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Autohome Inc. (ATHM -0.71%)
Q1Â 2019 Earnings Call
May. 8, 2019, 8:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by for Autohome's First Quarter 2019 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, Anita Chen, Autohome's IR Director. Ms. Chen, you may begin.
Anita Chen -- Investor Relations
Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Autohome's first quarter 2018 earnings conference call. Earlier today, Autohome distributed it's 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 Mr. Min Lu, Autohome's Chairman and CEO; and Mr. Jun Zou, Autohome's CFO. After the prepared remarks Mr. Lu and Mr. Jun will be available to answer your questions.
Before when they came, please note that discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Security 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 are 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 unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. The 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 is being recorded. In addition, a webcast of this 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. Lu.
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Anita. Hello, everyone, thank you for joining us today to discuss our first quarter 2019 results. I'm pleased to report a strong start to the year in which our revenue increased by 25% year-over-year to RMB 1.61 billion. More importantly, the adjusted net income during the quarter grew 35% year-over-year to RMB 701 million, representing an adjusted net margin of 43%. During the quarter, we continued to face a challenging operating environment as the auto market is due trending down, however we embraced these challenges by continuing to pursue innovation across our key products and explore new business opportunities. We saw encouraging progress in each of our major business lines.
In March, the number of average DAUs who access to our mobile websites, and the primary application increased by 14% year-over-year to 30.2 million. We saw strong 7traction from both the used car channels and Carso, which is a self-developed intelligent search engine providing aggregated car-related information. This continued to traffic leadership and growth was driven by our capability of precisely identifying the true needs of our large and expanding user base while offering them customized the content and tools by our advanced Big Data technology.
For media business, we continue to build up our competitive age with the high quality content, improved user experience by enhancing data-driven intelligent recommendations. For the first quarter, all of our PGC, UGC, OGC and AGC content of the category gained solid user attraction. EV channels and mini shop retail channels, both saw rapid traffic (inaudible). Used channel achieved peak DAUs of 2.7 million in April, which was very essential as we are increasingly able to retain younger generation.
All of our efforts in creating immersive content SNS and the tools that users love to share and interact with others have resulted in the continued expansion of our traffic. As I have mentioned in the beginning. Our intelligent market solutions, which is based our UVN-B model leveraging big data and AR technology is gaining wider acceptance among OEMs. By the end of April, we have signed the 15 intelligent marketing solution projects and will expand throughout 2019.
On average such projects have successfully increased OEMs brand awareness by 60% to 170%, while expanded the leads volume by 30% and more. For our leads generation business. The number of paying dealers was over 24,000 as of the end of first quarter. With leads volume increase by 19% year-over-year. Next, our data business continues to gaining market momentum with positive reviews. For the first quarter 11 OEMs and over 14,000 dealers have purchased our data products. And for our used car B2C preform by the end of the first quarter, we were able to grand very competitive merchant loans products to over 3,900 qualified dealers resulting total cumulative credit line of RMB 6.3 billion. For the auto financing business, during the first quarter we facilitated over RMB 5 billion in loans and insurance, representing over 130% increase year-over-year.
(inaudible) Beijing AR Auto Show last year and the recent Shanghai AR Auto Show, we plan to host the first ever (inaudible) online auto show on August 18th which with new vehicle debut plus TV plus online shopping carnival.
To conclude, the solid progress across our business manifests the power of our ecosystem, combining the best of content and the Big Data technology, we are confident that our diverse revenue revenue model and the pioneer spirit well accelerate the network effect in fueling our long-term sustainable growth.
With that I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Jun Zou for a closer look at our first quarter financial results and business outlook for the second quarter.
Jun Zou -- Chief Financial Officer
Thank you. Min. Hi everyone. As Min has already highlighted, we are very pleased to report an excellent first quarter into 2019. Please note that I will reference RMB only in my discussion today.
Net revenue for the first quarter was RMB 1.61 billion representing a 25% growth compared to previous year. This was 2% above the high end of our original guidance. For detailed breakdown, media service revenue increased 10% year-over-year to RMB 643 million, despite the challenging auto market Autohome continues to be the automakers partner of choice. Lead generation services revenue increased 20% year-over-year to RMB 734 million, primarily driven by increasing ARPU. Online marketplace and others revenues increased 152% year-over-year to RMB 235 million, primarily due to auto financing data business growth.
Moving on to costs. Our cost of revenue increased by 26% year-over-year to RMB 184 million. Gross margin remained stable at 89% in the first quarter. Now for operating expenses, sales and marketing expenses in the first quarter were RMB 510 million compared to RMB 398 million into Q1 2018, mainly because of increased costs in salary and benefits, as well as offline execution expenses.
Product and development expense were RMB 269 million compared to RMB 229 million in Q1 2018, again this reflects our R&D headcount increase and is proof of our commitment to technology and higher talents. Finally, G&A expenses were RMB 68 million compared to RMB 63 million one year ago.
Overall, we delivered an operating profit of RMB 657 million for the first quarter of 2019 representing an increase of 26% year-over-year primarily due to consistent top line growth streamline operational efficiency and effective cost control. Adjusted net income attributable to Autohome was up by 35% year-over-year to RMB 701 million for the first quarter of this year.
Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per share and the per ADS for the first quarter were RMB 5.93 and RMB 5.87 respectively compared to RMB 4.43 and RMB 4.36 respectively in the corresponding period last year.
As of March 31st, our balance sheet remains very strong with cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of RMB 10.48 billion. We generated operating cash flow of RMB 418 million in the first quarter. Let me now address our second quarter 2019 outlook which reflects our current and the preliminary view on the market and operating conditions that maybe subject to change. At this point, we were expecting to generate net revenue in the range of RMB 2.275 billion to RMB 2.305 billion representing a 21.7% to 23.3% year-over-year growth.
In summary, we are very pleased with our first quarter results. Together as a team, we again achieved very strong year-over-year growth in revenue and profitability. Given the solid car business performance and continuing momentum of our new business initiatives, we are confident in maximizing long-term shareholder value.
With that, we're ready to take your questions. Operator, please open the line for Q&A. Thank you.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you, sir. (Operator Instructions) Your first question is from Liping from CICC. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Liping -- CICC -- Analyst
(Foreign Language) The first one is related to the outlook of auto industry because we see that the new car sales for (inaudible) is still very soft. So what's the outlook of the new car sales industry from the management's perspective and what's the implication of our media revenue growth? And my second question is related to our business model as the company is testing new monetization models, so can you elaborate a little bit more on the progress of our CPL and CPS model. The third question (inaudible) of that business and what should we (inaudible)?
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Okay. (Foreign Language). So this is Mr. Lu answering the first question about the outlook for the auto market as well as the advertising business. Concerning the auto market, the business in April is not exactly very good. There is no official statistics yet, but it's not very good. (Foreign Language). We expected better performance in April because of the 3 percentage points reduction of VAT but now it seems that the effect is not that ideal.
(Foreign Language). And talking about the second half of this year, it's very difficult to estimate because the crucial factor is the macro economy of China. If China's macro economy could outperform better then I am positive that the auto business will follow.
(Foreign Language). About Autohome's OEM advertising business, we believe that a rather good growth will be maintained. Relatively speaking. (Foreign Language). However, we will continue to work on the core issues which I have already mentioned at several meetings previously that is we will continue to make efforts to, first of all, increase the total amount of (inaudible) and second to help improve the conversion rate of the dealers.
(Foreign Language). And if we could successfully do the previous two tasks that I have mentioned, I believe there will be no decrease in the OEM advertising business here. (Foreign Language). Ever since the second half of last year, there has been concern in the market that there is a downward trend in China's automobile market, will there also be a decrease in the revenue of Autohome. But a fact has proved that in the time of a downward trend, the resources will be accumulated toward the top in the Internet business.
(Foreign Language). Because in a downward trend in the automobile market, there will be higher requirements of the effect. (Foreign Language). So, in conclusion it is very difficult to give an estimation of the second half of the year, but we will continue to make our efforts to improve the effects and to help the dealers to increase their conversion rate. (Foreign Language). And by the way, in Q1 the total volume of our leads has an year-on-year increase of 19% which is already mentioned in our report previously.
(Foreign Language). As for your second question, you mentioned the new business model. Yes we are making a lot of attempts including the CPL and CPS that you mentioned. (Foreign Language). About CPL well it is an effort that we take to try to help some dealers because some dealers, they are in a lot of difficulty at the moment, So if we charge our fee according to the single lead, then that might help some dealers to return to the business, but we are at a very early stage in this business model, so the total amount is not very substantial, just a couple of hundred.
(Foreign Language). About CPS, this is something we are trying to expand this year. (Foreign Language). However, this is going to be a quite challenging project. (Foreign Language). And for example, we are using our e-commerce platform to carry out the CPS projects at a level two dealers -- in low tier cities for the level two dealers where there's no authorized dealers.
(Foreign Language). We are making attempts in these two areas because actually the procedure -- we have already gone through these procedures. And now we are facing some difficulties, one of them iis the SKU -- is not sufficient enough (Foreign Language) And second, we need some change in the habit of automobile purchase from the consumers. (Foreign Language) And the volume of transaction of the deal is not very substantial yet, it's like couple of hundred per month. (Foreign Language) We hope that this business will be expanded this year and we will try to increase the volume here, so that the volume will have a considerable contribution to our performance next year.
(Foreign Language) Actually there are some other comments I would like to make concerning your second question that is our used car open platform, it is already open, it is already initiated in later March, this March. So this is going to increase the revenue (inaudible) used cars. (Foreign Language) Current DAU for our used vehicles is over 3 million -- it's about 3 million and even more.
(Foreign Language) We certainly have the most traffic in used vehicles in China. (Foreign Language) And the next step is how to maximize the value out of the lease used vehicles. (Foreign Language) About your third question, concerning the online marketing revenue breakdown. Well, we will have an accurate breakdown at a later time. And this year the growth looks quite good, especially our data business as well as auto financing business, they are two major media drivers for us and we hope that in a medium to long-term perspective, our data business, auto financing as well as transaction will be as important as our current major business.
Jun Zou -- Chief Financial Officer
Also in CPL model is, is actually a very new model that was just launched in April. So it's just one month into it live and we are still watching progress closely.
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
(Foreign Language) And I would like to make some more comments about the data business because it's consists of two parts; first it's all the OEMs second is the dealers. (Foreign Language) because the contracts are annually signed.
(Foreign Language) So currently we already have the contract value of almost RMB 500 million. (Foreign Language) And in the remaining months in the month to come this year we will try to sign more dealers into this. (Foreign Language) And we are also developing more data products targeting the dealers. (Foreign Language) And these products are highly practical, they could really help the dealers to increase their ultimate final conversion rate,
(Foreign Language) So we will continue to expand this business. And currently, there are over 4,000 dealers assigned into this product and we expect more growth by the end of this year, (Foreign Language) About the data product for the OEM, it is also sign annually considering there was no such business at the same period last year. And currently, we already have 11 OEMs sign the contracts. So we could expect more growth because some of them signed at the second half of last year. Some of them in the first half of this year. So we will expect more?
(Foreign Language) About auto financing business, we will continue to promote this sector and we are confident of good progress this year. (Foreign Language) So thank you. Liping for your questions. And that is our brief answer.
Operator
Thank you. As a reminder you are only allowed to ask one question at a time. Your next question is from Wendy Huang from Macquarie. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Wendy Huang -- Macquarie -- Analyst
(Foreign Language) My question mainly are related to the dealer agreements. So can you give us update on the number of the paying dealer as of March and those as of now. I recall the number into this mentioned, it was 24,000 as of March, and among the 24,000 dealers if that number is correct, have you included any dealers who are now paying on the CPL model? And also what's your kind of (inaudible) on the number of dealers in market in total, Are you seeing the increasing number of the dealers shutting down, does that imply your market share is actually increasing in the market?
And also related to the dealer (inaudible) there is an item on the balance sheet called deferred revenue which seems only growing at 4% this quarter and also it will translate that into the opportunity (ph) of the dealer revenue in a quarter that seems suggests only 43% of dealer revenue which is 50% a year ago. Has this related to the your dealer contract change or have you change any payment (inaudible) toward the dealer? Thank you.
Jun Zou -- Chief Financial Officer
Wendy thanks for your question. Essentially we do have more than 24,000 dealers by end of March and we are expecting probably signing another batch -- renew another batch probably in mid-year. And of course we will be gradually adding CPL model clients into that as well as Mr. Lu said, we launched the products just one month ago and added a few hundred and we could see more.
And as for the overall market dealers count of course in the beginning of the year we saw that you dealer counts reduced to just over 26,000 and now the number is a little over 27,000, it's still less than cost end of last year. And maybe 2,000 to 3,000 less, but that number can change over the course of the year when some of those dealers actually shift from one brand to the other and we'll see, it happened last year too.
And in terms of deferred revenue. Well, we still see actually the deferred revenue for our dealer subscription business alone still increase by two digits. however, there are other business units, for example, our used car business and our new car e-commerce business, we are rolling off new business models and changing from payment model to actually more CPL/CPA based a performance-based model. So actually there are a reduction in deferred revenue on those business lines. Overall, our (inaudible) are still growing at a very strong basis and we (inaudible) grow very strongly in the second quarter as well.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is from Eddy Wang from Morgan Stanley, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Eddy Wang -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
(Foreign Language) I have two questions actually. The first one is about the incident actually in last month between your Mercedes dealer and it's customer and such dispute actually makes people turn more sensitive about auto finance and its related service fee charged to the customers. Have you seen any impact to our overall auto finance business in the short-term and to the overall industry?
And the second question is about effective tax rate. So in the first quarter this year, actually our effective tax rate is around 3 percentage points lower than same quarter last year. So what's the reason for this. And shall we expect similar tax rate in the second and third quarter this year? Thank you.
Anita Chen -- Investor Relations
(Foreign Language) So, Mr. Lu will answer your first question. And Mr. Zou will answer your second question.
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
(Foreign Language) That incident between Mercedes Benz, the dealer and its consumer actually didn't have impact on our business, auto financing. (Foreign Language) Because, as I have previously mentioned, the closed-loop deals are -- we are doing quite a few of them and not a lot, especially concerning the used cars. (Foreign Language) So, we have a very small business concerning the mortgage after the individuals purchase of automobile. (Foreign Language) So that incident has very little impact on us. (Foreign Language) So, of course, we need to look in the long-term perspective. If in the future, there is a tighter (inaudible) requirement, if the transparency increases, I think that will actually help us with our business.
Jun Zou -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes, as for effective tax rate, I think in Q1 this year, we did have a 2.2% reduction compared to Q1 last year. The main reason was actually the deduction for R&D, was allowed to increase from 150% to 175% in September last year and the policy was also applied to the whole year of 2018 respectively. So in Q1 we made our estimate we will make an estimate based on the old policy, and obviously, of course we have actually a more amplified deduction for R&D expenses. And so we do not expect our (inaudible) to be higher than Q1 this year. Hope this answer your question?
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Eddy.
Operator
As a reminder, you are only allowed to ask one question at a time. Your next question is from Jamie Shen from Bank of China International. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Unfortunately the line was disconnected. We'll move on to the next question. Your next question is from Hillman Chan from Citigroup. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hillman Chan -- Citigroup -- Analyst
(Foreign Language) So I have two questions, the first one is about the used car sales leads businesses that we started since late March, could management share more on the progress, with that particular business and regarding the RMB 3 million DAUs, how should we think about the volume of the used car sales lead and the utilization of them as of now? And regarding the major customer, could you also share the feedback from them?
And my second question is about the profitability of our auto loan and auto insurance business in the near term and also long-term. Thank you.
Anita Chen -- Investor Relations
(Foreign Language) So Mr. Lu will answer your first question. And Mr. Zou will answer a second one.
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
(Foreign Language) So, the used the cars business as I have mentioned in our previous roadshow event, we will (inaudible) this business and the previously sales lease C1 is only for -- and C2 is for the dealers and there are over 30,000 of them. (Foreign Language) And with the increase of DAU, we are witnessing increase in both types of lease. (Foreign Language) And so the lease are already too much for (inaudible) as well as the used car dealers to cooperate with us, that's too much for them to digest.
(Foreign Language) In order to improve the utility rate of these lease, we tried to open them up to others, for example, e-commerce platforms or other entities to cooperate with us. (
Foreign Language) And now about the sales lease, we already have two more platforms, cooperating with us. (Foreign Language) Next step, we will cooperate with some original platform of automobile auctions. (Foreign Language) About the car purchase lease apart from the dealers, there are also platforms that wish to cooperate with us. (Foreign Language) And since it's a little over a month since it's launched, the utilization rate is not optimized yet. (Foreign Language) So we will continue to make efforts to help the platforms and businesses to make the best to use of the lease.
And now Mr. Zou will answer your second question.
Jun Zou -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes, Hillman. And as for auto financing business, of course, this is not the business of lower margin compared to our other business lines. But we have internal policy to have a positive incremental margin for every line of business. And at this stage it's a marketplace even though we spend actually many of the commission revenue in our own sales market, and we do intend to of course you bear no credit risk. And let's say heavy assets and in long-term we have confident that this will be a high-margin and high sort of -- business. And I also noticed our business model is healthier many other asset-heavy credit risk bearing models on the market.
Thank you, Hillman for your question.
Operator
Thank you. Your next question is from Miranda from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is now open. Please go.
Miranda Zhuang -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
(Foreign Language) So I have three questions. The first one is about the cost per lead product. So, can management share with us what are the target dealers for this kind of product. And what's the companies are -- positioning for this product over the mid to long-term, is in more of the product that the company will use to improve monetization during the downturn of the auto market or is it like important strategic product that in over mid to long-term?
And then my second question is about the margins. So we have seen the margin improvement and for past mainly consecutive quarters. So, can management share with us your outlook for the margin. We seem to see mixed factors here on the one hand we have seen the decline in the headcount in 1Q on QoQ basis. So will there be any leverage in annual personnel-related costs.
But on the other hand, the sales and marketing may go up even by the expansion of the financing insurance business. Then my last question is about this volume, so we have seen that in FY 2018 the traffic growth is faster than the lease volume growth of 10% in FY 2018 but in this quarter, the lease volume growth of 19% was faster than the traffic growth. So just try to understand the reason behind it, is in mainly due to the company's our intelligent marketing product? Thank you.
Anita Chen -- Investor Relations
(Foreign Language) And Mr. Lu will answer the first and second question.
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
So about the first question, is the answer is very concise because CPL is not our current major model. (Foreign Language) CPL is targeted to, as Mr. Lu has mentioned previously to dealers who are having difficulties in operation, who have difficulty in paying a membership fleet in a lump sum manner. (Foreign Language) So, these dealers are concentrated in low-tier cities.
(Foreign Language) And there are -- consumers, they're our users and there are demands in the low-tier cities. (Foreign Language) And for the dealers, we could help them and do more business in this way. (Foreign Language) So CPL is comparatively speaking a simple approach. (Foreign Language) So, this is how CPL works in a simple way, and there is not going to be a large amount, a large size of this business.
(Foreign Language) And that your third question about the relationship between DAU and the amount of leads. (Foreign Language) So currently, we are different from Q1, 19% growth of the lease amount actually doesn't have much to do with intelligent marketing. (Foreign Language) Because within Q1, there is February, the Chinese New Year, so few OEMs would do promotion because they were all enjoying the holiday.
(Foreign Language) But the logic is like this, as I have explained previously for a user to visit Autohome, it actually takes 2.5 months before it's actually converts into a lead. (Foreign Language) So yearly the traffic increases and afterwards, the lease increases as it follows suit. (Foreign Language) So that is the pattern in general and the size it might also have something to do with our improved, constant improvement of the approach of lead collection.
(Foreign Language) And we will continuously improve our user product. (Foreign Language) And currently, we are updating two versions every month and by June or July there will be also major updates in the product. (Foreign Language) So we constantly update and release new versions of our products in the hope of attracting new users and helping them to fulfill their dream of car purchase here.
(Foreign Language) And let me Jun Zou will answer your second question.
Jun Zou -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes, Miranda, of course since fourth quarter of 2017, we start to implement cost control programs in particular for traditional businesses and those programs has been prudent and very effective so far. And then you have seen, we do have a continuous improving margin trend, but still as I intend to market in the past quarter as you know we -- our target this year is to at least maintain the same margin level compared to last year, potentially it could be higher. But we will still continue to invest in new businesses.
And for the year headcount and marketing questions you asked, actually if you compare our headcount in Q1 this year to last year's Q1 on a year-over-year basis, we do see 8% headcount growth and so we are definitely not sort of just trying to save money. We evaluate our personnel on a very sort of prudent basis as well. As for marketing, with the initial developments of course of auto financing business, there are certainly sales and marketing expenses, but when I mentioned that -- when I was addressing the Hillmans question, in the long term, we believe in our third party marketplace model as a healthy model. Thank you very much., Miranda.
Anita Chen -- Investor Relations
And extra comment from Mr. Lu.
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
(Foreign Language) Cost control is something that Mr. Lu as the CEO starts to work very hard on the since three years ago. (Foreign Language) There are three parts that we worked really hard on. (Foreign Language) The first is the control of the headcount. (Foreign Language) Actually comparing the headcount now and that the three years ago, there is actually no increase .
(Foreign Language) So there is a first part a headcount because human resource cost is the biggest cost for Internet business company. (Foreign Language) The second major part of cost control is the exchanges of traffic and leads. (Foreign Language) And we have a ceiling here no matter how it develops, there is a ceiling that cannot be exceeded. (Foreign Language) The third part is like Mr. Zou mentioned about the budget management, including the procurement management, this kind of internal cost control such as procedures and platform, these are some of the tools that we used to control that. (Foreign Language) So we are working very hard in these three aspects to trying to control a further increase of -- any further increase of cost. (Foreign Language) So, that is all.
Operator
Thank you. There are no more further questions at this time. I will turn the conference back to the management for closing comments. Please go ahead.
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Okay, 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 few months' time. In the meantime, please feel free to get in touch with us if you have further questions or comments. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you all for your participation. You may all now disconnect.
Duration: 65 minutes
Call participants:
Anita Chen -- Investor Relations
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Jun Zou -- Chief Financial Officer
Liping -- CICC -- Analyst
Wendy Huang -- Macquarie -- Analyst
Eddy Wang -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Hillman Chan -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Miranda Zhuang -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
