Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
The question and answer section of this conference call will start in a moment. (Operator instructions) And the first question comes from the line of Mr. Jason Brueschke with Citigroup. Please proceed.
Jason Brueschke – Citigroup
Thank you and good morning everyone and congratulations on the quarter and the guidance. Jennifer, Robin, my one question, I guess, I will limit myself to is about active customers. The number at 185,000 was down pretty significantly Q over Q and I'm wondering if you could give us a little covered upon this? Is this mostly as a result of the web site cleanups that you guys initiated in the fourth quarter, and to what extent is any of this may be due to some diverting of resources from the sales force to learning and getting trained up on Phoenix Nest ahead of the April launch? And within that, could you maybe help us understand whether the number of active customers have stabilized in April, and do you expect this number to grow sequentially in the second quarter? Thanks.
Robin Li
Jason, Peng will answer your question.
Peng Ye
Hi Jason. This is Peng. Let me answer your question. I think there are three factors contributing to this situation. Number one is the seasonality in Q1. Number two is macroeconomic situation. Number three is the ongoing actions we have taken to improve the quality of the customer bases. That's it, thank you.
Jennifer Li
Jason, let me just add a little color. The active number of customers is defined to be active during the quarter. So if you look at Q4, although we did take measures to improve the quality of our customer base, a majority of those customers were still active in that quarter. You know since we have done that and we have taken additional measures as we mentioned towards the end of the last year, all those removed customers that don't come back, the full extent will be felt in Q1. So in Q1, that basically, the number of customers reflected that fact. And in addition, as Peng mentioned, the normal seasonality, you know right before Chinese New Year is typically a slower time to acquire new customers, on top of that the weaker economy, that is the combination of that is the result of the 184,000 customers. At this stage we want to say, as I mentioned in the past, the activities that we have taken to improve the quality of our customer base to a large extent is over, but we will continue to monitor the healthiness of our customer base and continue to take measures appropriately. But we don't foresee any major changes to the customer base going forward.
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