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Autohome Inc. (ATHM 1.01%)
Q3Â 2019 Earnings Call
Nov 5, 2019, 7:00 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 Third Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]
It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Anita Chen, Autohome's IR Director. Ms. Chen, you may begin.
Anita Chen -- Investor Relations Director
Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Autohome's third quarter 2019 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 Mr. Min Lu, Autohome's Chairman and CEO; Mr. Haifeng Shao, Autohome's President; and Mr. Jun Zou, Autohome's CFO. After the prepared remarks, Mr. Lu, Mr. Shao, Mr. Zou 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 provisions 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 are outlined in our public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Autohome does not undertake any obligations to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law.
The earnings press release in this call also includes discussion of current 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, and thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter 2019 results.
Domestic new passenger vehicle sales fell for the 15th month as of September, with total sales volumes decrease by 11% year-over-year for the first nine months of this year, according to CAAM. Automakers have generally been more cautious with their spending. Despite the challenges from the difficult operating environment, our top line growth continues to outperform the industry with total revenue increased by 21% year-over-year to RMB6.09 billion for the first nine months.
During the quarter, we maintained a solid growth while endeavoring to achieve differentiation, diversification, and globalization across our business. In September, the number of average DAUs who accessed our mobile websites, primary application, and the mini apps increased by 38% year-over-year to 38.8 million. For content, we continue to optimize overall content quality while providing enhanced services and value to our users. Notably our road trip content [Phonetic] achieved strong growth momentum with DAUs with DAUs reaching over 2 million from 400,000 in less than two years. Automakers mix also found this channel an attractive opportunity to increase their brand exposure territory [Phonetic]
with these targeted users.
On the data front, Autohome secured vast volumes of car-related data across the industry. Through data analysis, we are deepening our understanding of users as well as the auto industry on the whole. We believe we are well positioned as a unique AI-enabled Big Data platform, providing end-to-end closed loop services to automakers and dealers.
Our better [Phonetic] service covered the entire process from new car model, R&D, intelligent marketing to vehicle transactions and services, reinforcing our commitment to enabling our customers in each step of the business conversion cycle. For better product offerings to the automakers, we recently introduced the [Indecipherable], a product providing full-scope data support throughout the new car model R&D process.
Moving on to the next stage where a new car model is ready to launch. Our Intelligent New Car Launch assists automakers in increasing market awareness of newly launched new car models. Since its first launch in June, eight automakers have signed up to this program with average total market awareness increasing by 76%. [Indecipherable] intelligent marketing solutions, Autohome is providing automakers with an expanded array of options to improve their performance at each stage. By the end of September, 26 automakers had purchased our data products.
In terms of data product dealers, our expanded product matrix was able to serve as a comprehensive CRM system to our dealer customers in each stage from lead collection and store visits to conversions. In the third quarter, we have served more than 15,000 paying dealers. Regarding the 818 Global Super Auto Show, we received very positive feedback from both automakers and the dealer customers with 80 brands and about 2,400 dealers joining this event. Accumulative unique visitors of the online auto show reached 150 million while the offline auto show covers over -- covered over 150 cities. In addition, we successfully built up Autohome's brand awareness to a much wider user base and attracted 70 million users watching their auto [Indecipherable]. Total cumulative exposure to this event reached 5.1 billion.
We are making every effort to support our customers and allocating additional resources to those who participated in our activities in the soft market environment. Although such efforts may impact our margin in the short term, we believe they are worthwhile in building our long-term relationship with the customers.
While we continue to deepen cooperation with our customers and expand the business lines in the domestic market, we are exploring geographical expansion to overseas markets. We will implement different strategies in order to adapt to the local market conditions. Currently, we are in preliminary establishment stage in the UK and the Germany.
Now, please let me provide some highlights of business operations. For our lead generation business, in the third quarter the number of paying dealers was over 24,000. For the third -- for the first nine months, total lease volume increased by 16% year-over-year. We extended more value to customers through our data service offerings, which in turn will help strengthen and deepen our cooperation with dealer customers.
As for our used car C2B2C platform, by the end of September, over 5,000 qualified dealers used our merchant loan products, resulting in a total loan borrowing of about RMB12.9 billion. Additionally, considering the smooth cooperation with TTP on the C2B front, we are looking for further synergies in B2B. I would also like to mention that the total transactions for new car and used car reached over 100,000 by the end of October.
Finally, for the auto financing business, during the third quarter we facilitated close to RMB6.1 billion in loans and insurance, representing a 56% increase year-over-year In conclusion, Autohome has evolved into leading AI-enabled Big Data platform in auto sector. With our insightful understanding of other consumer behavior, as well as the industry leading Big Data application and analytical capabilities accumulated over many years, we will consistently make efforts to discover new car -- new users select scenarios -- sorry, scenarios tapping to new markets and explore new growth opportunities.
With that I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Jun Zou, for a closer look at our third quarter financial results and the business outlook for the fourth quarter.
Jun Zou -- Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Min. Hi, everyone. As Min has already highlighted, we are pleased to report [Indecipherable] quarter. Please note that as with prior calls, I will reference RMB only in my discussion today. Net revenue for the third quarter was RMB2.17 billion, 15% higher than the same period last year. For detailed breakdown, media services revenue increased by 3% [Technical Issues] by 15% year-over-year to RMB247 million. Gross margin remained stable at 89% in the third quarter.
Now for operating expenses. Sales and marketing expenses in the third quarter were RMB956 million compared to RMB677 million in Q3 2018, mainly because of the expenses related to our August '18 Global Super Auto Show and increased execution expenses to support automakers and dealers. T&E expenses were RMB352 million compared to RMB297 million in Q3 2018. The increase was mainly due to an increase in R&D-related staff cost. Finally, G&A expenses were RMB109 million compared to RMB100 million in the same period last year. And as a result, we delivered an operating profit of RMB641 million for the third quarter compared to in the corresponding period of last year. Adjusted net income attributable to Autohome was RMB702 million for third quarter, compared to RMB737 million in the corresponding period of last year. Now non-GAAP basic and diluted EPS per share and per ADS for the third quarter were RMB5.92 and RMB5.88, respectively, compared to RMB6.26 and RMB6.18, respectively, in the corresponding period last year.
As of end of third quarter, our balance sheet remained very strong with cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments of RMB11.18 billion. We generated operating cash flow of RMB393 million in the third quarter of this year. Considering our large cash position and strong cash flow generating capability, to improve our shareholders' returns, our Board of Directors approved an annual cash dividend policy. Under the policy, starting from 2020, Autohome will declare and distribute a recurring cash dividend at an amount equivalent to approximately 20% of Autohome's net income in the previous fiscal year. Autohome expects to announce a dividend amount for fiscal year 2019 after the disclosure of our fourth quarter results of 2019.
With that, let me now address our fourth quarter 2019 outlook, which reflects our current and preliminary view on the market and operating conditions and may be subject to changes. At this point, we expect to generate net revenue in the range of RMB2,255 million to RMB2,330 million, representing a 3.1% to 6.5% year-over-year growth rates.
In summary, we are happy with our third quarter 2019 results. With our strong balance sheet and abundant cash on hand, we believe that we are well geared up to make investment in strategic areas which will contribute to our long-term growth. Okay.
Anita Chen -- Investor Relations Director
[Foreign Speech]
Jun Zou -- Chief Financial Officer
[Foreign Speech]
Anita Chen -- Investor Relations Director
[Foreign Speech]
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
[Foreign Speech] [Technical Issues]
[Foreign Speech]
Operator
Yes, management, please begin.
Jun Zou -- Chief Financial Officer
It appeared that our call was disrupted, and so I think ...
Anita Chen -- Investor Relations Director
[Foreign Speech]
Jun Zou -- Chief Financial Officer
Okay. Let me go back to the actually fourth quarter outlook. So with that, let me now address our fourth quarter 2019 outlook, which reflects our current and preliminary view on the market and operating conditions and may be subject to changes. At this point, we expect to generate net revenue in the range of RMB2,255 million to RMB2,330 million, representing a 3.1% to 6.5% year-over-year growth.
In summary, we are happy with our third quarter 2019 results. With our strong balance sheet and abundant cash on hand, we believe that we are well positioned to make investments in strategic areas, which will contribute to our long-term growth.
With that, we're ready to take your question. Operator, please open the line for Q&A.
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Hello?
Anita Chen -- Investor Relations Director
Operator, please go ahead.
Operator
Shall we start Q&A session now?
Anita Chen -- Investor Relations Director
Yes, please.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Okay. Thank you. [Operator Instructions] For the benefit of all participants on today's call, if you wish to ask a question to management in Chinese, please immediately repeat your question in English. And please be reminded that each person can only ask one question. The first question is from Miranda Zhuang at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.
Miranda Zhuang -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
So, by far the Autohome has products to help automakers design the cars, promote their new cars, doing intelligent marketing, and also have products to help the automakers with like online showroom, call center efficiencies. So we're just very curious to know what kind of products will we have in the pipeline in fourth quarter and next year and in the mid- to long-term, since we have already got so many multiple products serving different kind of areas. How do we think about the opportunities in the SaaS platform, for example, any opportunity to integrate those kind of different products to create a SaaS type of solutions?
My second part of the question about the Big Data is to get more metrics about this area. For example, what's the retention rate or repeat purchase rate of the products, any data on the revenue contribution and ARPU, and any data on the target for the revenue contribution next year? Thanks so much.
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
[Foreign Speech]
Thank you for the Well, as you know, the data business is one of our key business.
[Foreign Speech]
Actually we are expected to achieve great growth in terms of the data business until the end of this year.
[Foreign Speech]
Currently, if you look at our new business, including the Big Data business plus the financial services business, it accounts for 19% of our total revenue.
[Foreign Speech]
As for next year, we believe that our data business would have significant growth next year.
[Foreign Speech]
In terms of the product offerings, we have both products offered to OEM as well as products offered to dealers.
[Foreign Speech]
So if you look at the third quarter, a lot of our business targeting at the OEMs are from the marketing and sales.
[Foreign Speech]
For example, it includes launching of the new cars to go to the market as well as intelligent marketing solutions and etc..
[Foreign Speech]
For the next step, we're going to make more expansion of product offerings.
[Foreign Speech]
For example, after launching of the new model of the cars, we're going to add up the leads actually transferring into the real sales. So this will be bundled with the new car launching.
[Foreign Speech]
This is what the OEM wanted because when they launch a new car model, they want to transfer the leads into sales.
[Foreign Speech]
Let me give you another example. In terms of the intelligence-based activities and marketing solutions, we can also transfers the leads into sales.
[Foreign Speech]
There are many, many other cases. Because of the time limit, I have to skip over such cases. We can claim that we are the only one in the world, which can promise effect-driven marketing and sales in the vertical business sector.
[Foreign Speech]
Actually on November 7th, we will host the investment day, open day. I would elaborate more on this topic on that day.
[Foreign Speech]
Actually for the OEMs offering, in addition to the intelligent marketing solutions, we're also trying to expand in the value chain of OEMs.
[Foreign Speech]
For example, we recently introduced the [Indecipherable], a product providing full-scope data support through the new car model R&D process and also get the consumers' needs.
[Foreign Speech]
This will save the OEM a lot of time to collect the consumers' needs and demands.
[Foreign Speech]
And this also helps to shorten the new car R&D process and it will make the R&D process more precisely commit with
Unidentified Speaker
can with the consumers' needs, which saves labor and time.
[Foreign Speech]
Currently, we are under negotiation of establishing such business types with one of the OEMs and with some other OEMs we co-developed such products.
[Foreign Speech]
You just asked the question about our SaaS products. Actually, we can achieve this through establishing a cloud platform, which is more specifically a private cloud platform together with OEMs. On this private cloud platforms, we can ensure all the data are fully protected and their privacy can be very strictly protected.
[Foreign Speech]
In addition to the marketing and sales and the R&D product, we are also coming up with new offerings targeting at the quality assurance and service-related products. Probably in next year we're going to launch such services.
[Foreign Speech]
As we said, in addition, actually, well, in terms of the manufacturing, we can expand outside of the manufacturing business by adding a lot of value from Big Data to its extended value chain of the OEMs.
[Foreign Speech]
In terms of the dealer business, we already have a lot of product offering targeting at the dealers. For example, the intelligence Internet-based marketing solutions and etc..
[Foreign Speech]
We are also We are also in the testing phase of another new product offering targeting at the dealers. It is called intelligent sales solutions, which can be used for face-to-face in-store sales.
[Foreign Speech]
We also have some other products leveraging on the Big Data solution to provide lead management for the dealers.
[Foreign Speech]
In summary, in terms of OEM and the dealers' product, we have a lot of room to develop some further new services and product leveraging on Big Data and a lot of our solutions and services may be launched in next year.
[Foreign Speech]
Okay, that's all for my answer. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question is from Hillman Chan at Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Hillman Chan -- Citigroup -- Analyst
[Foreign Speech]
Thank you management for taking my questions. First is on the advertising outlook for auto OEMs and also the dealer subscription price hike in 2020. And my second question on the operating expenses. Can management shed more color on the investment, and if any impact financial on the profitability level and whether we think about M&A as part of the operating expenses strategy? Thank you very much.
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
[Foreign Speech]
Thank you for the questions. In terms of the auto market, we all know that this year the auto market is not very bullish. And also we talked among the peers about next year and the people's expectation for next year were not -- would also not be too good.
[Foreign Speech]
We have to put this under the historical scenario because it's seasonal or cyclical, which because in the previous years, we just had too robust growth. That's why we are encountering with negative growth now. But if you look at the long run, we believe the auto market would continue to be pretty promising.
[Foreign Speech]
And actually, I just read a report, reporting on the first nine months Chinese economic data, which is listed the negative growth billboards for the industries. The auto market was number one because its growth negative 30%, number two is media and advertising is negative 28%, and Autohome is just the combination of auto and the media industry.
[Foreign Speech]
Well, this would put us in a tough position to decide what should be the strategy for the [Indecipherable] of next year.
[Foreign Speech]
If you look at the third quarter's performance
Unidentified Speaker
quarter's performance, in terms of the profit, it has negative growth.
[Foreign Speech]
After serious consideration, we would love to join hands together with our customers to go through these tough times. So we decided next year's [Indecipherable] we will not raise up the price. This is the very first time in our history.
[Foreign Speech]
This is not an easy decision for Autohome because we understand the market is down and if we raise up the price that would be very harsh on the customers. So we decided to stand side by side and join hands together with our customers.
[Foreign Speech]
In this way, maybe the market would worry would Autohome have growth next year.
[Foreign Speech]
But for our management, we believe that the R&D and other investment we made a few years back and accumulated investments would bring fruitful results next year.
[Foreign Speech]
I mentioned a lot of a data-related products. I believe this would encounter very good growth next year.
[Foreign Speech]
And we also have the online transaction product. We tried initially and we achieved the initial success.
[Foreign Speech]
So we believe that next year we are going to enlarge the closed circle of the transaction, not only for new car but also for used cars.
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Another good thing is, we are trying to explore the 2C payment model. Because in the past, we focused on 2B and the payment is made by OEMs and the dealers. Now we are trying to go to 2C the pay model.
[Foreign Speech]
Right now, so we have the road trip channel. And as the road trip channel already achieved DAU of 2 million and the revenue can be RMB150 million.
[Foreign Speech]
We already obtained the OTA license.
[Foreign Speech]
You can even book a hotel on this platform.
[Foreign Speech]
Very soon, you can also book flight tickets.
[Foreign Speech]
But the air tickets and hotel booking, they not the key. The key is we can design a lot of customized road trip channel routes, and we also provide offline connections.
[Foreign Speech]
Our dream is after three to five years, this road trip channel can be the biggest in the China market.
[Foreign Speech]
And we also are going to develop more commercialized and marginalized [Phonetic] host marketed services.
[Foreign Speech]
Although this takes more time, but we are trying to commercialize it.
[Foreign Speech]
So as you can see, we are expanding our business from many, many aspects.
[Foreign Speech]
Now, let's go back to not raising up the price for dealers.
[Foreign Speech]
To not raise up the price does not
Unidentified Speaker
price does not necessarily mean there is no growth. So we can still grow the business.
[Foreign Speech]
Because we are changing the rule of the game.
[Foreign Speech]
For example, in the U.S. and the UK market, one lead may cost $20 or over GBP20.
[Foreign Speech]
But for most developed markets, the OEM advertising is quite limited. It's more on the lead side.
[Foreign Speech]
But in China for the dealer side, it's more on the lead generation business, but for OEMs they actually spend a lot on the content, on the advertising and marketing.
[Foreign Speech]
So combined it together and we estimated that the compounded CPL in Autohome is about 59.
[Foreign Speech]
Because all the content is customized, it differs from person to person, so which means a lot of resources we can more dedicating toward highly paid customers.
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This is stuff like the TV commercials. If you spend only $1 or if you spend $2, the TV commercials actually the exposure would be very different.
[Foreign Speech]
So next year, we have to look into the auto market. If the auto market grows, we would also have room to further grow.
[Foreign Speech]
Even if the auto market will be down next year, we hope that we can sustain this year's performance.
[Foreign Speech]
And we have a lot of new products to be offered next year. So we hope that we can encounter very good growth next year.
[Foreign Speech]
Now let me touch upon the overseas market. We have done extensive research on the overseas market and after careful consideration, we decided to get into the European market first, which means the Great Britain and the Germany are the first two markets we want to get into Europe.
[Foreign Speech]
We do enjoy advantages when getting into the UK and Germany market. For example, we have very good product.
[Foreign Speech]
And secondly good content.
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And thirdly very good technology.
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And number four, the Big Data.
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And fifth one is, we enjoy cost effectiveness.
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When getting into the UK and the Germany market, we did not do M&A. We chose to establish our own teams. We do not need a very big team because we have a very strong mid-office and the back office in China.
[Foreign Speech]
In this way, comparing with the local peers, we do enjoy very good cost effectiveness.
[Foreign Speech]
And we hope that after three years, we can achieve great success.
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Also next year, we're going to continue hosting the 818 Global Super Auto Show in China.
[Foreign Speech]
And we hope that next year we can extend this Global Super Auto Show to UK and to Germany.
[Foreign Speech]
That's all of my answers. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you, management. [Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Eddy Wang at Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Eddy Wang -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
We noticed that Autohome has announced a strategic cooperation with Yongda, one of the biggest auto dealer group in China. My question is, do you have any plan to expand such cooperation to other dealer group in China and what's the implication on of such strategic cooperation on our lead generation business? Thank you.
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
[Foreign Speech]
Thank you, Eddy, for the question. Well, this year our strategic collaboration with Yongda is one of the strategic collaboration with the dealers.
[Foreign Speech]
After both teams
Unidentified Speaker
After both teams had many rounds of discussion and ultimately we have signed an agreement of this strategic collaboration. And through this collaboration, we can leverage our Big Data to help them to provide them with more fine [Phonetic] and lead management and also to achieve more effectiveness in their performance.
[Foreign Speech]
If you remember that early this year, actually in January, some of the dealers is against our raising up the price.
[Foreign Speech]
Actually we learned lessons out of this and we learned a lot.
[Foreign Speech]
Well, this year we strengthened our collaboration with dealers. We offer better content and we also provide coverage on some of the dealers. I host a talk show program which is called Lu [Indecipherable]
, Sit Side-on-Side with Mr. Lu. So this program covered a few dealers.
[Foreign Speech]
As you know, this year in China, the auto market is not very bullish. So that's why the dealers are all under pressure.
[Foreign Speech]
So under this scenario, although we want to achieve good growth, but we decided to stand side by side with our customers to go push forward the development of this market. We are aiming at long-term.
[Foreign Speech]
So that's why we launched
Unidentified Speaker
So that's why we launched the new model with OEMs. Our previous [Indecipherable] model do have some drawbacks. For example, the car dealers, the payment is the same, but the leads are different.
[Foreign Speech]
And some of the leads of one OEM or one dealer varies to another.
[Foreign Speech]
But now, we are more focusing on the brand. For those brands who invested heavily, we would match more resources for them. Even if we don't raise up the price, we can also help the dealers.
[Foreign Speech]
Again, thank you very much, Eddy.
Operator
Please be reminded that each person can only ask one question. Our next question is from Frank Chen at Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Frank Chen -- Macquarie -- Analyst
[Foreign Speech]
I have a quick question on Tencent and Bitauto deal. Tencent is privatizing Bitauto. Do you see any impact on the overall competition landscape of China's auto vertical market?
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
[Foreign Speech]
Thank you for the question. Actually, we do not believe this would have impact on us in the short run.
[Foreign Speech]
But after the privatization, I believe they would enjoy more freedom than us, because we are still a listed company. As a listed company, we have to release quarterly report and we have to be regulated by the market.
[Foreign Speech]
But the core is not related to this.
Unidentified Participant
But the core is not related to this. The core question is, how can Autohome further develop and grow our business.
[Foreign Speech]
As I mentioned many times, on the vertical markets, Autohome can go very deep. This is not only due to large traffic.
[Foreign Speech]
As I mentioned, the in-depth, the Big Data product targeting at OEM and dealers, we can actually leverage on our intelligent sales solution, and we are the only player in the world, which can go deeper as we did.
[Foreign Speech]
So which means we are in a different horizon.
[Foreign Speech]
I've been with Autohome for more than three years, and in the past three years I witnessed how difficult and tough it is to make this happen. For the whole process of transformation, I witnessed, and this is really not easy.
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If our peers want to copy our model, really that's not easy thing.
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And what's more, we don't stop here. We are trying our best to explore more and trying to be even more innovative in the future.
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As I told my team, we should always be innovative, we should always explore, we should always go forward, be a leader, and in this way we will not easily be copied.
[Foreign Speech]
In conclusion,
Unidentified Speaker
In conclusion, no matter who is doing the privatization, for us we will dedicate to our business and our growth. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the conference back to management for closing comments.
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
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 meanwhile, please feel free to get in touch with us if you have further questions or comments. Thank you.
Duration: 62 minutes
Call participants:
Anita Chen -- Investor Relations Director
Min Lu -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Jun Zou -- Chief Financial Officer
Unidentified Speaker
Miranda Zhuang -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Hillman Chan -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Eddy Wang -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Frank Chen -- Macquarie -- Analyst
Unidentified Participant
