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spk03: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Aurora Mobile Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your host today, Rene Vangestein. Thank you. Please go ahead, sir.
spk00: Thank you, Michelle. Hello everyone and thank you for joining us today. Aurora's earnings release was distributed earlier today and is available on the IR website at ir.jiguang.cn. On the call today are Mr. Shen Nenbong, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. Guangyang Chen, General Manager. Following their prepared remarks, they will be available to answer your questions during the Q&A session that follows. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that this conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Integration Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based upon management's current expectations and current market and operating conditions. which are difficult to predict and may cause the company's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties and or factors are included in the company's findings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required under applicable law. With that, I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Bong. Please go ahead.
spk01: Thanks, Rene. Good morning and good evening, everyone. Welcome to Aurora Mobile's 2023 third quarter's earning release call. And for all our callers and listeners today, I wanted to let you know that our CEO, Chris, is on business trip at different time zones. Plus, he's not available to attend the call today. And in Chris' absence, I should have the privilege to share with you all on all the great quarters that we have this quarter. And before I comment on our Q3 results, I would like to remind everyone that the quarterly earnings deck is available on our IR website. You may refer to the deck as we proceed with the call today. I refer to this quarter to be a great quarter for a number of reasons. And here I would like to categorically go through the great things that we have achieved this quarter. Firstly, two of our business line recorded sequential revenue growth in each of the three quarters of 2023. where developer subscription revenue grew 15% quarter over quarter. Vertical application revenue grew 6% quarter over quarter, driven by financial risk management revenue, which grew 11% quarter over quarter. Secondly, our gross profit in absolute dollar terms also grew in each of the three quarters in 2023. Thirdly, we achieved yet another lowest OPEX in history in this quarter, Last but not least, we achieved adjusted EBITDA positive in this quarter. Therefore, this quarter has been great operationally and financially. Next, I'll spend more time to share with you on various aspects of the business. For our total group revenue, we achieved positive growth of 1% quarter over quarter. Now, let me go through our different revenue streams. Developer service revenue decreased 10% year-over-year, mainly due to the weakness seen in the value-added service, offset by the 12% growth in subscription service. Next is a detailed discussion of each business line. Subscription business revenue was remaining 46.7 million, up 12% year-over-year and 15% quarter-over-quarter. This was mainly driven by increase in both our pool and customers numbers year over year and quarter over quarter. We are very pleased with the positive trending of this business where the revenue grew in every quarter since Q1 of 2023. Some of the notable new and renewal customers in this quarter include but not limited to Citic Bank, FAW Volkswagen, FAW Toyota, Dalian Bank, Xiamen Bank, just to name a few. Value-added service revenue were remedy 4.9 million, decreased by 58% quarter-worth quarter, which was due to the annual 6-18 online shopping festival in Q2, where advertisers increased their spending. However, no such event in Q3. Next, let me give you some updates on our overseas product engaged lab. We have hit a few key milestones in this quarter that we are very proud of. Firstly, we now have more than 100 customers sign up to purchase our Engage Lab product. Secondly, these customers come from 16 different countries and regions, including Hong Kong and Taiwan. And in this quarter alone, we added four new countries where our Engage Lab is made available to overseas customers. Thirdly, our cumulative signed contract value of EngageLab has exceeded RMB 10 million since the launch of this product in Q3 of 2022. So our going overseas initiative has clearly been a success. From our side, there are a few initiatives we will undertake to further our EngageLab expansion. This includes, one, we will continue to expand our reach inside each of the 16 countries and regions that we are servicing now. We aim to sign up more customers in this country. Two, we will expand to other new countries and regions every quarter. Now let me recap on the EngageLab product we have. Our EngageLab product allows our customers in different countries and regions to engage with their own customers in an effective yet cost-efficient manner. Our one-stop EngageLab customer engagement platform enables our customers to use any of these following messaging channels, be it app push, web push, and email service, SMS service, or WhatsApp business API. Since its launch in Q3 of 2022, we are very pleased with the progress to date. However, the work is not done. We will continue to improve the service delivery of EngageLab so that we continue to expand across different continents in the near future. Next, I'll go over the revenue for vertical application, where it's made up of financial risk management and market intelligence. Vertical application had another great quarter. Sequentially, the quarterly revenue for vertical application has grown in each of the quarter in 2023. In Q3 alone, it grew another 6% quarter over quarter, fueled by the strong revenue growth from financial risk management. For financial risk management, revenue grew both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. In addition, the revenue recorded sequential growth in each of the three quarters in 2023. It was positively impacted by customer number growth of 18% year-over-year and 27% quarter-over-quarter. The addition of new customer numbers signifies that we are gaining more customers and existing customers are renewing their services with us. This is important as it pave way for us to achieve revenue growth in the near future. These Q3 customers include but not limited to Fenqi Le, Luzhou Bank, Zhangjiakou Bank, Beijing Bank and other more licensed financial institutions throughout China. As for market intelligence, the revenue decreased 4% quarter over quarter due to the relatively quiet investment sentiment towards Chinese ADRs. Plus, the demand for China-based APP data has also decreased accordingly. Nevertheless, we still managed to sign up some well-known large customers such as Mercedes, Meituan, Kuaishou, Chaochao Chuxing, and other global hedge funds and overseas investment funds. I'll now go through some of the key expenses and balance sheet items. On to operating expenses. I'm again very pleased to share with you that in Q3 2023, we have yet another record low quarterly OPEX at 60 million RMB. The Q3 OPEX was down 25% year over year and 6% quarter over quarter. As I mentioned in the previous quarter, maintaining low level of OPEX is of critical importance to us. And this was the main reason why we are able to record lowest quarterly net loss since IPO and return adjusted EBITDA positive in this quarter. Next, I'll go through the individual OPEX category. In particular, R&D expenses decreased 14% year-over-year to maybe $32.8 million, mainly due to the lower headcount that reduced salary cost and associated compensation. and the decrease in server depreciation expenses due to our own going cloud initiative. Selling and marketing expenses decreased by 10% year-over-year to RMB 21.8 million, mainly due to the decrease in salary costs resulted from headcount reduction as we further make adjustments to operate at the optimal level. G&A expenses decreased by 69% year-over-year This was mainly due to the one-time gain on disposal of fixed assets recognized in this quarter. Even if this one-off item is excluded, the G&A expenses still decreased by 27%, mainly due to the overall continuous effort to streamline expenses across the board. As I mentioned earlier, as a result of our focus to drive OPEX at optimal level, the adjusted EBITDA has recorded a positive revenue of $4.5 million in this quarter. In plain English, it simply means that the group is making more than it is spending with surplus to keep in this quarter. And this is a great result for which I am very proud of what the team has done throughout the organization. From the frontline sales team who have been going all out to acquire new customers and sign up new contracts, to the support team and the back office who diligently control our expenses. Next onto the balance sheet. I'll share two very important KPIs that we closely monitor. We continue to maintain a healthy AR turnover date at 40 days and this is relatively consistent year over year and quarter over quarter. We pride ourselves in achieving such a low AR turnover days comparing to the peers in the same industry. One of the key financial KPIs for tracking the performance of SaaS companies is the total deferred revenue, which represents cash collected in advance from customers for future contract performance, which continues to be a high balance of $130.6 million. And this is the seventh consecutive quarter where our deferred revenue balance has exceeded $130 million. and both our onshore and overseas customers are continuing to purchase and renew our services. More importantly, we are collecting cash in advance from customers. Next, total assets were at $359.5 million as of September 30, 2023. This includes cash and cash equivalent of $98.4 million, accounts receivable of $31.3 million, prepayments and other current assets at $23.7 million, fixed assets of $1.9 million, long-term investment $134.9 million, goodwill at $37.8 million and intangible assets of $19.5 million. Total current liabilities were $233.2 million as of September 30, 2023. This includes short-term loan of $5 million, accounts receivable of $20.2 million, Current operating list liability of $6.4 million. Deferred revenue of $130.6 million. Accrued liabilities of $71 million. Next, allow me to take one minute to recap four key achievements that we have had in this quarter that I would like all of you to take away from this earnings call today. In this quarter, one, our developer service subscription and financial risk management businesses recorded three consecutive revenue growth. Two, we have more than 100 Engage-led paying customers from 16 countries and regions around the globe, with cumulative signed contract value exceeded RM10 million. Three, we have the highest quarterly gross profit and lowest quarterly ROPEX in 2023. Four, we have turned adjusted EBITDA positive. Lastly, before I conclude, I'll give a quick update on our share repurchase plan. In the quarter ended September 30th, 2023, we have repurchased 854,000 ADS. Cumulatively, we have repurchased a total of 2.69 million ADS since the start of our program. And this concludes management prepared remarks. We'll be happy to take questions now. Operators, please proceed.
spk03: Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one one. If your question hasn't answered and you'd like to remove yourself in the queue, please press star one one again. Our first question comes from Calvin Wong with speaker capital. Your line is open.
spk02: Good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. I would like to have to you if I may. First of all, congrats on your great Q3 results. It seems that the positive adjusted EBITDA has come earlier than we have discussed last quarter. So I appreciate if the management can share more how this is achieved and whether we will continue to see positive adjusted EBITDA going forward. And second question is about EngageLab business. It is great to see that you have signed up more than 100 overseas customers with more than 10 million RMB contract value within a year. So with this, I would like to hear from the management. How do you go about expanding this engaged app business outside of China? And how you manage to make such enroll in overseas markets? So two questions. One on adjusted EBITDA. and to you on engage that business. Thank you.
spk01: Sure, Kelvin. Thanks for your question. Okay. Yes, you're right. We are really pleased to turn adjusted EBITDA positive in this quarter earlier than we have expected. In a very high summary level, it is a combination of where we drive the high margin revenue business. We grew the gross profit and we tightly control the OPEX. I can elaborate more. So on the revenue front, as I touched on earlier in the ER call, both our developer subscription business and vertical application business recorded consecutive revenue growth in each quarter of 2023. And these are the high margin business with gross margin in the range of 75% to 80%. And the developer service subscription business are doing well. where we recorded both our pool and customers' growth quarter over quarter. And in particular, in this quarter, we completed a number of private cloud projects which helped on the revenue growth. And similarly for financial risk management, we also had our pool and revenue growth sequentially. And with the growth of this high margin business, as a result, our gross profit grew as a result. So as for OPEX, we have another historical low, OPEX at $60 million in Q3. So with the growth in revenue and we managed to reduce the OPEX and eventually the numbers just turned out to be a positive adjusted EBITDA. And on the question for Q4 and beyond, I guess typically we don't give any guidance on adjusted EBITDA. At this stage, all I can say is we are working hard on growing our high margin revenue and continue to control our OPEX. So this is the answer to the first question. And the second question is EngageLab. Yes, it seems like EngageLab has attracted your attention. If I remember correctly, you asked this question last quarter as well. Again, we are very pleased on the progress to date. I guess looking back, the most important decision that we have made is more than a year ago, we decided to venture overseas. And of course, it was not smooth sailing in day one and the road has been rough but has been rewarding. If you remember, we started the business in Q3 of 2022 with zero customers and zero contract value. And we have done pretty well since then. And as to how we do the business overseas, I can share a little. Firstly, we invested in overseas infrastructure so that customers in overseas have the peace of mind on their data storage in the countries of their choosing. Which means that whether you're in Southeast Asia, whether you're in Europe or Australia, we have the right set of combination of infrastructure for you or for our customers. And secondly, we work closely with the Chinese companies venturing and expanding overseas. And this group of customers are important because they are the one that we are providing services onshore. So they will always select us as their vendor of choice when they are overseas. Because they know who we are, we work with them before and they are confident with our service delivery. And thirdly, we also engage quality ISV, which is the independent software vendors in overseas market too. And this ISV arrangement works perfectly for us for a couple of reasons. One, this ISV are well connected in their respective domestic market with many existing customers that they can help to sell our product. And two, ISV presence in different overseas market reduce our need to invest to set up offices, hire local sales team in the respective countries. And thirdly, through this ISV, it also help us, save us to deal with individual customers, contractions, negotiation, on pricing, on cash collection, which saves us on administrative burden. I guess in short, EngageLab overseas services or business is important for us and it represents a new growth engine for us which is less reliant on the Chinese mainland economic environment to a large degree. So it acts as a good buffer for us to continue on the revenue growth plan regardless of the situation onshore. So Kevin, I hope this answered your question.
spk02: OK. Very clear. Thanks.
spk01: Thank you.
spk03: Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1-1. Again, that's star 1-1 to ask a question. There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back over to Rene for any closing remarks.
spk00: Thank you, everyone, for joining our call tonight. If you have any further questions and comments, please don't hesitate to reach out to the IR team. This concludes the call. Have a good night. Thank you.
spk03: Thank you for participating. This does conclude the program, and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.
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