LIZHI INC (LIZI) Issues Letter to Shareholders

LIZHI INC. (“LIZHI” or the “Company” or “We”) (NASDAQ: LIZI), a leading online UGC1 audio community and interactive audio entertainment platform in China, today released a letter to shareholders from the Company’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Jinnan (Marco) Lai.

To the shareholders of LIZHI INC.:

It is my pleasure to issue the first letter to shareholders on behalf of LIZHI INC. after the Company went public. First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all our shareholders for your support and trust over the past year. 2020 was indeed an extraordinary year for all of us. The sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic caused many disruptive changes and uncertainties to our daily lives. Even so, 2020 was a landmark year for LIZHI as we successfully listed our shares on the Nasdaq Global Market in the U.S. Embarking on our new journey as a public company is a milestone and a new beginning for us. Despite the challenging macro environment, we have stood our ground and are proud to have achieved certain impressive results.

Reflecting on 2020, one of the things that touched us the most was the importance of the emotional connection between individuals. Especially at the time when many people were not able to meet in person, the desire to communicate and connect through video or voice appeared to be particularly strong. We have felt the weight of responsibility in living our mission more than ever – "Bring people closer together through voice."

Voice has played a decisive role in human evolution. Dating back to Homo sapiens era, if a lion was about to attack, humans would warn each other of the danger by saying: "A lion is coming from the mountain on the right; we need to swim to the other side of the river!” During the long nights when primitive peoples huddled together in caves, they bonded with each other through language and oral communication. Similarly, in modern human history, the legends and fables shared through word of mouth inspired mankind to forge ahead, make inventions and create civilizations.

Although nowadays we can express ourselves and communicate through various mediums, voice remains one of the most important methods of communication among them. As a leading audio platform in China, our vision to become one of the largest audio platforms globally remains our consistent focus.

Our Strategy

Based on our vision of globalization, we put forward a strategy to expand our global footprint through audio innovation in 2020. Over the past year, our steadfast efforts have yield meaningful results. For example, shortly after its launch in the United States, Tiya, our audio-based social product, soared to rank among the top 4 social networking apps in the U.S. Within a few months of Tiya’s launch worldwide, it has been ranked among the top 10 social networking apps in about 50 countries worldwide. Currently, Tiya has users in over 200 countries.

We believe that online social networking through audio will become a dominant method of social networking in the future. People enjoy meeting and chatting in cafes, bars, and restaurants which is probably one of the most genuine and engaging ways to socialize. Encouragingly, we are now able to mimic such forms of social networking through real-time online audio networking platforms, where people get together virtually, chat online and share their daily lives. We envision a future where real-time audio-based social networking can be realized anytime anywhere – either through the mirrors in restrooms, in self-driving smart cars, or through smart headsets that people carry around.

Our Organization

The realization of this grand vision and strategy requires a solid organizational foundation, and the origin and the motivation for an organization are derived from its culture. With this in mind, in 2020, we further developed LIZHI’s corporate value, while elevating our talent training initiatives, including forming collaborations with universities to cultivate talents specializing in AI technology. Moreover, we launched an "Innovation Training Camp" internally to equip our employees with innovative thinking in tandem with scientific methods. We also continued to invest in our management team with a lot of resources and systematic training to enhance management skills. We believe that talents are always at the core of LIZHI in its pursuit of sustainable development.

Most importantly, we remain relentless in a commitment to our unique value proposition for our users that determines who we are, where we come from and where we are headed to. We will always stand together with our users to create more value for them. We will continue to integrate the goal of putting users first into our corporate culture and ensure that it will influence our employees’ everyday decisions.

Outlook

We firmly believe that the upcoming 5G and IoT era will widen prospects and potential for audio products, and we will spare no effort to provide users with high-quality services. In addition to the continuous optimization of our existing product offerings, we launched a new mobile app, LIZHI Podcast (also named LIZHI BOKE in Chinese), in January 2021, to provide our users with a more compelling podcast experience. We also are striving to broaden our product offerings for a variety of use cases, such as in-car audio and smart home. We are committed to providing users with a better audio experience and meeting their audio needs under different use scenarios.

Looking ahead in 2021, our core strategy is to create more connections between people and provide them companionship through our online audio platforms, aiming to increase our brand recognition and attract a broader user base all over the world.

Last but not least, we believe LIZHI has a bright future ahead. In 2021, I will lead our team to continue making efforts on our journey of success. We will never forget why we started and will continue to forge ahead with audio innovation and diligence, for our vision to build LIZHI into a leading global audio platform.

Thank you again for your support of LIZHI.

Sincerely,Jinnan (Marco) LaiFounder and Chief Executive Officer of LIZHI INC.

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