Earnings Labs

Waterdrop Inc. (WDH)

Q3 2023 Earnings Call· Thu, Dec 7, 2023

$1.68

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Transcript

Unidentified Company Representative

Operator

Good morning, everyone. This is from Waterdrop Investor Relations. It's my pleasure to welcome everyone to Waterdrop's Third Quarter 2023 Earnings conference call. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. Please note that the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provision of the US 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. The company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement except as required by any applicable law. Also, this call includes discussion of certain non-GAAP measures. Please refer to our earnings release for a reconciliation between non-GAAP and GAAP. Joining us today on the call are Mr. Shen Peng, our Founder, Chairman, and CEO; Mr. Yang Guang, Co-Founder, Director, Finance VP, and GM of International Business; Mr. Zhu Zetao, GM of Crowdfunding and Pharmatech Business; Mr. Chen Richard, Board Secretary. And we will be happy to take some of the questions in the Mandarin line at the end of the conference call.

Peng Shen

Analyst

Hello, everyone. This is Shen Peng. Thank you for joining our third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. This quarter, the domestic economy in China is still in the recovery process. Primary factors, including adjustments in product policies have temporarily impact the life insurance business. With the improvement in industry transparency and generation coupled with gradual acceptance of new product policy in the market, the company believes that the life insurance industry is entering a new development stage. Facing both opportunities and challenges, the company actively respond to regulatory direction, striving to enhance business health and efficiency. For our having either certification, the company leveraged its keen insight into user needs to qualify either service and product innovation capabilities, embracing industry change with any vision and dynamic approach. In the third quarter, the company continued to focus on creating value for users, achieving a resilient financial performance with approximately RMB6.9 billion in revenue maintaining a profitable trend for the past seven quarters. Cash profit reached RMB36.3 million, showing our Q3 growth of 67% and demonstrating this event sustainable and high-quality development. With sustainable net profit and positive operating cash flow at the end of September in the context of continuous share repurchase and acquisition of Shenlanbao, the company is to maintain our robust cash reserve and ability to organic growth. The combined cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, RMB3.1 billion, providing flexibility and stability for the company to navigate uncertainties and support long-term growth. Our business models of the company performed well in the third quarter, consolidating our leading position in the industry. Thankfully, we've got insurance marketplace focused on enhancing; this is help in optimizing the product metrics through excellent demand insights and quality improvements, and it continued to contribute stable net profit. Secondly, our Medical Crowdfunding platform continued to…

Zetao Zhu

Analyst

Thank you, And that's enough for Q3. Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding platform has accumulated 445 million donors and specific over 3 million patients and raised over RMB61.3 billion. Both user numbers and underwriting amounts continue to grow. In Q3, Waterdrop Operating Transparency Committee further enhanced platform interference and far from we've done in the underwriting information display page with four different models like inflammation discovery, platform verification, public confirmation, and the bank discovery. These provide a more comprehensive representation of key details and doing enhanced the consultant surveys. We conduct the first one around consulting service month in August with our consulting operations with the release of the retained book and improved overall service quality and risk awareness. As a result, overall user certification rose to 98% and the NPL for funding either increased from 55% to 70%. In Q3, we're continuing the transition to service-oriented consultants in 45 strategic hospitals nationwide. This approach will receive high praise from both hospitals and patients. The platform will further improve the efficiency of service-oriented consultant while maintaining service quality. We put our enhanced user experience hosting the first the donor and a fundraiser open date in September. We've seen open and more transparency, guarantee and trust. The company's CEO, Shen Peng and myself, together with donors and fundraisers to have deep communication on underwriting service experience, more transparency, and authenticity. The company will continue to listen to user's feedback focused on technology innovation to enhance service efficiency and transparency; we will honor the trust of every individual. With the clinical trials and dimension business showed stable and healthy development in the quarter with a quality revenue of about RMB27.6 million, representing a year-on-year growth of 16.7%. During Q3, the E-Find Platform expanded its collaboration with over 135 pharmaceutical and CRO signing over 90…

Guang Yang

Analyst

Thanks Zetao. Hello, everyone. I will now walk you through our financial highlights for the third quarter. Before I go into details, please be reminded that all numbers quoted here will be in RMB and please refer to our earnings release for the detailed information on our financial performance on both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter basis, respectively. In Q3, despite a unique period of product assessment, the company demonstrated robust profitability. The company revenue was RMB686 million, a slightly Q-o-Q increase from RMB679 million. Waterdrop reports that it is in the first quarter that was starting to consolidate the financial results of Shenlanbao and the results and the insurance liability segments. Our insurance-related income was RMB619 million, showing a 3.7% Q-o-Q increase. Compounding service fee for RMB36 million. The clinical solution income was about RMB27.6 million with a remarkable 60.7% year over year growth. Operating cost and expenses increased by 7.6% year over year decreased by 4.4% in Q2. Operating costs decreased by 8.5% year over year to RMB313 million, mainly due to firstly, a RMB19.5 million decrease in the cost of one year health insurance coverage related to termination of mutual aid plans, which what occurred the same quarter last year. Second reason would be the RMB9.4 million decrease in cost of referral and service fee. S&M expenses increased by 36.1% year over year to RMB187.7 million, and it was primarily due to firstly, the consolidation of Shenlanbao, which generated S&M expense of RMB28.1 million; secondly, a RMB14.4 million increase in marketing expenses to third-party traffic channel; and thirdly, a RMB9.1 million increase in personnel costs and share-based comprehensive expenses. In this quarter, the company proactively adapt certain advertising strategies. It was up RMB41.3 million major decrease in marketing expenses to third-party traffic channels, partially offsetted by the consolidation of Shenlanbao. S&M expenses decreased by 8.2% sequentially. G&A expenses increased by 39.7% year over year to RMB114.6 million and increased by 19.4% sequentially, both Q-o-Q and Y-o-Y as due to the consolidation of Shenlanbao and the increase in professional service fees. R&D expenses decreased by 5.7% year over year to RMB73.9 million. The decrease was primarily due to personnel costs and share-based comprehensive expenses. Adjusted net profit attributed to the company in Q3 was RMB74.8 million. The GAAP net profit was RMB36.3 million and we have generated GAAP profit over the past seven quarters. As of the end of September 2023, the company have combined cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments of RMB3.1 billion, indicating sufficient cash reserves. Overall, the business performance in Q3 was stable. Looking ahead, we will continue to focus on user value and sustainable high quality developments. And ladies and gentlemen, with that, we would conclude today's conference call. We do thank you for joining. Have a good time. End of Q&A: