Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by for Autohome first 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 objection, you may disconnect at this time. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Aggie Zhao, Autohome IR Manager. Ms. Zhao, you may begin. Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, welcome to Autohome first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Earlier today, Autohome distributed its earnings press release, 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 Financial Officer, Mr. Jun Zou, Chief Technology Officer, Mr. Xiao Wang. After the prepared remarks, Mr. Long, Mr. Shao, Mr. Zou, Mr. Wang will be available to answer your questions. Before we begin, please note that the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provision of the U.S. 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 does not 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 Chairman and CEO, Mr. Long. [Non-English content] Thank you, Aggie. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. [Non-English content] I'm pleased to report a solid quarter, with total revenues growing 19.1% to RMB 1.84 billion. Revenues from our online marketplace and AD business increased by 74% year-on-year and contributed to 29.3% of total revenues. Data products continued its strong growth trajectory, with revenues increasing 64.9% year-on-year, primarily driven by increasing contribution from OEM data products. In particular, TTP's revenue contribution was larger than our prior expectations. Adjusted net income in the first quarter continued to expand, up 13.7% year-on-year. [Non-English content] Before we start discussing our results in detail, I'd like to share some thoughts about industry trends as a whole and some of our own recent developments. We are witnessing that changes are coming to the automobile industry. In face of a challenging macro environment and fluctuation in automobile sales stemming from the pandemic, the auto industry has started to step up efforts towards a digital transformation. Emerging premium electric vehicle brands and traditional auto manufacturers' investment in a new energy vehicle have also accelerated the growth in the NEV space. In addition, some new players with extensive expertise in internet services are entering into the smart automobile market, intensifying the competition in this field. All these trends are reshaping the auto market landscape, including the overall industrial value chain. [Non-English content] Against the backdrop of this new market and industry dynamic, on one hand, in the past two years, we have been consistently optimizing extremely low margin businesses such as offline insurance business, while staying away from price competition to ensure a high quality business portfolio. On the other hand, we rolled out our 4.0 strategies last year, namely AI, big data and cloud capability and SaaS strategies. Now we are also planning an upgrade of these strategies by fine tuning our action plans to the execution as we seek to better capture industry opportunities and achieve continued high quality development. We expect to announce updates on these action plans in the second half of this year. As a platform with a massive and engaged user base of more than 40 million daily active users, solid business fundamentals, industry-leading innovative capabilities, as well as effective and strong execution capabilities, we are confident that Autohome can grow beyond its current standing and tap into new growth potential. [Non-English content] Next, let's move to our Q1 results. In the first quarter, the new energy vehicle market expanded the upward growth trend that began in the second half of last year, as sales volumes were year-over-year and accounted for over 9% of total new passenger vehicle sales, compared to approximately 6% for full year 2020. The prosperity of the NEV market brought new growth opportunities for us. In the first quarter, we expanded and deepened our cooperation with NEV automakers. Revenues from these automakers increased close to 170% compared to the same period of last year. [Non-English content] In terms of our used car business, we are exploring further opportunities in this area, leveraging our capabilities in leads, financing and relevant supportive service resources to empower our customers and serve our users. In the first quarter, the transaction volume for TTP Car Inc. increased by 160% year-on-year. [Non-English content] Moving next to our product advances. Recently, we unveiled a new version of our Intelligent New Car Launch, integrating VR showroom and mini video products while combining our intelligent activities with offline operations. This is allowing new car model debuts to gain more precise exposure and attract more auto fans. In the first quarter, a total of 31 automakers utilized our data products, and the total number of programs for Intelligent New Car Launch and intelligent marketing solutions was more than 30. By adding private domain operation functions, including WeChat mini programs and marketing, as well as promotional tools to the existing public domain functions, our incremental leads product Smart Shop 3.0 version works as a marketing platform for dealers to capture private traffic, their own users, and obtain incremental leads. [Non-English content] On the product and the users front, we recently upgraded our main app to offer a streamlined user interface while optimizing the design that caters to the younger generation. All these efforts help us further enhance the user experience. In the meantime, we also took steps to improve the quality of our sales leads by requiring an SMS verification when users leave their cell phone numbers with us, which further strengthens the protection of user privacy and security. [Non-English content] In conclusion, we have a solid first quarter driven by our resilient core business as well as robust new initiatives. Data products once again delivered strong revenue growth, while TTP boosted our used car business line. We also accelerated our product innovation and iteration in order to further enhance our overall service quality. These achievements reflect Autohome's leading position in these key areas. Going forward, we remain committed to better serving the interests of our users and customers and delivering long-term value to our shareholders. [Non-English content] With that, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Jun, for more business details and closer look at our first quarter financial results. Thank you, Quan. To start, let me go through some business metrics. In March 2021, the number of average DAUs who access our mobile websites, primarily apps and mini apps, grew further to 42.3 million, representing an increase of 33.3% compared to the prior year. For the first quarter, all of our OGC, PGC, UGC, and other content categories saw a user contraction. Now, I will talk to you through the key financials for the first quarter. Please note that as with prior calls, I will reference RMB only in my discussion today, unless otherwise stated. Net revenues for the first quarter were RMB 1.84 billion, a 19.1% increase compared to the corresponding period last year. For a detailed breakdown, media services revenue were RMB 605 million, leads generation services revenue were RMB 698 million, and online marketplace and others revenue increased by 74% year-over-year to RMB 39 million. Primarily driven by the impact of consolidation of TTP and increased contribution from data products. Moving on to costs. Cost of revenues was CNY 243 million compared to CNY 178 million in Q1 last year. The increase was primarily attributable to the impact of consolidation of TTP. Gross margin was 86.8% in the first quarter, compared to 88.5% in Q1 last year. Turning to operating expenses, sales and marketing expenses in the first quarter were CNY 683 million, compared to CNY 524 million in Q1 last year. The increase was primarily attributable to the impact from consolidation of TTP, increased execution cost to support customers and business development. R&D expenses were CNY 305 million, compared to CNY 292 million in Q1 2020. The increase was primarily driven by higher investment in research and development activities. G&A expenses were CNY 129 million, compared to CNY 89 million in Q1 2020. The increase was primarily attributable to the impact of consolidation of TTP. Overall, we delivered an operating profit of CNY 567 million for the first quarter, compared to CNY 586 million in the corresponding period of 2020. Adjusted net income attributable to Autohome Inc. was CNY 775 million for the first quarter, compared to CNY 646 million in the corresponding period of last year. GAAP basic and diluted earnings per share for the first quarter were RMB 1.52, compared to RMB 1.36 and RMB 1.35, respectively, in the corresponding period of last year. GAAP basic and diluted earnings per ADS for the first quarter were RMB 6.08 and RMB 6.06 respectively, compared to. RMB 5.43 and RMB 5.4, respectively in the same change last year. As of end of Q1 2021 our balance sheet remained very strong with cash, cash equivalents and short term investments of 17.27 billion which generated operating cash flow of 546 million of the first quarter 2021. As listed company on the Hong Kong stock Exchange, we will follow the common practices adopted by public companies in Hong Kong market. As a result, we will no longer provide guidance on revenues going forward. In mid-March, Autohome successfully listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Additionally, Hong Kong Autohome's, Hong Kong stocks will be added to Hang Seng TECH Index and Hang Seng Composite Index marking a key milestone in our history and opening a new journey for Autohome. In the past few years, Autohome has been leading the development of the industry. As we move forward with our strong balance sheet and profitability, we are confident that Autohome will bring more value to both our users and customers and deliver long term return and value to our shareholders as well. With that, we're ready to take your questions. Operator, please open the line for Q&A. Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Please note that each participant is limited to one question. Should you have more than one question to post, kindly join the queue again. Participant with question to post may now press zero by one on the telephone keypad, and you will be placed in the queue. To cancel the queue, please press zero followed by two. Once again, you have any question to post, please press zero one on the telephone keypad, you will be placed in the queue. To cancel the queue, please press zero two. First question is from Miranda Zhuang from Bank of America Security. Please go ahead. [Non-English content] Thank you for taking my question. Can management share your thoughts on the business outlook for the second quarter and the second half this year? Especially for the second half, because previously management mentioned that company will announce action plans for strategic upgrades in the second half. Can you give us a hint on what kind of areas will company focus on? What kind of products or services upgrades may be taken? Thank you. [Non-English content] Okay, thank you for raising this question. I'll like to take the question about the strategic upgrading. You know that in China, our market changes very fast and we do witness three different characteristics. The first characteristic is that the sales volume for all things have been volatile. Has been very dramatic changes over the past several quarters. In Q1, you can see that there's a very big growth comparing with the same period of last year, there's a growth of 59%. Of course, there's also the factor caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In April, we can see that we only have the growth of about 12%. The growth jumped from a 59% to 12%. For the first three weeks of May, actually for the wholesale business, there's a negative growth year-on-year. The second characteristic is that because of COVID-19 pandemic, the digital transition of those automakers has been accelerated. The third characteristic is that you can see the sales of NEV has been growing up very rapidly. From January to April of this year, you can see that the sales of the new electric passenger vehicle increased by 288%, almost to 300%. There's a lot of new players, including some of the premium car brands, as well as some of the car makers with very good expertise on internet services. They are all entering into the NEV sector. [Non-English content] At the same time, we also find that the entire auto industry has been developing as well as changing very fast. When we get in touch with the automakers, with those auto OEMs, we also discover the changes. For example, a lot of automakers, we have been directly connecting with the users and some of them directly connected with the operation of the users. At the same time, the iteration of the products of the auto OEM is also accelerated. For Autohome, we think that we are dedicated to pursue long-term sustainable and healthy development of the auto market. We considered about the upgrading of our strategy. Last year we launched our 4.0 strategies, and this year, based on the above mentioned new changes on the market, we are considering about the upgrading of the strategy. [Non-English content] According to the plan of Autohome, we are actually going to announce the update of the fine tuning of the action plan to the execution in the second half of this year. Actually, we are dedicated to have the long term sound stable as well as a good development, high quality development in the long term. [Non-English content] [Non-English content] Actually, for this year, we still maintain our estimates about the auto market growth in China at the very beginning of the year, which is the estimates of a growth of about 10%. Actually, we still have to observe the changes and development on the market. The first thing we have to take notice is about the shortage of the auto level chips production. There's a shortage for a while. Second thing, we have to take notice of the relapse of COVID-19 in specific geography. The second thing is that I think that for the auto OEMs, the budgeting of the whole year is closely related to the sales volume of the cars. This is the two points I'd like to add. Operator, next question please. Thank you very much. Next question is Eddy Wang from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. [Non-English content] Thank you, [Non-English content], for taking my question. My first question is about your comments on the new car sales in the April, which has been a little bit slow down. In May 1st, three weeks of May, actually you see a year-over-year decline in terms of new car sales volume. Would you please give us some color how this will impact our revenue in the second quarter? That's the first question. Second question is that you have been talking about in the prepared remark that TTP Car has delivered a larger than expected contribution to your top line. Can you give us a little bit more color in terms of firstly is how this used car industry have been so far this year? Secondly is that, how did you achieve the higher than expected top line growth of TTP Car? What was your strategy in the overall used car kind of sector? Thank you very much. [Non-English content] [Non-English content] To answer your first question, you can see that in first few months of this year, in particular from January to April as well as the first three weeks of May, there's a declining trend of the new car sales. I think there are basically two reasons for that. The first one is the shortage of the chips, and second one is COVID-19 pandemic. As we estimated the growth for the whole year, which was about 10%, you can see that so far in comparison, there's a downward trend. In Autohome, we think that for the automakers, their budgeting is closely related to the sales volume. As a result, you can see that our advertising business is affected because of that, Piper was still exploring the potential of other businesses. The second question is about the used car business. You can see that so far the growth of the secondhand car, the used cars is higher than new car sales. Last year we acquired the TTP, and now we are thinking about the cooperation between Autohome and TTP. That is to say, we hope that the business of the used car in Autohome as well as TTP, we can form some interaction, we can form some synergy. The first one is that in terms of the used car business, we still stick to the platform-based business model, which is actually focusing on the light asset. [Non-English content] [Non-English content] For the used car business, together with TTP, from the seller side, we are actually providing the lead gen services as well as the auction services so as to enable the sellers of the used cars. From the buyer side, we are offering the lead gen services as well as platform services so as to enable the buyers. I think that in the future, we are also considering about launching the trade-in services and the relevant projects so that to better integrate our used car business as well as TTP business. [Non-English content] I'd like to add two points. Firstly, just like Mr. Shao mentioned, the advertising budget of those automakers are closely linked with the auto sales. We are also exploring the acquisition of other businesses by offering more products to our clients. The other thing is that we will pay more attention to the operation of the users so as to enable those auto OEMs, automakers. In terms of NEV, I should say that actually our clients would like to pay a much higher premium for the lead gen comparing with the leads of the traditional automakers. I would not tell you the details about the gap between the two, but I think that this premium is very significant. I think that through advertising as well as PPS, we will continue to empower the traditional automakers as well as those emerging premium EV brands. Yeah, I also said that we offer a comprehensive suite of services to NEV makers and traditional automakers that make EVs through advertisement, through leads, through orders, and through PPS. Thanks, Eddy. Operator, next question, please. Thank you, everyone. Next question is Brenda Chao from CICC. Please go ahead. [Non-English content] Thanks management for taking my question. I have a follow-up question on NEV. So could management elaborate a little bit more on the cooperation model of NEV automakers and our future potential other models of this business? Thank you. [Non-English content] [Non-English content] As this section, we have very comprehensive cooperation with the NEV automakers as well as the premium EV brands. Since 2019, we already enter into cooperation with the big names like XPeng, NIO, as well as Li Auto, etc. There's very sustainable and very stable cooperation between us. In terms of the model of the cooperation, the lead gen is produced based on the demand, and the price of those leads will be based on the quality of the leads. This is the principle of our cooperation model. We offer a package of total sales increase solutions to those clients. [Non-English content] During the upgrading of our strategy, we will also iterate the cooperation model between us and those NEV automakers. There are two main directions. The first one is that we will enhance our services, in particular the order placement services, as well as the online reservation of the test drives. The second thing is that actually we will help those NEV automakers to expand their coverage in different geographies, in particular in tier 1 cities. Okay, thanks. Operator. Thank you, Brenda Chao. Next question is Thomas Chong from Jefferies. Please go ahead. [Non-English content] Thanks management for taking my question. My question relating to our OPEX trend. Can management comments about our cost strategy for this year as well as our headcount plan? My second question is about the overseas expansion strategy, given that COVID is still quite uncertain outside China, and would our strategic upgrade actually have some changes in our overseas expansion? Thank you. Thomas [Non-English content] I would like to take the first question and Mr. Wang will take the second question. Just like our Chairman said in the opening presentation, we are planning about the upgrading of our strategy. It's very difficult for me to give you a forecast about changes in cost as well as the expenses. According to our traditional legacy, actually we're very attached to the cost control as well as the operation efficiency enhancements and for the cost saves in our business, we use them in the incubation of the new business. I think that this principle will remain unchanged. [Non-English content] The second question about our overseas business, we will still follow the principle of empowerment as well as output. In terms of empowerment, I mean we will actually empower our users through the content. It means that there will be very rich content provided online so as to facilitate the users to see different models online, to actually have the test drive and to make the reservation online, things like that. In terms of the output, we mean technical output. We will continue to enhance our 3D + VR auto show capabilities so that we can launch different activities online and to provide more convenience to the online users. From the B channels, it means that we will empower the dealers and distributors through our SaaS capabilities and platform. In terms of our cooperation with the auto OEM, we will empower them with our lead gen capabilities and their content creation capabilities. You can see that in March, our total MUV is about 3.12 million, we actually connected with 6,550 dealers, and the SKU is 1.2 million. Just add one point to our CTO's answer. In some other market, we don't mind looking into investment or acquisition opportunities to expedite our inroads into those local markets. We are still confident that our overall technology, content and our ability and experience to work with OEM and dealers will help us to penetrate those markets. Thank you. Next question, please. Thank you, Thomas. Next question is Brian Gong from Citigroup. Please go ahead. [Non-English content] I will quickly translate by myself. So can management share some thoughts on the deepening cooperation with Ping An ahead? And what's the role Ping An will play in our strategic upgrade plan in the second half of this year? Thank you [Non-English content] [Non-English content] In terms of our cooperation with Ping An, I think that there are mainly three dimensions we can discuss about the cooperation. The first one is technology collaboration, the second one traffic collaboration, and the third one is product collaboration. In the first one, technology collaboration, I think that we have been greatly empowered and enabled by Ping An in terms of AI, automation technology as well as machine learning. The second one is traffic collaboration. We have been cooperating with Ping An, and we have been making our presence on a lot of the mini programs on Ping An website, for example, in their Good Driver, as well as the Gold Butler, as well as Pocket Bank, things like that. We have been cooperating with them by making our presence in those mini programs. The third one is the product collaboration. These are mainly based on specific projects, say the data projects that we have been talking before. In this one, we can do precise marketing towards the users based on the accurate user profiling. Take this August 18th campaign, for example, Ping An has been greatly empowering us through their communication as well as media resources abilities. [Non-English content] I also like to add one point. Actually, since this year, Ping An has intensified the collaboration, cooperation as well as support with Autohome. Actually, for all the subsidiaries affiliated with Ping An, which are related to the auto ecosystem, they have been totally and very comprehensively engaged with the cooperation with Autohome. Recently, you can see that when we are actually dealing with the OEMs as well as the dealers, actually we get a lot of support from Ping An in terms of the daily work. Thank you, Brian. At this time constraint, I will turn the conference back to management for closing comments. [Non-English content] Thank you very much for joining us today. We appreciate your support, and we look forward to updating you on our next quarter's conference call in a short time. In the meantime, please feel free to get in touch with us if you have any further questions or comments. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participation. You may disconnect now.
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