Autohome Inc (ATHM) 2021 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by for Autohome's Third Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time.

It is now my pleasure to introduce your host Sterling Song, Autohome's IR Director, Mr. Song.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good evening. Hello, everyone. I'm [Sterling Song] Welcome to Autohome third quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Earlier today, Autohome distributed its earnings press release, and you may find a copy on the company's website at www.autohome.com.cn. On today's call, we have Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Quan Long; Co-President, Mr. Haifeng Shao; Chief Technology Officer, Mr. Bibo Xiang; Vice President, Mr. You Zhou and Finance Director, Ms. Hong Jiang. After the prepared remarks, our management team will be available to answer your questions.

Before we begin, please note that discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those outlined in our public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Autohome doesn't undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable law.

The earnings press release in this call also includes discussions of certain unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. Our press release contains a reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, and is available on Autohome's IR website. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. In addition, a live and archived webcast of this earnings conference call will also be available on Autohome's IR website.

I will now turn the call over to Autohome's Chairman and CEO, Mr. Long.

Mr. Long, please go ahead.

(foreign language) Thank you, Sterling. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. (foreign language) In the third quarter of 2021, chip shortage and a rising raw material prices continued to impact the auto industry. The production cost of auto manufactures increased by more than 10% year-over-year and the marketing related budgets were significantly reduced. Several rounds of power rationing across multiple regions in China also affected manufacturing including auto manufacturers, production of sales of new PVs each fell 12% year-over-year in the third quarter. As a result, Autohome is facing great challenges. Despite these headwinds, we delivered total revenues of RMB1.76 billion for the quarter and the revenues from our online marketplace and other business increased by 2.5% year-over-year, accounting for 32% of total revenues.

In addition, our adjusted net income attributable to Autohome, Inc in the third quarter was RMB583 million with adjusted net margin of 33.1%. On November 18, 2021, Autohome's Board of Directors authorized a share repurchase program under which the company may repurchase up to $200 million with American Depositary Shares over the next 12 months. The company plans to fund repurchases from its existing cash balance.

(foreign language)

First let me summarize the main progress we have achieved in this quarter. In terms of C-end traffic, according to statistics from QM (QuestMobile), the number of average DAUs who accessed our mobile website, primary app and the mini-apps grew to 43.87 million in September, representing a 12.3% increase year-over-year and topping the automotive media vertical. Looking at our user composition, the proportion of active users using mobile phones priced above RMB5,000 was 37%, much higher than the competing platform or industry average indicating the strong purchasing power of Autohome's users.

(foreign language)

During the quarter, affected but decline in the auto market, our revenue from traditional business experienced a constraint in the third quarter while Autohome maintained its leading position in the automotive media vertical, as it is still the first choice of destination for users to view, buy and use cars.

(foreign language)

During the quarter, we accelerated the implementation of our strategic upgrades and achieved significant progress in new businesses. For data products, we upgraded our Intelligent New Car Launch 3.0 technology and content system, improving the product penetration rate to 36% for the first nine months of 2021. On the dealer side, we're offering 12 products across three major modules to provide dealers with a full spectrum of solutions. Notably, the average number of data products purchased by a single-dealer store has increased from 3.01 to 3.55.

With respect to our NEV business, revenues from NEV brands more than doubled year-over-year in the third quarter, as we increased our efforts to engage with NEV automakers. Specifically, among major new strength NEV automakers, Autohome has achieved over 50% market share on average. For used car business, TTP has further solidified its position as the largest online used car auction platform in China and enhanced its efficiency through refined operations.

In the first nine months, the cumulative number of used car dealers we served has increased by 77% year-over-year, thanks to our full scope services covering leads, data and the overall management.

(foreign language)

With that overview, I'd like to share more details on the market environment and our business operations. In the third quarter, a persistent worldwide shortage of chips continued to have a significant impact on the auto industry. To illustrate, from July to September, PV sales declined each month by 7% 12%, and 17% year-over-year, respectively. In addition, prices of raw materials and other bulk commodities continue to trend upward. As a result of raw coal shortages, local governments began to implement power rationing policies to limit high energy consumption and high-pollution enterprises. OEMs and auto parts manufacturers based in Northeast region and other key manufacturing areas such as Jiangsu and Guangdong provinces were all affected by these policies to a varying extent.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that automobile manufacturing industry's third quarter profits fell at 46% year-over-year with profit margin only 4.9%, near its historical low. Contending with multiple unfavorable conditions, automakers have extended their projected timing of when auto production recovery will return to normal levels and have reduced their marketing budgets accordingly. Boston Consulting Group's data and their company survey concluded the budget pool related to online marketing has topped by 40% to 50% year-over-year. The market generally expects the auto industry will continue to fluctuate at the bottom in the fourth quarter. The chip supply issue may gradually ease post the first quarter of 2022 and the overall auto market may recover accordingly. It is expected that the auto market may return to a relatively normal level of growth in the second half of 2022.

(foreign language)

For our traditional business, despite the short term difficulties facing the auto market and the fierce competition, Autohome has remained focused on improving service quality and customer value instead of adopting radical low price schemes. Adhering to a sustainable business model supports our ability to maintain leading market share position in the auto media vertical.

(foreign language)

We have propelled steadily the implementation strategic upgrades. More specifically we have been deepening our integration with Ping An to create a platform service matrix for car viewing, car buying, car selling and car use, building a vigorous ecosystem that integrates technology, resources, offline activities and traffic, to achieve the joint construction of a healthy automobile ecosystem.

(foreign language)

Moving to content. Our three more content strategy involving more users, more formats and more scenarios, is progressing well. We have significantly increased the proportion of original videos and live streaming content on our platform, established a cross-over collaborations and the rolled out complementary offline activities. For example, we jointly produced a new program with NetEase Cloud Music and held the industry's first carnival for NEV car owners. We also expanded our content offerings with the launch of our motorcycle model library and a modified car channel, and the industry's largest car-in-use model library et cetera. Our efforts to diversify our content matrix and abundant offline activities are consistently broadening our user reach. This year, our featured online-offline event, August 18, Super Auto Show garnered more than 500 million visits, more than double the last year's number.

(foreign language)

For B-end businesses, we increased our investment in innovative businesses and strived to achieve breakthroughs. For example, digital dealer products continue to provide dealer customers with value-added services, helping them improve their operating performance. At present, three of our dealer data products have demonstrated a penetration rate of over 50% and we have implemented system level integration with nearly 10 automakers.

(foreign language)

With respect to our NEV business, we are exploring NEV automakers to specific needs and introducing new NEV-targeted business models in addition to providing solutions, covering rebranding and a promotional channels for them. As I mentioned, since the beginning of the year, we have broadened our NEV partnerships with 22 NEV brands and our revenues from NEV brands more than doubled year-over-year in the third quarter.

(foreign language)

We have also further accelerated our deployment in the used car industry this year. By creating car owner service platform and trade-in user model products, we are able to connect the car sellers with high-quality used car dealers directly and build out a number one car selling platform for Chinese users. In collaboration with Autohome, TTP has greatly improved its efficiency and reduced operating costs through refined operations.

(foreign language)

With a broadened strategic landscape, we're delighted to see that we have attracted several experienced professionals to our senior management team, including our new CTO, Mr. Bibo Xiang. An early participant in the development of the Internet sector in China. Mr. Xiang has extensive experience in search engines, commercial advertising, recommendation systems, natural language processing and data mining. He has worked with Internet giants including Yahoo! Search, Taobao Advertisement and the 360 Search. Going forward, he will lead Autohome's technology and product development and oversee AI, big data and algorithm upgrades.

And then I'd like to introduce me to the Mr. Jiang Wu, the Vice President of our C-end business. He will focus on the comprehensive upgrade of our C-end products, video content and the user experience. Mr. Wu brings us more than 20 years of experience in the Internet industry, and is one of the earliest user growth actors in China. He has participated in the establishment of numerous ToC end product business in companies, including Oppo, Xunlei and Renren et cetera.

Finally, Mr. Song Yang, joined Autohome as Vice President of our OEM business unit. Mr. Yang has 15 years of experience in the auto industry, including comprehensive management experience across marketing, technology and products. He has held positions with well-known automakers, including Ford, Borgward and Dongfeng-Nissan, and has great insights into the auto market and customer needs. With such professional diverse backgrounds and skillsets in automotive industry, we are working together to execute Autohome's strategies and achieve new breakthroughs.

(foreign language)

Overall, Autohome is steadily fulfilling its mission of maintaining its leading position in both mobile traffic and the vertical media market share. Supported by the strong balance sheet and the profitability, we will strategically explore new territories, seeks new business model and develop new products. In the future, we plan to continue to advance in the following areas.

(foreign language)

For C-end business we'll continue to sharpen our "three more" strategies, including introducing key opinion leaders to our platform as well as in depth online and offline integration to increase the depth and breadth of live streaming content coverage. Building on structured data such as Car Model Library and our big data recommendation capabilities, we'll continue to our efforts in accurate recommendation across various interest-based scenarios to constantly streamline user operations and enhance user experience. While we remain our advantage in covering high spending user groups, we're also embracing the opportunities arising from NEV through a series of products and formats such as a new energy dedicated user section covering high frequency, car-in-use scenarios, and private domain user communities aiming to increase our user penetration among NEV owners and younger demographics.

(foreign language)

For B-end business we have automakers to build a digital marketing highway upon digitalization, intelligence and virtualization with full-chain solutions. Meanwhile, we've broadened the digital dealer business through optimizing business structure and empower dealer with our digital products in all aspects of operation and management. Autohome's used car business will further cooperate with Ping An to upgrade the trade-in service. We will also jointly build a "golden standard" certification system with TTP to create a trustworthy used car ecosystem that empowers dealers across a full used car life cycle and provide consumers with the high-standard experience.

(foreign language)

We firmly believe that the auto industry's current challenges are temporary and that the industry's long-term positive trends remain intact. We now estimate China's auto industry will resume growth trends in the first half of 2022. Following that, we are convinced that Autohome's media services business will be poised for a rapid recovery, while our new business will be in a better position to lead the market. Looking forward, Autohome will continue to build synergies with Ping An. With our healthy business model and a solid fundamentals, Autohome will steadily promote business innovation, actively unlock growth potential and strive for long-term sustainable development as we have full confidence in the long-term development of China's overall auto market and the company.

(foreign language)

With that, I'll turn the call over to our Finance Director Ms. Hong Jiang to a closer look at our third quarter financial results.

Thank you Mr. Long. Now, let me walk you through the key financials for the third quarter. Please note that as with the prior calls I will reference RMB only in my discussion today unless otherwise stated. Net revenues for the third quarter were RMB1.76 billion. For a detailed breakdown, media services revenue came in at RMB434 million. Leads generation services revenues was RMB768 million and the online marketplace and the other revenues increased by 2.5% year-over-year to RMB561 million, primarily driven by the consolidation of TTP. Moving on to the cost, cost of revenues was RMB281 million, compared to RMB260 million in the third quarter of 2020. Gross margin was 84.1% in the third quarter compared to 89.2% in the same period last year.

Turning to operating expenses, sales and marketing expenses in the third quarter was RMB712 million, compared to RMB979 million a year ago. The decrease was primarily due to the reduction in promotional spending and the continuous budget control. Products and development expenses were RMB364 million, compared to RMB349 million in the third quarter of 2020.

Finally, G&A expenses were RMB111 million, compared to RMB140 million in the third quarter of 2020. Overall, we delivered operating profit of RMB365 million in the third quarter compared to RMB744 million in the corresponding period of 2020. Adjusted net income attributable to Autohome Inc was RMB583 million in the third quarter compared to RMB902 million in the corresponding period of 2020. Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per share for the third quarter were RMB1.15 and RMB1.15 respectively, compared to RMB1.89 and RMB1.88 in the corresponding period of 2020.

Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings for ADS for the third quarter was RMB4.61 and RMB4.61, respectively, compared to RMB7.55 and RMB7.52 in the corresponding period of last year. As of September 30, 2021, our balance sheet remained very strong with cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of RMB19.18 billion. We generated operating cash flow of RMB567 million in the third quarter of 2021.

With that, we are ready to take your questions.

Operator, please open the line for the Q&A.

Q&A

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) The first question is from Thomas Chong at Jefferies. Please go ahead.

(foreign language) I'll translate by myself. My question is, I want to know about the competitive landscape in each business segment. Thank you.

(foreign language) Thank you for the question. Actually, according to the statistics from QuestMobile the number of daily DAU, of our access to mobile websites and also primary app and mini app grow to 43.87 million in September, representing 12.3% increase year on year. Actually among those, especially for those active users who actually using mobile phones priced above RMB5,000 was 37%. Actually comparing that number with our peers, our major competitors' that number was only 20%.

The industry average was only 15%, which indicate that our user is more high-end and actually their purchasing power is stronger. While, according to the competitive landscape, maybe somebody will say, our competitors, they have a mother company, which is Tencent and ByteDance. Actually, our mother company, Ping An Group, was very capable. For example, let me quote with you with a few numbers. For Ping An Group, we have 640 million Internet users and 210 million financial service users; out of that, we still have 60 million auto insurance of Ping An and 30 million, the credit card users which are also the car owners of Ping An Bank.

So, actually leveraging our Ping An Group's large and vast customer base, we actually can further grow our Autohome's business. We also expanded into the EV and renewable energy and EV business, as well as the live streaming and live broadcasting business. We also offered a lot of, for example, motorcycle car model library and also together with the live streaming and the live broadcasting business, we are attracting more and more users, especially the young users.

Now, let me turn to Mr. Shao Haifeng to take more of your questions. Thank you.

(foreign language) I would like to share with you my outlook over the next 24 months, after market competition. (foreign language) Now, let's look at our traditional business first. We believe that the traditional business actually would transform from quantitative based to qualitative based, which means the driver would be quantity, then transform into quality. The OEMs and the dealers would pay more attention to the quality of the data. For example, the effectiveness and the conversion rate of lease. In terms of this, Autohome is absolutely number one in the vertical auto media industry.

(foreign language)

Now, in terms of the advertisement product perspective, we believe the advertisement with the transform from the exposure type to more interactive and immersive type. We believe that the leads in the future will be more direct to link in with the customers.

(foreign language)

Now, let's look at the new business. We have three major piece of the new business. One is data business, second is NEV, and the third one is used car. Now, let's look at the data business, for the big data we believe there's one thing which is quite a momentum, and it's for sure that is the digital transformation of OEMs under the dealers. This is for sure, and they would accelerating the whole process to go to digitalization. Comparing with our competitors actually, we are an early bird in the vertical media industry of the auto and compared with other competitors which are Internet players like the Baidu, Alibaba and iFly actually, we have better foundation and the more solid foundation than those companies.

Actually, we have larger volume of the data because we accumulated the data ever since 2016 and secondly, we have did a great job in creating the data, classifying the data, and we import and feed our data into our models, which make our models more valid and more relevant and more smart. So, in this way, we have better results and effectiveness over our competitors in terms of the data business.

(foreign language)

Now let's look at the NEV business. Actually, we already account for more than 50% of the market share in the NEV business. Looking into the next two years, we believe that their biggest challenge is how to maximize and enhance their sales under direct sales model. So for vertical media players, if they don't transform their business model and their service model that will be a big challenge for them. For us, we are already in the leading position, because we already promoted and also boosted the transaction and the sales in the NEV market. So, in this way we can help those OEMs to achieve more success under the direct selling retail model.

(foreign language)

Now, let's comment on the used car business. Actually used car is a big market in China, but it's very much segmented. There is no giant player who dominates this market because there are so many small players. It's so much segmented. In terms of the B and the C on the B2B side and C2B side, lack of trust is the major challenge.

(foreign language)

Actually in terms of the used cars, our net competitor is 58.com. However, we are more successful in promoting the transaction because we had effectively boosted the transaction, and in terms of the trading and transaction and auction process, we are more advanced comparing with 58.com.

(foreign language)

Actually, in terms of the used car business, leveraging on Ping An Group's massive resources, one of our benefit and our advantages is that we can maximize our source of models -- the used cars. If we can monopoly the source of the used cars, and we can very quickly be leading the second player in the market by getting into the B2B model. In this way, we will be in the leading position and we actually is already in the leading position. And in terms of dealing with used car dealers, currently we're working with more than 50,000 used car dealers and our target is to grow this number to more than 90,000. Currently, it's 50,000 and we're going to expand in 90,000 used car dealers. In this way, we can maximize our source of the used cars and we can boost the transaction to ensure we will be in the leading position in the used car auction market.

Our next question will be from Liping Zhao at CICC. Please go ahead.

(inaudible)

Sorry to interrupt Ms. Brenda. It seems like you have a really bad signal. So can you please readjust and ask your question again? (technical difficulty) Sorry, sorry, everyone. Participant Brenda is having a bit of technical issues at the moment. Maybe we'll have her back later. Now, let's move on with next question was from HSBC, Ritchie Sun. Please go ahead.

(foreign language). So I'll translate question myself. So recently, there were some news talking about Ping An potentially selling Autohome's stake, can management respond to that and how do we see Ping An's involvement into Autohome's strategy and sort of the importance towards Ping An, how does it change so far? Thank you.

(foreign language) Actually, my comment is, rumor is just a rumor, there's no sound evidence. And internally, we haven't heard any things similar to what you quoted. We haven't heard any news like that. Actually, if you look at Autohome's shares, the share value currently is undervalued, the share price. Actually for Ping An Group and Autohome, we had very frequent and timely as well as routinely discussions about Autohome's business. And also this morning, we just hold an internal meeting talking about Autohome remains to be one of the core part of the auto ecosystem of the Ping An Group and it will be in the future. So, Ping An Group attach great importance to support Autohome's development. Thank you.

Thank you. And your next question will be from Brenda Zhao at CICC. Please go ahead.

(foreign language) Thanks, management for taking my question. I have two questions here. First, could management share the view of 4Q and next year market outlook when the core business revenue growth is expected to recover? And next question is related to the customer end strategy, what the company's strategy, the new emerging business model, such as live streaming? Thank you.

(foreign language) Well, actually to answer your question, firstly, in terms of the short supply of the chips in auto business, on the optimistic side, we believe net in Q2 the situation will be eased and for the latter half of the next year, you can see that the whole market would be turned over. Actually for this year, Q3 and Q4, in terms of the new car sales, we would call it the darkest time, the darkest hours. We believe this situation will be eased in the next Q1 and we believe the new car sales would go up next year in Q1, maybe it would be growing by 4% to 5%, so it would be middle single digit and I think it would be comparable to the growth rate of 2019.

(foreign language)

Now, in terms of the live streaming business, actually we have to distinguish for our live broadcasting and the live broadcasting while live selling of the vehicles. Actually, in terms of live streaming and the live selling of the vehicles, we do see there are lots of discussion about that. However, the real sales is still very low because auto sales is very complicated transaction, it cannot easily be completely done online. So actually, we are expecting that only live streaming in the area there will be more new ways to, we would see more way to be more interactive in the future. Actually, tomorrow would be the Guangzhou Auto Show and we would be hosting the seven hour live streaming campaign, which is quite innovative live streaming activity. So we welcome you to join us for tomorrow's live streaming.

Thanks Liping. We can turn to the finishing part, thank you. Operator?

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd turn the conference back to management for closing comments.

(foreign language)

Thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you very much for joining us today. We appreciate your support and look forward to updating you on our next quarter's conference call in a few months' time. In the meantime, please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions or comments.

Thank you. Goodbye.