Earnings Labs

iQIYI, Inc. (IQ)

Q4 2019 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 27, 2020

$1.10

-1.35%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the iQIYI Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2019 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Investor Relations Director of iQIYI, Dahlia Wei. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Dahlia Wei

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone and thank you all for joining iQIYI's fourth quarter and full year 2019 earnings conference Call. The company's results were released earlier today and are available on the company's Investor Relations website at ir.iqiyi.com. On the call today are Dr. Yu Gong, our Founder, Director and CEO; and Mr. Xiaodong Wang, our CFO. Dr. Gong will give brief overview of our company's business operations and highlights followed by Xiaodong, who will go through the financials and guidance. After their prepared remarks, we will hold a Q&A session. Before we proceed, 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 outlined in our public filings with the SEC. iQIYI does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable law. With that, I will now turn the call over to Dr. Gong. Please go ahead.

Yu Gong

Analyst

Hello everyone and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter and the full year 2019 earnings call. We concluded the year 2019 with a solid ending. Q4 and the full year net revenues reached RMB7.5 billion and RMB29 billion, respectively, backed by the optimized structure of our content costs, which only grew moderately at single-digit percentage on a full year basis. We further solidified our industry-leading position in terms of our user scale, user stickiness, and a number of subscribers. We are pleased with a set of significant progress we made in 2019, including being the first among industry peers to hit the 100 million subscriber milestone, consistently developing innovative original content, pioneering new advertising solutions, and making new breakthroughs in technology development. I'll start my review with our membership business. As of December 31st, 2019, our total subscribers reached 107 million, a net addition of 19.5 million compared to year end 2018. Subscription revenues grew 36% year-over-year to RMB14.4 billion and contributed half of our full year 2019 total revenues. This reflects our dedication in delivering best quality content to our subscribers and our various operating initiatives to expand our subscriber base. In the fourth quarter, the release of a number of highly popular drama series drove subscriber growth, namely Qing Yu Nian, The Listener, Sword Dynasty and Spirit Sword Mountain among others. Typically, drama series have been the main driver of the subscriber growth, but with our portfolio of content expanding, we are beginning to see a wider range of content categories playing an increasingly important role. For example, hit theatrical movies, such as Ne Zha and The Captain, animation serials One Piece, as well as premium variety show, More Than Forever, all helped to drive our subscriber growth. Also if we look at full year…

Xiaodong Wang

Analyst

Good morning, everyone. Let me go through our financial highlights. For the fourth quarter of 2019, iQIYI total revenues were RMB 7.5 billion, up 7% year-over-year. Total revenues in 2019 were RMB 29 billion, up 16% year-over-year. Membership services revenue for the fourth quarter were RMB 3.9 billion, up 21% year-over-year. Membership service revenue in 2019 was RMB 14.4 billion, up 36% year-over-year. The increase was primarily driven by the growth in the number of subscribing members. Online advertising services revenue for the fourth quarter was RMB 1.9 billion, down 15% year-over-year, primarily due to the challenging macro economic environment in China. Online advertising service revenue in 2019 was RMB 8.3 billion, down 11% year-over-year, primarily due to the macro headwinds, the uncertainty of certain content scheduling and intensified competition in advertising business. Content distribution revenue for the fourth quarter was RMB 878 million, up 68% year-over-year, driven by higher volume and the contractual price of the titles we distributed in the quarter. Content distribution revenue in 2019 was RMB 2.5 billion, up 18% year-over-year, driven by a number of premium content titles that we distributed during the year. Other revenues for the fourth quarter were RMB 874.4 million, down 21% year-over-year, primarily due to the soft performance of certain business lines, partially offset by strong growth in game business. Other revenues in 2019 were RMB 3.7 billion, up 30% from 2018, driven by the growth of number of business verticals, especially robust growth of our games business after the acquisition of Skymoons. Moving on to the cost of revenues. Our cost of revenues for the fourth quarter was RMB 7.9 billion, down 7% year-over-year, primarily due to the lower content costs, partially offset by the increase of other cost items. Content cost for the fourth quarter were RMB 5.7…

Operator

Operator

Thank you, Xiaodong. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Alicia Yap from Citigroup. Please ask your question.

Alicia Yap

Analyst

Yu Gong

Analyst

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Eddie Leung from Bank of America, Merrill Lynch. Please ask the question.

Eddie Leung

Analyst

Yu Gong

Analyst

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Thomas Chong from Jefferies. Please ask the question.

Thomas Chong

Analyst

Yu Gong

Analyst

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Wendy Chen from Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question.

Wendy Chen

Analyst

Xiaodong Wang

Analyst

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Ella Ji from China Renaissance. Please ask your question.

Diying Ji

Analyst

Xiaodong Wang

Analyst

Yu Gong

Analyst

Operator

Operator

We still got time for one last question. Our final question comes from Tiah Ho from T.H. Capital. Please ask the question.

Tiah Ho

Analyst

Yu Gong

Analyst

Operator

Operator

I would now like to hand the conference back to management. Please continue.

Dahlia Wei

Analyst

Okay. Thank you, again. And if you have any other questions, please do feel free to contact us. Thank you.

Yu Gong

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of our conference call. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.