Haijian He
Analyst · Kenneth Fong from Credit Suisse. Please ask your question
Thank you, Yulin and thank you, Nicole. Hello everyone. I will discuss the financial performance of this quarter. Please be reminded that all announced currency here will be RMB. Please also refer to our earnings release for detailed information. Before we go through the details, I would like to highlight the following four points. First of all, in our F-1 prospectus, we provided revenue outlook of the first quarter of 2020 which ranged from RMB1.35 billion to RMB1.4 billion. The total revenue of this quarter finished at the top end of range at RMB1.39 billion, representing an increase of 64.5% year-over-year and exceeding the growth of the public cloud industry in China in general. Second, we achieved the positive gross profit for the third consecutive quarter. And adjusted gross margin has continued to improve gradually for seven quarters. As a result, the adjusted gross margin increased rapidly from negative 5.3% in Q1 2019 to positive 5.3% in the Q1 2020, an improvement of 10.6 percentage points. Number three, adjusted EBITDA margin increased as well, up from negative 12.9% in the Q1 2019 to negative 2.8% in the Q1 2020, an improvement of 10.1 percentage points. Adjusted EBITDA margin continued to improve steadily for seven consecutive quarters. Lastly, we have maintained a healthy balance sheet and sufficient liquidity. As of March 31, 2020, we had cash and cash equivalents, term deposits of RMB1.97 billion. On 8 May, we have raised US$551.3 million of the net proceeds from the IPO. Going forward, we will continue to remain and maintain the healthy balance sheet and ensure sufficient investments into R&D and IT infrastructures. To summarize, we are pleased to have maintained the high revenue growth rate and significantly improved our profitability. Growing economic of scale have been already benefiting our performance. Now I will go through the details of the financial results. Our public cloud service revenue increased by 58.4% year-over-year to RMB1.21 billion. The increase is primarily due to the increasing demand of a cloud service from internal verticals. Our top line performance has shown good level of resilience nature of our cloud business model in the middle of the challenging environment. Growth in the users and time spent on those two verticals, including video and gaming verticals, as well as a growing demand for our technologies contributed into the revenue growth. Enterprise cost service revenue increased by 118.8% year-over-year to RMB181.6 million. Enterprise cost service revenue accounted for nearly 13.1% of our total revenue in the first quarter, up from 9.8% in the same period of 2019, indicating a more diversified revenue mix. We are pleased to see that traditional enterprises increasingly shift on premises IT budget to the cloud. Our robust financial results this quarter reflect this trend and demonstrate that a diversified revenue streams will continue to drive future growth for us as we have [indiscernible] Cost of revenue increased by 48.2% year-over-year to RMB1.3 billion. IDC costs increased by 36.1% year-over-year to RMB920.2 million, but as a percentage of total revenue decreased from 80% during the same period last year to 66.2% in the first quarter of this year. D&A costs increased by 51.3% year-over-year to RMB204.8 million, but as a percentage of total revenue, D&A cost declined from 16% during the same period last year to 14.7% in the first quarter of this year. Staff costs were RMB13.1 million and other costs were RMB182.1 million during the quarter. As we continue to advance our cloud technology, we are seeing the continuous improvement of efficiency of our IT resources, and as a result, IDC costs and D&A expenses, as a percentage of total revenue will gradually decrease potentially. Adjusted gross profit reached RMB74.2 million, compared to adjusted gross loss of RMB44.6 million in the same quarter of 2019. Our adjusted gross margin turn a positive in the third quarter of 2019, and it further improved to 5.3% this quarter. Thanks to economic scale and operating leverage, we are rarely pleased to see our profitability continue to improve. Total operating expenses increased to RMB359.6 million, up 69.4% from the same period 2019. Operational leverage and efficiency improved during this quarter, and as operating expenses excluding the impact, our share-based compensation has continued to decline. R&D expenses were RMB195.7 million, representing a 57.3% increase year-over-year. The increase was primarily due to our business development and increased headcount in R&D personnel. We have built our business around our core team of outstanding engineers. As of March 31, 2020, we had 1,213 R&D personnel accounting for approximately 60% of total employees. We believe our robust technology expertise and engineering focus will further enhance our position as the largest independent cloud service provider in China and drive greater operational leverage and efficiency over time. Selling and marketing expenses were RMB88 million, representing 66.5% increase year-over-year. G&A expenses were RMB76 million, representing 116.3% increase year-over-year, which was primarily driven by the increase of share-based compensation expenses. Adjusted EBITDA reached negative RMB39.4 million, compared to negative RMB108.8 million in the same quarter of 2019. Adjusted EBITDA margin also improved steadily, reaching negative 2.8% in the first quarter from negative 12.9% in the same quarter of 2019. Adjusted net loss, which exclude a share-based compensation, foreign exchange impact and a change in the fair value of financial instruments and other income expenses were negative RMB243.4 million, compared with negative RMB225.3 million in the same period of 2019. As of March 31, 2020, we had cash and cash equivalents, term deposits of RMB1.97 billion. We will maintain a prudent approach towards capital expenditure as a healthy balance sheet. In this quarter, our capital expenditure was RMB282 million. We received the net proceeds of US$551.3 million from our IPO early last month. The proceeds will be mainly used to further investment in upgrading and expanding our infrastructure, technology and product development, expansion of our ecosystem and supplement our working capital. Moving to the outlook, we’re currently expecting the revenue for the second quarter of 2020 to be between RMB1.5 billion and RMB1.54 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of 60% to 65%. Assuming our resource utilization and the benefits of economic of scale to continue, we expect adjusted EBITDA margin to be breakeven sometime to what end of this year, either in the fourth quarter or in December. However, the above outlook is based on the current market conditions and reflects the company’s preliminary estimates, which are all subject to change, as uncertainties of COVID-19 enduring effect. Finally, before we conclude the prepared remarks, I would like to talk about a recent deal passed by the U.S. Senate. Our auditor Ernst & Young Hua Ming LLP is an independent public accounting firm registered with a Public Company Accounting Oversight Board or the PCAOB, and is a part of the Ernst & Young global networks, which show the global commonly technology, tools, methodology, training, and quality assurance monitoring. Our financial statements are prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles or U.S. GAAP. Ernst & Young Hua Ming LLP has conducted the audits of our consolidated financial statements, including in our registration statements, in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB and issued on qualified opinion that our consolidated financial statements represent fairly in all material respects our financial positions, results of operations and cash flows in conformity of U.S. GAAP. There is the existing framework for PCAOB to contact detail inspection of audit engagements of accounting firms registered with the PCAOB. China Securities Regulatory Commission, SEC, and PCAOB are engaged ongoing dialogue with respect to the types of information permitted to be exchanged on issuers with Chinese operations, while remaining – while maintaining compliance with applicable laws. We have a very solid track record since we found a company in 2012. Before the completion of our listing as a subsidiary of Kingsoft Group, whose shares are listed on the stock exchange of Hong Kong, our financials were fully consolidated by Kingsoft Group over past eight years. During the IPO process, we have been communicating with SEC abetting team who observed and no material concerns on our registration statements, where have been compliance with security laws of the safe and meet all the applicable filings and disclosure requirements with SEC. We have also been in compliance with all other applicable laws and the regulation in all material aspects. To conclude, we are committed to transparency and integrity to shareholders. We’ll like to meet high standard as a good citizen of the global capital markets.