retain our key personnel including our executive officers, senior management and key employees, our ongoing operations and growth could be affected.

​

Our success depends to a large extent on the efforts of our key personnel including our executive officers, senior management and other key employees who have valuable experience, knowledge and connection in the online advertising industry. There is no assurance that these key personnel will not voluntarily terminate their employment with us. The loss of any of our key personnel could be detrimental to our ongoing operations. Our success will also depend on our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel in order to manage our existing operations as well as our future growth. We may not be able to successfully attract, recruit or retain key personnel and this could adversely impact our growth. Moreover, we rely on our sales and marketing team to source new advertisers for our business growth. We had 12 sales and marketing personnel in total as of the date of this annual report, who are responsible for pitching and soliciting advertisers to place ads with our media. If we are unable to attract, retain and motivate our sales and marketing personnel, our business may be adversely affected.

​

Unauthorized use of our intellectual property by third parties and expenses incurred in protecting our intellectual property rights may adversely affect our business, reputation and competitive edge.

​

We regard our software copyrights, trademarks, domain names and similar intellectual property as important to our success, and we rely on a combination of intellectual property laws and contractual arrangements, including confidentiality and non-compete agreements with our employees and others to protect our proprietary rights. For details, please refer to “Item 4. Information on the Company — 4.B. Business Overview — Intellectual property.”

​

Despite these measures, any of our intellectual property rights could be challenged, invalidated, circumvented or misappropriated, or such intellectual property may not be sufficient to provide us with competitive advantages. It may be difficult to maintain and enforce intellectual property rights in China. Statutory laws and regulations are subject to judicial interpretation and enforcement and may not be applied consistently. Confidentiality, invention assignment and non-compete agreements may be breached by counterparties, and there may not be adequate remedies available to us for any such breach. Accordingly, we may not be able to effectively protect our intellectual property rights or to enforce our contractual rights in all jurisdictions.

​

Preventing any unauthorized use of our intellectual property is difficult and costly and the steps we take may be inadequate to prevent the misappropriation of our intellectual property. In the event that we resort to litigation to enforce our intellectual property rights, such litigation could result in substantial costs and a diversion of our managerial and financial resources. We can provide no assurance that we will prevail in such litigation.

​

In addition, our trade secrets may be leaked or otherwise become available to, or be independently discovered by, our competitors. To the extent that our employees use intellectual property owned by others in their work for us, disputes may arise as to the rights in related know-how and inventions. Any failure in protecting or enforcing our intellectual property rights could have a material adverse effect on our business, reputation and competitive edge.

​

20

Table of Contents

Third parties may claim that we infringe their proprietary intellectual property rights, which could cause us to incur significant legal expenses and prevent us from promoting our services.

​

We cannot be certain that our operations or any aspects of our business do not or will not infringe upon or otherwise violate trademarks, patents, copyrights, know-how or other intellectual property rights held by third parties. We may be from time to time in the future subject to legal proceedings and claims relating to the intellectual property rights of others. In addition, there may be third-party trademarks, patents, copyrights, know-how or other intellectual property rights that are infringed by our products, services or other aspects of our business without our awareness. Holders of such intellectual property rights may seek to enforce such intellectual property rights against us in various jurisdictions.

​

If any third-party infringement claims are brought against us, we may be forced to divert management’s time and other resources from our business and operations to defend against these claims, regardless of their merits. Additionally, the application and interpretation of intellectual property right laws and the procedures and standards for granting trademarks, patents, copyrights, know-how or other intellectual property rights are evolving and may be uncertain, and we cannot assure you that courts or regulatory authorities would agree with our analysis.

​

If we were found to have violated the intellectual property rights of others, we may be subject to liability for our infringement activities or may be prohibited from using such intellectual property, and we may incur licensing fees or be forced to develop alternatives of our own. As a result, our business and financial performance may be materially and adversely affected.

​

Our financial condition and liquidity position may be subject to the credit risks of Ms. Wenxiu Zhong, our chairperson of the board and chief executive officer.

​

We were a party to a material legal proceedings, for details, see “Business — Legal Proceedings.” On January 12, 2022, Beijing Baosheng received a final judgment from the intermediate court, upholding the original judgment issued on July 30, 2021. According to the original judgment, Beijing Baosheng is required to pay the plaintiff RMB10,739,877 (approximately $1,685,321) and court expenses of RMB71,421 (approximately $11,207). In addition, Beijing Baosheng is required to pay RMB28,192 (approximately $4,424) of interest to the plaintiff and the court enforcement fee of RMB78,211 (approximately US$12,273).

​

Through a guarantee letter dated April 2, 2020 (the “Guarantee Letter”), Ms. Wenxiu Zhong promised to unconditionally, irrevocably and personally bear any and all the economic losses and expenses actually incurred by Beijing Baosheng, Baosheng Hong Kong, and the Company in connection with the Equity Ownership Dispute (as defined on page 66) and the Contractual Dispute (as defined on page 66), including, but not limited to, the amount of damages imposed by the courts, court expenses, attorney fees, and other reasonably related expenses.

​

On February 8, 2022, the final judgment was enforced by the court with a total of RMB10,917,701 (approximately $1,713,225) being withdrawn from one of the frozen bank accounts of Beijing Baosheng, the bank account at Bank of Hangzhou, which bank account was unfrozen afterwards, and which amount was applied to the satisfaction of such judgment and the payment in full of the related fees and expenses. Accordingly, Beijing Baosheng requested Ms. Wenxiu Zhong to perform her obligations under the Guarantee Letter by reimbursing Beijing Baosheng’s litigation costs, including, but not limited to, the amount of damages imposed by the courts, court expenses, and attorney fees.

​

As of March 10, 2022, as promised by the Guarantee Letter, Ms. Zhong has made the payment in cash of RMB11,053,940 (approximately $1,734,604) to Beijing Baosheng. Such payment made by Ms. Zhong includes the amount paid to Ms. Chen Chen as ordered by the courts plus interest as well as the court expense, attorney fee, and court enforcement fee.

​

21

Table of Contents

We may not have sufficient insurance coverage to cover our potential liability or losses and as a result, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects may be materially and adversely affected should any such liability or losses arise.

​

We face various risks in connection with our business and may lack adequate insurance coverage or have no relevant insurance coverage. Further, insurance companies in China offer limited business insurance products to online advertising service providers and do not currently offer as extensive an array of insurance products as insurance companies in other more developed economies. We currently do not have any business liability or disruption insurance to cover our operations. We have determined that the costs of insuring against these risks and the difficulties associated with acquiring such insurances on commercially reasonable terms render these coverage categories of insurance impractical for our business and purposes. Any uninsured business disruptions may result in our incurring substantial costs and the diversion of resources, which could have an adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

​

Legal claims, government investigations or other regulatory enforcement actions could subject us to civil and criminal penalties.

​

We operate in the online advertising industry in China with constantly evolving legal and regulatory frameworks. Our operations are subject to various laws and regulations, including but not limited to those related to advertising, employee benefits (such as social insurance and housing funds), taxation, and the use of properties. Consequently, we are subject to risks of legal claims, government investigations or other regulatory enforcement actions. Although we have implemented policies and procedures designed to ensure compliance with existing laws and regulations, there can be no assurance that our employees or agents will not violate our policies and procedures. Moreover, a failure to maintain effective control processes could lead to violations, unintentional or otherwise, of laws and regulations. Legal claims, government investigations or regulatory enforcement actions arising out of our failure or alleged failure to comply with applicable laws and regulations could subject us to civil and criminal penalties that could materially and adversely affect our product sales, reputation, financial condition and operating results. In addition, the costs and other effects of defending potential and pending litigation and administrative actions against us may be difficult to determine and could adversely affect our financial condition and operating results.

​

We have identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting. If we fail to develop and maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting, we may be unable to accurately report our financial results or prevent fraud.

​

We have identified “material weaknesses” and other control deficiencies including significant deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting. As defined in the standards established by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board of the United States, or PCAOB, a “material weakness” is a deficiency, or combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.

​

One material weakness that has been identified related to our lack of sufficient financial reporting and accounting personnel with appropriate knowledge of the generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (“U.S. GAAP”) and SEC reporting requirements to properly address complex U.S. GAAP accounting issues and to prepare and review our consolidated financial statements and related disclosures to fulfill U.S. GAAP and SEC financial reporting requirements. The other material weakness that has been identified related to our lack of comprehensive accounting policies and procedures manual in accordance with U.S. GAAP. We plan to implement a number of measures to address the material weaknesses, including but not limited to, engaging experienced accounting staff to assist us in establishing appropriate policies and procedures in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

​

Neither we nor our independent registered public accounting firm undertook a comprehensive assessment of our internal control for purposes of identifying and reporting material weaknesses and other control deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting. Had we performed a formal assessment of our internal control over financial reporting or had our independent registered public accounting firm performed an audit of our internal control over financial reporting, additional deficiencies may have been identified.

​

We have become a public company in the United States subject to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or Section 404, requires that we include a report from management on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting in our annual report on Form 20-F beginning with our annual report for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021.

​

22

Table of Contents

During the course of documenting and testing our internal control procedures, in order to satisfy the requirements of Section 404, we may identify other weaknesses and deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting. In addition, if we fail to maintain the adequacy of our internal control over financial reporting, as these standards are modified, supplemented or amended from time to time, we may not be able to conclude on an ongoing basis that we have effective internal control over financial reporting in accordance with Section 404. If we fail to achieve and maintain an effective internal control environment, we could suffer material misstatements in our financial statements and fail to meet our reporting obligations, which would likely cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information. This could in turn limit our access to capital markets, harm our results of operations, and lead to a decline in the trading price of our Ordinary Shares. Additionally, ineffective internal control over financial reporting could expose us to increased risk of fraud or misuse of corporate assets and subject us to potential delisting from the stock exchange on which we list, regulatory investigations and civil or criminal sanctions. We may also be required to restate our financial statements from prior periods.

​

We face risks related to natural disasters and health epidemics.

​

Our business could be materially and adversely affected by natural disasters, health epidemics or other public safety concerns. Natural disasters may give rise to server interruptions, breakdowns, system failures, technology platform failures or internet failures, which could cause the loss or corruption of data or malfunctions of software or hardware as well as adversely affect our ability to operate our platform and provide services. In recent years, there have been outbreaks in China and globally, such as the COVID-19, H1N1 flu, avian flu and other epidemics. Our business could also be adversely affected if our employees are affected by health epidemics. In addition, our results of operations could be adversely affected to the extent that any health epidemic harms the national economy in general. Our headquarters is located in Beijing, where most of our management and employees currently reside. Consequently, if any natural disasters, health epidemics or other public safety concerns were to affect Beijing or other cities in our other offices are located, our operation may experience material disruptions, which may materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

​

The ongoing effects of COVID-19 in China may have a material adverse effect on our business.

​

Our business has been materially and adversely affected by health epidemics such as the COVID-19 pandemic in China. The ongoing development of the COVID-19 outbreak could materially disrupt our business and operations, slow down the overall economy, curtail consumer spending, interrupt our sources of supply, and make it difficult to adequately staff our operations.

​

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we and some of our business partners implemented temporary measures and adjustments of work schemes to allow employees to work from home and collaborate remotely. We have taken measures to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, including, but not limited to, upgrading our telecommuting system, monitoring employees’ health on a daily basis and optimizing technology system to support potential growth in user traffic. Gross billing for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021 amounted to $54.7 million, representing a decrease of $80.2 million, or 59.4%, from $134.9 million for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020. Our revenues on a net basis for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021 decreased by approximately $8.0 million, or 67.2%, as compared with the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020. Although, based on the current situation, we do not expect a significant impact on our operations and financial results in the long run. However, due to the recent outbreak of the Delta and Omicron variants of COVID-19 in several provinces in China and the whole world, the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic may continue to impact our results of operations will depend on future development of the pandemic, which remains highly uncertain and cannot be predicted with confidence at this time.

​

23

Table of Contents

Risks Related to Doing Business in China

​

Adverse changes in political and economic policies of the PRC government could have a material adverse effect on the overall economic growth of the PRC, which could reduce the demand for our products and materially and adversely affect our competitive position.

​

Substantially all of our business operations are conducted in China. Accordingly, our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects are subject to economic, political and legal developments in China. Although the Chinese economy is no longer a planned economy, the PRC government continues to exercise significant control over China’s economic growth through direct allocation of resources, monetary and tax policies, and a host of other government policies such as those that encourage or restrict investment in certain industries by foreign investors, control the exchange between RMB and foreign currencies, and regulate the growth of the general or specific market. These government involvements have been instrumental in China’s significant growth in the past 30 years. If the PRC government’s current or future policies fail to help the Chinese economy achieve further growth or if any aspect of the PRC government’s policies limits the growth of our industry or otherwise negatively affects our business, our growth rate or strategy, our results of operations could be adversely affected as a result.

​

Uncertainties regarding interpretation and enforcement of the laws, rules and regulations in China may impose adverse impact on our business, operations and profitability.

​

We conduct all of our business through our subsidiaries in China. Our operations in China are governed by PRC laws and regulations. Our PRC subsidiaries are generally subject to laws and regulations applicable to foreign investments in China and, in particular, laws and regulations applicable to wholly foreign-owned enterprises. The PRC legal system is based on statutes. Prior court decisions may be cited for reference but have limited precedential value.

​

Since 1979, PRC legislation and regulations have significantly enhanced the protections afforded to various forms of foreign investments in China. However, China has not developed a fully integrated legal system and recently enacted laws and regulations may not sufficiently cover all aspects of economic activities in China. In particular, because these laws and regulations are relatively new, and because of the limited volume of published decisions and their nonbinding nature, the interpretation and enforcement of these laws and regulations involve uncertainties. In addition, the PRC legal system is based in part on government policies and internal rules (some of which are not published on a timely basis or at all) that may have a retroactive effect. As a result, we may not be aware of our violation of these policies and rules until sometime after the violation. In addition, any litigation in China may be protracted and result in substantial costs and diversion of resources and management attention.

​

PRC regulation of loans and direct investment by offshore holding companies to PRC entities may delay or prevent us from using the proceeds of our future offerings to make loans or additional capital contributions to our PRC subsidiaries, which could materially and adversely affect our liquidity and our ability to fund and expand our business.

​

We may be adversely affected by the complexity, uncertainties and changes in the regulation of internet-related businesses and companies in China.

​

The PRC government extensively regulates the internet industry, including foreign ownership of, and the licensing and permit requirements pertaining to, companies in the internet industry. These internet-related laws and regulations are relatively new and evolving, and their interpretation and enforcement involve significant uncertainty. As a result, in certain circumstances some actions or omissions may be deemed to be violations of applicable laws and regulations. Risks and uncertainties relating to regulation in China of the internet-related business include, but are not limited to, the following:

​

​

24

Table of Contents

​

According to our PRC Counsel, Beijing Dacheng, our PRC subsidiaries are not required to obtain any other industry-specific qualification, license or permit, including an Internet Content Provider license, or ICP license, for carrying out our online advertising service business in China. Given that the interpretation and application of existing PRC laws, regulations and policies and possible new laws, regulations or policies relating to the internet industry have created substantial uncertainties regarding the legality of existing and future foreign investments in, and the businesses and activities of, internet-related businesses in China, including our business in China, there is no assurance that we have obtained all the permits or licenses required for conducting our business in China or will be able to maintain our existing licenses or obtain any new licenses required under any new laws or regulations. There is also no assurance that the PRC government will not classify our business as one requiring an ICP license or other licenses in the future. If new regulations in China classify our business as one requiring an ICP license or other licenses, we may be prevented from operating in China if we are unable to obtain the required licenses. If the change in classification of our business were to be retroactively applied, we might be subject to sanctions, including payment of taxes and fines. Any change in the PRC laws and regulations may therefore significantly disrupt our operations in China and materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial conditions in China.

​

Since Beijing Baosheng’s equity interests in Horgos Baosheng and Kashi Baosheng are frozen by court order, we may experience restrictions in exercising our rights as the shareholder of Horgos Baosheng and Kashi Baosheng.

​

Our subsidiary, Beijing Baosheng, is a party to the Contractual Dispute (as defined on page 66) in Beijing Haidian District People’s Court. See “Item 4. Information on the Company—4.B. Business Overview—Legal Proceedings.” At the request of the plaintiff, the court issued a freezing order, pursuant to which Beijing Baosheng’s 100% equity interest in Horgos Baosheng and 100% equity interest in Kashi Baosheng were frozen.

​

Pursuant to applicable PRC laws and regulations, if a company’s equity interest is frozen by a court order, the company’s shareholders may be restricted in: (a) transferring or pledging the equity interest, (b) receiving dividends from the company, and (c) voting for the dissolution and winding up of the company, the forgiving of matured loans, or other decisions that may impact the value of the equity interest of the company. Therefore, Beijing Baosheng’s rights as a shareholder of Horgos Baosheng and Kashi Baosheng may be restricted until the court lifts its order. To mitigate the restrictions, we established Baosheng Technology (Horgos) Co., Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Beijing Baosheng, in January 2020, through which subsidiary we have since conducted, and plan to continue to conduct, a majority of our business operations.

​

On January 12, 2022, Beijing Baosheng received a final judgment from the intermediate court, upholding the original judgment issued on July 30, 2021. According to the original judgment, Beijing Baosheng is required to pay the plaintiff RMB10,739,877 (approximately $1,685,321) and court expenses of RMB71,421 (approximately $11,207). In addition, Beijing Baosheng is required to pay RMB28,192 (approximately $4,424) of interest to the plaintiff and the court enforcement fee of RMB78,211 (approximately $12,273). On February 8, 2022, the final judgment was enforced by the court with a total of RMB10,917,701 (approximately $1,713,225) being withdrawn from one of the frozen bank accounts of Beijing Baosheng, the bank account at Bank of Hangzhou, which bank account was unfrozen afterwards, and which amount was applied to the satisfaction of such judgment and the payment in full of the related fees and expenses. As confirmed by Beijing Baosheng’s PRC counsel, Beijing Dacheng, the Freezing Order (including the freezing of Beijing Baosheng’s equity interests in Horgos Baosheng and Kashi Baosheng) will be reversed and all of the impacted assets will be unfrozen, accordingly. As of the date of this annual report, three out of the four frozen accounts have been unfrozen and the unfreezing procedure for the remaining one account is still in progress, which is expected to be completed by the end of July 2022. Additionally, the unfreezing procedure related to Beijing Baosheng’s equity interests in Horgos Baosheng and Kashi Baosheng is still in progress. We expect that the impacted equity interests will be unfrozen in August 2022.

​

The chairperson of the board, and the chief executive officer of the Company, Ms. Wenxiu Zhong, executed the Guarantee Letter on April 2, 2020. Pursuant to the Guarantee Letter, Ms. Wenxiu Zhong promised to unconditionally, irrevocably and personally bear any and all the economic expenses and losses actually incurred by Beijing Baosheng, Baosheng Hong Kong, and the Company in connection with the Equity Ownership Dispute and the Contractual Dispute, including, but not limited to, the amount of damages imposed by the courts, court expenses and attorney fees.

25

Table of Contents

Accordingly, Beijing Baosheng requested Ms. Wenxiu Zhong to perform her obligations under the Guarantee Letter by reimbursing Beijing Baosheng’s litigation costs, including, but not limited to, the amount of damages imposed by the courts, court expenses, and attorney fees. As of March 10, 2022, as promised by the Guarantee Letter, Ms. Zhong has made the payment in cash of RMB11,053,940 (approximately $1,734,604) to Beijing Baosheng. Such payment made by Ms. Zhong includes the amount paid to Ms. Chen Chen as ordered by the courts plus interest as well as the court expense, attorney fee, and court enforcement fee.

​

As a result of the court order, Beijing Baosheng has experienced restrictions in its industrial and commercial registration.

​

The industrial and commercial registration of Beijing Baosheng has been restricted as a result of the freezing order referenced above. During the restriction period, Beijing Baosheng is not allowed to register with competent authority to execute any change in its equity interests, registered capital, business scope, or legal representative. Therefore, if Beijing Baosheng were to attempt to execute any of the aforementioned changes during the restriction period, such attempts will not be successful, which could adversely affect our business, financial conditions and results of operations.

​

On January 12, 2022, Beijing Baosheng received a final judgment from the intermediate court, upholding the original judgment issued on July 30, 2021. According to the original judgment, Beijing Baosheng is required to pay the plaintiff RMB10,739,877 (approximately $1,685,321) and court expenses of RMB71,421 (approximately $11,207). In addition, Beijing Baosheng is required to pay RMB28,192 (approximately $4,424) of interest to the plaintiff and the court enforcement fee of RMB78,211 (approximately $12,273). On February 8, 2022, the final judgment was enforced by the court with a total of RMB10,917,701 (approximately $1,713,225) being withdrawn from one of the frozen bank accounts of Beijing Baosheng, the bank account at Bank of Hangzhou, which bank account was unfrozen afterwards, and which amount was applied to the satisfaction of such judgment and the payment in full of the related fees and expenses.  As confirmed by Beijing Baosheng’s PRC counsel, Beijing Dacheng, the Freezing Order (including the freezing of Beijing Baosheng’s equity interests in Horgos Baosheng and Kashi Baosheng) will be reversed and all of the impacted assets will be unfrozen, accordingly. As of the date of this annual report, three out of the four frozen accounts have been unfrozen and the unfreezing procedure for the remaining one account is still in progress, which is expected to be completed by the end of July 2022. Additionally, the unfreezing procedure related to Beijing Baosheng’s equity interests in Horgos Baosheng and Kashi Baosheng is still in progress. We expect that the impacted equity interests will be unfrozen in August 2022.

​

Regulation and censorship of information disseminated through the Internet in China may adversely affect our business in China, and we may be liable for content disseminated by us through the Internet.

​

The PRC government has enacted laws and regulations governing internet access and the distribution of products, services, news, information, audio-video programs and other content through the Internet. The PRC government has prohibited the dissemination of information through the Internet that it deems to be in violation of PRC laws and regulations. If any internet content disseminated by us is deemed by the PRC government to violate any content restrictions, we would not be able to continue to disseminate such content and could become subject to penalties, including confiscation of income, fines, suspension of business and revocation of licenses, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial conditions and results of operations in China. We may also be subject to potential liability for any unlawful actions of our clients or for content we disseminate that is regarded as inappropriate.

​

We have implemented measures to ensure that our ad content does not violate these laws and regulations. After we receive the ad content from our advertisers, it will be subject to a compliance review by our experienced employees. If we determine that the ad content does not violate any applicable laws and regulations, we will share such ad content with the relevant media for their internal review. If we determine that the ad content may be in violation of applicable laws or regulations, we will provide suggested edits to the ad content and send it back to the advertiser for revision. After both we and the media have determined that the ad content is in full compliance with applicable laws and regulations on information dissemination, we will confirm with the advertiser on its opinion with respect to the compliance prior to the deployment of the ad. Despite our efforts, we cannot assure you that we will be in full compliance with all applicable regulations on information dissemination. In addition, we have no control over and are not informed of the specific review standards applied by the advertisers or the media, and it may be difficult to determine the type of content that may result in liability to us. If we are found to be liable, we may be subject to penalties, fines, suspension of licenses, or revocation of licenses, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial conditions and results of operations.

​

26

Table of Contents

Changes in the policies, regulations, rules, and the enforcement of laws of the PRC government may be quick with little advance notice and could have a significant impact upon our ability to operate profitably in the PRC.

​

We currently conduct all of our operations and all of our revenue is generated in the PRC. Accordingly, economic, political, and legal developments in the PRC will significantly affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects. Policies, regulations, rules, and the enforcement of laws of the PRC government can have significant effects on economic conditions in the PRC and the ability of businesses to operate profitably. Our ability to operate profitably in the PRC may be adversely affected by changes in policies, regulations, rules, and the enforcement of laws by the PRC government, which changes may be quick with little advance notice.

​

Any actions by the Chinese government, including any decision to intervene or influence our operations or to exert control over any offering of securities conducted overseas and/or foreign investment in China-based issuers, may cause us to make material changes to our operations, may limit or completely hinder our ability to offer or continue to offer securities to investors, and may cause the value of such securities to significantly decline or be worthless.

​

The Chinese government has exercised and continues to exercise substantial control over virtually every sector of the Chinese economy through regulation and state ownership. Our ability to operate in China may be impaired by changes in its laws and regulations, including those relating to taxation, advertisements, environmental regulations, land use rights, foreign investment limitations, and other matters. The central or local governments of these jurisdictions may impose new, stricter regulations or interpretations of existing regulations that would require additional expenditures and efforts on our part to ensure our compliance with such regulations or interpretations. As such, our PRC subsidiaries may be subject to various government and regulatory interference in the provinces in which they operate. We could be subject to regulation by various political and regulatory entities, including various local and municipal agencies and government sub-divisions. We may incur increased costs necessary to comply with existing and newly adopted laws and regulations or penalties for any failure to comply.

​

Furthermore, it is uncertain when and whether we will be required to obtain permission from the PRC government to list on U.S. exchanges in the future, and even when such permission is obtained, whether it will be later denied or rescinded. Although we believe our Company and our PRC subsidiaries are currently not required to obtain permission from any Chinese authorities and neither we, nor any of our subsidiaries, has, as of the date of this annual report, received any notice of denial of permission to list on the U.S. exchanges, our operations could be adversely affected, directly or indirectly, by existing or future laws and regulations relating to our business or industry, particularly in the event permission to list on U.S. exchanges may be later required, or withheld or rescinded once given.

​

Accordingly, government actions in the future, including any decision to intervene or influence our operations at any time or to exert control over an offering of securities conducted overseas and/or foreign investment in China-based issuers, may cause us to make material changes to our operations, may limit or completely hinder our ability to offer or continue to offer securities to investors, and/or may cause the value of such securities to significantly decline or be worthless.

​

27

Table of Contents

Recent greater oversight by the CAC over data security, particularly for companies seeking to list on a foreign exchange, could adversely impact our business and our offering.

​

On July 10, 2021, the CAC published the Circular on Seeking Comments on Cybersecurity Review Measures (Revised Draft for Comments) (the “Review Measures Draft”), which provides that, in addition to critical information infrastructure operators (“CIIOs”) that intend to purchase Internet products and services, data processing operators engaging in data processing activities that affect or may affect national security must be subject to cybersecurity review by the Cybersecurity Review Office of the PRC. According to the Review Measures Draft, a cybersecurity review assesses potential national security risks that may be brought about by any procurement, data processing, or overseas listing. The Review Measures Draft further requires that CIIOs and data processing operators that possess personal data of at least one million users must apply for a review by the Cybersecurity Review Office of the PRC before conducting listings in foreign countries. The deadline for public comments on the Review Measures Draft was July 25, 2021. As of the date of this annual report, we have not received any notice from any authorities identifying us as a CIIO or requiring us to go through cybersecurity review by the CAC. If the Review Measures Draft is enacted as proposed, we believe that our operations and listing will not be affected and that we will not be subject to cybersecurity review by the CAC for this offering. There remains uncertainty, however, as to how the Review Measures Draft will be interpreted or implemented and whether the PRC regulatory agencies, including the CAC, may adopt new laws, regulations, rules, or detailed implementation and interpretation related to the Review Measures Draft. If any such new laws, regulations, rules, or implementation and interpretation come into effect, we will take all reasonable measures and actions to comply and to minimize the adverse effect of such laws on us. We cannot guarantee, however, that we will not be subject to cybersecurity review in the future. During such review, we may be required to suspend our operations or experience other disruptions to our operations. Cybersecurity review could also result in negative publicity with respect to our Company and diversion of our managerial and financial resources, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial conditions, and results of operations.

​

The Opinions on Severely Cracking Down on Illegal Securities Activities According to Law recently issued by the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council may subject us to additional compliance requirement in the future.

​

Recently, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council jointly issued the Opinions on Severely Cracking Down on Illegal Securities Activities According to Law, or the Opinions, which were made available to the public on July 6, 2021. The Opinions emphasized the need to strengthen the administration over illegal securities activities and the supervision on overseas listings by China-based companies. These opinions proposed to take effective measures, such as promoting the construction of relevant regulatory systems, to deal with the risks and incidents facing China-based overseas-listed companies and the demand for cybersecurity and data privacy protection. The aforementioned policies and any related implementation rules to be enacted may subject us to additional compliance requirements in the future that may be onerous. As the Opinions were recently issued, official guidance and interpretation of the Opinions remain unclear in several respects at this time. Therefore, we cannot assure you that we will remain fully compliant with all new regulatory requirements of the Opinions or any future implementation rules on a timely basis, or at all.

​

Labor Contract Law and other labor-related laws in the PRC may adversely affect our business and our results of operations.

​

On December 28, 2012, the PRC government released the revision of the Labor Contract Law of the PRC (《中华人民共和国劳动合同法》), which became effective on July 1, 2013. Pursuant to the Labor Contract Law of the PRC, employers are subject to stricter requirements in terms of signing labor contracts, minimum wages, paying remuneration, determining the term of employees’ probation and unilaterally terminating labor contracts. In the event that we decide to terminate some of our employees or otherwise change our employment or labor practices, the Labor Contract Law of the PRC and its implementation rules may limit our ability to effect those changes in a desirable or cost-effective manner, which could adversely affect our business and results of operations. According to the PRC Social Insurance Law (《中华人民共和国社会保险法》), employees must participate in pension insurance, work-related injury insurance, medical insurance, unemployment insurance and maternity insurance and the employers must, together with their employees or separately, pay the social insurance premiums for such employees.

​

28

Table of Contents

As of the date of this annual report, we are in compliance with labor-related laws and regulations in China in material aspects, including those relating to obligations to make social insurance payments and contribute to the housing provident fund. From July 2018 to March 2019, we had not made adequate contributions to social insurance and other employee benefits for our employees. We have recorded accruals for the estimated amount of underpayment in our financial statements. Pursuant to the PRC Social Insurance Law, if an employer fails to make full and timely contributions to social insurance, the relevant enforcement agency shall order the employer to make all outstanding contributions within five days of such order and impose penalties equal to 0.05% of the total outstanding amount for each additional day such contributions are overdue. If the employer fails to make all outstanding contributions within five days of such order, the relevant enforcement agency may impose penalties equal to one to three times the amount overdue. We estimate the amount of outstanding contributions from July 2018 to December 2018 to be approximately $0.1 million, and the penalties in the same period to be approximately $0.03 million. We estimate the amount of outstanding contributions from January 2019 to March 2019 to be approximately $0.09 million, and the penalties in the same period to be approximately $0.02 million.

​

Ms. Wenxiu Zhong, the chief executive office of our Company, through the Guarantee Letter dated April 29, 2020, promised to unconditionally, irrevocably and personally bear any and all the economic losses and expenses actually incurred by our Company if we are subject to any payment or penalty in relation to our outstanding social insurance contributions from July 2018 to April 2019.

​

As of the date of this annual report, we have not received any notice from relevant government authorities or any claim or request from our employees in this regard. However, we cannot assure you that the relevant government authorities will not require us to pay the outstanding amount and impose late fees or fines on us. If we are otherwise subject to investigations related to non-compliance with labor laws and are imposed severe penalties or incur significant legal fees in connection with labor disputes or investigations, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected.

​

As the interpretation and implementation of labor-related laws and regulations are still evolving, we cannot assure you that our employment practices will not violate PRC labor-related laws and regulations in the future, which may subject us to labor disputes or government investigations. We cannot assure you that we will be able to comply with all labor-related law and regulations regarding including those relating to obligations to make social insurance payments and contribute to the housing provident fund. If we are deemed to violate relevant labor laws and regulations, we could be required to provide additional compensation to our employees and our business, financial condition and results of operations will be adversely affected.

​

Failure to obtain or maintain any preferential tax treatments, or the discontinuation, reduction or delay of any preferential tax treatments available to us in China could adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.

​

Under the Enterprise Income Tax Law (《中华人民共和国企业所得税法》) (the “EIT Law”), foreign-invested companies, such as wholly foreign-owned enterprises, and domestic companies, such as our consolidated affiliated entity and its subsidiaries, are subject to a unified income tax rate of 25%. Various favorable income tax rates are, however, available to qualified enterprises in certain encouraged sectors of the economy.

​

Pursuant to the Notice on Preferential EIT Policies for Two Special Economic Development Zones of Kashi and Horgos in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (《关于新疆喀什霍尔果斯两个特殊经济开发区企业所得税优惠政策的通知》), and the Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of Kashi and Horgos Economic Development Zones (《关于加快喀什、霍尔果斯经济开发区建设的实施意见》) (together the “Xinjiang EIT Exemption Policies”), an enterprise established in Horgos or Kashi between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2020 and falling within the scope of the Catalogue of EIT Incentives for Industries Particularly Encouraged for Development by Poverty Areas of Xinjiang (《新疆困难地区重点鼓励发展产业企业所得税优惠目录》) are exempted from enterprise income tax, or EIT, for five years beginning from the first year in which the manufacturing or business operational revenue is earned. After the initial EIT exemption period, the enterprise is entitled to another five-year exemption on the local portion of its EIT.

​

Historically, we have benefited from preferential tax treatments from the PRC government, and Horgos Baosheng (established in 2016 in Horgos, Xinjiang), Kashi Baosheng (established in 2018 in Kashi, Xinjiang), and Baosheng Technology (established in 2020 in Horgos, Xinjiang), have all enjoyed EIT exemption under the Xinjiang EIT Exemption Policies since 2016, 2018, and 2020, respectively.

​

29

Table of Contents

Although we have been or are now eligible for the foregoing preferential tax treatments, these preferential tax treatments are subject to uncertainties as to their interpretation, administrative implementation, changes and amendments from time to time, or even suspension and termination by relevant authorities. In particular, we cannot assure you that the Xinjiang EIT Exemption Policies will continue to be applied in such a way that will entitle Horgos Baosheng and Kashi Baosheng to continue to enjoy full EIT exemption in accordance with the existing applicable provisions, or that Horgos Baosheng and Kashi Baosheng will continue to be able to satisfy the qualifications provided for in the Xinjiang EIT Exemption Policies, the failure of which may render us no longer entitled to such EIT exemption. In the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019, the effective tax rate for Horgos Baosheng and Kashi Baosheng under the Xinjiang EIT Exemption Policies were 0%. Had a standard EIT rate of 25% been applied to us in these fiscal years, we would have reported net profit (loss) of $(6.7) million, $4.4 million and $7.4 million in the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively, representing a reduction of $nil (or 0)%, $2.7 million (or 38.2)%, and $3.8 million (or 33.7)% in our net profit, respectively.

​

Any changes in tax laws, regulations, rules, policies, administrative measures or their interpretation or administrative implementation which are applicable to us, or any change in our EIT exemption or any other preferential tax treatment status we may enjoy, could result in a significant increase in our tax obligations and tax payments, which in turn will have a material and adverse impact on our financial results and financial condition.

​

Under the Enterprise Income Tax Law, we may be classified as a “Resident Enterprise” of China. Such classification will likely result in unfavorable tax consequences to us and our non-PRC shareholders.

​

Under the EIT Law, an enterprise established outside of China with “de facto management bodies” within China is considered a “resident enterprise”, meaning that it can be subject to an EIT rate of 25.0% on its global income. In April 2009, the State Administration of Taxation (“SAT”) promulgated a circular, known as Circular 82, and partially amended by Circular 9 promulgated in January 2014, to clarify the certain criteria for the determination of the “de facto management bodies” for foreign enterprises controlled by PRC enterprises or PRC enterprise groups. Under Circular 82, a foreign enterprise is considered a PRC resident enterprise if all of the following apply: (1) the senior management and core management departments in charge of daily operations are located mainly within China; (2) decisions relating to the enterprise’s financial and human resource matters are made or subject to approval by organizations or personnel in China; (3) the enterprise’s primary assets, accounting books and records, company seals, and board and shareholders’ meeting minutes are located or maintained in China; and (4) 50.0% or more of voting board members or senior executives of the enterprise habitually reside in China. Further to Circular 82, SAT issued a bulletin, known as Bulletin 45, effective in September 2011 and amended on 1 June 2015 and 1 October 2016 to provide more guidance on the implementation of Circular 82 and clarify the reporting and filing obligations of such “Chinese controlled offshore incorporated resident enterprises.” Bulletin 45 provides for, among other matters, procedures for the determination of resident status and administration of post-determination matters. Although Circular 82 and Bulletin 45 explicitly provide that the above standards apply to enterprises that are registered outside China and controlled by PRC enterprises or PRC enterprise groups, Circular 82 may reflect SAT’s criteria for determining the tax residence of foreign enterprises in general.

​

If the PRC tax authorities determine that we are a “resident enterprise” for PRC enterprise income tax purposes, a number of unfavorable PRC tax consequences could follow. First, we may be subject to the enterprise income tax at a rate of 25% on our worldwide taxable income as well as PRC enterprise income tax reporting obligations. In our case, this would mean that income such as non-China source income would be subject to PRC enterprise income tax at a rate of 25%. Currently, we do not have any non-China source income, as we conduct our sales in China. Second, under the EIT Law and its implementing rules, dividends paid to us from our PRC subsidiaries would be deemed as “qualified investment income between resident enterprises” and therefore qualify as “tax-exempt income” pursuant to the clause 26 of the EIT Law. Finally, it is possible that future guidance issued with respect to the new “resident enterprise” classification could result in a situation in which the dividends we pay with respect to our Ordinary Shares, or the gain our non-PRC shareholders may realize from the transfer of our Ordinary Shares, may be treated as PRC-sourced income and may therefore be subject to a 10% PRC withholding tax. The EIT Law and its implementing regulations are, however, relatively new and ambiguities exist with respect to the interpretation and identification of PRC-sourced income, and the application and assessment of withholding taxes. If we are required under the EIT Law and its implementing regulations to withhold PRC income tax on dividends payable to our non-PRC shareholders, or if non-PRC shareholders are required to pay PRC income tax on gains on the transfer of their Ordinary Shares, our business could be negatively impacted and the value of your investment may be materially reduced. Further, if we were treated as a “resident enterprise” by PRC tax authorities, we would be subject to taxation in both China and such countries in which we have taxable income, and our PRC tax may not be creditable against such other taxes.

​

30

Table of Contents

PRC regulation of loans to and direct investment in PRC entities by offshore holding companies and governmental control of currency conversion may delay or prevent us from using proceeds from our future financing activities to make loans or additional capital contributions to our PRC operating subsidiaries, which could materially and adversely affect our liquidity and our ability to fund and expand our business.

​

Any funds we transfer to our PRC operating subsidiaries, either as a shareholder loan or as an increase in registered capital, are subject to approval by or registration with relevant governmental authorities in China. According to the relevant PRC regulations on foreign-invested enterprises in China, capital contributions to our PRC operating subsidiaries Beijing Baosheng and Baosheng Network, which are foreign-invested enterprises, are subject to the approval of or filing with the Ministry of Commerce of the PRC (“MOFCOM”) or its local counterparts and registration with a local bank authorized by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, or SAFE. There is, in effect, no statutory limit on the amount of capital contribution that we can make to our PRC operating subsidiaries. The reason is that there is no statutory limit on the amount of registered capital for our PRC operating subsidiaries, and we are allowed to make capital contributions to our PRC operating subsidiaries by subscribing for their initial registered capital and increased registered capital, provided that the PRC operating subsidiaries complete the relevant filing and registration procedures.

​

On the other hand, any foreign loan provided by us to our PRC operating subsidiaries is required to be registered with SAFE or its local branches or filed with SAFE in its information system, and our PRC operating subsidiaries may not procure foreign loans which exceed the difference between its total investment amount and registered capital (the “Current Foreign Debt Mechanism”) or, as an alternative, only procure loans subject to the calculation approach and limitations as provided in the People's Bank of China (“PBOC”) Circular on Matters concerning the Macro-Prudential Management of Full-Covered Cross-Border Financing, or “PBOC Notice No. 9” (the “PBOC Notice No. 9 Mechanism”), which shall not exceed 200% of the net asset of the relevant PRC operating subsidiary. According to PBOC Notice No. 9, after a transition period of one year since its promulgation, PBOC and SAFE will determine the cross-border financing administration mechanism for the foreign-invested enterprises after evaluating the overall implementation of PBOC Notice No. 9. On March 11, 2020, Notice of PBOC and SAFE on the Adjustment of Macro-Prudential Adjustment Parameters for Full-Covered Cross-border Financing was issued, according to which, the Macro-Prudential Adjustment Parameters provided in the PBOC Notice No. 9 was adjusted from 1 to 1.25. On January 7, 2021, Notice of People's Bank of China and State Administration of Foreign Exchange on the Adjustment of Macro-Prudential Adjustment Parameters for Cross-border Financing of Enterprises was issued, according to which, the Macro-Prudential Adjustment Parameters provided in the PBOC Notice No. 9 was adjusted from 1.25 to 1. As of the date hereof, neither PBOC nor SAFE has promulgated and made public any further rules, regulations, notices, or circulars in this regard. It is uncertain which mechanism will be adopted by PBOC and SAFE in the future and what statutory limits will be imposed on us when providing loans to our PRC operating subsidiaries. Currently, our PRC operating subsidiaries have the flexibility to choose between the Current Foreign Debt Mechanism and the PBOC Notice No. 9 Mechanism. However, if a more stringent foreign debt mechanism becomes mandatory, our ability to provide loans to our PRC subsidiaries may be significantly limited, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

​

If we seek to make capital contribution into our PRC operating subsidiaries or provide any loans to our PRC operating subsidiaries in the future, we may not be able to obtain the required government approvals or complete the required registrations on a timely basis, if at all. If we fail to receive such approvals or complete such registrations, our ability to capitalize our PRC operations may be negatively affected, which could adversely affect our liquidity and our ability to fund and expand our business.

​

We may rely on dividends paid by our subsidiaries for our cash needs, and any limitation on the ability of our subsidiaries to make payments to us could have a material adverse effect on our ability to conduct business.

​

As a holding company, we conduct substantially all of our business through our consolidated subsidiaries incorporated in China. We may rely on dividends paid by these PRC subsidiaries for our cash needs, including the funds necessary to pay any dividends and other cash distributions to our shareholders, to service any debt we may incur and to pay our operating expenses.

​

31

Table of Contents

According to the Foreign Investment Law of the PRC and its implementing rules, which jointly established the legal framework for the administration of foreign-invested companies, a foreign investor may, in accordance with other applicable laws, freely transfer into or out of China its contributions, profits, capital earnings, income from asset disposal, intellectual property rights, royalties acquired, compensation or indemnity legally obtained, and income from liquidation, made or derived within the territory of China in RMB or any foreign currency, and any entity or individual shall not illegally restrict such transfer in terms of the currency, amount and frequency. According to the Company Law of the PRC and other Chinese laws and regulations, our PRC subsidiaries may pay dividends only out of their respective accumulated profits as determined in accordance with Chinese accounting standards and regulations. In addition, each of our PRC subsidiaries is required to set aside at least 10% of its accumulated after-tax profits, if any, each year to fund a certain statutory reserve fund, until the aggregate amount of such fund reaches 50% of its registered capital. Where the statutory reserve fund is insufficient to cover any loss the PRC subsidiary incurred in the previous financial year, its current financial year’s accumulated after-tax profits shall first be used to cover the loss before any statutory reserve fund is drawn therefrom. Such statutory reserve funds and the accumulated after-tax profits that are used for covering the loss cannot be distributed to us as dividends. At their discretion, our PRC subsidiaries may allocate a portion of their after-tax profits based on Chinese accounting standards to a discretionary reserve fund.

​

Renminbi is not freely convertible into other currencies. As result, any restriction on currency exchange may limit the ability of our PRC subsidiaries to use any future Renminbi revenues to pay dividends to us. The Chinese government imposes controls on the convertibility of Renminbi into foreign currencies and, in certain cases, the remittance of currency out of China. Shortages in availability of foreign currency may then restrict the ability of our PRC subsidiaries to remit sufficient foreign currency to our offshore entities for our offshore entities to pay dividends or make other payments or otherwise to satisfy our foreign-currency-denominated obligations. The Renminbi is currently convertible under the “current account,” which includes dividends, trade and service-related foreign exchange transactions, but not under the “capital account,” which includes foreign direct investment and foreign currency debt, including loans we may secure for our onshore subsidiaries. Currently, our PRC subsidiaries may purchase foreign currency for settlement of “current account transactions,” including payment of dividends to us, without the approval of SAFE by complying with certain procedural requirements. However, the relevant Chinese governmental authorities may limit or eliminate our ability to purchase foreign currencies in the future for current account transactions. Any existing and future restrictions on currency exchange may limit our ability to utilize revenue generated in Renminbi to fund our business activities outside of China or pay dividends in foreign currencies to holders of our Ordinary Shares. Foreign exchange transactions under the capital account remain subject to limitations and require approvals from, or registration with, SAFE and other relevant Chinese governmental authorities. This could affect our ability to obtain foreign currency through debt or equity financing for our subsidiaries.

​

In response to the persistent capital outflow in China and Renminbi’s depreciation against the U.S. dollar in the fourth quarter of 2016, PBOC and SAFE have promulgated a series of capital controls in early 2017, including stricter vetting procedures for domestic companies to remit foreign currency for overseas investments, dividends payments and shareholder loan repayments.

​

The Chinese government may continue to strengthen its capital controls, and more restrictions and substantial vetting processes may be put forward by SAFE for cross-border transactions falling under both the current account and the capital account. Any limitation on the ability of our PRC subsidiaries to pay dividends or make other kinds of payments to us could materially and adversely limit our ability to grow, make investments or acquisitions that could be beneficial to our business, pay dividends or otherwise fund and conduct our business.

​

On January 12, 2022, Beijing Baosheng received a final judgment from the intermediate court, upholding the original judgment issued on July 30, 2021. According to the original judgment, Beijing Baosheng is required to pay the plaintiff RMB10,739,877 (approximately $1,685,321) and court expenses of RMB71,421 (approximately $11,207). In addition, Beijing Baosheng is required to pay the plaintiff RMB28,192 (approximately $4,434) of interest and the court enforcement fee of RMB78,211 (approximately $12,273). On February 8, 2022, the final judgment was enforced by the court with a total of RMB10,917,701 (approximately $1,713,225) being withdrawn from one of the frozen bank accounts of Beijing Baosheng, the bank account at Bank of Hangzhou, which bank account was unfrozen afterwards, and which amount was applied to the satisfaction of such judgment and the payment in full of the related fees and expenses. As confirmed by Beijing Baosheng’s PRC counsel, the Freezing Order (including the freezing of Beijing Baosheng’s equity interests in Horgos Baosheng and Kashi Baosheng) will be reversed and all of the impacted assets will be unfrozen, accordingly. As of the date of this annual report, three out of the four frozen accounts have been unfrozen and the unfreezing procedure for the remaining one account is still in progress, which is expected to be completed by the end of July 2022. Additionally, the unfreezing procedure related to Beijing Baosheng’s equity interests in Horgos Baosheng and Kashi Baosheng is still in progress. We expect that the impacted equity interests will be unfrozen in August 2022.

​

32

Table of Contents

Ms. Wenxiu Zhong executed the Guarantee Letter on April 2, 2020. Pursuant to the Guarantee Letter, Ms. Wenxiu Zhong promised to unconditionally, irrevocably and personally bear any and all the economic expenses and losses actually incurred by Beijing Baosheng, Baosheng Hong Kong, and the Company in connection with the Equity Ownership Dispute and the Contractual Dispute, including, but not limited to, the amount of damages imposed by the courts, court expenses and attorney fees.

​

Accordingly, Beijing Baosheng requested Ms. Wenxiu Zhong to perform her obligations under the Guarantee Letter by reimbursing Beijing Baosheng’s litigation costs, including, but not limited to, the amount of damages imposed by the courts, court expenses, and attorney fees. As of March 10, 2022, as promised by the Guarantee Letter, Ms. Zhong had made the payment in cash of RMB11,053,940 (approximately $1,734,604) to Beijing Baosheng. Such payment made by Ms. Zhong includes the amount paid to Ms. Chen Chen as ordered by the courts plus interest as well as the court expense, attorney fee, and court enforcement fee.

​

Failure to comply with PRC regulations relating to the establishment of offshore special purpose companies by PRC residents may subject our PRC resident Shareholders to personal liability, may limit our ability to acquire PRC companies or to inject capital into our PRC subsidiaries, may limit the ability of our PRC subsidiaries to distribute profits to us or may otherwise materially and adversely affect us.

​

Pursuant to the Circular on relevant issues concerning Foreign Exchange Administration of Overseas Investment and Financing and Return Investments Conducted by Domestic Residents through Overseas Special Purpose Vehicle (《关于境内居民通过特殊目的公司境外投融资及返程投资外汇管理有关问题的通知》) (“Circular 37”), which was promulgated by SAFE, and became effective on July 4, 2014, (1) a PRC resident must register with the local SAFE branch before he or she contributes assets or equity interests in an overseas special purpose vehicle, or an Overseas SPV, that is directly established or indirectly controlled by the PRC resident for the purpose of conducting investment or financing; and (2) following the initial registration, the PRC resident is also required to register with the local SAFE branch for any major change, in respect of the Overseas SPV, including, among other things, a change in the Overseas SPV’s PRC resident shareholder, name of the Overseas SPV, term of operation, or any increase or reduction of the contributions by the PRC resident, share transfer or swap, and merger or division. Additionally, pursuant to the Circular of SAFE on Further Simplifying and Improving the Direct Investment-related Foreign Exchange Administration Policies (《关于进一步简化和改进直接投资外汇管理政策的通知》) (“Circular 13”), which was promulgated on February 13, 2015 and became effective on June 1, 2015, the aforesaid registration shall be directly reviewed and handled by qualified banks in accordance with the Circular 13, and SAFE and its branches shall perform indirect regulation over the foreign exchange registration via qualified banks.

​

Ms. Wenxiu Zhong, Mr. Sheng Gong and Mr. Hui Yu have completed the initial foreign exchange registration on January 9, 2019. As it remains unclear how Circular 37 and Circular 13 will be interpreted and implemented, and how or whether SAFE will apply them to us. Therefore, we cannot predict how they will affect our business operations or future strategies. For example, the ability of our present and prospective PRC subsidiaries to conduct foreign exchange activities, such as the remittance of dividends and foreign currency-denominated borrowings, may be subject to compliance with Circular 37 and Circular 13 by our PRC resident beneficial holders. In addition, as we have little control over either our present or prospective, direct or indirect Shareholders or the outcome of such registration procedures, we cannot assure you that these Shareholders who are PRC residents will amend or update their registration as required under Circular 37 and Circular 13 in a timely manner or at all. Failure of our present or future shareholders who are PRC residents to comply with Circular 37 and Circular 13 could subject these shareholders to fines or legal sanctions, restrict our overseas or cross-border investment activities, limit the ability of our PRC subsidiaries to make distributions or pay dividends or affect our ownership structure, which could adversely affect our business and prospects.

​

You may be subject to PRC income tax on dividends from us or on any gain realized on the transfer of our Ordinary Shares.

​

Under the EIT Law and its implementation rules, subject to any applicable tax treaty or similar arrangement between the PRC and your jurisdiction of residence that provides for a different income tax arrangement, PRC withholding tax at the rate of 10.0% is normally applicable to dividends from PRC sources payable to investors that are non-PRC resident enterprises, which do not have an establishment or place of business in China, or which have such establishment or place of business if the relevant income is not effectively connected with the establishment or place of business. Any gain realized on the transfer of shares by such investors is subject to 10.0% PRC income tax if such gain is regarded as income derived from sources within China unless a treaty or similar arrangement otherwise provides. Under the Individual Income Tax Law of the PRC (《中华人民共和国个人所得税法》) and its implementation rules, dividends from sources within China paid to foreign individual investors who are not PRC residents are generally subject to a PRC withholding tax at a rate of 20% and gains from PRC sources realized by such investors on the transfer of shares are generally subject to 20% PRC income tax, in each case, subject to any reduction or exemption set forth in applicable tax treaties and PRC laws.

33

Table of Contents

There is a risk that we will be treated by the PRC tax authorities as a PRC tax resident enterprise. In that case, any dividends we pay to our Shareholders may be regarded as income derived from sources within China and we may be required to withhold a 10.0% PRC withholding tax for the dividends we pay to our investors who are non-PRC corporate Shareholders, or a 20.0% withholding tax for the dividends we pay to our investors who are non-PRC individual Shareholders, including the holders of our Shares. In addition, our non-PRC Shareholders may be subject to PRC tax on gains realized on the sale or other disposition of our Shares, if such income is treated as sourced from within China. It is unclear whether our non-PRC Shareholders would be able to claim the benefits of any tax treaties between their tax residence and China in the event that we are considered as a PRC resident enterprise. If PRC income tax is imposed on gains realized through the transfer of our Shares or on dividends paid to our non-resident investors, the value of your investment in our Shares may be materially and adversely affected. Furthermore, our Shareholders whose jurisdictions of residence have tax treaties or arrangements with China may not qualify for benefits under such tax treaties or arrangements.

​

We may be unable to complete a business combination transaction efficiently or on favorable terms due to complicated merger and acquisition regulations and certain other PRC regulations.

​

On August 8, 2006, six PRC regulatory authorities, including MOFCOM, the State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, SAT, the Administration for Industry and Commerce (“SAIC”), the China Securities Regulatory Commission (“CSRC”) and SAFE, jointly issued the Regulations on Mergers and Acquisitions of Domestic Enterprises by Foreign Investors (《关于外国投资者并购境内企业的规定》) (the “M&A Rules”), which became effective on September 8, 2006 and was amended in June 2009. The M&A Rules, governing the approval process by which a PRC company may participate in an acquisition of assets or equity interests by foreign investors, requires the PRC parties to make a series of applications and supplemental applications to the government agencies, depending on the structure of the transaction. In some instances, the application process may require presentation of economic data concerning a transaction, including appraisals of the target business and evaluations of the acquirer, which are designed to allow the government to assess the transaction. Accordingly, due to the M&A Rules, our ability to engage in business combination transactions has become significantly more complicated, time-consuming and expensive, and we may not be able to negotiate a transaction that is acceptable to our Shareholders or sufficiently protect their interests in a transaction.

​

The M&A Rules allow PRC government agencies to assess the economic terms of a business combination transaction. Parties to a business combination transaction may have to submit to MOFCOM and other relevant government agencies an appraisal report, an evaluation report and the acquisition agreement, all of which form part of the application for approval, depending on the structure of the transaction. The M&A Rules also prohibit a transaction at an acquisition price obviously lower than the appraised value of the business or assets in China and in certain transaction structures, require that consideration must be paid within defined periods, generally not in excess of a year. In addition, the M&A Rules also limit our ability to negotiate various terms of the acquisition, including aspects of the initial consideration, contingent consideration, holdback provisions, indemnification provisions and provisions relating to the assumption and allocation of assets and liabilities. Transaction structures involving trusts, nominees and similar entities are prohibited. Therefore, such regulation may impede our ability to negotiate and complete a business combination transaction on legal and/or financial terms that satisfy our investors and protect our Shareholders’ economic interests.

​

We face uncertainties with respect to indirect transfers of equity interests in PRC resident enterprises by their non-PRC holding companies.

​

SAT released a circular on December 15, 2009 that addresses the transfer of shares by nonresident companies, generally referred to as Circular 698. Circular 698, which became effective retroactively to January 1, 2008, may have a significant impact on many companies that use offshore holding companies to invest in China. Circular 698 has the effect of taxing foreign companies on gains derived from the indirect sale of a PRC company. Where a foreign investor indirectly transfers equity interests in a PRC resident enterprise by selling the shares in an offshore holding company, and the latter is located in a country or jurisdiction that has an effective tax rate less than 12.5% or does not tax foreign income of its residents, the foreign investor must report this indirect transfer to the tax authority in charge of that PRC resident enterprise. Using a “substance over form” principle, the PRC tax authority may disregard the existence of the overseas holding company if it lacks a reasonable commercial purpose and was established for the purpose of avoiding PRC tax. As a result, gains derived from such indirect transfer may be subject to PRC withholding tax at a rate of up to 10.0%.

​

34

Table of Contents

SAT subsequently released public notices to clarify issues relating to Circular 698, including the Announcement on Several Issues concerning the EIT on the Indirect Transfers of Properties by Nonresident Enterprises (《关于非居民企业间接转让财产企业所得税若干问题的公告》) (the “SAT Notice 7”), which became effective on February 3, 2015. SAT Notice 7 abolished the compulsive reporting obligations originally set out in Circular 698. Under SAT Notice 7, if a non-resident enterprise transfers its shares in an overseas holding company, which directly or indirectly owns PRC taxable properties, including shares in a PRC company, via an arrangement without reasonable commercial purpose, such transfer shall be deemed as indirect transfer of the underlying PRC taxable properties. Accordingly, the transferee shall be deemed as a withholding agent with the obligation to withhold and remit the EIT to the competent PRC tax authorities. Factors that may be taken into consideration when determining whether there is a “reasonable commercial purpose” include, among other factors, the economic essence of the transferred shares, the economic essence of the assets held by the overseas holding company, the taxability of the transaction in offshore jurisdictions, and economic essence and duration of the offshore structure. SAT Notice 7 also sets out safe harbors for the “reasonable commercial purpose” test.

​

On October 17, 2017, SAT released the Notice on Several Issues concerning the Withholding and Collection of Income Tax of Non-resident Enterprises from the Source (《关于非居民企业所得税源泉扣缴有关问题的公告》) (“SAT Notice 37”). SAT Notice 37 clarifies: (1) matters concerning the withholding and collection of corporate income tax, and property transfer of non-resident enterprises based on the EIT Law; (2) the currencies required to be used by the withholding agents (when the payments is made in a currency rather than RMB), as well as the time, venue and business for the performance of the withholding and collection obligations; and (3) the abolishment of Circular 698.

​

There is little guidance and practical experience regarding the application of SAT Notice 7 and SAT Notice 37 and the related SAT notices. Moreover, the relevant authority has not yet promulgated any formal provisions or formally declared or stated how to calculate the effective tax rates in foreign tax jurisdictions. As a result, due to our complex offshore restructuring, we may become at risk of being taxed under SAT Notice 7 and SAT Notice 37 and we may be required to expend valuable resources to comply with SAT Notice 7 and SAT Notice 37 or to establish that we should not be taxed under SAT Notice 7 and SAT Notice 37, which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

​

You may have difficulty effecting service of legal process, enforcing judgments or bringing actions against us and our management.

​

We are an exempted Cayman Islands holding company. In addition, substantially all of our assets and some of the assets of our directors and executive officers are located in the PRC. As a result, investors may not be able to effect service of process upon us or our directors and executive officers.

​

Further, China has not entered into treaties or arrangements providing for the recognition and enforcement of judgments made by courts of most other jurisdictions. Any final judgment obtained against us in any court other than the courts of the PRC in connection with any legal suit or proceeding arising out of or relating to our Ordinary Shares will be enforced by the courts of the PRC without further review of the merits only if the court of the PRC in which enforcement is sought is satisfied that:

​

​

​

​

​

If you fail to establish the foregoing to the satisfaction of the courts in the PRC, you may not be able to enforce a judgment against us rendered by a court in the United States.

​

35

Table of Contents

Further, pursuant to the Civil Procedures Law of the PRC, any matter, including matters arising under U.S. federal securities laws, in relation to assets or personal relationships may be brought as an original action in China, only if the institution of such action satisfies the conditions specified in the Civil Procedures Law of the PRC. As a result of the conditions set forth in the Civil Procedures Law and the discretion of the PRC courts to determine whether the conditions are satisfied and whether to accept action for adjudication, there remains uncertainty as to whether an investor will be able to bring an original action in a PRC court based on U.S. federal securities laws.

​

U.S. regulatory bodies may be limited in their ability to conduct investigations or inspections of our operations in China.

​

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), the U.S. Department of Justice and other U.S. authorities may also have difficulties in bringing and enforcing actions against us or our directors or executive officers in the PRC. The SEC has stated that there are significant legal and other obstacles to obtaining information needed for investigations or litigation in China. China has recently adopted a revised securities law that became effective on March 1, 2020, Article 177 of which provides, among other things, that no overseas securities regulator is allowed to directly conduct investigation or evidence collection activities within the territory of the PRC. Accordingly, without governmental approval in China, no entity or individual in China may provide documents and information relating to securities business activities to overseas regulators when it is under direct investigation or evidence discovery conducted by overseas regulators, which could present significant legal and other obstacles to obtaining information needed for investigations and litigation conducted outside of China.

​

Recent joint statement by the SEC and the PCAOB proposed rule changes submitted by Nasdaq, and the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act all call for additional and more stringent criteria to be applied to emerging market companies upon assessing the qualification of their auditors, especially the non-U.S. auditors who are not inspected by the PCAOB. These developments could add uncertainties to our offering.

​

On April 21, 2020, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton and PCAOB Chairman William D. Duhnke III, along with other senior SEC staff, released a joint statement highlighting the risks associated with investing in companies based in or have substantial operations in emerging markets including China. The joint statement emphasized the risks associated with lack of access for the PCAOB to inspect auditors and audit work papers in China and higher risks of fraud in emerging markets.

​

On May 18, 2020, Nasdaq filed three proposals with the SEC to (i) apply a minimum offering size requirement for companies primarily operating in a “Restrictive Market,” (ii) adopt a new requirement relating to the qualification of management or the board of directors for Restrictive Market companies, and (iii) apply additional and more stringent criteria to an applicant or listed company based on the qualifications of the company’s auditor.

​

On May 20, 2020, the U.S. Senate passed the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, or the HFCAA, requiring a foreign company to certify it is not owned or controlled by a foreign government if the PCAOB is unable to audit specified reports because the company uses a foreign auditor not subject to PCAOB inspection. If the PCAOB is unable to inspect the company’s auditors for three consecutive years, the issuer’s securities are prohibited to trade on a national exchange. On December 2, 2020, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the HFCAA. On December 18, 2020, the HFCAA was signed into law. On March 24, 2021, the SEC adopted interim final rules relating to the implementation of certain disclosure and documentation requirements of the HFCAA. On June 22, 2021, the U.S. Senate passed a bill which, if passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and signed into law, would reduce the number of consecutive non-inspection years required for triggering the prohibitions under the HFCAA from three years to two and thus, would reduce the time before our Ordinary Shares may be prohibited from trading or delisted.

​

The lack of access to the PCAOB inspection in China prevents the PCAOB from fully evaluating audits and quality control procedures of the auditors based in China. As a result, investors may be deprived of the benefits of such PCAOB inspections. The inability of the PCAOB to conduct inspections of auditors in China makes it more difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of these accounting firm’s audit procedures or quality control procedures as compared to auditors outside of China that are subject to the PCAOB inspections, which could cause investors and potential investors in our Ordinary Shares to lose confidence in our audit procedures and reported financial information and the quality of our financial statements.

​

On December 2, 2021, the SEC adopted amendments to finalize rules implementing the HFCAA, requiring the SEC to prohibit an issuer’s securities from trading on any U.S. stock exchanges if its auditor is not subject to PCAOB inspections for two consecutive years instead of three.

36

Table of Contents

​

On December 16, 2021, the PCAOB issued a Determination Report which found that the PCAOB is unable to inspect or investigate completely registered public accounting firms headquartered in: (1) mainland China of the People’s Republic of China, because of a position taken by one or more authorities in mainland China; and (2) Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region and dependency of the PRC, because of a position taken by one or more authorities in Hong Kong. In addition, the Determination Report identified the specific registered public accounting firms which are subject to these determinations.

​

Our auditor, the independent registered public accounting firm that issues the audit report included elsewhere in this annual report, as an auditor of companies that are traded publicly in the United States and a firm registered with the PCAOB, is subject to laws in the United States pursuant to which the PCAOB conducts regular inspections to assess its compliance with the applicable professional standards and was not identified in the Determination Report as a firm subject to the PCAOB’s determination. Our auditor is headquartered in Manhattan, New York, and has been inspected by the PCAOB on a regular basis, with the last inspection in June 2018. Therefore, we believe that, as of the date of this annual report, our auditor is not subject to the determinations announced by the PCAOB on December 16, 2021 relating to the PCAOB’s inability to inspect or investigate completely registered public accounting firms headquartered in mainland China of the PRC or Hong Kong because of a position taken by one or more authorities in the PRC or Hong Kong.

​

However, we cannot assure you whether the national securities exchange we are listed on or regulatory authorities would apply additional and more stringent criteria to us after considering the effectiveness of our auditor’s audit procedures and quality control procedures, adequacy of personnel and training, or sufficiency of resources, geographic reach, or experience as it relates to our audit. In addition, the HFCAA, which requires that the PCAOB be permitted to inspect an issuer’s public accounting firm within two years, may result in the delisting of our Company in the future if the PCAOB is unable to inspect our accounting firm at such future time.

​

We may be exposed to liabilities under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and Chinese anti-corruption law.

​

We are subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (the “FCPA”), and other laws that prohibit improper payments or offers of payments to foreign governments and their officials and political parties by U.S. persons and issuers as defined by the statute for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business. We are also subject to Chinese anti-corruption laws, which strictly prohibit the payment of bribes to government officials. We have operations, agreements with third parties, and make sales in China, which may experience corruption. Our activities in China create the risk of unauthorized payments or offers of payments by one of the employees, consultants or distributors of our Company, because these parties are not always subject to our control.

​

Although we believe to date we have complied in all material respects with the provisions of the FCPA and Chinese anti-corruption law, our existing safeguards and any future improvements may prove to be less than effective, and the employees, consultants or distributors of our Company may engage in conduct for which we might be held responsible. Violations of the FCPA or Chinese anti-corruption law may result in severe criminal or civil sanctions, and we may be subject to other liabilities, which could negatively affect our business, operating results and financial condition. In addition, the government may seek to hold our Company liable for successor liability FCPA violations committed by companies in which we invest or that we acquire.

​

Because our business is conducted in RMB and the price of our Ordinary Shares is quoted in the U.S. dollar, changes in the exchange rate between RMB and the U.S. dollar may affect the value of your investments.

​

Our business is conducted in the PRC with our books and records maintained in RMB. However, the financial statements that we file with the SEC and provide to our shareholders are presented in the U.S. dollar. Changes in the exchange rate between RMB and the U.S. dollar affect the value of our assets and the results of our operations in the U.S. dollar. The exchange rate between RMB and the U.S. dollar is affected by, among other things, changes in the PRC’s political and economic conditions and perceived changes in the economy of the PRC and the United States. Any significant revaluation of the RMB may materially and adversely affect our cash flows, revenue and financial condition.

​

37

Table of Contents

Risks Related to Our Ordinary Shares

​

Our share price has recently declined substantially, and our ordinary shares could be delisted from the Nasdaq or trading could be suspended.

​

The listing of our ordinary shares on the Nasdaq Capital Market is contingent on our compliance with the Nasdaq Capital Market’s conditions for continued listing. On February 1, 2022, we received written notification (the “Notification Letter”) from the Nasdaq Stock Market LLC (“Nasdaq”) that we were not in compliance with the minimum bid price requirement of US$1.00 per share under the Nasdaq Listing Rules. In accordance with Nasdaq Listing Rules, we must regain compliance within 180 calendar days, or until August 1, 2022. To regain compliance, our ordinary shares must have a closing bid price of at least US$1.00 for a minimum of 10 consecutive business days. In the event we do not regain compliance by August 1, 2022, we may be eligible for an additional 180 calendar days to regain compliance or face delisting. On April 29, 2022, we held our 2022 annual general meeting of shareholders, during which our shareholders approved the proposal to effect a share consolidation at a ratio of 3.2-to-1 (the “Share Consolidation”). On May 11, 2022, our board of directors adopted resolutions to set the effective date of the Share Consolidation to May 24, 2022, and will be reflected with the Nasdaq Stock Market and in the marketplace at the opening of business on May 25, 2022.

​

We cannot assure you that we will be able to regain compliance with the minimum bid price requirement under the Nasdaq Listing Rules. Even if we are able to regain compliance, we cannot assure you that we will not receive other deficiency notifications from Nasdaq in the future. A decline in the closing price of our ordinary shares could result in a breach of the requirements for listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market. If we do not maintain compliance, Nasdaq could commence suspension or delisting procedures in respect of our ordinary shares. The commencement of suspension or delisting procedures by an exchange remains at the discretion of such exchange and would be publicly announced by the exchange. If a suspension or delisting were to occur, there would be significantly less liquidity in the suspended or delisted securities. In addition, our ability to raise additional necessary capital through equity or debt financing would be greatly impaired. Furthermore, with respect to any suspended or delisted ordinary shares, we would expect decreases in institutional and other investor demand, analyst coverage, market making activity and information available concerning trading prices and volume, and fewer broker-dealers would be willing to execute trades with respect to such ordinary shares. A suspension or delisting would likely decrease the attractiveness of our ordinary shares to investors and cause the trading volume of our ordinary shares to decline, which could result in a further decline in the market price of our ordinary shares.

​

Shares eligible for future sale may adversely affect the market price of our Ordinary Shares, as the future sale of a substantial amount of outstanding Ordinary Shares in the public marketplace could reduce the price of our Ordinary Shares.

​

The market price of our shares could decline as a result of sales of substantial amounts of our shares in the public market, or the perception that these sales could occur. In addition, these factors could make it more difficult for us to raise funds through future offerings of our Ordinary Shares. We cannot predict the effect, if any, market sales of shares held by our significant shareholders or any other shareholders or the availability of these shares for future sale will have on the market price of our ordinary shares.

​

A sale or perceived sale of a substantial number of our Ordinary Shares may cause the price of our Ordinary Shares to decline.

​

If our shareholders sell substantial amounts of our Ordinary Shares in the public market, the market price of our Ordinary Shares could fall. Moreover, the perceived risk of this potential dilution could cause shareholders to attempt to sell their shares and investors to short our Ordinary Shares. These sales also make it more difficult for us to sell equity-related securities in the future at a time and price that we deem reasonable or appropriate.

​

We cannot assure you that we will declare and distribute any dividends in the future.

​

Our historical dividend distribution should not be used as a reference or basis to determine the level of dividends that may be declared and paid by us in the future. A decision to declare and pay any dividends would require the recommendations of our board of directors and approval of our shareholders. Under the Articles, our directors have the power to pay interim dividends but only if they are justified by the position of our Company. The decision to pay dividends will be reviewed in light of the factors such as the results of operations, financial condition and position, and other factors deemed relevant. Any distributable profits that are not distributed in any given year may be retained and available for distribution in subsequent years. To the extent profits are distributed as dividends, such portion of profits will not be available to be reinvested in our operations. There can be no assurance that we will be able to declare or distribute

38

Table of Contents

any dividend. Our future declarations of dividends will be at the absolute discretion of our board of directors. You may not realize a return on your investment in our Ordinary Shares and you may even lose your entire investment in our Ordinary Shares.

​

For as long as we are an emerging growth company, we will not be required to comply with certain reporting requirements, including those relating to accounting standards and disclosure about our executive compensation, that apply to other public companies.

​

In April 2012, President Obama signed into law the JOBS Act. We are classified as an “emerging growth company” under the JOBS Act. For as long as we are an emerging growth company, which may be up to five full fiscal years, unlike other public companies, we will not be required to, among other things, (i) provide an auditor’s attestation report on management’s assessment of the effectiveness of our system of internal control over financial reporting pursuant to Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, (ii) comply with any new requirements adopted by the PCAOB requiring mandatory audit firm rotation or a supplement to the auditor’s report in which the auditor would be required to provide additional information about the audit and the financial statements of the issuer, (iii) provide certain disclosure regarding executive compensation required of larger public companies or (iv) hold nonbinding advisory votes on executive compensation. We will remain an emerging growth company for up to five years, although we will lose that status sooner if we have more than $1.07 billion of revenues in a fiscal year, have more than $700 million in market value of our Ordinary Shares held by non-affiliates, or issue more than $1.0 billion of non-convertible debt over a three-year period.

​

To the extent that we rely on any of the exemptions available to emerging growth companies, you will receive less information about our executive compensation and internal control over financial reporting than issuers that are not emerging growth companies. If some investors find our Ordinary Shares to be less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our Ordinary Shares and our stock price may be more volatile.

​

If we fail to establish and maintain proper internal financial reporting controls, our ability to produce accurate financial statements or comply with applicable regulations could be impaired.

​

Pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, we are required to file a report by our management on our internal control over financial reporting, including an attestation report on internal control over financial reporting issued by our independent registered public accounting firm. However, while we remain an emerging growth company, we will not be required to include an attestation report on internal control over financial reporting issued by our independent registered public accounting firm. The presence of material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting could result in financial statement errors which, in turn, could lead to errors in our financial reports and/or delays in our financial reporting, which could require us to restate our operating results. We might not identify one or more material weaknesses in our internal controls in connection with evaluating our compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In order to maintain and improve the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures and internal controls over financial reporting, we need to expend significant resources and provide significant management oversight. Implementing any appropriate changes to our internal controls may require specific compliance training of our directors and employees, entail substantial costs in order to modify our existing accounting systems, take a significant period of time to complete and divert management’s attention from other business concerns. These changes may not, however, be effective in maintaining the adequacy of our internal control.

​

If we are unable to conclude that we have effective internal controls over financial reporting, investors may lose confidence in our operating results, the price of the Ordinary Shares could decline and we may be subject to litigation or regulatory enforcement actions. In addition, if we are unable to meet the requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Ordinary Shares may not be able to remain listed on Nasdaq Capital Market.

​

As a foreign private issuer, we are not subject to certain U.S. securities law disclosure requirements that apply to a domestic U.S. issuer, which may limit the information publicly available to our shareholders.

​

Because we qualify as a foreign private issuer under the Exchange Act, we are exempt from certain provisions of the securities rules and regulations in the United States that are applicable to U.S. domestic issuers, including:

​

​

39

Table of Contents

​

​

​

​

We are required to file an annual report on Form 20-F within four months of the end of each fiscal year. However, the information we are required to file with or furnish to the SEC will be less extensive and less timely compared to that required to be filed with the SEC by U.S. domestic issuers. As a result, you may not be afforded the same protections or information that would be made available to you were you investing in a U.S. domestic issuer.

​

As a foreign private issuer, we are permitted to adopt certain home country practices in relation to corporate governance matters that differ significantly from the Nasdaq Stock Market corporate governance listing standards. These practices may afford less protection to shareholders than they would enjoy if we complied fully with corporate governance listing standards.

​

As a foreign private issuer, we are permitted to take advantage of certain provisions in the Nasdaq Stock Market listing rules that allow us to follow Cayman Islands law for certain governance matters. Certain corporate governance practices in the Cayman Islands may differ significantly from corporate governance listing standards as, except for general fiduciary duties and duties of care, Cayman Islands law has no corporate governance regime which prescribes specific corporate governance standards. When our Ordinary Shares are listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market, we intend to continue to follow Cayman Islands corporate governance practices in lieu of the corporate governance requirements of the Nasdaq Stock Market in respect of the following: (i) the majority independent director requirement under Section 5605(b)(1) of the Nasdaq Stock Market listing rules, (ii) the requirement under Section 5605(d) of the Nasdaq Stock Market listing rules that a compensation committee comprised solely of independent directors governed by a compensation committee charter oversee executive compensation, (iii) the requirement under Section 5605(e) of the Nasdaq Stock Market listing rules that director nominees be selected or recommended for selection by either a majority of the independent directors or a nominations committee comprised solely of independent directors and (iv) the requirement under Section 5605(b)(2) of the Nasdaq Stock Market listing rules that our independent directors hold regularly scheduled executive sessions. Cayman Islands law does not impose a requirement that our board of directors consist of a majority of independent directors. Nor does Cayman Islands law impose specific requirements on the establishment of a compensation committee or nominating committee or nominating process. Therefore, our shareholders may be afforded less protection than they otherwise would have under corporate governance listing standards applicable to U.S. domestic issuers.

​

We may lose our foreign private issuer status in the future, which could result in significant additional costs and expenses.

​

As discussed above, we are a foreign private issuer, and therefore, we are not required to comply with all of the periodic disclosure and current reporting requirements of the Exchange Act. The determination of foreign private issuer status is made annually on the last business day of an issuer’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter. We would lose our foreign private issuer status if, for example, more than 50% of our Ordinary Shares are directly or indirectly held by residents of the U.S. and we fail to meet additional requirements necessary to maintain our foreign private issuer status. If we lose our foreign private issuer status on this date, we will be required to file with the SEC periodic reports and registration statements on U.S. domestic issuer forms, which are more detailed and extensive than the forms available to a foreign private issuer. We will also have to mandatorily comply with U.S. federal proxy requirements, and our officers, directors and principal shareholders will become subject to the short-swing profit disclosure and recovery provisions of Section 16 of the Exchange Act. In addition, we will lose our ability to rely upon exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements under the Nasdaq listing rules. As a U.S. listed public company that is not a foreign private issuer, we will incur significant additional legal, accounting and other expenses that we will not incur as a foreign private issuer, and accounting, reporting and other expenses in order to maintain a listing on a U.S. securities exchange.

​

40

Table of Contents

The requirements of being a public company may strain our resources and divert management’s attention.

​

As a public company, we are subject to the reporting requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the listing requirements of Nasdaq, and other applicable securities rules and regulations. Despite recent reforms made possible by the JOBS Act, compliance with these rules and regulations will nonetheless increase our legal, accounting, and financial compliance costs and investor relations and public relations costs, make some activities more difficult, time-consuming or costly and increase demand on our systems and resources, particularly after we are no longer an “emerging growth company.” The Exchange Act requires, among other things, that we file annual, quarterly, and current reports with respect to our business and operating results as well as proxy statements.

​

As a result of disclosure of information in this annual report on Form 20-F and in filings required of a public company, our business and financial condition are more visible, which we believe may result in threatened or actual litigation, including by competitors and other third parties. If such claims are successful, our business and operating results could be harmed, and even if the claims do not result in litigation or are resolved in our favor, these claims, and the time and resources necessary to resolve them, could divert the resources of our management and adversely affect our business, brand and reputation and results of operations.

​

Being a public company and these new rules and regulations will make it more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to accept reduced coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain coverage. These factors could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified members of our board of directors, particularly to serve on our audit committee and compensation committee, and qualified executive officers.

​

The laws of the Cayman Islands may not provide our shareholders with benefits comparable to those provided to shareholders of corporations incorporated in the United States. For instance, you may face difficulties in protecting your interests, and your ability to protect your rights through U.S. courts may be limited, because we are incorporated under Cayman Islands law.

​

Our corporate affairs are governed by our amended and restated memorandum and articles of association, by the Companies Act (2021 Revision) of the Cayman Islands and by the common law of the Cayman Islands. The rights of shareholders to take action against our directors, actions by minority shareholders and the fiduciary responsibilities of our directors to us under Cayman Islands law are to a large extent governed by the common law of the Cayman Islands. The common law in the Cayman Islands is derived in part from comparatively limited judicial precedent in the Cayman Islands and from English common law. Decisions of the Privy Council (which is the final Court of Appeal for British Overseas Territories such as the Cayman Islands) are binding on a court in the Cayman Islands. Decisions of the English courts, and particularly the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal are generally of persuasive authority but are not binding in the courts of the Cayman Islands. Decisions of courts in other Commonwealth jurisdictions are similarly of persuasive but not binding authority. The rights of our shareholders and the fiduciary responsibilities of our directors under Cayman Islands law are not as clearly established as they would be under statutes or judicial precedents in the United States. In particular, the Cayman Islands has a less developed body of securities laws relative to the United States. Some U.S. states, such as Delaware, have more fully developed and judicially interpreted bodies of corporate law than the Cayman Islands. In addition, Cayman Islands companies may not have standing to initiate a shareholder derivative action in a federal court of the United States.

​

Shareholders of Cayman Islands exempted companies like us have no general rights under Cayman Islands law to inspect corporate records (other than copies of the memorandum and articles of association, the register of mortgages and charges, and any special resolutions passed by the shareholders) or to obtain copies of lists of shareholders of these companies. Our directors have discretion under our articles of association to determine whether or not, and under what conditions, our corporate records may be inspected by our shareholders, but are not obliged to make them available to our shareholders. This may make it more difficult for you to obtain the information needed to establish any facts necessary for a shareholder motion or to solicit proxies from other shareholders in connection with a proxy contest.

​

Certain corporate governance practices in the Cayman Islands, which is our home country, differ significantly from requirements for companies incorporated in other jurisdictions such as the United States. If we choose to follow home country practice in the future, our shareholders may be afforded less protection than they otherwise would under rules and regulations applicable to U.S. domestic issuers.

​

As a result of all of the above, our public shareholders may have more difficulty in protecting their interests in the face of actions taken by management, members of the board of directors or controlling shareholders than they would as public shareholders of a company incorporated in the United States.

41

Table of Contents

​

If we cannot satisfy, or continue to satisfy, the continued listing requirements and other rules of the Nasdaq Capital Market, our securities may be delisted, which could negatively impact the price of our securities and your ability to sell them.

​

Our securities are listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market. We cannot assure you that our securities will continue to be listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market. In order to maintain our listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market, we are required to comply with certain rules, including those regarding minimum stockholders’ equity, minimum share price, minimum market value of publicly held shares, and various additional requirements. Even if we initially meet the listing requirements and other applicable rules of the Nasdaq Capital Market, we may not be able to continue to satisfy these requirements and applicable rules. If we are unable to satisfy the criteria for maintaining our listing, our securities could be subject to delisting.

​

If our securities are subsequently delisted from trading, we could face significant consequences, including:

​

​

​

​

​

​

You may be unable to present proposals before annual general meetings or extraordinary general meetings not called by shareholders.

​

Cayman Islands law provides shareholders with only limited rights to requisition a general meeting, and does not provide shareholders with any right to put any proposal before a general meeting. These rights, however, may be provided in a company’s articles of association. Our articles of association allow our shareholders holding shares representing in aggregate not less than one-third (1/3) of our voting share capital in issue, to requisition a general meeting of our shareholders. Advance notice of at least seven clear days is required for any general meeting of our shareholders. A quorum required for a meeting of shareholders consists of at least one shareholder present or by proxy, representing not less than one-third of the total issued shares carrying the right to vote at a general meeting of the Company.

​

The obligation to disclose information publicly may put us at a disadvantage to competitors that are private companies.

​

We have become a public company in the United States. As a public company, we will be required to file periodic reports with the SEC upon the occurrence of matters that are material to our Company and shareholders. Although we may be able to attain confidential treatment of some of our developments, in some cases, we will need to disclose material agreements or results of financial operations that we would not be required to disclose if we were a private company. Our competitors may have access to this information, which would otherwise be confidential. This may give them advantages in competing with our Company. Similarly, as a U.S. public company, we will be governed by U.S. laws that our competitors, which are mostly private Chinese companies, are not required to follow. To the extent compliance with U.S. laws increases our expenses or decreases our competitiveness against such companies, our public company status could affect our results of operations.

​

42

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

We are subject to certain legal and operational risks associated with our subsidiaries’ operations in China, which could cause the value of our Ordinary Shares to significantly decline or be worthless and could lead to our Ordinary Shares being unable to continue listing on a foreign exchange. PRC laws and regulations governing our current business operations are sometimes vague and uncertain, and therefore, they may impose risks that could result in material changes in our subsidiaries’ operations, significant depreciation of the value of our Ordinary Shares, or a complete hindrance of our ability to offer, or continue to offer, our securities to investors. Recently, the PRC government initiated a series of regulatory actions and statements to regulate business operations in China with little advance notice, including cracking down on illegal activities in the securities market, enhancing supervision over China-based companies listed overseas using variable interest entity structures, adopting new measures to extend the scope of cybersecurity reviews, and expanding the efforts in anti-monopoly enforcement. As confirmed by our PRC counsel, Beijing Dacheng, we are not subject to cybersecurity review with the CAC if the draft Measures for Cybersecurity Censorship become effective as they are published, because our customers are mainly enterprises in China and we currently do not have over one million users’ personal information and do not anticipate that we will be collecting over one million users’ personal information in the foreseeable future, which we understand might otherwise subject us to the draft Measures for Cybersecurity Censorship. Since these statements and regulatory actions are new, however, it is highly uncertain how soon legislative or administrative regulation making bodies will respond and what existing or new laws or regulations or detailed implementations and interpretations will be modified or promulgated, if any, and the potential impact such modified or new laws and regulations will have on our daily business operation, our ability to accept foreign investments, or our ability to continue to be listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market. See “Item 3. Key Information—D. Risk Factors—Risks Related to Doing Business in China—Recent greater oversight by the CAC over data security, particularly for companies seeking to list on a foreign exchange, could adversely impact our business and our offering.”

Pursuant to the HFCAA, the PCAOB issued a Determination Report on December 16, 2021 which found that the PCAOB is unable to inspect or investigate completely registered public accounting firms headquartered in: (1) mainland China of the People’s Republic of China because of a position taken by one or more authorities in mainland China; and (2) Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region and dependency of the PRC, because of a position taken by one or more authorities in Hong Kong. In addition, the PCAOB’s report identified the specific registered public accounting firms which are subject to these determinations. Our auditor, Friedman LLP, the independent registered public accounting firm that issues the audit report included in this annual report, as an auditor of companies that are traded publicly in the United States and a firm registered with the PCAOB, is subject to laws in the United States pursuant to which the PCAOB conducts regular inspections to assess Friedman LLP’s compliance with applicable professional standards. Friedman LLP is headquartered in Manhattan, New York with no branches or offices outside the United States and has been inspected by the PCAOB on a regular basis, with the last inspection in June 2018. Therefore, we believe that, as of the date of this annual report, our auditor is not subject to the determinations announced by the PCAOB on December 16, 2021 relating to the PCAOB’s inability to inspect or investigate completely registered public accounting firms headquartered in mainland China of the PRC or Hong Kong because of a position taken by one or more authorities in the PRC or Hong Kong. See “Item 3. Key Information—D. Risk Factor— Risks Related to Doing Business in China—Recent joint statement by the SEC and the PCAOB proposed rule changes submitted by Nasdaq, and the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act all call for additional and more stringent criteria to be applied to emerging market companies upon assessing the qualification of their auditors, especially the non-U.S. auditors who are not inspected by the PCAOB. These developments could add uncertainties to our offering.” and “Item 3. Key Information—D. Risk Factor— Risks Related to our Ordinary Shares— If we cannot satisfy, or continue to satisfy, the continued listing requirements and other rules of the Nasdaq Capital Market, our securities may be delisted, which could negatively impact the price of our securities and your ability to sell them.”

44

Table of Contents

Permission Required from PRC Authorities

​

We are currently not required to obtain permission from any of the PRC authorities to operate and issue our Ordinary Shares to foreign investors. In addition, we and our subsidiaries are not required to obtain permission or approval relating to our Ordinary Shares from the PRC authorities, including the CSRC and the CAC, for our subsidiaries’ operations, nor have we or our subsidiaries received any denial of any permission for our subsidiaries’ operations. Recently, however, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council jointly issued the Opinions, which were made available to the public on July 6, 2021. The Opinions emphasized the need to strengthen the administration over illegal securities activities and the supervision over overseas listings by Chinese companies. The Opinions proposed to take effective measures, such as promoting the construction of relevant regulatory systems, to deal with the risks and incidents facing China-based overseas-listed companies and the demand for cybersecurity and data privacy protection. The aforementioned policies and any related implementation rules to be enacted, which may take place quickly with little advance notice, may subject us to additional compliance requirements in the future. Given the current regulatory environment in the PRC, we remain subject to the uncertainty as to whether different interpretations and enforcement of the rules and regulations in the PRC may have an adverse impact on us and our operations. See “Item 3. Key Information—D. Risk Factors—Risks Related to Doing Business in China—The Opinions on Severely Cracking Down on Illegal Securities Activities According to Law recently issued by the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council may subject us to additional compliance requirement in the future.”

​

Dividends and other distributions

​

We are a holding company, and we may rely on dividends and other distributions on equity paid by our PRC subsidiaries for our cash and financing requirements, including the furnishing of funds necessary to pay dividends and other cash distributions to our shareholders or to service any debt we may incur. If any of our PRC subsidiaries incurs debt on its own behalf in the future, the instruments governing such debt may restrict their ability to pay dividends to us. There have not been any such dividends or other distributions from our PRC subsidiaries to our subsidiaries located outside of China, as of the date of this annual report. In addition, as of the date of this annual report, none of our subsidiaries have ever issued any dividends or distributions to us or their respective shareholders outside of China, and neither we nor any of our subsidiaries have ever paid dividends or made distributions to U.S. investors. As of the date of this annual report, neither we nor any of our subsidiaries have ever paid dividends or made distributions to U.S. investors. Our Hong Kong holding subsidiary, Baosheng HK received cash of $38.3 million from us, which represented proceeds raised in the initial public offering of our Ordinary Shares in February 2021, and the private placement of our Ordinary Shares and warrants in March 2021. In addition to the forgoing, on March 16, 2021, Baosheng HK transferred cash of $6 million, in the form of shareholder loans, to its wholly owned subsidiary, Beijing Baosheng. In April 2021 and August 2021, Baosheng HK transferred cash in the aggregate of $30.79 million, in the form of capital contributions, to its wholly owned subsidiary, Baosheng Network. In the future, cash proceeds raised from overseas financing activities may be transferred by us to our PRC subsidiaries by means of capital contributions or shareholder loans, as the case may be. Notwithstanding the recent judgment against Beijing Baosheng, described more particularly under “Item 4. Information on the Company—B. Business Overview — Legal Proceedings,” we do not expect that the court’s ruling will impact the cash transferring through the organization.

​

According to the Foreign Investment Law of the People’s Republic of China and its implementing rules, which jointly established the legal framework for the administration of foreign-invested companies, a foreign investor may, in accordance with other applicable laws, freely transfer into or out of China its contributions, profits, capital earnings, income from asset disposal, intellectual property rights, royalties acquired, compensation or indemnity legally obtained, and income from liquidation, made or derived within the territory of China in RMB or any foreign currency, and any entity or individual shall not illegally restrict such transfer in terms of the currency, amount and frequency. According to the Company Law of the People’s Republic of China and other Chinese laws and regulations, our PRC subsidiaries may pay dividends only out of their respective accumulated profits as determined in accordance with Chinese accounting standards and regulations. In addition, each of our PRC subsidiaries is required to set aside at least 10% of its accumulated after-tax profits, if any, each year to fund a certain statutory reserve fund, until the aggregate amount of such fund reaches 50% of its registered capital. Where the statutory reserve fund is insufficient to cover any loss the PRC subsidiary incurred in the previous financial year, its current financial year’s accumulated after-tax profits shall first be used to cover the loss before any statutory reserve fund is drawn therefrom. Such statutory reserve funds and the accumulated after-tax profits that are used for covering the loss cannot be distributed to us as dividends. At their discretion, our PRC subsidiaries may allocate a portion of their after-tax profits based on Chinese accounting standards to a discretionary reserve fund.

45

Table of Contents

Renminbi is not freely convertible into other currencies. As result, any restriction on currency exchange may limit the ability of our PRC operating subsidiaries to use their potential future Renminbi revenues to pay dividends to us. The Chinese government imposes controls on the convertibility of Renminbi into foreign currencies and, in certain cases, the remittance of currency out of China. Shortages in availability of foreign currency may then restrict the ability of our PRC subsidiaries to remit sufficient foreign currency to our offshore entities for our offshore entities to pay dividends or make other payments or otherwise to satisfy our foreign-currency-denominated obligations. The Renminbi is currently convertible under the “current account,” which includes dividends, trade and service-related foreign exchange transactions, but not under the “capital account,” which includes foreign direct investment and foreign currency debt, including loans we may secure for our onshore subsidiaries. Currently, our PRC subsidiaries may purchase foreign currency for settlement of “current account transactions,” including payment of dividends to us, without the approval of SAFE by complying with certain procedural requirements. However, the relevant Chinese governmental authorities may limit or eliminate our ability to purchase foreign currencies in the future for current account transactions. The Chinese government may continue to strengthen its capital controls, and additional restrictions and substantial vetting processes may be instituted by SAFE for cross-border transactions falling under both the current account and the capital account. Any existing and future restrictions on currency exchange may limit our ability to utilize revenue generated in Renminbi to pay dividends in foreign currencies to holders of our securities. Foreign exchange transactions under the capital account remain subject to limitations and require approvals from, or registration with, SAFE and other relevant Chinese governmental authorities. This could affect our ability to obtain foreign currency through debt or equity financing for our subsidiaries. See “Item 3. Key Information—D. Risk Factors—Risks Related to Doing Business in China—We may rely on dividends paid by our subsidiaries for our cash needs, and any limitation on the ability of our subsidiaries to make payments to us could have a material adverse effect on our ability to conduct business.” for a detailed discussion of the Chinese legal restrictions on the payment of dividends and our ability to transfer cash within our group. In addition, holders of our Ordinary Shares may potentially be subject to Chinese taxes on dividends paid by us in the event we are deemed a Chinese resident enterprise for Chinese tax purposes. See “Item 10. Additional Information—E. Taxation—People’s Republic of China Taxation” for more details.

B. Business Overview

​

We are an online marketing solution provider based in China. We are dedicated to helping our advertiser clients manage their online marketing activities with a view to achieving their business goals. We advise advertisers on online marketing strategies, offer value-added advertising optimization services and facilitate the deployment of online ads of various forms such as search ads, in-feed ads, mobile app ads and social media marketing ads. At the same time, as the authorized agency of some popular online media, such as sm.cn (神马), UC browsers (UC浏览器), and Today’s Headline (今日头条), we help online media procure advertisers to buy their ad inventory and facilitate ad deployment on their advertising channels.

​

Relying on our management’s extensive industry experience, deep industry insights and well-established network of media resources, we have grown rapidly from a start-up online marketing agency founded in 2014 to a multi-channel online marketing solution provider.

​

We help advertisers formulate their online advertising strategies, optimize their ads and run their ads on suitable online advertising channels with a view to achieving their business goals. We have built a broad and diverse advertiser base across various industries, including ecommerce and online service platforms, online travel agencies, financial services, online gaming, car services and other advertising agencies. We believe our ability to attract and retain these advertisers reflects the high level of our services, which is essential to our business growth.

​

Our business value chain. As an online advertising service provider, we regard our business values as revolving around our ability to serve the needs of two major business stakeholders: (i) advertisers; and (ii) media (or their authorized agencies).

​

​

​

46

Table of Contents

Our advertising services. We offer two types of advertising services, SEM services, and Non-SEM services. Our SEM services include the deployment of ranked search ads and other display search ads offered by search engine operators. Our Non-SEM services, on the other hand, include social media marketing, in-feed advertising, and mobile app advertising through deploying ads on media such as social media platforms, short-video platforms, news portals and mobile apps. The display forms of our Non-SEM ads include in-feed ads, banner ads, button ads, interstitial ads, and posts on selected social media accounts.

​

Set forth below is a summary of the relevant ad formats, the corresponding pricing models generally adopted by media and our revenue model:

​

We have successfully implemented our business model, and our business experienced substantial growth from our inception to December 31, 2020, before we experienced negative growth in 2021. Our gross billing decreased from $202.7 million in 2019 to $134.9 million in 2020, representing a decrease of 33.5%, and decreased to $54.7 million in 2021, representing a decrease of 59.4%. In the meantime, the media costs have decreased from $184.9 million in 2019 to $123.0 million in 2020 and decreased to $50.8 million in 2021, representing a decrease of 33.5% and a decrease of 58.7%, respectively. Our revenue on a net basis (i.e. difference between gross billing and media costs) has decreased, in tandem with the growth of our advertiser base and their advertising spend, from $17.8 million in 2019 to $11.9 million in 2020, and decreased further to $3.9 million in 2021, representing a decrease of 33.3% and a decrease of 67.2%, respectively.

​

47

Table of Contents

Our Business Model

​

Business value chain

​

As an online advertising service provider, we regard our business values as revolving around our ability to serve the needs of two major business stakeholders: (i) advertisers; and (ii) media (or their authorized agencies).

​

​

​

48

Table of Contents

The following is a simplified graphical illustration of our business value chain and the interrelationships among advertisers, media and advertising agencies:

​

​

As illustrated in the chart above, in cases where we have direct access to media’s ad inventory, for instance as their authorized agency, we acquire ad inventory directly from the relevant media for our advertisers, which include both (i) direct advertisers; and (ii) third party advertising agencies which do not have direct access to the relevant ad inventory and wish to place ads for their advertisers through us. Meanwhile, we may receive rebate and incentives from the media for selling their ad inventory.

​

When we do not have direct access to certain media’s ad inventory, we can acquire such ad inventory for our advertisers from other third-party advertising agencies which have direct access, for instance, advertising agencies which are authorized agencies of certain media. Again, we may receive rebate and incentives from such advertising agencies for procuring buyer to acquire ad inventory through them.

​

Based on the above business value chain, we generate revenue typically (i) in the form of rebates and incentives we earn from media (or their authorized agencies) for procuring advertisers to place ads with them, or (ii) in the form of net fees we earn from advertisers when we purchase ad inventory on their behalf and provide advertising services to them.

​

Accordingly, both advertisers or media (or their authorized agencies) can be identified as our customers, depending on the revenue model applicable to the relevant services we provide. See “— Revenue model and payment cycle” in this section for further details.

​

Advertisers

​

Through our PRC subsidiaries, we have built a broad and diverse advertiser base from a broad range of industries, including ecommerce and online service platforms, online travel agencies, financial services, online gaming, car services, and advertising agencies, among others.

​

49

Table of Contents

Certain of our advertisers carry well-known brands, such as C-trip (携程), Bilibili (B站), Wedding Expo (婚博会), 5I5J Realty (我爱我家), T3Go (南京领行), Snack Video (达佳互联), Kaikeba (开课吧) and i-9game (爱九游). We believe our ability to attract and retain them is testament to of our service capability and critical to our business growth. During the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019, the number of advertisers we served decreased slightly from 438 in 2019 to 410 in 2020, and increased to 462 in 2021. Our gross billing decreased from $202.7 million in 2019 to $134.9 million in 2020, and decreased further to $54.7 million in 2021. Our top five advertisers contributed to 44.8%, 47.5% and 37.7% of our total gross billing in the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively.

​

The table below sets out the breakdown of our gross billing by industries of our advertisers:

​

​

Our Media

​

We have established and maintained collaborative relationships (either directly or through their authorized agencies) with a wide range of media such as search engines, short-video platforms, social media platforms, as well as agencies of KOLs, which enable us to offer our advertisers a diverse choices of ad formats, including search ads, in-feed ads (i.e. ads that match the format, appearance and function of the media format in which they appear), mobile app ads and social media ads on an array of advertising channels.

​

We act as the authorized agency for a number of media during the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019, and will endeavor to secure new authorized agency status with media in the future. With our authorized agency status, we can offer our advertisers with direct access for placements of ads.

​

50

Table of Contents

Set forth below is a summary of the media for which we have secured authorized agency status during the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019 and up to the date of this annual report, and which we consider to be significant to our business operations:

​

​

To the best of our understanding and based on our experience, certain media may require their authorized agencies to place deposits as payment security and/or to signify the authorized agencies’ commitment in procuring certain minimum amount of ad inventory purchases and/or advertising spend for their advertisers. We determine the amount of deposits and the term of deposits based on the contractual terms with relevant media. These media typically require deposits in the amount of 5% to 10% of the minimum amount of ad inventory purchases and/or advertising spend, which will be refunded to us upon the expiration of the agreement if ad purchases and/or advertising spend our advertisers place with such media reach the minimum requirement. In our agreements with the advertisers seeking to purchase ad inventory from these media, we require the advertisers to pay deposits in the same amount required to be paid to the media, which will be refunded to the advertisers if the minimum requirement for ad inventory purchase and/or advertising spend is fulfilled. From time to time we may pay such deposits on behalf of our advertisers for our own as well as our advertisers’ ease of administrative management. In such cases, depending on the background of such advertisers and our relationship with them, we may or may not require our advertisers to place deposits to us on a back-to-back basis. We determine whether to pay deposits on behalf of an advertiser based on several factors including, but not limited to, the advertiser’s credit history, reputation in the industry, and the amount of ad inventory the advertiser purchases through the current order or has purchased in the past. We pay deposits on behalf of roughly 10% of our advertisers, and the amount of such deposits are about 25% of total deposits to be paid to media.

​

When we contemplate a potential partnership as an authorized agency of a media, we generally take into consideration various factors, including but not limited to:

​

​

51

Table of Contents

​

​

​

​

Overlapping of our advertisers and media (or their authorized agencies)

​

As an industry practice, some ad inventory is only available through the relevant media’s authorized agencies a result of the media’s own policies or practices. Thus, advertising agencies may tap into the marketing channels possessed by other advertising agencies to gain access to a wider array of online media.

​

In our ordinary course of business, we may procure ad inventory on behalf of our advertisers from, and facilitate sales of ad inventory of media which we have authorized agency relationship with to, the same company in the following circumstances:

​

​

​

As a result of the foregoing, we had 2, 6 and 9 overlapping advertisers and media (which were mostly third-party advertising agencies) that we both procured ad inventory from and facilitated sales of ad inventory to in the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively. The table below summarizes the aggregate gross billing and media cost attributable to such overlapping advertisers and media (or their authorized agencies) in the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019.

​

​

Our procurement of ad inventories from these overlapping advertisers and media (or their authorized agencies) and our procurement of advertisers to purchase ad inventories from these overlapping advertisers and media (or their authorized agencies) were neither inter-connected nor inter-conditional with each other, and were negotiated and conducted independently with each other in the ordinary course of business under normal commercial terms and on an arm’s length basis.

​

Revenue Model and Payment Cycle

​

Our revenue is comprised primarily of (a) rebates and incentives offered by media (or their authorized agencies); and (b) net fees earned from advertisers. We determine the type of our revenue based on the contractual terms with relevant advertisers and media (or their authorized agents) and the nature of the business transactions, and we recognize the corresponding revenue when the related services are delivered. In business transactions where we receive rebates and incentives from media (or their authorized agencies), we are rewarded for assuming the role as sales agents of media (with which we have authorized agency arrangements) or other third-party advertising agencies (which are in turn authorized agencies of the relevant media), and these rebates and incentives are recognized as revenue for our provision of such sales agency services. Conversely, in cases where we procure advertising services or ad inventory from media (or other advertising/KOL agents and service providers) on behalf of our advertisers, we are rewarded for the arrangements of advertising services on behalf of our advertisers (but not as principal to the arrangements) such as sourcing and procuring ad inventory and executing ad placements, and we report our revenue earned and costs incurred in these transactions on a net basis as net fees from advertisers.

​

52

Table of Contents

The following table sets forth a breakdown of our revenues during the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019 by revenue model:

​

​

Rebates and incentives from publishers

​

In the arrangements with certain media or their authorized agencies, we typically receive rebates and incentives for procuring advertisers to acquire the relevant media’s ad inventory, and we recognize these media (or their authorized agencies) as our customers. On the other hand, to encourage advertisers to subscribe our services and acquire their desired ad inventories through us, we may also offer rebates to our advertisers for their acquisition of ad inventory and/or incurrence of advertising spend. Our revenue is recognized as the rebates and incentives we receive from media (or their authorized agencies) net of any rebates we offer to our advertisers. This revenue model is more commonly applicable in connection with our provision of SEM services and certain in-feed ad services, with major media including search engines, social media platforms and newsfeed platforms.

​

The following is a simplified illustration of our rebates and incentives revenue model:

​

Rebates and incentives offered by media (or their authorized agencies)

​

The rebates and incentives we earn from media (or their authorized agencies) come with a variety of structures and rates, which are primarily determined based on the contract terms with these media (or their authorized agencies) and their applicable rebate policies. Occasionally, media may also offer additional discretionary incentives to encourage their authorized agencies to achieve certain benchmarks according to the media’s then sales and marketing goals.

​

53

Table of Contents

Set forth below are some of the more typical structures of rebates and incentives that media (or their authorized agencies) offered to us during the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019:

​

​

​

​

​

​

The rates offered to us by media (or their authorized agencies) are based on the contractual terms and typically range from 5% to 20%.

​

These rebates and incentives may (i) take the form of cash which, when paid, are typically applied to set off our accounts payable with the relevant media or their authorized agency; or (ii) in the form of ad currency units which will be deposited in the account we maintained in the back-end platform of the media, and can then be utilized to fulfill our advertisers’ orders for purchases of ad currency units, or as our rebates offered to our advertisers. These rebates and incentives are generally ascertained and settled on a quarterly or annual basis.

​

Rebates offered by us to advertisers

​

We may offer rebates to our advertisers in the form of ad currency units, or cash discounts which can be used to offset future payments with us.

​

The rates of rebates we offer to our advertisers are determined by us on a case by case basis, generally with reference to the rebates and incentives we obtain from the relevant media (or its authorized agency), an advertiser’s committed total spend, and our business relationships with such advertiser.

​

Net fees from advertisers

​

Under our net fees revenue model, we are rewarded for our services provided to advertisers, which typically include, among other things, sourcing and procurement of ad inventory and advertising services on behalf of our advertisers with costs incurred in connection thereto. Under this revenue model, since we are not the principal in these arrangements, we report our revenue earned and costs incurred in these transactions on a net basis as net fees from advertisers and we recognize our advertisers as our customers.

​

This revenue model is more commonly applicable in connection with our provision of mobile app ad services and social media marketing services. We determine the gross fees we charge our advertisers on a client-by-client and campaign-by-campaign basis primarily based on the corresponding media and other advertising service costs and our targeted fee margin.

​

54

Table of Contents

The following is a simplified illustration of our net fees revenue model:

​

​

Payment Cycle

​

As described in “— Our services and operational flow” in this section below, we typically effect payments to media (or their authorized agencies and other advertising service providers) on behalf of our advertisers. We issue billing to our advertisers for our gross fees and/or payments we make on their behalf, and receive billing from media (or their authorized agencies and other advertising service providers) for acquisition of their advertising services and ad inventory. In this regard, the payment cycle of our business typically involves receivables and settlements from advertisers for our gross fees and/or the amounts we pay on their behalf, and payables and settlements with media (or their authorized agencies and other advertising service providers) for acquisition of their advertising services and ad inventory.

​

55

Table of Contents

The following table sets out a general summary of our receipts and pay-outs with our advertisers and media, our two major stakeholders:

​

For our SEM services, we are generally granted credit periods of up to 90 days by media (or their authorized agencies) for settlement of payments on acquisition of ad inventory on behalf of our advertisers. For our non-SEM services, given the variety of types and nature of media and service providers involved, credit terms granted to us by these media (or other advertising service providers) for settlement of payments on acquisition of advertising services and ad inventory are more diverse, which may range from prepayments to 180 days. For our non-SEM services, the most common credit terms granted to us by media for our in-feed ad services are 180 days, and media for our mobile app ad services and social media ad services typically require prepayments.

​

On the other hand, we may grant credit terms of up to 180 days to our advertisers in settlement of our billing to them (i.e., payments made on their behalf for acquisition of ad currency units, ad inventory and other advertising services). When considering whether credit terms are to be granted to our advertisers and the duration of credit terms to be granted, we generally take into account a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, the scale and profile of our advertisers’ businesses, their length of business relationships with us, the media of their choices, their budgeted or committed total advertising spend, their financial conditions, their past legal proceedings, their reputation in the industry, and their historical settlement records. For advertisers with new or relatively short business history with us, we may require prepayments or deposits from our advertisers.

​

It should be noted that the above credit periods are primarily applicable to payments we make on behalf of our advertisers to media (or their authorized agencies and other service providers) for acquisition of their advertising services and ad inventory. In respect of our revenue, the specific credit terms for rebates and incentives from media (or their authorized agencies) are subject to the terms in our written contracts with them, and they are typically settled either by direct set-off of our accounts payable with them (in case of cash rebates and incentives) or through deposits of ad currency units into our accounts maintained with them (in case of in-kind rebates and incentives). Depending on the media, rebates and incentives we receive from media are settled on a quarterly or a yearly basis and at the beginning of the following quarter or following year. For revenue in the form of net fees, given that they represent the difference between the gross fees we charge our advertisers and the media costs incurred on their behalves, credit terms would correspond to our payments made to media (and other advertising/KOL agencies and service providers) and payments received from advertisers as described in the preceding paragraphs.

​

The following table illustrates the major composition of our accounts receivable and accounts payable generally corresponding to our business:

​

Our Services and Operational Flow

​

Ad formats for which we offer our advertising services

​

We offer online advertising services for ads typically in the forms of search ads, in-feed ads, mobile app ads, and social media ads.

​

56

Table of Contents

Search ads

​

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of internet marketing that involves the promotion of the advertisers’ products or services by increasing the visibility of their ads on the search result pages or the derivative products of search engine operators, typically triggered by a keyword searching action initiated by the user of the search engine.

​

Generally, search ads may take the form of (i) ranked search ads, which are typically ads displayed among the search results triggered by and directly relevant to a user’s keyword searches, and are typically bought through an auction-based model; or (ii) display search ads that appear in other positions (such as the margin) of a search results page, which are more typically bought through a non-auctioned based model.

​

In an auction-based model, advertisers typically place bids for a higher likelihood to have their ads displayed in the top positions of the search results page to potentially obtain more clicks on their ad. Under this model, ad inventory is typically priced under a “cost per click” (“CPC”) model, which means the advertisers will pay for every click on their ad. The cost is determined by several factors determined by the search engine’s algorithm, typically including the maximum bid, quality score, and the ad rank of other advertisers bidding for the same keyword. For non-auction based model, advertisers generally acquire an ad space on a search results page at a price which is usually determined under a “cost per time” (“CPT”) pricing model.

​

The following depicts samples of our search ad offerings:

​

​

​

57

Table of Contents

​

In-feed ads

​

In-feed ads are a form of display ads that blend into the environment they appear in, for instance, looking like part of the news feed on a news or social media webpage, or appearing as a video clip on a short-video sharing platform.

​

As a form of “precision marketing”, in-feed advertising pushes ads to viewers based on data collected that is relevant to the user’s interests and therefore improves the likelihood of delivering ads to the desired audience of the advertisers. Due to the nature of in-feed ads, optimization in their presentation based on the features of advertisers’ products and services, including factors such as the graphic design of ads and the selection of the target audience, time slots, geographic regions and tiers of cities to display the ads, plays a vital role in improving the likelihood to attract clicks.

​

58

Table of Contents

We have access to various in-feed advertising channels either directly with the media or with their authorized agencies. These channels include short-video sharing platforms such as Kuaishou and ByteDance, and various news portal and social media platforms.

​

The cost model for in-feed ads is mostly CPC and CPM.

​

59

Table of Contents

​

60

Table of Contents

​

The cost model for mobile app is normally CPT and CPA. CPA allows advertisers to pay for a specific action from a prospective customer where a payment is made only when a specific action takes place, such as download (also referred to as CPD), installation and activation.

​

Social media ads

​

With the emergence of popular online social media attracting numerous users, advertisers are increasingly receptive of the idea of identifying social media accounts that have influence over potential customers on these platforms, and orienting marketing activities around these KOLs. Our social media marketing services generally involves the design and implementation of creative advertising campaigns carried out on social media platforms through the use of influential social media accounts with suitable target audiences.

​

Our social media campaigns generally take the form of coordinated issuances of content on accounts in various popular media platforms, including popular social networking platforms, video sharing platforms, live-streaming platforms, knowledge sharing platforms and information content platforms, which are intended to reach the readers of the contents of these accounts. Depending on the advertisers’ marketing objectives, various types of social media accounts can be used, such as (i) the accounts of celebrities and famous bloggers who have many followers; (ii) the accounts of key opinion leaders who commands authority and influence in certain areas (such as fashion, cars); (iii) online publications; and (iv) “grass root” accounts within a more niche audience.

​

61

Table of Contents

​

To make a post on these social media accounts, we typically collaborate with various KOL agencies which own, manage, operate or have access to such social media accounts. We maintain a list of such KOL agencies, which are reviewed and updated from time to time based on our review of their service quality and their available resources. Generally, we enter into annual framework agreements with these KOL agencies setting out the major terms and administrative procedures for utilizing their social media accounts and KOL resources for ad deployments, and the respective rights and obligations of the parties.

​

​

​

62

Table of Contents

Our services and operational flow

​

The diagram below illustrates the major stages of operation flow for the delivery of our advertising services.

Acquiring advertisers

​

We acquire advertisers through various means, including (i) approaching potential advertisers based on market intelligence and our industry insights; (ii) exploit our industry connections to identify potential advertisers; (iii) reaching out to our existing advertisers to explore further business opportunities, and (iv) through referrals by our advertisers (including advertising agencies) and media. See “— Sales and marketing” in this section for details.

​

It is common in the advertising industry to have cross-referrals among advertising agencies to utilize each other’s media resources which are not available to the others. For instance, we have been engaged by advertising agencies from time to time for placement of ads with media for which we are authorized agency, and we treat these advertising agencies and our direct advertisers alike in terms of the services we offer. Similarly, we may approach other advertising agencies who act as authorized agencies or have direct access of other media to acquire ad inventory for our advertisers.

​

We would negotiate with the advertisers on the commercial terms of the engagement, then we would enter into legally-binding contracts (framework agreements or one-off agreements) for the provision of our services.

​

63

Table of Contents

We provide these advices and services on advertising strategies and ad optimization to our advertisers to improve the effectiveness of their ads, which we believe will serve to enhance our advertisers’ satisfaction, promote their stickiness with us, and encourage them to retain our services.

​

Campaign launch and performance review

​

After the advertising strategies and materials are agreed with our advertisers, the advertising campaign will be ready to be launched.

​

64

Table of Contents

Upon receiving our advertisers’ orders, we would proceed to make ad placement orders with the relevant media or caused ad currency units to be recorded in our advertisers’ accounts on behalf of our advertisers either directly in cases where we are an authorized agency of the relevant media or, in cases where we do not have direct access of the relevant media, through other advertising agencies acting as authorized agency of or having direct access to such media.

​

For auctioned-based ads (typically ranked search ads and certain in-feed ads), ad inventory is typically acquired through a bidding algorithm using “ad currency units”, a record of virtual currency purchased and recorded in the back-end platform of the media. We typically maintain accounts of ad currency units directly with media or indirectly with media’s authorized agencies on behalf of our advertisers. Ad currency units we purchase on behalf of our advertisers will be recorded in these ad currency accounts for use in bidding for ad inventory. When an ad was clicked or viewed, an amount of ad currency units which the advertiser bid will be deducted from the corresponding ad currency accounts. The advertiser can top up ad currency units in their ad currency accounts to keep the advertising campaign alive. When the balance in the ad currency accounts drops to zero, the campaign will go offline.

​

For non-auction-based ads (more commonly associated with display search ads, mobile app ads, certain in-feed ads and social media marketing ads), the costs of ad inventory are generally determined based on the ad placement order with reference to, among other things, the prices of the relevant ad inventory set by media, the form and length of exposure of the ads. The actual duration of an advertising campaign, on the other hand, will be determined by the advertiser with reference to its advertising budget and the actual advertising spend.

​

We have implemented measures to ensure that our ad content does not violate these laws and regulations. After we receive the ad content from our advertisers, it will be subject to a compliance review by our experienced employees. If we determine that the ad content does not violate any applicable laws and regulations, we will share the ad content with the relevant media for their internal review. If we determine that the ad content may be in violation of applicable laws or regulations, we will provide suggested edits to the ad content and send it back to the advertiser for revision. After both we and the media have determined that the ad content is in full compliance with applicable laws and regulations on information dissemination, we will confirm with the advertiser on its opinion with respect to the compliance prior to the deployment of the ad.

​

After an ad is launched, we monitor and assess the overall effectiveness of the advertising campaign in various dimensions, such as the click consumption of search ads, ad exposure of in-feed ads and the visibility and degree of customer engagement of social media campaigns.

​

Based on the above review, we may further advise our advertisers on advertising strategies and optimization refinements to continuously improve the effectiveness of their ad campaigns. We would update our advertisers of the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns. Review reports may be prepared to highlight our suggested optimization strategies. For social media campaigns, we may also issue closing reports to our advertisers to summarize the key ad deliverables (such as screen shots of the relevant social media accounts) and analyze the campaign effectiveness.

​

Customers

​

The identities of our customers vary depending on the type of revenue and the nature of the business transactions. Where we recognize rebates and incentives we earn from media (or their authorized agencies) as our revenue, our customers are the media or their authorized agencies. If we recognize net fees we earn for procuring advertising services and ad inventory from media (or other advertising service providers) on behalf of our advertisers, our customers are our advertisers.

​

65

Table of Contents

The table below summarizes our revenue model for different services:

​

Top customers

​

In 2019, our top five customers were Beijing Sogou Information Services Co., Ltd., Beijing Admatator Network Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Hetaolin Media Advertising Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Yichunqiu Technology Co., Ltd., and Beijing Yuetongzhike Network Technology Co., Ltd., representing 45.6%, 13.6%, 7.4%, 7.3% and 5.2% of our total revenue, respectively.

​

In 2020, our top five customers were Beijing Sogou Information Services Co., Ltd., Beijing Famous-Ad Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Yugang Information Technology Co., Ltd., Tianjin Infinite Network Technology Co., Ltd., and Aikuyou (Liaocheng) Information Technology Co., Ltd., representing 68.9%, 12.8%, 3.5%, 2.4% and 2.3% of our total revenue, respectively.

​

In 2021, our top five customers were Beijing Sogou Technology Development Co., Ltd, Hubei Toutiao Technology Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Juyao Information Technology Co., Ltd., Horgos Zhijiantiancheng Technology Co., Ltd., and Hangzhou Qubian Network Technology Co., Ltd., representing 41.8%, 28.1%, 16.5%, 7.6% and 2.0% of our total revenue, respectively.

​

Concentration of customers

​

41.0%, 61.9% and 54.8% of our gross billing, and 62.6%, 68.6% and 47.2% of our revenue, for the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively, were associated with our SEM services. We consider that the significance of our SEM services and our market presence as an advertising agency in this particular segment actually distinguishes us from many other market players engaging in the provision of online advertising agency services. That said, the search engine market in China demonstrates a highly concentrated feature on resource distribution. Very few search engines host the vast majority of online search traffics. As a result, search ad resources are concentrated on a few search engines. Accordingly, advertising service providers which offer SEM services will inevitably face customer concentration by the very nature of the market landscape. In addition, the fact that we were one of the authorized agencies of Sogou rendered us one of the go-to online advertising service providers for acquisition of ad inventory offered by Sogou, which further contributed to our customer concentration during the fiscal years 2020 and 2019.

​

Sogou, of which we were its authorized agency from 2016 to March 2021, had been our top customer during this period of time. The revenue contribution from Sogou had been stable during the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019, accounting for 41.8%, 68.9% and 45.6% of our revenue in the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively.

​

We have been actively expanding our advertiser base and other revenue sources, and at the same time identifying and securing authorized agency status with suitable media with a view to reducing our customer concentration and our risk of over-reliance on any particular customer. In this connection, we have successfully secured authorized agency status with other media. See “— Business model — Our media” in this section for further details of the media that we have secured authorized agency status and that we believe are significant to our business operations. On the other hand, the number of advertisers we served decreased slightly from 438 in 2019 to 410 in 2020, and increased to 462 in 2021. Our gross billing and revenue contribution from our non-SEM services decreased from $91.7 million and $9.4 million in 2019 to $51.4 million and $3.7 million in 2020, respectively, and decreased to $32.1 million and $1.5 million in 2021, respectively. We endeavor to continue our efforts in further diversifying our revenue and customer base, and we are confident that our added authorized agency status with other media would facilitate our efforts in expanding our revenue source and attract new advertisers.

​

66

Table of Contents

Suppliers

​

As we recognize all our revenue on a net basis as either rebates and incentives from media or net fees from advertisers, we do not have any significant suppliers and our cost of sales is mostly composed of our staff costs. For more details on our revenue model, see “— Revenue model and payment cycle” in this section.

​

Sales and Marketing

​

As of the date of this annual report, we had 12 employees in our sales and marketing teams who are mainly responsible for pitching and soliciting advertisers to place ads with media through us. They are tasked with growing and optimizing our advertiser base, understanding advertisers’ needs, and cultivating and maintaining relationships with such advertisers.

​

To grow our advertiser base, it is part of our strategy to identify rapidly expanding industry sectors which show a growing need of online advertising services by gathering and analyzing available market intelligence (such as third-party industry research reports, observation regarding ad placements on major media, news about rolling out of new online products and services). We generally prioritize our focus on the lead players in these targeted sectors and reach out to them with a view to introducing our services to them. On the other hand, our management and sales and marketing team has extensive experience in the online marketing industry. It is also our strategy to exploit such industry connections to enhance our visibility in the market and explore opportunities to reach potential advertisers.

​

We also acquire new business opportunities from our existing advertiser base. By keeping in touch with our existing advertisers, we are able to gain a deeper understanding of our advertisers’ latest business development and their specific advertising needs, and introduce services and ad inventory that are suitable for them.

​

While our business could come from direct marketing by contacting potential and existing advertisers, a significant portion of our business also come through various referral sources, with the most significant referrals coming from:

​

​

​

​

Supporting our sales and marketing team are our customer service team, which helps to offer online advertising services to our clients. Our customer service officers are responsible for supporting our advertisers in the ad placement process. They provide consultative services on advertising strategies, campaign planning, execution and post-launch review. We believe that the quality of our service enables us to develop deeper, longer-lasting relationships with our advertisers, identify new opportunities and win new advertisers.

​

67

Table of Contents

Competition

​

The online advertising services market in China is highly fragmented and competitive. Along with further consolidation of the market and the continuous innovation of marketing technologies, the concentration level of independent online advertising market is expected to increase gradually, as leading online marketing technology platforms are expected to take up higher market share in the future. Top-tier service providers with various distribution channels and technology advantages are expected to prevail in the future.

​

Online advertising service providers compete primarily on access to media resources, size of advertiser base, experience of management and service professionals, sufficiency of funding, quality of service, brand recognition, optimization capability, and technological competency. In addition to competition among online advertising service providers, the industry also faces competition from offline advertising through diversion of advertisers’ marketing budgets.

​

We believe we can effectively compete with other online advertising service providers with our broad and diverse advertiser base, established relationships with media and their authorized agencies, authorized agency status with popular media, and our experienced and visionary management team. Going forward, we endeavor to further enlarge our advertiser base and widen our access to media.

​

Intellectual Property

​

We regard our proprietary domain names, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and other intellectual property critical to our business operations. We rely on a combination of copyrights, trademarks and trade secret laws and restrictions on disclosure to protect our intellectual property.

​

As of the date of this annual report, we have registered:

​

​

​

​

We implement a set of comprehensive measures to protect our intellectual properties, in addition to making trademark and patent registration applications. Key measures include: (i) timely registration, filing and application for ownership of our intellectual properties, (ii) actively tracking the registration and authorization status of intellectual properties and take action in a timely manner if any potential conflicts with our intellectual properties are identified, (iii) clearly stating all rights and obligations regarding the ownership and protection of intellectual properties in all employment contracts and commercial contracts we enter into.

​

As of the date of this annual report, we have not been subject to any material dispute or claims for infringement upon third parties’ trademarks, licenses and other intellectual property rights in China.

​

Seasonality

​

We have experienced, and expect to continue to experience, seasonal fluctuations in our results of operations, due to seasonal changes in our advertisers’ budgets and spending on advertising campaigns. For example, our revenues tend to increase as advertising spend rises in holiday seasons with consumer holiday spending, or closer to end-of-year in fulfillment of their annual advertising budgets.

​

Insurance

​

We maintain certain insurance policies to safeguard us against risks and unexpected events. For example, we provide social security insurance including pension insurance, unemployment insurance, work-related injury insurance and medical insurance for our employees in compliance with applicable PRC laws. We do not maintain business interruption insurance or product liability insurance, which are not mandatory under PRC laws. We do not maintain key man insurance, insurance policies covering damages to our network infrastructures or information technology systems nor any insurance policies for our properties. During the fiscal years 2021, 2020 and 2019, we did not make any material insurance claims in relation to our business.

​

68

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

In 2019, Horgos Baosheng brought a breach of contract claim against Qingdao Xingyuan Automobile Information Technology Co., Ltd. (“Qingdao Xingyuan”) and sought recovery of RMB3.85 million in aggregate. On December 21, 2020, the reviewing court entered a judgment, ruling in favor of Horgos Baosheng and requiring Qingdao Xingyuan to compensate Horgos Baosheng RMB3.25 million and an extra penalty calculated based on the loan prime rate from August 28, 2019 to the actual date of payment. As of the date of this annual report, the judgment is under the stage of enforcement.

​

In April 2020, Beijing Baosheng brought a breach of contract claim against Guangzhou Aiyou Information Technology Co. Ltd. (“Guangzhou Aiyou”) and sought recovery of RMB1,255,000 in aggregate. On August 22, 2020, the Beijing arbitration committee entered a judgment, ruling in favor of Beijing Baosheng and requiring Guangzhou Aiyou to compensate Beijing Baosheng RMB1,255,000, with a penalty of RMB592,360, and an extra daily penalty of 0.05%, calculated from April 20, 2020 to the actual date of payment, and arbitration-related expenses. On November 17, 2020, Beijing Baosheng filed a request with Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court, seeking to mandatorily enforce the judgment. As of the date of this annual report, the judgment is under the stage of enforcement.

​

In June 2021, Baosheng Technology brought a breach of contract claim against Beijing 5198 Technology Co., Ltd. (“5198”) and Jiangxi Wanda Shikong Technology Co., Ltd. (“Wanda Shikong”) in the Beijing Haidian District People's Court through the first hearing and sought recovery of RMB5,933,200 (approximately $931,429) and related liquidated damages. 5198 and Wan Shikong had paid RMB5,000,000 (approximately $784,929) as a security deposit to Baosheng Technology, and Baosheng Technology believes that such security deposit can be used to offset the RMB5,933,200 recovery. In the meantime, we have requested the court to freeze the two bank accounts of 5198 and Wanda Shikong with a total amount of RMB378,337 (approximately $53,393). On March 7, 2022, the court held the second hearing. On April 20, 2022, taking into account the defendant parties’ financial situation as well as the long-term business relationship among the parties, Baosheng decided to withdraw its action against 5198 and only sought recovery of RMB370,000 (approximately $56,024) from Wanda Shikong. Wanda Shikong made no objection to the changed claims. Both parties agreed to resolve this dispute through court mediation. Subsequently, on April 24, 2022, the court issued a civil mediation statement confirming that the parties had reached the following agreement: (1) Wanda Shikong shall pay Beijing Baosheng RMB370,000 (approximately $56,024) by April 26, 2022, and (2) the litigation-related expenses shall be borne by Beijing Baosheng. As of the date of this annual report, Beijing Baosheng has not yet received the payment from Wanda Shikong.

​

In January 2022, Beijing Baosheng brought a breach of contract claim against Beijing Hekai Qianyu Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (“Hekai Qianyu”) and Beijing Zhigu Education Technology Co., Ltd. (“Zhigu Education”) and Mr. Hongpeng Yao (the legal representatives of both Hekai Qianyu and Zhigu Education) in the Beijing Dongcheng District People's Court and sought recovery of RMB756,000 (approximately $118,681) and related liquidated damages. Beijing Baosheng subsequently withdraw its action against Zhigu Education and agreed to resolve this dispute with the other two defendants through court mediation. On March 25, 2022, the court issued a civil mediation statement confirming that the parties had reached the following agreement: (1) Hekai Qianyu shall pay Beijing Baosheng RMB756,000 (approximately $118,681) by April 24, 2022, and in case of any late payment of the foregoing, an additional daily penalty calculated from April 25, 2022 to the actual date of payment shall be imposed; (2) Mr. Hongpeng Yao assumes jointly and several liability for the payment under item (1); and (3) the litigation-related expenses shall be borne by Hekai Qianyu and Mr. Hongpeng Yao. On April 25, 2022, Beijing Baosheng filed a request with the court, seeking to mandatorily enforce the settlement. As of the date of this annual report, Beijing Baosheng has not yet received any payment from the defendants.

​

In March 2022, Beijing Baosheng brought a breach of contract claim against Beijing Aipu New Media Technology Co., Ltd. (“Aipu”) in the Beijing Haidian District People's Court and sought recovery of RMB1,783,834.04 (approximately $270,102) and related liquidated damages. On March 14, 2022, Beijing Baosheng applied for reservation of Aipu’ s property in an amount of RMB1,783,834.04 (approximately $270,102) and said application was approved by the court on March 17, 2022. As of the date of this prospectus, Beijing Baosheng is waiting for the court’s notice on the following procedures.
​

Freezing Order

​

In the litigation process of the Contractual Dispute, Ms. Chen Chen requested Haidian Court to issue a freezing order and freeze the assets of Beijing Baosheng at the time of request, which were worth a total of RMB47.65 million. On July 25, 2019, Haidian Court issued freezing injunction, ordering the freezing of the assets of Beijing Baosheng, including cash in the amount of RMB47.7 million (the “Freezing Order”).

​

70

Table of Contents

Pursuant to the Freezing Order, Beijing Baosheng’s assets in the amount of RMB47.7 million were ordered to be frozen, including 100% of the equity interests in Horgos Baosheng and Kashi Baosheng, as well as four bank accounts of Beijing Baosheng.

​

Pursuant to applicable PRC laws and regulations, if a company’s equity interest is frozen by a court order, the company’s shareholders may be restricted in: (a) transferring or pledging the equity interest, (b) receiving dividends from the company, and (c) voting for the dissolution and winding up of the company, the forgiving of matured loans, or other decisions that may impact the value of equity interest of the company.

​

On January 12, 2022, Beijing Baosheng received a final judgment from the intermediate court, upholding the original judgment issued on July 30, 2021. According to the original judgment, Beijing Baosheng is required to pay the plaintiff RMB10,739,877 (approximately $1,685,321) and court expenses RMB71,421 (approximately $11,207). In addition, Beijing Baosheng is required to pay the plaintiff RMB28,192 (approximately US$4,424) of interest and court enforcement fee of RMB78,211 (approximately $12,273). On February 8, 2022, the final judgment was enforced by the court with a total of RMB10,917,701 (approximately $1,713,225) being withdrawn from one of the frozen bank accounts of Beijing Baosheng, the bank account at Bank of Hangzhou, which was unfrozen afterwards, and which amount was applied to the satisfaction of such judgment and the payment in full of the related fees and expenses.

​

As confirmed by Beijing Baosheng’s PRC counsel, the Freezing Order (including the freezing of Beijing Baosheng’s equity interests in Horgos Baosheng and Kashi Baosheng) will be reversed and all of the impacted assets will be unfrozen, accordingly. As of the date of this annual report, three out of the four frozen accounts have been unfrozen and the unfreezing procedure for the remaining one account is still in progress, which is expected to be completed by the end of July 2022. Additionally, the unfreezing procedure related to Beijing Baosheng’s equity interests in Horgos Baosheng and Kashi Baosheng is still in progress. We expect that the impacted equity interests will be unfrozen in August 2022.

​

As of May 16, 2022, the following assets of Beijing Baosheng were still frozen pursuant to the Freezing Order:

​

​

​

​

​

According to Ms. Wenxiu Zhong’s Guarantee Letter, Beijing Baosheng requested Ms. Wenxiu Zhong to fulfill her obligations under the Guarantee Letter by reimbursing Beijing Baosheng’s litigation costs, including, but not limited to, the amount of damages imposed by the courts, court expenses, attorney fees, and other reasonably related expenses. As of March 10, 2022, as promised by the Guarantee Letter, Ms. Zhong had made the payment in cash of RMB11,053,940 (approximately $1,734,604) to Beijing Baosheng. Such payment made by Ms. Zhong includes the amount paid to Ms. Chen Chen as ordered by the courts plus interest as well as the court expense, attorney fee, and court enforcement fee.

​

Regulation

​

This section sets forth a summary of the most significant rules and regulations that affect our business activities in China.

​

71

Table of Contents

Regulations relating to Advertising Businesses

​

The Advertising Law (《中华人民共和国广告法》) which was promulgated by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (“SCNPC”) on October 27, 1994 and amended on April 24, 2015, October 26, 2018 respectively and became effective on October 26, 2018, requires that advertisers, advertisement operators and advertisement publishers shall ensure that contents of advertisements produced or spread by them are true and totally comply with applicable laws and regulations, and contents of advertisements shall not include, inter alia, information which (1) damages the national dignity or interest, or involves state secrets; (2) contains such words as “national”, “highest level” and “the best”; and (3) involves ethnic, racial, religious and gender discrimination. In addition, advertisements with certain special contents shall be subject to government review prior to publication, and advertisement operators and advertisement publishers shall confirm that such review has been sufficiently implemented and relevant approvals have been obtained. Violation of the aforesaid requirements may lead to penalties, confiscation of advertising revenues, or being ordered to stop spreading the advertisement or to publish an advertisement for correcting any misleading information. If such case is serious, the industrial and commercial administration authority may order termination of advertising operation or cancelation of the business license.

​

The Interim Measures for the Administration of Internet Advertising (《互联网广告管理暂行办法》) which was promulgated by SAIC on July 4, 2016 and came into effect on September 1, 2016 governs all advertisements published on the Internet, including but not limited to advertisements in the form of text, image, audio and video which are published through website, web page and application. Internet advertisement operators and publishers shall not design, produce, provide agency services for or publish any false advertisement they know or should have known; shall establish a review and file management system, inspect and verify relevant supporting documents, and check contents of advertisements; and shall not design, produce, provide agency services for or publish any advertisement whose contents are untrue or without sufficient supporting documents.

​

Regulations relating to Internet Information Services

​

On September 25, 2000, the State Council of the People’s Republic of China (the “State Council”) promulgated the Administrative Measures on Internet Information Services (《互联网信息服务管理办法》) (the “Internet Measures”), which was later amended and became effective on January 8, 2011. Under the Internet Measures, internet information services are divided into profitable services and non-profitable services, a license requirement shall be satisfied before conducting profitable internet information service, and a filing requirement shall be satisfied before conducting non-profitable internet information service. The provision of information services through mobile apps is subject to the PRC laws and regulations governing Internet information services.

​

The content of the Internet information is highly regulated in China and pursuant to the Internet Measures, the PRC government may shut down the websites of internet information providers (for non-profitable Internet information services) if they produce, reproduce, disseminate or broadcast internet content that contains content that is prohibited by law or administrative regulations. Internet information services providers are also required to monitor their websites. They may not post or disseminate any content that falls within the prohibited categories, and must remove any such content from their websites, save the relevant records and make a report to the relevant governmental authorities. Additionally, as the Internet information service providers, under the Civil Code of the PRC (《中华人民共和国民法典》), which became effective on January 1, 2021, they shall bear tortious liabilities in the event they infringe upon other persons’ rights and interests. Where an internet service provider conducts tortious acts through internet services, the infringed person has the right to request the Internet service provider take necessary actions such as deleting contents, screening and de-linking. Failing to take necessary actions after being informed, the Internet service provider will be subject to its liabilities with regard to the additional damages incurred. Where an Internet service provider knows that an internet user is infringing upon other persons’ rights and interests through its Internet service but fails to take necessary actions, it is jointly and severally liable with the Internet user.

​

72

Table of Contents

Regulations relating to Information Security and Privacy Protection

​

Internet content in China is regulated and restricted from a state security standpoint. On December 28, 2000, the SCNPC enacted the Decisions on Maintaining Internet Security (《全国人民代表大会常务委员会关于维护互联网安全的决定》), later amended on August 27, 2009, which subject violators to criminal punishment in China for any effort to: (1) use the Internet to market fake and substandard products or carry out false publicity for any commodity or service; (2) use the Internet for the purpose of damaging the commercial goodwill and product reputation of any other person; (3) use the Internet for the purpose of infringing on the intellectual property of any person; (4) use the Internet for the purpose of fabricating and spreading false information that affects the trading of securities and futures or otherwise jeopardizes the financial order; or (5) create any pornographic website or webpage on the Internet, provide links to pornographic websites, or disseminate pornographic books and magazines, movies, audio-visual products, or images. Pursuant to the Administrative Measures for the Security Protection of Computer Information Networks Linked to the Internet (《计算机信息网络国际联网安全保护管理办法》) which was promulgated by the Ministry of Public Security (the “MPS”) on December 16, 1997 and later amended and became effective on January 8, 2011, the Internet is prohibited to be used in ways which, among other things, would result in a leakage of state secrets or a spread of socially destabilizing content. On December 13, 2005, the MPS promulgated the Provisions on the Technical Measures for the Protection of the Security of the Internet (《互联网安全保护技术措施规定》) which require internet service providers to take proper measures including anti-virus, data back-up and other related measures, to keep records of certain information about its users (including user registration information, log-in and log-out time, IP address, content and time of posts by users) for at least 60 days, and to detect illegal information, stop transmission of such information, and keep relevant records. If an internet information service provider violates these measures, the MPS and the local public security bureaus may recommend that the original certificate examination, approval and issuing organizations revoke its operating license and shut down its websites. Pursuant to the Circular of the MPS, the State Secrecy Bureau, the State Cipher Code Administration and the Information Office of the State Council on Printing and Distributing the Administrative Measures for the Graded Protection of Information Security (《公安部、国家保密局、国家密码管理局、国务院信息化工作办公室关于印发〈信息安全等级保护管理办法〉的通知》) which was promulgated on June 22, 2007, the state shall, by formulating nationally effective administrative norms and technical standards for the graded protection of information security, organize citizens, legal persons and other organizations to grade information systems and protect their security, and supervise and administer the graded protection work. The security protection grade of an information system may be classified into the five grades. To newly build an information system of Grade II or above, its operator or user shall, within 30 days after it is put into operation, handle the record-filing procedures at the local public security organ at the level of municipality divided into districts or above of its locality.

​

PRC governmental authorities have enacted laws and regulations on internet use to protect personal information from any unauthorized disclosure. On December 28, 2012, the SCNPC promulgated the Decision on Strengthening Network Information Protection (《关于加强网络信息保护的决定》), which became effective on the same day, to enhance the legal protection of information security and privacy on the Internet. On July 16, 2013, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the PRC (the “MIIT”) promulgated the Provisions on Protection of Personal Information of Telecommunication and Internet Users (《电信和互联网用户个人信息保护规定》) to regulate the collection and use of users’ personal information in the provision of telecommunication services and internet information services in China. Telecommunication business operators and internet service providers are required to establish its own rules for collecting and use of users’ information and cannot collect or use users’ information without users’ consent. Telecommunication business operators and internet service providers are prohibited from disclosing, tampering with, damaging, selling or illegally providing others with, collected personal information.

​

On November 7, 2016, the SCNPC published the Cyber Security Law of the PRC (《中华人民共和国网络安全法》), or the Cyber Security Law, which took effect on June 1, 2017 and requires network operators to perform certain functions related to cyber security protection and the strengthening of network information management. For instance, under the Cyber Security Law, network operators of key information infrastructure shall store within the territory of the PRC all the personal information and important data collected and produced within the territory of PRC and their purchase of network products and services that may affect national securities shall be subject to national cybersecurity review. Our PRC legal counsel, Beijing Dacheng, has advised us that, based on its understanding of the Cyber Security Law, we are not a network operator and not subject to the requirements imposed to network operators under the Cyber Security Law. However, as a non-network operator, like any individual or organization, we have an obligation under the Cyber Security Law not to acquire personal information by stealing or through other illegal means, or illegally sell or provide personal information to any other person. As of the date of this annual report, we are in material compliance with the Cyber Security Law, and this law has not had a significant impact on our business operations. However, our PRC legal counsel, Beijing Dacheng, has further

73

Table of Contents

advised us that there are uncertainties as to how the Cyber Security Law will be interpreted or amended by competent authorities in the future.

​

On April 13, 2020, the Cyberspace Administration of China and other departments issued Cybersecurity Review Measures (《网络安全审查办法》), which took effect on June 1, 2020, to provide for more detailed rules regarding cybersecurity review requirements.

​

Regulations relating to Intellectual Property Rights

​

Copyrights

​

In accordance with the Copyright Law of the PRC (《中华人民共和国著作权法》) promulgated by the SCNPC on September 7, 1990, last amended on February 26, 2010 and came into effect on April 1, 2010, Chinese citizens, legal persons or other entities own the copyright in their works whether published or not, including written works, oral works, music, comedy, arts of talking and singing, dance and acrobatics, work of art and architecture work, photographic works, cinematographic work and work created by the method similar to the film production method; engineering design drawing, product design drawing, map, sketch and other graphic works and model works, computer software and other works specified by laws and administrative regulations. The rights a copyright owner has include but not limited to the following rights of the person and property rights: the right of publication, right of authorship, right of modification, right of integrity, right of reproduction, distribution right, rental right, right of network communication, translation right and right of compilation.

​

In accordance with the Regulations on the Protection of Computer Software (《计算机软件保护条例》) promulgated by the State Council on December 20, 2001 and last amended on January 30, 2013, Chinese citizens, legal persons or other entities own the copyright, including the right of publication, right of authorship, right of modification, right of reproduction, distribution right, rental right, right of network communication, translation right and other rights software copyright owners shall have in software developed by them, regardless of whether it has been published. In accordance with the Measures for the Registration of Computer Software Copyright (《计算机软件著作权登记办法》) promulgated by the National Copyright Administration on April 6, 1992 and last amended on February 20, 2002, software copyrights, exclusive licensing contracts for software copyrights and software copyright transfer contracts may be registered, and the National Copyright Administration shall be the competent authority for the administration of software copyright registration and designates the Copyright Protection Center of China as a software registration authority. The Copyright Protection Center of China shall grant a registration certification to a computer software copyright applicant who complies with regulations.

​

Trademark

​

In accordance with the Trademark Law of the PRC (《中华人民共和国商标法》) (the “Trademark Law”), which was promulgated by the SCNPC on August 23, 1982 and came into effect on March 1, 1983, and was last amended on April 23, 2019 and came into effect on November 1, 2019, and the Regulations for the Implementation of the Trademark Law of the PRC (《中华人民共和国商标法实施条例》) which was promulgated by the State Council on August 3, 2002, came into effect on September 15, 2002 and was last amended on April 29, 2014 and came into effect on May 1, 2014, any trademark which is registered with the approval of the Trademark Office is a registered trademark, including commodity trademark, service trademark, collective trademark, certification trademark, and the trademark registrant has the exclusive right to use a registered trademark and such right is protected by law. A registered trademark is valid for a period of 10 years commencing from the date on which the registration is approved. Use of a trademark that is identical with or similar to a registered trademark, for the same kind of or similar commodities, without authorization of the trademark registrant, constitutes infringement of the exclusive right to use a registered trademark.

​

74

Table of Contents

Domain name

​

In accordance with the Measures for the Administration of Internet Domain Names (《互联网域名管理办法》) which was promulgated by the MIIT on August 24, 2017 and came into effect on November 1, 2017, the Implementing Rules of China Internet Network Information Center on Domain Name Registration (the “Implementing Rules of Domain Name Registration”) (《中国互联网信息中心域名注册实施细则》) which was promulgated by China Internet Network Information Center (the “CNNIC”) on May 28, 2012 and came into effect on May 29, 2012, and the Measures of the China Internet Network Information Center on Domain Name Dispute Resolution (the “Measures on Domain Name Dispute Resolution”) (《中国互联网络信息中心域名争议解决办法》) which was promulgated by CNNIC May 28, 2012, came into effect on June 28, 2012, domain name registrations are handled through domain name service agencies established under relevant regulations, and the applicant becomes a domain name holder upon successful registration, and domain name disputes shall be submitted to an organization authorized by CNNIC, for resolution. Both the Implementing Rules of Domain Name Registration and the Measures on Domain Name Dispute Resolution were abolished on June 18, 2019 and replaced by Implementing Rules of China Top Level Domain Name Registration (《国家顶级域名注册实施细则》), which was promulgated by CNNIC on June 18, 2019 and came into effect on the same day.

​

In accordance with the Notice from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Regulating the Use of Domain Names in Internet Information Services (《工业和信息化部关于规范互联网信息服务使用域名的通知》) which was promulgated by the MIIT on November 27, 2017 and came into effect on January 1, 2018, internet access service providers shall verify the identity of each internet information service provider, and shall not provide services to any internet information service provider which fails to provide real identity information.

​

Regulations relating to Labor and Social Welfare

​

The Labor Contract Law

​

Pursuant to the Labor Contract Law of the PRC (《中华人民共和国劳动合同法》), which was issued on June 29, 2007, amended on December 28, 2012 and became effective on July 1, 2013, labor contracts shall be concluded in writing if employment relationships are to be or have been established between enterprises or institutions and the employees. Enterprises and institutions are forbidden to force employees to work beyond the time limit and employers shall pay employees for overtime work in accordance with national regulations. In addition, employee wages shall not be lower than local standards on minimum wages and shall be paid to employees in a timely manner.

​

According to the Labor Law of the PRC (《中华人民共和国劳动法》) which was promulgated on July 5, 1994 and last amended and came into effect on December 29, 2018, enterprises and institutions shall establish and improve their system of workplace safety and sanitation, strictly abide by state rules and standards on workplace safety, educate employees in occupational safety and sanitation in the PRC. Occupational safety and sanitation facilities shall comply with state-fixed standards. Enterprises and institutions shall provide employees with a safe workplace and sanitation conditions which are in compliance with state stipulations and the relevant articles of occupational protection.

​

Social Insurance and Housing Fund

​

Pursuant to the Interim Regulations on Levying Social Insurance Premiums (《社会保险费征缴暂行条例》 ) promulgated on January 22, 1999 and revised on March 24, 2019, Decisions of the State Council on Modifying the Basic Endowment Insurance System for Enterprise Employees (《国务院关于完善企业职工基本养老保险制度的决定》) promulgated on December 3, 2005, Decision on Establishment of Basic Medical System for Urban Employee (《国务院关于建立城镇职工基本医疗保险制度的决定》) issued by State Council with effect from December 14, 1998, the Regulations on Unemployment Insurance (《失业保险条例》) effective from January 22, 1999, Regulations on Work-Related Injury Insurance (《工伤保险条例》) promulgated on April 27, 2003, amended on December 20, 2010, and became effective on January 1, 2011, and the Interim Measures concerning the Maternity Insurance for Enterprise Employees (《企业职工生育保险试行办法》) promulgated on December 14, 1994 with effect from January 1, 1995, employers are required to register with the competent social insurance authorities and provide their employees with welfare schemes covering pension insurance, unemployment insurance, maternity insurance, work-related injury insurance and medical insurance.

​

75

Table of Contents

Pursuant to Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Comprehensively Advancing Combined Implementation of Maternity Insurance and Basic Medical Insurance for Employees (《国务院办公厅关于全面推进生育保险和职工基本医疗保险合并实施的意见》), promulgated by the General Office of State Council on March 6, 2019, maternity insurance fund shall merge into the basic medical care insurance fund for employees so as to unify payment and harmonize consolidation level. The new ratio of employers’ contribution to basic medical care insurance for employees is determined based on the aggregate of the ratios of employers’ contribution to maternity insurance and basic medical care insurance for employees, and an individual is not required to pay for maternity insurance. Therefore, after March 6, 2019, our Company has no record of maternity insurance fund in the payment details of social security, since it has been merged into the basic medical care insurance fund.

​

Pursuant to the Social Insurance Law of the PRC (《中华人民共和国社会保险法》), which became effective on July 1, 2011 with last amendment on December 29, 2018, all employees are required to participate in basic pension insurance, basic medical insurance schemes and unemployment insurance, which must be contributed by both the employers and the employees. All employees are required to participate in work-related injury insurance and maternity insurance schemes, which must be contributed by the employers. Employers are required to complete registrations with local social insurance authorities. Moreover, the employers must timely make all social insurance contributions. Except for mandatory exceptions such as force majeure, social insurance premiums may not be paid late, reduced or be exempted. Where an employer fails to make social insurance contributions in full and on time, the social insurance contribution collection agencies shall order it to make all or outstanding contributions within a specified period and impose a late payment fee at the rate of 0.05% per day from the date on which the contribution becomes due. If such employer fails to make the overdue contributions within such time limit, the relevant administrative department may impose a fine equivalent to 1—3 times the overdue amount.

​

Pursuant to the Emergency Notice on Practicing Principles of the State Council Executive Meeting and Stabilizing Work on Collecting Social Insurance Premiums (《人力资源社会保障部办公厅关于贯彻落实国务院常务会议精神切实做好稳定社保费征收工作的紧急通知》), promulgated by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security on September 21, 2018, local authorities are prohibited from organizing the centralized settlement of historical unpaid social insurance premiums of enterprises.

​

Pursuant to the Administrative Regulations on the Housing Provident Fund (《住房公积金管理条例》) effective from April 3, 1999, amended on March 24, 2002 and March 24, 2019, enterprises are required to register with the competent administrative centers of housing provident fund and open bank accounts for housing provident funds for their employees. Employers are also required to timely pay all housing fund contributions for their employees. Where an employer fails to submit and deposit registration of housing provident fund or fails to go through the formalities of opening housing provident fund accounts for its employees, the housing provident fund management center shall order it to go through the formalities within a prescribed time limit. Failing to do so at the expiration of the time limit will subject the employer to a fine of not less than RMB10,000 and up to RMB50,000. When an employer fails to pay housing provident fund due in full and in time, housing provident fund center is entitled to order it to rectify, failing to do so would result in enforcement exerted by the court.

​

Regulations relating to Tax

​

Enterprise income tax

​

According to the EIT Law, enacted on March 16, 2007, effective on January 1, 2008 and last amended on December 29, 2018 by the SCNPC and the Implementation Regulations for the Enterprise Income Tax Law of the PRC (《中华人民共和国企业所得税法实施条例》), enacted on December 6, 2007, amended and came into effect on April 23, 2019 by the State Council, and its relevant implementation regulations, taxpayers consist of resident enterprises and non-resident enterprises. Resident enterprises are defined as enterprises that are established in China in accordance with PRC laws, or that are established in accordance with the laws of foreign countries but whose actual or de facto control is administered from within the PRC. Non-resident enterprises are defined as enterprises that are set up in accordance with the laws of foreign countries and whose actual administration is conducted outside the PRC, but have established institutions or premises in the PRC, or have no such established institutions or premises but have income generated from inside the PRC. Under the EIT Law and relevant implementing regulations, a uniform corporate income tax rate of 25% is applicable. However, if nonresident enterprises have not formed permanent establishments or premises in the PRC, or if they have formed permanent establishment institutions or premises in the PRC but there is no actual relationship between the relevant income derived in the PRC and the established institutions or premises set up by them, the enterprise income tax is, in that case, set at the rate of 10% for their income sourced from inside the PRC.

76

Table of Contents

​

Pursuant to the Notice on Preferential EIT Policies for Two Special Economic Development Zones of Kashi and Horgos in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (《关于新疆喀什霍尔果斯两个特殊经济开发区企业所得税优惠政策的通知》) promulgated by MOF and SAT on November 29, 2011 and the Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of Kashi and Horgos Economic Development Zones (《关于加快喀什、霍尔果斯经济开发区建设的实施意见》) promulgated by the Government of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China on April 29, 2012, an enterprise established in Horgos or Kashi between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2020 and fallen within the scope of the Catalogue of EIT Incentives for Industries Particularly Encouraged for Development by Poverty Areas of Xinjiang (新疆困难地区重点鼓励发展产业企业所得税优惠目录) shall be exempted from EIT for five years beginning from the first year in which the manufacturing or business operational revenue is earned. After the initial EIT exemption period, the enterprise is entitled to another five-year exemption on the local portion of its EIT.

​

Value-added Tax

​

Pursuant to the Provisional Regulations on VAT of the PRC (《中华人民共和国增值税暂行条例》) promulgated by the State Council on December 31, 1993, and subsequently amended on November 5, 2008, February 6, 2016 and November 19, 2017 respectively, and the Implementation Rules of the Provisional Regulations on VAT of the PRC (《中华人民共和国增值税暂行条例实施细则》) promulgated by MOF on December 25, 1993 and amended on December 15, 2008 and October 28, 2011 respectively, tax payers engaging in sale of goods, provision of processing services, repairs and replacement services or importation of goods within the territory of the PRC shall pay VAT.

​

On November 16, 2011, MOF and SAT jointly promulgated the Pilot Plan for Levying VAT in Lieu of Business Tax (《营业税改征增值税试点方案》). Starting from January 1, 2012, the PRC government has been gradually implementing a pilot program in certain provinces and municipalities to levy a 6% VAT on revenue generated from certain kinds of services in lieu of the business tax.

​

The Administrative Measures on Tax Exemption for Cross-border Acts Subject to VAT in the Pilot Scheme for Levying VAT in Place of Business Tax (for Trial Implementation) (《营业税改征增值税跨境应税行为增值税免税管理办法(试行)》), which was promulgated on May 6, 2016 by SAT and effective on May 1, 2016, and was amended on June 15, 2018, effective on the same day, provides that if a domestic enterprise provides cross-border taxable services such as technology transfer (provided to and received by overseas entities), technical consulting (provided to and received by overseas entities), and software service (provided to and received by overseas entities), technical consulting (provided to and received by overseas entities), the above mentioned cross-border taxable services shall be exempt from the VAT. Technical consulting services provided by a domestic enterprise are subject to zero-rated policies, but such taxpayer might choose to forfeit the application of zero rate and opt for the tax exemption.

​

On March 23, 2016, MOF and SAT jointly issued the Circular of Full Implementation of Business Tax to VAT Reform (the “Circular 36”) (《关于全面推开营业税改征增值税试点的通知》), which was last amended by the Announcement of the Ministry of Finance, the State Taxation Administration and the General Administration of Customs on Relevant Policies for Deepening the Value-Added Tax Reform (《财政部、税务总局、海关总署关于深化增值税改革有关政策的公告》) on March 20, 2019 and came into effect on April 1, 2019, confirms that business tax will be completely replaced by VAT from May 1, 2016. The Notice of MOF and SAT on the Adjustment to VAT Rates (《关于调整增值税税率的通知》), promulgated on April 4, 2018 and effective as of May 1, 2018, adjusted the applicative rate of VAT. The deduction rates of 17% and 11% applicable to the taxpayers who have VAT taxable sales activities or imported goods are adjusted to 16% and 10%, respectively. For the export goods to which a tax rate of 17% was originally applicable and the export rebate rate was 17%, the export rebate rate is adjusted to 16%. For the export goods and cross-border taxable activities to which a tax rate of 11% was originally applicable and the export rebate rate was 11%, the export rebate rate is adjusted to 10%.

​

Pursuant to the Announcement on Relevant Policies for Deepening Value-Added Tax Reform (《关于深化增值税改革有关政策的公告》),which was promulgated by MOF, SAT and the General Administration of Customs on March 20, 2019 and became effective on April 1, 2019, where (i) for VAT taxable sales or imports of goods originally subject to value-added tax rates of 16%, such tax rates shall be adjusted to 13%; (ii) for the exported goods originally subject to a tax rate of 16% and an export tax refund rate of 16%, the export tax refund rate shall be adjusted to 13%.

​

77

Table of Contents

Dividend withholding tax

​

According to the EIT Law and its implementing rules, dividends paid to investors of an eligible PRC resident enterprise can be exempted from EIT and dividends paid to foreign investors are subject to a withholding tax rate of 10%, unless relevant tax agreements entered into by the PRC government provide otherwise.

​

The PRC and the government of Hong Kong entered into the Arrangement between the Mainland of the PRC and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with respect to Taxes on Incomes (《内地和香港特别行政区关于所得避免双重征税和防止偷漏税的安排》), or the Arrangement, on August 21, 2006. According to the Arrangement, 5% withholding tax rate shall apply to the dividends paid by a PRC company to a Hong Kong resident, provided that such Hong Kong resident directly holds at least 25% of the equity interests in the PRC company, and 10% of withholding tax rate shall apply if the Hong Kong resident holds less than 25% of the equity interests in the PRC company.

​

Pursuant to the Circular on Relevant Issues Relating to the Implementation of Dividend Clauses in Tax Treaties (《关于执行税收协议股息条款有关问题的通知》), which was promulgated by SAT and became effective on February 20, 2009, all of the following requirements shall be satisfied where a fiscal resident of the other party to a tax agreement needs to be entitled to such tax agreement treatment as being taxed at a tax rate specified in the tax agreement for the dividends paid to it by a PRC resident company: (i) such a fiscal resident who obtains dividends shall be a company as provided in the tax agreement; (ii) owner’s equity interests and voting shares of the PRC resident company directly owned by such a fiscal resident reaches a specified percentage; and (iii) the equity interests of the PRC resident company directly owned by such a fiscal resident, at any time during the 12 months prior to obtaining the dividends, reach a percentage specified in the tax agreement.

​

According to the Tentative Administrative Measures on Tax Convention Treatment for Non-Residents (《非居民享受税收协定待遇管理办法(试行)》), which was promulgated by SAT on August 24, 2009 and became effective on October 1, 2009, where a non-resident enterprise that receives dividends from a PRC resident enterprise wishes to enjoy the favorable tax benefits under the tax arrangements, it shall submit an application for approval to the competent tax authority. Without being approved, the non-resident enterprise may not enjoy the favorable tax treatment provided in the tax agreements.

​

The Tentative Administrative Measures on Tax Convention Treatment for Non-Residents (《非居民享受税收协定待遇管理办法(试行)》) was repealed by the Administrative Measures on Tax Convention Treatment for Non-Resident Taxpayers (《非居民纳税人享受税收协议待遇管理办法》), which was promulgated by SAT on August 27, 2015 and became effective on November 1, 2015 with last amendment on June 15, 2018, where a non-resident enterprise that receives dividends from a PRC resident enterprise, it could directly enjoy the favorable tax benefits under the tax arrangements at tax returns, and subject to the subsequent regulation of the competent tax authority. The Administrative Measures on Tax Convention Treatment for Non-Resident Taxpayers has subsequently been repealed by the Administrative Measures on Treaty Benefits Treatment for Non-Resident Taxpayers (《非居民纳税人享受协定待遇管理办法》), promulgated by SAT on October 14, 2019 and became effective on January 1, 2020, which still adopts the same provisions as the Administrative Measures on Tax Convention Treatment for Non-Resident Taxpayers.

​

PRC Laws and Regulations relating to Foreign Exchange

​

Pursuant to the Foreign Exchange Administration Regulations of the PRC (《中华人民共和国外汇管理条例》), as amended in August 2008, Renminbi is freely convertible for current account items, including the distribution of dividends, interest payments, trade and service-related foreign exchange transactions, but not for capital account items, such as direct investments, loans, repatriation of investments and investments in securities outside of China, unless the SAFE’s prior approval is obtained and prior registration with the SAFE or its local counterpart is made. On May 10, 2013, the SAFE promulgated the Circular of the SAFE on Printing and Distributing the Administrative Provisions on Foreign Exchange in Domestic Direct Investment by Foreign Investors and Relevant Supporting Documents (《外国投资者境内直接投资外汇管理规定》) (“SAFE Circular No. 21”), which was amended on December 31, 2019. It provided for and simplified the operational steps and regulations on foreign exchange matters related to direct investment by foreign investors, including foreign exchange registration, account opening and use, receipt and payment of funds, and settlement and sales of foreign exchange.

​

78

Table of Contents

Pursuant to the Notice of the SAFE on Further Improving and Adjusting Foreign Exchange Administration Policies for Direct Investment (《国家外汇管理局关于进一步改进和调整直接投资外汇管理政策的通知》) (“SAFE Circular No. 59”) promulgated by SAFE on November 19, 2012, that became effective on December 17, 2012 and was further amended on May 4, 2015, approval is not required for the opening of an account entry in foreign exchange accounts under direct investment. SAFE Circular No. 59 also simplified the capital verification and confirmation formalities for foreign invested entities, the foreign capital and foreign exchange registration formalities required for the foreign investors to acquire equities from Chinese party, and further improved the administration on exchange settlement of foreign exchange capital of foreign invested entities.

​

Pursuant to the Circular on Relevant Issues concerning Foreign Exchange Administration of Overseas Investment and Financing and Return Investments Conducted by Domestic Residents through Overseas Special Purpose Vehicles (《关于境内居民通过特殊目的公司境外投融资及返程投资外汇管理有关问题的通知》) (“SAFE Circular No. 37”), promulgated by the SAFE and which became effective on July 4, 2014, (1) a PRC resident (the “PRC Resident”) shall register with the local SAFE branch before he or she contributes assets or equity interests in an overseas special purpose vehicle (the “Overseas SPV”), that is directly established or controlled by the PRC Resident for the purpose of conducting investment or financing; and (2) following the initial registration, the PRC Resident is also required to register with the local SAFE branch for any major change, in respect of the Overseas SPV, including, among other things, a change of the Overseas SPV’s PRC Resident shareholder(s), name of the Overseas SPV, term of operation, or any increase or reduction of the Overseas SPV’s registered capital, share transfer or swap, and merger or division. Pursuant to SAFE Circular No. 37, failure to comply with these registration procedures may result in penalties.

​

Pursuant to the Circular of the SAFE on Further Simplifying and Improving the Direct Investment-related Foreign Exchange Administration Policies (《国家外汇管理局关于进一步简化和改进直接投资外汇管理政策的通知》) (“SAFE Circular No. 13”), which was promulgated on February 13, 2015 and became effective on June 1, 2015, the foreign exchange registration under domestic direct investment and the foreign exchange registration under overseas direct investment is directly reviewed and handled by banks in accordance with SAFE Circular No. 13, and the SAFE and its branches shall perform indirect regulation over the foreign exchange registration via banks.

​

Regulations relating to Foreign Investment

​

Investment activities in the PRC conducted by foreign investors and foreign-owned enterprises shall comply with the Catalogue for the Guidance of Foreign Investment Industries (Revised in 2017) (《外商投资产业指导目录(2017年修订)》) (the “Catalogue”), which was promulgated jointly by MOFCOM and National Development and Reform Commission (“NDRC”) on June 28, 2017 and became effective on July 28, 2017, and which Catalogue contains specific provisions guiding market access of foreign capital. Under the Catalogue, foreign-invested industries are classified into two categories, namely (1) encouraged foreign-invested industries; and (2) foreign-invested industries which are subject to special administrative measures for access of foreign investment (the “Negative List”). The Negative List is further divided into restricted foreign-invested industries and prohibited foreign-invested industries, setting out restrictions such as shareholding requirements and qualifications of the senior management. Any industry not listed in the Negative List is a permitted industry.

​

On December 27, 2021, the Special Administrative Measures for the Access of Foreign Investment (Negative List) (外商投资准入特别管理措施(负面清单) (2021年版)) (the “Negative List 2021”), which was promulgated by NDRC and MOFCOM and became effective on January 1, 2022, replaced the Negative List 2020. Industries listed in the Negative List 2021 are divided into two categories with respect to foreign investment: restricted and prohibited. Industries not listed in the Negative List are generally deemed as falling under a third “permitted” category and are generally open to foreign investment unless otherwise specifically restricted by other PRC regulations.

​

Our principal businesses are precluded from the Negative List 2021 and is thus within a permitted industry for foreign investment.

​

79

Table of Contents

Regulations relating to Foreign-Owned Enterprises

​

The establishment, operation and management of corporate entities in China are governed by the Company Law of the PRC (《中华人民共和国公司法》) (the “PRC Company Law”), which was promulgated by the SCNPC on December 29, 1993 and last amended and became effective on October 26, 2018. Under the PRC Company Law, companies are generally classified into two categories, i.e., limited liability companies and joint stock limited companies. The PRC Company Law also applies to foreign-invested limited liability companies. According to the PRC Company Law, any stipulations by other PRC laws governing foreign investment shall prevail over the PRC Company Law.

​

Pursuant to the Law on Wholly Foreign-owned Enterprises of the PRC (《中华人民共和国外资企业法》) (the “Law on Wholly Foreign-owned Enterprises of the PRC”), which was promulgated by the SCNPC on April 12, 1986, last amended on September 3, 2016 and became effective on October 1, 2016, where the establishment of wholly foreign-owned enterprises does not involve the implementation of special access administrative measures prescribed by the state, the establishment, breakup, merger, or any other major change and the operation period of such enterprises are subject to record-filing administration.

​

The Implementing Rules for the Law on Wholly Foreign-owned Enterprises of the PRC (《中华人民共和国外资企业法实施细则》) (the “Implementing Rules on Wholly Foreign-owned Enterprises”) was promulgated by the State Council on December 12, 1990, then was amended on April 12, 2001 and February 19, 2014, and became effective on March 1, 2014. According to the Implementing Rules on Wholly Foreign-owned Enterprises, industries in which the establishment of wholly foreign-owned enterprises is prohibited or restricted shall be regulated in accordance with the provisions of the State about foreign investment orientation and the Catalogue.

​

The Law on Wholly Foreign-owned Enterprises of the PRC and the Implementing Rules on Wholly Foreign-owned Enterprises have been repealed by the Foreign Investment Law of the PRC (《中华人民共和国外商投资法》 (the “Foreign Investment Law”), which was adopted by the National People’s Congress on March 15, 2019 and came into effect on January 1, 2020. According to the Foreign Investment Law, the State shall implement the management systems of pre-establishment national treatment and negative list for foreign investment. The pre-establishment national treatment refers to the treatment given to foreign investors and their investments during the investment access stage, which is not lower than that given to their domestic counterparts. The negative list refers to special administrative measures for the access of foreign investment in specific fields as stipulated by the State. The State shall give national treatment to foreign investment beyond the negative list. The organization form, institutional framework and standard of conduct of a foreign-funded enterprise shall be subject to the provisions of the PRC Company Law and the Partnership Enterprise Law of the PRC (《中华人民共和国合伙企业法》) and other laws. Foreign investors shall not invest in any field forbidden by the negative list for access of foreign investment. For any field restricted by the negative list, foreign investors shall conform to the investment conditions as required in the negative list, and fields not included in the negative list shall be managed under the principle that domestic investment and foreign investment shall be treated uniformly.

​

The Law on Sino-Foreign Equity Joint Ventures of the PRC (《中华人民共和国中外合资经营企业法》), the Law on Wholly Foreign-owned Enterprises of the PRC (《中华人民共和国外资企业法》) and the Law on Sino-Foreign Cooperative Joint Ventures of the PRC (《中华人民共和国中外合作经营企业法》) were repealed simultaneously when the Foreign Investment Law came into effect on January 1, 2020, and foreign-funded enterprises which were established in accordance with such laws before the implementation of the Foreign Investment Law may retain their original organization forms and other aspects for five years upon the implementation hereof.

​

PRC Regulations Relating to Offshore Investments by PRC Residents

​

SAFE promulgated Circular 37 in July 2014 that requires PRC residents or entities to register with SAFE or its local branch in connection with their establishment or control of an offshore entity established for the purpose of overseas investment or financing. In addition, such PRC residents or entities must update their SAFE registrations when the offshore SPV undergoes material events relating to any change of basic information (including change of such PRC citizens or residents, name and operation term), increases or decreases in investment amount, transfers or exchanges of shares, or mergers or divisions.

​

80

Table of Contents

Circular 37 was issued to replace Circular 75 (the Notice on Relevant Issues Concerning Foreign Exchange Administration for PRC Residents Engaging in Financing and Round-trip Investments via Overseas Special Purpose Vehicles). SAFE further enacted the Notice on Further Simplifying and Improving the Foreign Exchange Management Policies for Direct Investment effective from June 1, 2015, which allows PRC residents or entities to register with qualified banks in connection with their establishment or control of an offshore entity established for the purpose of overseas investment or financing. However, remedial registration applications made by PRC residents that previously failed to comply with Circular 37 continue to fall under the jurisdiction of the relevant local branch of SAFE. In the event that a PRC shareholder holding interests in a SPV fails to fulfill the required SAFE registration, the PRC subsidiaries of that SPV may be prohibited from distributing profits to the offshore parent and from carrying out subsequent cross-border foreign exchange activities, and the SPV may be restricted in its ability to contribute additional capital into its PRC subsidiary. Moreover, failure to comply with the various SAFE registration requirements described above could result in liability under PRC law for evasion of foreign exchange controls. As of the date of this annual report, four of our beneficial owners who are PRC residents have completed the registrations required by Circular 37.

​

Regulations relating to M&A and Overseas Listing

​

The M&A Rules was promulgated by six PRC ministries including MOFCOM, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, SAT, SAIC, CSRC and SAFE on August 8, 2006, became effective on September 8, 2006, and was amended and became effective on June 22, 2009. A foreign investor is required to comply with the M&A Rules when it: (1) acquires the equity of a domestic enterprise so as to convert the domestic enterprise into a foreign-invested enterprise; (2) subscribes for the increased capital of a domestic enterprise so as to convert the domestic enterprise into a foreign-invested enterprise; (3) establishes a foreign-invested enterprise through which it purchases the assets of any domestic enterprise and operates these assets; or (4) purchases the assets of a domestic enterprise, and then invests such assets to establish a foreign-invested enterprise. The M&A Rules, among other things, further prescribed that a special purpose vehicle, formed for overseas listing purposes and controlled directly or indirectly by PRC companies or individuals, shall be approved by MOFCOM prior to its establishment and obtain the approval of the CSRC prior to the listing and trading of such special purpose vehicle’s securities on an overseas stock exchange.

​

Pursuant to the Manual of Guidance on Administration for Foreign Investment Access (《外商投资准入管理指引手册》), which was issued and became effective on December 18, 2008 by MOFCOM, notwithstanding the fact that (1) the domestic shareholder is connected with the foreign investor or not; or (2) the foreign investor is the existing shareholder or the new investor, the M&A Rules shall not apply to the transfer of an equity interest in an incorporated foreign-invested enterprise from the domestic shareholder to the foreign investor.

​

81

Table of Contents

C.  Organizational Structure

​

The following diagram illustrates our current corporate structure, which includes our significant subsidiaries as of the date of this annual report:

For details of each shareholder’s ownership, please refer to the beneficial ownership table in “Item 6. Directors, Senior Management and Employees — 6.E. Share Ownership.”

​

Notes:

​

​

​

82

Table of Contents

​

​

​

D.  Property, Plants and Equipment

​

Our corporate headquarter is located in Beijing, China. We use the ten properties we own and one property we lease from an unrelated third party in Horgos as office spaces with an aggregate gross floor area of approximately 11,296.28 ft². We lease four properties as office spaces in Beijing, Shanghai, and Kashi, from unrelated third parties under operating lease agreements. We believe that our existing facilities are generally adequate to meet our current needs, but we expect to seek additional space as needed to accommodate future growth.

​

83

Table of Contents

​

We regard our business value as revolving around our ability to serve the needs of two major business stakeholders: advertisers and media. On one hand, with our experience and insights in the online advertising industry, we help advertisers to effectively carry out their advertising campaigns by offering advices on online advertising strategies, carrying out advertising optimization and facilitating the deployment of online ads. On the other hand, we help media to connect with advertisers and facilitate the monetization of their advertising resources.

​

We have built a broad and diverse advertiser base from a broad range of industries, including ecommerce and online service platforms, online travel agencies, financial services, online gaming, car services and advertising agencies, among others. For the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019, the number of advertisers (including direct advertisers and third party advertising agencies subscribing our services on behalf of their advertising clients) were 462, 410 and 438, respectively. However because the new advertisers contributed lower gross billing than our existing advertisers, our gross billing were $54.7 million, $134.9 million and $202.7 million, respectively. For the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019, top five advertisers contributed 44.8%, 47.5% and 37.7% of total gross billing, respectively.

​

We earn rebates and incentives from media or their authorized agencies (collectively “publishers”) for procuring advertisers to place ads with them, or net fees from advertisers when we purchase ad inventory and advertising services from media and other advertising service providers on their behalf. As such, our customers are comprised of publishers and advertisers. We recognize revenues on a net basis as either rebates and incentives from publishers or net fees from advertisers. For the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020, and 2019, we generated rebates and incentives from publishers of $3.7 million, $9.4 million, and $16.0 million, respectively, and net fees from advertisers of $0.2 million, $2.5 million and $1.9 million, respectively.

​

For the year ended December 31, 2021, our decrease in gross billings and revenues as compared with those of the year ended December 31, 2020 was mainly caused by the decrease in gross billing and revenue from Sogou. Sogou was our top publisher for the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019. For the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019, Sogou contributed gross billing of $82.2 million and $107.0 million, and revenues of $8.1 million and $7.9 million, respectively. However, our annual authorized agency agreement with Sogou expired in March 2021, which was not renewed subsequently. We did not act as the authorized agent of Sogou since April 2021. As a result of this, our revenue generated from SEM services with Sogou for the year ended December 31, 2021 declined substantially as compared with the year ended December 31, 2020.

​

In addition, in the first half of 2021, we entered into authorized agency agreements with both Alibaba and ByteDance, respectively, focusing on the advertising agency services for advertisers in the education industry. However, due to the spread of unofficial news (which was officially announced in July 2021) related to new governmental regulations restricting off-campus tutoring for students undergoing compulsory education in the education industry since mid-April 2021, our advertisers in the education industry adopted conservative business strategies and decreased their advertising spends. As a result, the purchasing orders from our advertisers were negatively impacted and the rebates and incentives earned from Alibaba and ByteDance were below expectations.

​

Gross billing and media costs

​

Gross billing is defined as the actual dollar amount of advertising spend of our advertisers, net of any rebates and discounts given by us to the advertisers (if any). We use gross billing to assess the business growth, market share and scale of operations.

​

Media cost represents the cost for acquisition of ad inventory or other advertising services from media and other advertising service providers, offset by rebates and incentives we receive from the relevant media and advertising service providers (if any).

​

84

Table of Contents

Factors Affecting Our Results of Operations and Trend Information

​

Size and spending of advertiser base

​

We earn revenue in the form of (i) rebates and incentives offered by publishers for procuring advertisers to place ads with them, which are usually calculated with reference to the advertising spend of the advertisers and are closely correlated to the gross billing from advertisers, netting of rebates to advertisers (if any); and (ii) the net fees from advertisers, which are essentially the fees we charge advertisers (i.e. gross billing) net of the media costs and other costs of procuring advertising services we incur on their behalf. Accordingly, our revenue base and our profitability are very much driven by our gross billing with advertisers, and the relevant media’s rebate policies which determine, among other things, the rates of rebates we receive from media (or their authorized agencies). The rebates and incentives we receive from media are calculated as a percentage of the total advertising spend of the advertisers procured by us in a given period, with the percentage typically ranging from 10% to 20%. See “Item 4. Information on the Company—B. Business Overview — Revenue Model and Payment Cycle — Rebates and incentives from publishers — Rebates and incentives offered by media (or their authorized agencies)” for details.

​

The willingness of advertisers to spend their online advertising budget through us is critical to our business and our ability to generate gross billing. Our advertisers’ demand for advertising services can be influenced by a variety of factors including:

​

​

​

​

A change in any of the above factors may result in significant cutbacks on advertising budgets by advertisers, which would not only result in a reduction of our revenue, but would also weaken our negotiating position with media on rebate policies and negatively impact our ability to earn advertising spend-driven rebates and incentives from media.

​

Rebate policies offered from publishers and those offered to advertisers

​

Publishers may change the rebate and incentive policies offered to us based on prevailing economic outlook, competitive landscape of the online advertising market, and their own business strategy and operational targets. For instance, a media may reduce the rate of rebate offered to us for reason of changes in its business strategies, resource reallocation, increased popularity and demand for their media resources, etc., or may adjust their incentive programs or their benchmarks and measuring parameters for incentive offerings based on their changing marketing and target audience strategies. If media impose rebate and incentive policies that are less favorable to us, our revenue, results of operations and financial condition may be adversely affected.

​

On the other hand, we may offer rebates to our advertisers. The level of rebates we offer to our advertisers is determined case by case with reference to the rebates and incentives we are entitled to receive from the relevant media (or its authorized agency), an advertiser’s committed total spend, our business relationships with such advertiser and the competitive landscape in the online advertising industry. If it emerges that an increase in the rate of rebate to our advertisers is necessary for us to remain competitive or align with the emerging competitive environment, our revenue and profitability may reduce.

​

Our ability to attract new media and to maintain relationship with existing media

​

We have established and maintained relationships with a wide range of media and their authorized agencies, as well as agencies of KOLs, which offer our advertisers diverse choices of ad formats, including search ads, in-feed ads, mobile app ads and social media ads. Our future growth will depend on our ability to maintain our relationships with existing media partners as well as building partnerships with new media.

85

Table of Contents

​

In particular, we act as authorized agency for some popular online media to help them procure advertisers to buy their ad inventory and facilitate ad deployment on their advertising channels. As media’s authorized agency, our relationships with the media are mainly governed by agency agreements which provide for, among other things, credit periods and the rebate polices offered to us. These agency agreements typically have a term of one year, and are subject to renewal upon expiry. The commercial terms under the agency agreements are subject to renegotiation when they are renewed. Besides, media usually retain the right to terminate the authorized agency relationship based on business needs at their discretion.

​

If any media ends its cooperative relationship with us or terminates our authorized agency status, or imposes commercial terms which are less favorable to us, or we fail to secure partnerships with new media partners, we may lose access to the relevant advertising channels, sustain advertiser deflection, and suffer revenue drop.

​

Impact of COVID-19 on our business

​

Our business could be adversely affected by the effects of epidemics. The COVID-19 pandemic has spread around the world. Our headquarters is located in Beijing, China. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we and some of our business partners have implemented temporary measures and adjustments of work schemes to allow employees to work from home and collaborate remotely. We have taken measures to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, including, but not limited to, upgrading our telecommuting system, monitoring employees’ health on a daily basis and optimizing technology system to support potential growth in user traffic. In the short term, the COVID-19 pandemic has created uncertainties and risks. With the work resumption within China, we expect our gross billing and revenues on a net basis will continue to increase in the long-term. Based on the current situation, we do not expect a significant impact on our operations and financial results in the long run. The extent to which COVID-19 impacts our results of operations will depend on the future development of the circumstances, which is highly uncertain and cannot be predicted with confidence at this time.

​

We earned gross billing in the amount of $54.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, a decrease of $80.2 million, or 59%, from $134.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. Due to the higher media costs charged by publishers, our revenues on a net basis for the year ended December 31, 2021 decreased by approximately $8.0 million, or 67.2%, as compared with the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020. In addition to the impact of COVID-19, which led to decreased orders from our advertisers, the decrease of gross billing and revenues was mainly due to the fact that we did not act as the authorized agent of Sogou since April 2021, which was our top publisher for the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019. For the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019, SEM services with Sogou contributed gross billings of $82.2 million and $107.0 million, respectively, while for the year ended December 31, 2021, SEM services with Sogou contributed gross billings of $18.2 million. The sharp decrease in gross billings resulted in a decrease of rebates and incentives earned from Sogou, which were both calculated as a percentage of gross billings. For the year ended December 31, 2021, our revenues from Sogou were $2.0 million, representing a decrease of $6.1 million from $8.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2020.

​

Additionally, as affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and stricter governmental regulations against education industry, financial industry and gaming industry, our advertisers slowed down the payments processing procedures. For the year ended December 31, 2021, we witnessed a longer turnover days in accounts receivable due from mobile app ads advertisers. To mitigate the adverse impact on our cash flows, we reduced our services provided to mobile apps customers in the fiscal year 2021. In addition, we also provided higher allowance on doubtful accounts of accounts receivable, prepayments and other current assets.

​

Our operations could be disrupted if one of our employees is suspected of COVID-19 or another epidemic disease, as it may require our employees to be quarantined and/or require us to close our offices. In addition, our results of operations could be adversely affected to the extent that the outbreak harms the overall economy in the PRC and the advertising industry in particular.

​

86

Table of Contents