Earnings Labs

AIFU Inc. (AIFU)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Tue, Mar 3, 2015

$1.33

-2.91%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.
Transcript

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Thank you for standing by for CNinsure's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2014 earnings conference call. [Operator Instructions] For your information, this conference is now being broadcasted live over the Internet. Webcst replay will be available within three hours after the conference is finished. Please visit CNinsure's IR website at ir.cninsure.net, under the Events and Webcasts section. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objection, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's conference, Ms. Oasis Qiu, CNinsure's Investor Relations Officer.

Oasis Qiu

Analyst

Welcome to our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2014 earnings conference call. The analyst results were released earlier today and are available on our IR website, as well as on newswire. Before we continue, please note that the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act from 1995. The accuracy of these statements may be impacted by a number of business risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. Such risks and uncertainties include but not limited to those outlined in our filings with the SEC, including our registration statement on Form 20-F. We do not undertake any obligation to update this forward-looking information, except as required under applicable law. Joining us today is our Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Chunlin Wang and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Peng Ge. They will walk you through our financial and operating performance in the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2014, and take your questions after their prepared remarks. Now I will turn the call over to Mr. Wang.

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Interpreted] Happy New Year, everyone. And thank you to all of you for joining us this morning. I welcome this opportunity to provide a bit more color on our results for the fourth quarter and full year in 2014, and on our prospectus for the year ahead of us. Our CFO, Mr. Ge, and I will take your questions after the prepared remarks. Firstly, our financial performance. As we execute our O2O strategy, the solid growth performance continued into the fourth quarter of 2014, wrapping up the year with a 25.6% growth in net revenues in the fourth quarter, exceeding our guidance, leading to a 22.4% growth in net revenues for fiscal year 2014. It was also our first time to achieve over 20% growth in annual net revenues, since 2011. The total insurance premium generated by us grew by over 28.4%, to RMB8.1 billion, beating the industry's 17.5% growth. On the profit front, adjusted operating income, excluding expenses incurred by online initiatives increased 46.5% and 116% year over year, for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2014, respectively. However, as we increased spending on the development and promotion of CNpad mobile app and Baoxian.com in the fourth quarter 2014, along with the launch of eHuzhu and Chetong.com, total expenses incurred by online initiatives increased 471% year over year, resulting in a slight operating loss in the fourth quarter of 2014. Operating income for fiscal year 2014 increased 71.8% year over year. Now, let's get to each business line. The insurance agency business was still our main income source, increasing 26.3% in the fourth quarter and 14.5% in fiscal year 2014. Net revenues derived from the P&C insurance agency business increased 26.2% and 17.1% respectively for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2014, mainly due to a substantial increase in…

Oasis Qiu

Analyst

Now our CEO, Mr. Wang, and our CFO, Mr. Ge, will open the call for your questions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Henry Guo from JG Capital. Please ask your question.

Henry Guo

Analyst

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. So a quick one, so I think in the prepared remarks, you guys mentioned top line growth for the year will be about 28%. And then the guidance for Q1 is only about 20%. So why -- what is it that is the case? What is the kind of visibility management has in terms of the second half of the year. It seems like, revenue wise, 2015 is backend loaded year. And so any color will be helpful. Thank you.

Oasis Qiu

Analyst

[Chinese language spoken]

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Interpreted] Firstly, the top line growth for the first quarter of 20% and we tend to give a relatively conservative guidance; and then secondly, we do believe that the growth momentum of our new online projects will pick up over time and the growth momentum will be much stronger in the second half.

Henry Guo

Analyst

Great. Very helpful. And my second question is about the life insurance segment. So last year, the life insurance kind of struggled over there, but Q4 pretty strong. So what is kind of visibility in terms of life insurance segment growth in 2015? Thanks.

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Interpreted] Now from 2011 to 2013, our life insurance business was kind of negative growth, and however, in 2014, we started to see a positive growth in the new insurance -- new life insurance product details, and the reason was because we conducted an organization combination in the fourth quarter of 2013, and some of our P&C insurance agencies also started to sell life insurance products. And so, the growth was largely attributable to the additional sales from our P&C sales agents, and looking ahead in 2015, we believe the new life insurance policy sales will be over 30% to 50% in terms of the growth, and in the next three to five years, we still believe that the growth will be positive and mainly attributable to the fact that more and more of our P&C insurance agencies will also offer life insurance products.

Henry Guo

Analyst

Great. That is all my questions. Thank you very much.

Oasis Qiu

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Andy Nahas from Prospect Fund. Please ask your question.

Andy Nahas - Prospect Fund

Analyst

Yes, thank you and congratulations on the accelerating growth. So I just wanted to make sure I heard you correctly. You were saying earlier that five years from now, you would have annually how many transactions per year? And secondly, it looks like it is the right decision to investing to capture the online opportunity in mobile. I wonder, when you get these additional customers, how recurring will the revenue be from those customers? In other words, will those customers keep paying you on an annual basis, you know, after you acquire them? Thank you.

Oasis Qiu

Analyst

Thanks. [Chinese language spoken]

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Interpreted] In the Internet era, it is imperative for any internet based company to acquire the market share at a very rapid pace. And it is our goal to become a company that can generate hundreds of billions of transaction volumes. And also, over RMB10 billion profits within the next five to eight years.

Andy Nahas - Prospect Fund

Analyst

RMB or dollars?

Oasis Qiu

Analyst

RMB.

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Interpreted] It is true that the recurring rates of the insurance products is a big issue, especially for online insurance sales. That is why we decided to also expand our M&A going forward in order to further diversify our product offering and to increase the customer's stickiness. And also, with more and more of our online projects getting up and running, we will also combine to make sure that all the customer's resources can be shared amongst all this platforms, so that our customers have access to more diversified product lines. So that means afterwards, our customers will have one unified account which gives them access to life insurance product, auto insurance product, and travel insurance product, or even like wealth management product or even become a member of our eHuzhu program.

Andy Nahas - Prospect Fund

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Ver Ling [ph], VBA [ph].

Unidentified Participant

Analyst

[Interpreted] First of all, congratulations on the good results in the fourth quarter. I have three questions. Firstly, the management mentioned that you would like -- the Company would like to gain more market share even at the expense of profit. I wonder what amount of investment are we talking about and what kind of -- what number of customers are we going to -- do we intend to acquire?

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Interpreted] We expect to spend about RMB1.7 billion in marketing and technology improvement for the next three years, from 2015 to 2017. And the investment for marketing and technology will be around RMB200 million in 2015. Excluding the expenses, we expect our operating profit will be growing by over 20% and the net profit will be flattish or slightly -- or record a slight or minor loss because of the investment. As for the number of customers, right now, it is hard for us to quantify the number but we do expect the transaction volume will be hundreds of billions within the next five to eight years.

Unidentified Participant

Analyst

[Chinese language spoken]

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Chinese language spoken]

Unidentified Participant

Analyst

[Chinese language spoken]

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Chinese language spoken]

Oasis Qiu

Analyst

The RMB1.7 billion will be spent in the marketing and technology related to CNPad, Baoxian.com, and eHuzhu, as well as the upcoming auto insurance comparison website, QinaBao [ph]. And as for what the proportions of the investment that we are going to spend in each of these platforms, as we are still in the process of recruiting, retaining and marketing firm, we do not really have a specific number right now.

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Interpreted] Hopefully, we will have a specific plan as for the spending in the next quarter.

Unidentified Participant

Analyst

[Interpreted] And you mentioned that we expect the new life insurance policy sales to grow by over 30% to 50% in 2015, what is the reason behind this strong growth?

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Interpreted] Right now, actually, only half of our insurance agencies were selling life insurance products, and most of our insurance agencies are primarily focused on the distribution of auto insurance and P&C insurance product, and this agency is mainly based in the major cities in the urban areas. And starting from last year, we also require our P&C insurance agents to offer life insurance products to their customers as well. And from -- for example, one case in Guangdong, one of our P&C agency in Guangdong decided to sell life insurance products in 2014 and by the end of the fourth quarter, they have become the fifth largest insurance agency in terms of the life insurance sales. So we believe that the cross selling of our P&C agencies will be a major growth driver behind a strong growth. And in addition to that, we will also -- invest more in improving our product and as well as technology to drive the growth of the life insurance business.

Unidentified Participant

Analyst

[Chinese language spoken]

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Chinese language spoken]

Unidentified Participant

Analyst

[Chinese language spoken]

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Chinese language spoken]

Oasis Qiu

Analyst

And in the fourth quarter, the selling expenses ratio increased -- the cost ratio increased quite significantly and the reason was because we are -- would like to encourage more of our sales agents to use CNPad to conduct business and also to issue insurance policies for their clients. Therefore, we offer a kind of incentive to our sales agents who are using CNPad to do the business. And the question is whether that is a onetime thing or will it be a recurring one, well, actually, it is kind of promotions to encourage agents to use CNPad more. So when all of our agents migrate to mobile, we believe that the expenses will decrease over time.

Chunlin Wang

Analyst

[Interpreted] Even with all the cost ratio increase, however, the operating expenses ratio decreased slightly year-over-year and we believe that is partially attributable to the adoption of more of the CNPad mobile app among sales agents. And that helps -- it does help improve the operating efficiency in that office.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to hand the conference back to today's presenters. Please continue.