Earnings Labs

Sunlands Technology Group (STG)

Q4 2023 Earnings Call· Fri, Mar 22, 2024

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Sunlands Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Today's conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to your host today, Yuhua from Sunlands IR Representative. Please go ahead.

Yuhua Ye

Management

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining Sunlands Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. The company's financial and operating results were issued in our press release via Newswire services earlier today and are posted online. You could download the earnings press release and sign up for our distribution list by visiting our IR website. Participants on today's call will be our CEO, Mr. Tongbo Liu; and our Financial Controller, Mr. Hangyu Li. Management will begin with prepared remarks, and the call will conclude with a Q&A session. Before I hand it over to the management, I'd like to remind you of Sunlands' safe harbor statement in relation to today's call. Except for the historical information contained herein, certain of the matters discussed in this conference call are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current trends, estimates and projections, and therefore you should not place undue reliance on them. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of important factors will cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. For more information about the potential risks and uncertainties, please refer to the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that, I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Tongbo Liu.

Tongbo Liu

Management

Thank you, Yuhua. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Sunlands fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings conference call. Prior to commencing, I would like to kind of remind all attendees that the financial information referenced in this release is presented on a continuing operations basis and all figures are denominated in RMB unless explicitly specified otherwise. It is with great pride that we unveiled the successful conclusion of the fourth quarter, characterized by a noteworthy net profit of RMB155.2 million and an impressive net profit margin of 28.6%. These metrics underscore our firm financial foundation and a steadfast dedication to the operational excellence. In the meanwhile, our revenue stands at RMB542 million, marking a 3.3% increase from the previous quarter and surpassing our earlier forecast despite the year-over-year revenue decrease of 6.4%. Reflecting on the entire fiscal year, we successfully recorded an annual revenue of RMB2.16 billion and a net income of RMB614.8 million. Additionally, we observed a significant 15.4% increase in enrollment year-over-year, highlighting the growing demand for our offerings. Our prudent financial management resulted in a net cash inflow from operating activities of over RMB135 million, being a solid financial foundation for our future growth initiatives. Throughout the year, we remained agile in responding to market dynamics and evolving user preferences, driving continuous innovation across our product and service portfolio. A pivotal driver has been the dynamic expansion of our interest-based courses, which experienced a 54.9% year-over-year growth. The sector has emerged as the important growth catalyst for the company, further solidifying our leading position in the adult education landscape. Turning to the performance of our major course programs, degree-oriented post-secondary programs accounted for 24.7% of our revenue in 2023. While we continue to optimize the sectors investment, we believe in its promising future, and current employment landscape, individuals…

Hangyu Li

Management

Thank you, Tongbo. Hello, everyone. I'm pleased to present our fourth quarter results. Over the past year, we have been committed to achieving sustainable growth, placing a high priority on improving operational efficiency and optimizing our cost structure. We continued our impressive level of profitability with a net profit margin of 28.6%, up 3.5 percentage points quarter over quarter. This demonstrated the effectiveness of our operational strategies and highlights our ability to adapt to changing market conditions. It is also important to highlight that our net cash inflows from operating activities for the year exceeded $135 million, providing a solid financial foundation for the sustainable development of our business. This success is a direct reflection of our commitment to strengthening our core competence, allowing us to quickly adjust our strategy in response to changing market conditions and customer demands. Notably, since the fourth quarter of 2021, our net profit margin has remained above 20%, which is a testament to the strength and resilience of our business model. Looking to the future, we'll continue to focus on refined operations and efficient office financial management to ensure the company sustains healthy and stable development. In addition, we'll strictly follow the instructions of the board and implement strategic share repurchases to enhance shareholder value. Now let me present to you some of our key financial results for the fourth quarter of 2023. All comparisons are year-over-year, and all figures are in RMB unless otherwise noted. For the fourth quarter of 2023, net revenues decreased by 6.4% to RMB541.7 million from RMB578.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2022. The decrease was primarily due to a year-over-year decline in gross buildings from post-secondary courses in 2023. Cost of revenues decreased by 2% to RMB73.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 from RMB75.3 million…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] At this time we are showing no further questions. So this will conclude our question-and-answer session. At this time, I would like to turn the conference back over to Yuhua for any closing remarks.

Yuhua Ye

Management

Once again, thank you everyone for joining today's call. We look forward to speaking with you again soon. Good day and good night.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you. End of Q&A: