Intchains Group Limited

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to InChain's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Joining us today is Mr. Chao-Wei Yan, Chief Financial Officer of InChain. Mr. Yan will provide an overview of the company's performance and the details of the company's financial results. After that, we will conduct a question and answer session to take your questions. During the question and answer session, Mr. Yan will deliver the answers in Chinese and the company's representative will provide corresponding English translations. Before we continue, I would like to remind you that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that are based on the company's current expectations, and projections about future events that the company believes may affect its financial condition, result of operations, business strategy, and financial needs. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent or current events or circumstances or changes in its expectations except as may be required by law. Although the company believes that the expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot assure you that such expectations will turn out to be correct. and the company cautions investors that actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results and encourages investors to review other factors that may affect its future results in the company's registration statement and other filings with the SEC. With that, I will now turn the call over to Mr. Xiaowei Yan, the company's CFO. Mr. Yan, please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and everyone for joining InterChance Earnings Conference Call for the fourth quarter and full year 2023. On today's call, we will provide an overview of our operational and financial performance for the fourth quarter and full year 2023. After that, we will conduct a Q&A session to take your questions. 2023 was a challenging year for the Web3 industry. While we witnessed sustained rapid innovation in both underlying technology and application layers, the industry was deeply affected by short-term volatility. Influenced by these fluctuations, the company's revenue for the full year of 2023 decreased by 83% year-over-year. However, in the fourth quarter of 2023, the cryptocurrency market rebounded significantly from the third quarter downturn. driving sustainable development of application layers as well as heightened demand for blockchain products. This propelled sequential revenue growth of 418% for the fourth quarter and empowered us to deliver quarterly profitability. 2023 was also a year of remarkable milestones for Interchange. In March, we successfully listed on NASDAQ in the United States. marking the beginning of a new chapter in our development alongside numerous other outstanding firms. As a young Web3 practitioner, InterChance has focused on refining chip processes and upgrading algorithms to enhance our core competitiveness. While persistently advising our products and expanding our product and service offerings across the industry value chain, In the fourth quarter, we enter into an agreement to acquire the Gold Shield brand, officially entering downstream mining machine production and sales. The entire transaction is processing smoothly and has been completed today. Furthermore, our latest 12 nanometer process chip, featuring a brand new algorithm, successfully complete IC verification and the trial production processes. And we expect to officially launch our new mining machine products in the second quarter of 2024. As we step into 2024, we are observing a distinct upward transaction market-wide. Despite lingering short-term uncertainties, we remain confident in the industry development for 2024 and the long-term prospects of entire Web3 landscape. We firmly believe that the ongoing evolution of blockchain technology will not only enhance the Web3 industry, but also drive deeper integration with traditional industries, promoting innovation within these sectors. Ultimately, This transformative process will change people's lifestyle and propel progress across society as a whole. As a key industry participant, Interchange is currently pioneering privacy computing applications in Web3. The development of our first related new product is nearing completion. With the associated chief product slated for official take-out in 2024. Furthermore, in 2024, we intend to further expand our investments across the cryptocurrency value chain, increasing capital utilization efficiency through carefully chosen development opportunities to solidify the company's foundation in anticipation of the industry's bull market. In this dynamic environment, we will leverage our extensive industry experience and advanced technological capabilities to relentlessly explore and expand opportunities for the development of Web3 at the application level. By preparing integration of blockchain technology with traditional industries, we aim to improve users' lifestyle and drive development across industries and society as a whole. Now, I will provide a brief financial overview of the fourth quarter and the full year 2023. Let's first take a look at the financial overview for the fourth quarter. Our revenue was 75.5 million RMB or $5 million in the first quarter, a year-over-year increase of 5.3%. The increase was mainly due to one-off sales of intelligent road products which generated 12.6 million RMB in revenue in first quarter 2023. Our cost of revenue decreased by 29.3% year over year to 14.1 million RMB or two million US dollar in the first quarter. Due to the sales of the Web3 Intelligent Loader products, which have been recorded in inventory write downs 11 million RMB in the previous quarters of 2023. Our total operating expenses increased by 79% year-over-year to 22.8 million RMB to 3.2 million U.S. dollar in fourth quarter, primarily due to an increase in all categories operating expenses. Research and development expenses increased by 40.2% to 14 million RMB or $2 million for the fourth quarter of 2023 from 10 million RMB for the same period of 2022. The increase was primarily attributable to an increase in IP expenses and labor costs for the design of the IC chips. Sales and marketing expenses increased by 65.3% year-over-year to 1.8 million RMB or $0.3 million in the first quarter, mainly due to an increase in personnel-related expenses. General and admin expenses increased by 316.6% year-over-year to 7 million RMB or $1 million in the first quarter. largely due to an increase in lease-related expenses, labor costs, and professional expenses. Our interest income increased by 22.3% year-over-year to 4.2 million RMB or 0.6 million U.S. dollars in the first quarter, mostly attributable to our effective fund management. Other income decreased by 29.6% year-over-year to 7.5 million RMB or 1.1 million U.S. dollars in the first quarter. primarily due to the decrease in grants received from the local governments. Our net income was 8.1 million RMB or 1.1 million U.S. dollars in the first quarter. Basic and diluted net earnings per ordinary share was 0.07 RMB or 1 cent U.S. dollars in the first quarter. Each ADS represents two of our company's Class A ordinary shares. Now, let's look at our full year 2023 financial results. The revenue was 82.2 million RMB or $11.6 million in 2023. A year-over-year decrease of 83.6%. The decrease was mainly due to the challenging cryptocurrency market in 2023, which resulted in decrease in sales volume and average selling price of our asset chips. Cost of revenue decreased by 59% year-over-year to 73.1 million RMB or 10.3 million US dollars in 2023. The decrease was mainly attributable to the decrease in sales volume of our asset chips. largely offset by an inventory write-down and prepayment write-down, totally approximately 24.7 million RMB. Total operating expenses increased by 15.7% year-over-year to 75 million RMB or 10.4 million U.S. dollars in 2023. primarily due to increasing sales and marketing expenses and the general and the administrative expenses, partially offset by research and development expenses. Our R&D expenses decreased by 12.6% to 42.3 million RMB or $6 million in 2023 from 48.4 million RMB in 2022. The decrease was primarily attributable to the different stage of our research and development projects for Yin during the respective period offset by increase of labor costs and depreciation and amortization expenses. Sales and marketing expenses increased by 68.5% year over year to 6.5 million RMB or 0.9 million US dollar in 2023. mainly due to an increase in personnel related expenses. General and admin expenses increased by 118.1% year over year to 25.2 million RMB or 3.6 million US dollars in 2023, largely due to an increase in rental expenses, labor costs, and professional expenses. Interest income increased by 50.5% year over year to 16.8 million RMB or 2.4 million US dollars in 2023, mostly attributable to our effective fund management. Other income decreased by 55.6% year over year to 13 million RMB or 1.9 million US dollars in 2023, primarily due to a decrease in grants received from local government. Our net loss was 26.8 million RMB or 3.8 million US dollars in 2023. Our basic and diluted net loss per ordinary share was 0.22 RMB or 0.03 US dollars in 2023. Each ADS represents two of our company's class A ordinary shares. In 2023, Industry volatility exerts great pressure on our business development, resulting in year-over-year declines in both top-line and bottom-line performance. However, as the industry evolves, crypto-related applications are increasingly embraced by regulators and mainstream investors. We have clearly sensed that the industry has entered a new upward cycle. In this phase, we anticipate a much broader range of Web3 applications to emerge. We remain confident in the long-term prospects of the Web3 industry and are deeply committed to its development. As such, we continue to pursue initiatives that bolster our competitiveness and strengthen our foothold along the value chain. As we step into 2024, we will increase our investment in progress proactively exploring development opportunities within the industry to better position ourselves for sustained long-term growth. Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to updating you on our progress in the future. Now, I'd like to turn the discussion over to the operator for any questions.

Thank you. And as a reminder, press star 1-1 to get in the queue and wait for your name to be announced. To remove your question, simply press star 1-1 again. If you would like to ask your question in Chinese, please also translate it in English. We'll pause just a moment to assemble the roster. One moment for our first question. And it comes from the line of Liz Kenyon with the Paciente Group. Please proceed.