Earnings Labs

ZW Data Action Technologies Inc. (CNET)

Q1 2013 Earnings Call· Tue, May 21, 2013

$0.73

-3.96%

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.

Same-Day

+0.36%

1 Week

+2.41%

1 Month

+12.99%

vs S&P

+17.84%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the ChinaNet Online Holdings Incorporated First Quarter 2013 Earnings Conference Call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be opened for questions. (Operator Instructions) This conference is being recorded today May 21, 2013. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Ted Haberfield, MZ Group. Please go ahead, sir.

Ted Haberfield

Management

Thank you and welcome everyone to today’s conference call for ChinaNet Online Holdings. This call will cover ChinaNet's financial and operating results for the first quarter 2013. The earnings press release accompanying this conference call went to the wire in the morning of Tuesday, May 21. On the call today is ChinaNet’s Chairman and CEO, Mr. Handong Cheng; and the company’s COO, Mr. George Chu. Before we get started, I will read the disclaimer about forward-looking statements. This conference call may contain, in addition to historical information, forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws regarding ChinaNet Online Holdings. Forward-looking statements include statements about plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance and underlying assumptions and other statements that are different than historical facts. These forward-looking statements are based on current management expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may result in expectations not being realized and may cause actual outcomes to differ materially from expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements. Potential risks and uncertainties include change in demand for the Company's services, the impact of competition and government regulation, and other risk contained in the statements filed from time to time with the SEC. All such forward-looking statements, whether written or oral said on behalf of the Company are expressly qualified by these cautionary statements and such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and we caution you not to place undue reliance on these. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Cheng who will make some brief opening remarks. Mr. George Chu will provide translation and be you main host for today’s call.

Handong Cheng

Management

[Foreign Language]

George K. Chu

Management

Handong Cheng

Management

[Foreign Language]

George K. Chu

Management

Because we work with so many different types of businesses across the country, we are looking at challenges faced by our several customers in China. We work with each of them individually to create and execute the marketing campaign that increases the sales and going on with the customers. The company expenses are limited by and they have with us because we provide ongoing support in this on a very cost effective basis. It is important to reconnect the structural improvement as China has made during these period of political and economic transition. We have significantly expanded outside China by obtaining franchisee threshold in Korea, Taiwan and United States. We have invested in new technology and added team members, stuff and marketing technology and operation. We believe these efforts will make out a stronger company with a broader array of services to serve a large market opportunity.

Handong Cheng

Management

[Foreign Language]

George K. Chu

Management

We are hoping we are managing through a challenging environment, while we are not going as quickly as we would like to. We are well capitalized and continue to generate strong cash flow, which will allow us to further invest in our businesses. We will continue to focus on growing sales in higher margin businesses and expand our base of customers in China and abroad. That concludes my prepared comments. Thank you for your interest in ChinaNet. I will turn the call over to George Chu, our COO. George will discuss our operations and result in greater details.

George K. Chu

Management

Thank you, Mr. Cheng. Good morning to the investors in the United States and good evening to those in Asia. As Mr. Cheng mentioned, I will begin with the discussion of our first quarter results before I highlight a few recent business developments. First refer to the earnings press release that was distributed on today as well as the 10-Q we filed on Monday, May 20 and also the PowerPoint that’s presented via our website under the link, news and events, for more details regarding our retailing operation. I will close with our outlook and guidance. We had mixed results for the three months ended March 31, 2013. Sales were higher, brand management and sales channel building businesses and our margins improved substantially. Overall sales were down as a result of decision to reduce the amount of TV advertising, we purchased on behalf of our clients. I will discuss this further in a few minutes. Internet advertisement revenue was down 12% to $3.8 million as client continued to reduce discretionary spending. Our retention rate continued to be solid with approximately 800 active client purchase of services during the three months ended March 30 2013 – sorry end of March 31, 2013 compared to 575 in the same period a year ago, representing approximately 40% increase in customer – in paying customers. We believe this strong value proposition we offer position us well to increase our sales to these customers once this business improve. Total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2013 were $7 million, in line with our pre-announced revenues. Revenue from TV advertising was $2.6 million compared to $10.4 million in the same period a year ago. The year-over-year decline in TV advertising revenue in the first quarter reflects our strategic decision through this month TV advertisement, we purchased…

Operator

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) The first question comes from (inaudible). Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

[Foreign Language] Hi George.

George K. Chu

Management

Hi.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

I have few questions, just one – maybe one by one. For your guidance, for the $36 million top line, how much of that is from TV advertising?

George K. Chu

Management

Okay, sorry Cheng, can you repeat your question again.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

[Foreign Language]

George K. Chu

Management

Okay, good. Yeah, okay, thank you. So basically from the trends we expect almost 55% will be contributed by Internet and the TV will be somewhere around 40% to 45% and we do anticipate that Internet could be much higher growth in the second half of 2013, if that’s the case, we expect that out of the $36 million 60% will be contributed by Internet segmentation.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, also you mentioned that your increase spending in research and development and that’s one of the reasons the earning guidance is $1.2 million, how much of spending you have planned for the R&D for the full year?

George K. Chu

Management

Well, we have a budget right now. We expect to spend about $3 million to $4 million.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

$3 million to $4 million for the whole year?

George K. Chu

Management

So we are looking to spend at least about 10% to 15% of the total revenues.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, thanks.

George K. Chu

Management

Compared to the past it’s a very aggressive spending. As of now we have a very well established business model in mobile marketing and now we are going to invest more into that.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

George K. Chu

Management

Okay. Yeah, we have this unique business model. We haven’t seen anything similar. Well this is more or like cutting into the Chinese communities that will support our traditional mobile trends is more of the mobile campaign on their websites or content. That’s the very fundamental thing. But more or less, our step is to help the business to confirm their existing websites into a mobile site. That’s where it helps each business to automatically format their own APPs for their public – for their company participation. So we will soon launch these new services that’s under the Flying Cloud, we call it go touch. This is what we have to maintain 10,000 businesses, it will be very interested in using these businesses and we will charge a one-time fee, but for a long time, if they want customization, they have to pay extra and also after one year, if they want to continue hosting, then they have to continue to pay us.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

George K. Chu

Management

Correct.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And then you charge basically an upfront fee or later annual fee that’s a big business model?

George K. Chu

Management

Correct, but the third unique part is that one June is actually I am not going to increase lot of labor because everything will be automatically down system once their content are entered. So it’s pretty itself what that self guided facts, so through the first steps, the user company just enter the content into the category they have sales categorized and then at the end of the process, this mobile website will be formed as well as the APP, the mobile application will be formed.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

George K. Chu

Management

Yeah, we have about 10 different templates for 10 different industry, but if a company say, hey I won’t pay you like RMB20,000 they want to do – I wanted something different and that’s absolutely yes.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, thanks.

George K. Chu

Management

Our key purpose is that we want a company to use it, it’s super user friendly environment. First of all, it won’t take too much of time, everything can be done in 5 to 10 minutes and done. So people won’t feel that it’s a great hassle to transition from the Internet PC site to the mobile site.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

When are you saying that we’re – you will start doing this?

George K. Chu

Management

We have it – the prototype is done already. So it’s already in testing and we are now formatting our marketing campaign and our marketing campaign will start within the first two weeks of June.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay. And so far how is your feedbacks from your customer side? I mean…

George K. Chu

Management

Well, we have tried it on about 50 clients right now. We are now in a process to adjust the back-end management user interface. We want to make it more user friendly, and that the thing. Our overall it’s kind of an exciting thing for them to have.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, thanks.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from [Tony Young of Oriental Capital] Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Hi.

Handong Cheng

Management

[Foreign Language]

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

I have follow up question to the first question regarding the revenue guidance. I just wanted to clarify, you mentioned for the $36 million, about $30 million will come from Internet advertisement, right?

George K. Chu

Management

Not just $36 million – about $21 million to $22 million will be contributed by Internet and the other $13 million to $14 million will be contributed by TV.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay. So you said the overall guidance you think is very, very conservative and the up-tick it could come from the Internet part of business, right?

George K. Chu

Management

Absolutely.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And you said it goes up to 60% from the Internet?

George K. Chu

Management

What I mean is that, well I mean, out of the $36 million, about 65% to 60% will be contributed by Internet, but if $36 million increased to $40 million of this increase by $4 million. This $4 million will be mainly contributed by our Internet businesses.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

I got you, all right. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) The next question comes from (inaudible), a Private Investor. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Yes, I think a few months ago you mentioned you had the mobile apps with Baidu and I think you even mentioned kind of mobile probably in November. Do you have an update for that? Is that still legitimate?

George K. Chu

Management

,:

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, and then when do you expect to – you expect the cloud part of the cloud service to be implemented by the end of June?

George K. Chu

Management

Yes, we will be updating because basically we are really adjusting. We have really reduced the scope of our Flying Cloud product cycle as wells as the product category. We are being more specific and more precise and also quite into the – what we call the formal service and product infrastructure, but this update will be completed by the end of June. So we – at that time we will do a press release.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, just one last question, you mentioned that you were already into a higher grade. I was wondering will you ever get to a point where you will report your 10-Q on time?

George K. Chu

Management

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, have you made any progress in accounts receivable collections?

George K. Chu

Management

Yes, we are. As of right now, we are receiving and we expect that by the end of June, we should be able to sell at least 30% to 40% from our accounts receivables.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And so by the end of June, you should be able to do what?

George K. Chu

Management

To collect 30% to 40% of my accounts receivables.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, thank you.

George K. Chu

Management

We are going for proactively on accounts receivable. That’s something I can promise you, because it is something the home engine still comes with us.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Gary Kristen, a Private Investor. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Can you give an update on your plans for share buyback?

George K. Chu

Management

Yes. Basically, we are setting up the plan right now with UBS and I don’t know how much detail I can disclose right now. Yeah, formatting the plan with my lawyer right now and we have about 15 to I think 15 to 20 days window to set up this plan. So what this has done and then what it just got automatically. So we won’t be able – it will just do itself. So we won’t be able to find it by any open window kind of thing.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, thank you.

George K. Chu

Management

Yeah, of course we don’t have any open window between our last quarter – I mean the year we pulled out throughout this quarter. So, between the period, it’s impossible for us to stay out of the plan.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

All right.

Operator

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to George Chu for any closing remarks.

George K. Chu

Management

Well, thank you everyone for attending our first quarter results 2013 and I appreciate your support and the management striving hard to work on the business as well as to grow the businesses. And for the year, I’m sure that we will bring up more exciting news to our supportive shareholders. Thank you, and thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.