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Yueda Digital Holding, Inc. (YDKG)

Q3 2013 Earnings Call· Wed, Nov 20, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning all sites and welcome to the AirMedia Group Inc. Third Quarter 2013 Earnings Conference Call. For the duration of the presentation, all lines will be placed in a listen-only mode. There will be opportunity to ask questions after the presentation, which instructions will be provided at a later stage. Now I would like to hand the call over to Mr. Raymond Huang, Senior Director of Investor Relations of the company. And I will be standing by for the Q&A session. Thank you. You may begin.

Raymond Huang

Management

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining AirMedia's third quarter 2013 earnings conference call. Today Herman Man Guo, our Chairman and CEO, will present highlights for the third quarter of 2013, and Henry Ho, our CFO, will provide details on our financial results. Following their prepared remarks, the management team will be available to take your questions. Before management presentation, please allow me to read you our Safe Harbor statement. During this conference call, representatives of the company will make certain forward-looking statements. These statements are based upon management's current views and expectations with respect to future events and are not a guarantee of future performance. Furthermore, these statements are by their nature subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance and results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. AirMedia does not undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. Please refer to AirMedia's filings with the SEC including its Form 20-F for a discussion of important factors that could affect future results. Our press release and this call include discussion of unaudited GAAP financial information as well as some unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. Our press release contains a reconciliation of the unaudited non-GAAP measures to the unaudited most directly comparable GAAP measures. The press release is available on the Investor Relations section of AirMedia's website at ir.airmedia.net.cn. I would now turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Herman Man Guo.

Herman Man Guo

Management

Thank you, Raymond. Good morning and good evening everyone. Total revenues for the third quarter of 2013 reached $69.0 million, representing a year-over-year decrease of 5.6% from $73.1 million in the same period one year ago and a quarter-over-quarter increase of 7.3% from $64.3 million in the previous quarter. The year-over-year decrease was primarily due to decreases in revenues from digital TV screens on airplanes and traditional media in airports, which were primarily caused by AirMedia's termination of the operations of certain unprofitable or low-margin contracts as well as China's replacement of regular business tax with VAT in Beijing, one of AirMedia's key regions of operations. The quarter-over-quarter increase was primarily due to increases in revenues from most product lines other than traditional media in airports, which decreased quarter over quarter primarily due to AirMedia's termination of the operations of certain unprofitable or low-margin contracts. Currently our business focus are on two fronts. The first one is to turn around our unproductive product lines. The other one is to implement new products that are aimed to promote the long-term growth of the company. I'd like to share with you my thoughts and our developments on both of these fronts. First, to turn around our unprofitable product lines. We had GAAP net loss and a non-GAAP adjusted net income of $3.6 million in 2012. The number was not so satisfactory because although we had several profitable product lines [indiscernible] unprofitable product lines [indiscernible] in airports [indiscernible] gas station media network were eating into profits. If we are successful [indiscernible] these product lines around is the new priority [indiscernible] that our company will obtain decent profit levels. We have communicated with the investors regarding our turnaround strategy on our gas station media network in the past several quarters. As of November 17…

Henry Ho

Management

Thank you, Herman, and thank you everyone for joining our third quarter 2013 financial review. At the beginning I want to highlight what Herman had talked about on strategies. Number one, turning around loss-making product lines. We do it through installation of LED screens at gas stations and also our new interactive system. Number two, development of products and services with high growth potential, notably LED screens at airports and in-flight internet services. I believe these efforts in implementing the strategies will eventually be reflected in our financial results. Now we are expected to see -- sorry, we expected to see that our efforts in turning around the company are starting to pay off. With our termination of the operations of certain unprofitable or low-margin contracts and the record growth of our nationwide network of mega-size LED screens, our net revenues, which was total revenues minus business tax and other sales tax, increased by 7.4% quarter over quarter to $68.1 million, while our concession fee cost decreased by 7.8% quarter over quarter to $42.8 million. Now let me go through the details of our third quarter financial results with you. Total revenues for the third quarter of 2013 reached $69 million, representing a year-over-year decrease of 5.6% from $73.1 million in the same period one year ago and a quarter-over-quarter increase of 7.3% from $64.3 million in the previous quarter. The year-over-year decrease was primarily due to decreases in revenues from digital TV screens on airplanes and traditional media in airports which were primarily caused by AirMedia's termination of the operations of certain unprofitable or low-margin contracts as well as China's replacement of regular business tax with VAT in Beijing, one of AirMedia's key regions of operations. The quarter-over-quarter increase was primarily due to increases in revenues from most product…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions). And your first question comes from the line of Gillian Chung from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question. Gillian Chung – Morgan Stanley: Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two questions. The first one is about the advertising outlook. Is -- I just want to know what percentage of the fourth quarter revenue has been secured by orders. And I also want to look at the breakdown of the sales, third quarter sales by advertising category. Can you also comment on the performance of these categories? And I have a second question. Thank you.

Henry Ho

Management

Henry here. Thanks for the question. You're asking on the advertising outlook but then you're asking for the fourth quarter, not the third quarter confirmed orders, is that right? Because third quarter is all actual. And then you're asking for the third quarter advertising industry outlook. So one is a fourth quarter, the other is a third quarter, is that correct? Gillian Chung – Morgan Stanley: Yes, yes, that's right.

Henry Ho

Management

Great. Let me do it one by one.

Raymond Huang

Management

Let me answer your second question first. In the third quarter, the first category is still auto which accounted for 37% of our total revenues, which grew 31% quarter over quarter. The second largest category is consumer electronics which accounted for 11%, up 36% quarter over quarter. The third one is high-end food and beverage which accounted for 10% and up 14% quarter over quarter. The fourth one is finance which accounted for 9% and down 28% quarter over quarter. The down on finance was primarily due to the terminated billboard on the gate bridge of Terminal 3 which is mostly ICBC and Bank of China. Then Herman will answer your first question.

Herman Man Guo

Management

(Chinese language spoken)

Henry Ho

Management

Gillian, it's Henry. You asked a question of the fourth quarter guidance. The numbers that we've given, I think roughly about 80% to 90% have already been booked. That's the number that you want, right?

Raymond Huang

Management

Yes. Let me briefly translate what Herman said. Is that recently CCTV has a new bidding for -- from what we've seen, that 2013 will -- 2014 still have certain challenges. We expect our top category will continue to be auto, high-end consumer goods, and also finance. But in the bidding of the CCTV, the Chinese wine and liquor, the performance was very bad. But although the -- from our feedback with our wine and liquor customers, they [indiscernible] contract for us, but they still have been down a lot. So the China's wine and liquor performance in 2014 might not be very good for us. But the good news is that some Chinese brands [indiscernible] make -- manufacture it for foreign brands are trying to build their own brands. So we are getting more new customers from the Chinese local customers who want to build their brands. So we expect to have more those kinds of brands in 2014. Gillian Chung – Morgan Stanley: Okay. Thank you. And my second question is on the in-flight internet services. Just trying to understand why do you decide a fund with third-party investors to participate in the fund. And how would you finance your part of the fund? Thank you.

Raymond Huang

Management

Let me translate to Herman first.

Herman Man Guo

Management

(Chinese language spoken)

Raymond Huang

Management

Okay. We believe in-flight internet is a good -- a very, very good [alternative]. We see it will have potential tremendous growth in the future and we see strong demand from air passengers. We have certain survey on that. Our target is that in the future we will sign similar contract. We aim to sign similar contract with other airlines. So we will have more market share. And so if we sign with other airlines, we may have a round of financing for the whole project, not only for the Hainan Airlines project but for the whole in-flight internet project for us. So we will have enough finance for the whole project. Now we will use part of the financing on the Hainan Airlines project. That will be our 40% part. And we like to have other key investors to participate in the Hainan Airlines project because we like to have partners to take the risk and share the benefit together with us. If those finance on the whole project in the future is very -- the result is very good, then we may pay 100% by ourselves in the Hainan Airlines programs.

Henry Ho

Management

Gillian, this is Henry. Let me add. It's more like the -- give an analogy, it's like the earth and the different satellites. This is -- Hainan Airlines is only the first step in what we want to build, just like a satellite network. Once a network is done, the value is a lot more than the single project. So that's the whole thing. And then if you want to build that network of satellites that we want, which means having contracts with different airlines, is a very large project. It's more than our existing financial results which that is why Herman was alluding to earlier that we will do a, on the upper level, there are two levels, one is the project level, the other is the company level, we will be doing other financing means for the overall big project, so that we can finance all of these different operations or different projects that will come in the future with the different airlines. Gillian Chung – Morgan Stanley: That's very helpful. Thank you.

Herman Man Guo

Management

Thank you.

Henry Ho

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions). And your next question comes from the line of [Mai Yu] from ICBC International. Please ask your question. [Mai Yu] – ICBC International: Hi, hello, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two questions regarding the advertising strategy. You just mentioned that you have new advertisers from the local brand operators, and could you give us more color on that? What kind of category of this business? And also if you could give us any color on the company's top ten operation regions?

Herman Man Guo

Management

(Chinese language spoken)

Raymond Huang

Management

The local brands try to be high end, they try to build their high-end image. So [indiscernible] like the home appliance, like the apparels, lady bags, shoes, those kinds of manufacturers are trying to build their high-end image, high-end brands.

Henry Ho

Management

This is Henry. I think you're asking what are the top ten of our existing customer or these new potential customers? If it is these potential customers, then a lot of them are from the southern area where they're exporters. Sorry. [Mai Yu] – ICBC International: Actually I wanted to know both, the existing customers and then the potential, yes.

Henry Ho

Management

You mean the operating region or the large customers, sorry? [Mai Yu] – ICBC International: Operation regions.

Henry Ho

Management

Operating region, we -- actually definitely in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou will be our top three markets.

Herman Man Guo

Management

(Chinese language spoken)

Henry Ho

Management

And we see very good growth from the second-tier cities because we build our mega-size LED currently in other airports. So we see also good growth from the second-tier cities. [Mai Yu] – ICBC International: Okay. Thanks. I have another question regarding [indiscernible] industry [indiscernible] the users are transforming. Are there advertisers that transform from the traditional media to the so-called new media [indiscernible] PC to mobile? And want to know, the company has any strategy towards maybe the mobile side, these developers, operators on longer term?

Raymond Huang

Management

Okay. Let me translate the question to Herman first.

Herman Man Guo

Management

(Chinese language spoken)

Raymond Huang

Management

We have seen the trend from -- that advertisement from the traditional media to the new media or mobile internet. We also adopted two strategies to cope with this. The first one, as Herman mentioned, that we are building the in-flight internet for the Hainan Airlines Group. That is part of our [indiscernible]. We like to partner with more airlines. We like to build a large in-flight internet platform. We see it will have tremendous growth in the future. And the second one is that our TV-attached and digital frames, as we've said in our script, so we are -- we have done some research on that and we will start to have a trial in Beijing in the first quarter next year. We will have the interactive screens in airports. Then it can interact with the passengers in the airports. So passengers can use their mobile phone to participate in the [lucky draws] or to participate in the survey [after the] interactive screens. So that will -- the mobile of the air passengers will become our extension of our media, of our screens. So that will -- in this way we'll cope with the trend of the mobile internet. [Mai Yu] – ICBC International: Thanks for that. Actually I have a following question. Does the company expect the local brand [indiscernible] as a significant revenue contributor?

Raymond Huang

Management

We see growth from those local brands. We see they were at new revenue resources, but we still expect our top three or top four categories continue to be auto, finance and food and beverage and consumer electronics.

Henry Ho

Management

Let me add, it's Henry. At the moment, fashion and apparel is 3.5% of our total revenue. For example, travel is 3.3%. Home appliances is 2.8%. So these things will grow we think. But still the large segment like auto is 36.7%, that's a much larger sector. So it will take time for these small brands or local brands to fill up -- to go up in our rank.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Wei Fang from CLSA. Please ask your questions.

Raymond Huang

Management

Hello, Wei, are you on the line? Wei Fang – CLSA: Hello, can you hear me?

Raymond Huang

Management

Yes, we can. Wei Fang – CLSA: Hello? Oh okay. Thanks for taking my call. Okay. Two questions. First one, regarding your new technology you're going to be building into your standalone screen frame, is that the internal technology or is it your [indiscernible] partner?

Raymond Huang

Management

Wei, let me clarify first. It is not standalone frame, it's a TV-attached digital frame, the small one [indiscernible] TV. We partnered -- yes. We partnered with a third-party technology company. Wei Fang – CLSA: Thank you.

Raymond Huang

Management

Why is it [indiscernible] is because this is a loss-making -- it's loss-making and we want to turn it around. That is why we're introducing the interactive to make it profitable. Wei Fang – CLSA: Okay, okay. And how much incremental technology investment that they have?

Raymond Huang

Management

Wei, actually the technology cost is very low to us. The more important thing is to implement, buy the equipment. Those are [indiscernible] so we're testing it in Beijing. The other would be the obtaining of these lucky draw [indiscernible] that we're getting out. So we've got already a forecast internally, but still it's not -- we're not doing it for public disclosure. Wei Fang – CLSA: I see. So you are partnering with 3P technology providers and then the initial software is low cost to use but the upcoming equipment purchase will be more expensive. Okay. And --

Raymond Huang

Management

That's right. Wei Fang – CLSA: This expense is to be capitalized or amortized. Right.

Raymond Huang

Management

Yes, yes, they're amortized. Wei Fang – CLSA: Okay, okay. And second question, regarding your concession fee. It seems like you have a quarter-over-quarter uptick meaningfully from 3Q to 4Q. Just wondering, is that due to implement a new contracts or -- because I [indiscernible] seasonal for your concession fee.

Henry Ho

Management

Okay. Well, let me answer the concession fee question. The increase is over -- we expect quarter-over-quarter increases between $2.5 million to $3.5 million and actually a large part of it, more than half, is coming from our new airport LED. As you know, some of them, we're gradually rolling them in. So like quarter on quarter when you make comparison, the last quarter we don't have full [debt]. The other is more LED screens. And then we also, in the script we talked about the Air China TV [indiscernible] on TV which started in August 1. So now this fourth quarter we have a full quarter of fee. So roughly you have like over 50% accounted for by this. Then we have other new concession fees which are like some new introduction of business lines that we're working on [indiscernible]. Wei Fang – CLSA: Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay, thanks. And just a final question, do you guys -- where you guide the 4Q guidance, does that include a yearend kind of last-minute flush in terms of advertising budget? We have seen that last year in 4Q, right? Just wondering how the magnitude this year and how it's trending so far this quarter. Thank you.

Raymond Huang

Management

Hi. The fourth quarter, yes, we've included budget flush there. The only difference from compared to the last quarter of 2012 is that we have already, I would say, the gateway, you know, the gate bridges, we have now renewed a large part of that gate bridges, and that's like -- we estimate that to be a loss of about $6 million per quarter revenues. And we also terminated the Shenzhen -- most of the traditional media in Shenzhen airport. So we see a year-over-year decrease from last year. Wei Fang – CLSA: Okay. Got it. Thank you so much.

Henry Ho

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions). As there are no further questions, I would like to hand the conference back to your presenter today. Please continue.

Herman Man Guo

Management

Thank you for joining our today's call. Hope to talk with you next time. Bye.

Henry Ho

Management

Thank you.

Raymond Huang

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may all disconnect.