(Yicai Global) Aug. 19 -- China's Joyy, which owns live streaming platforms Huya, YY Live, and Bigo Live, managed to significantly cut its losses to almost turn profitable in the second quarter of this year.

The live-streaming company narrowed its net loss by 99.1 percent to USD500,000 on a non-GAAP basis from a year ago, mainly because Bigo Live made a profit, the Guangzhou-based firm said in its earnings report published yesterday. Revenue climbed by almost 40 percent to USD661.7 million.

Most of the income came from live streaming. Such revenues increased by almost 40 percent to USD629.6 million, accounting for 95 percent of the total, as Bigo Live's number of paid users continued to grow.

Q3 Guidance, Divestments

The company offered earnings guidance. In the third quarter, the firm expects to report an up to 19 percent increase in revenue to as high as USD635 million from a year ago. The forecast excludes the contribution of game live-streaming platform Huya and YY Live last year as the parent is planning to sell the two applications to search engine giant Baidu.

However, the deal is pending. Despite a definitive agreement to sell Huya and YY Live to Baidu for USD3.6 billion, the two parties have agreed to delay the transaction, Joyy announced three days ago, without disclosing the reason behind the postponement.

Another cloud is on the horizon. A government ban in India has affected Joyy's user numbers. The firm's total number of monthly active users fell by 26 percent to 307.5 million in the second quarter from a year earlier, primarily due to the impact of the Indian government’s measures to block Chinese-owned apps in the South Asian country.

But the firm is quick in churning out new apps. A new shining star is Likee, a short-video platform developed by the Bigo team. The number of Likee's MAUs more than doubled to 131.6 million in the second quarter from a year ago. Meanwhile, Bigo's research and development, marketing, and administration expenses more than doubled.

Joyy's stock price [NASDAQ: YY] was 4.9 percent down in pre-market trading today after closing 1.3 percent up at USD41 yesterday in New York.

Editor: Emmi Laine