On July 31, Beijing time, Autohome (ATHM. US; 02518. HK), the country's leading one-stop service platform for automobile Internet, released its financial results for the second quarter of this year. The company achieved a total revenue of 1.87 billion yuan in the second quarter, a year-on-year increase of 2.2%. Online marketing and other business revenue continued to maintain double-digit year-on-year growth, accounting for 33.1% of revenue. Multiple businesses such as data products and new energy showed good growth momentum; The adjusted net profit attributable to Autohome was 572 million yuan, with an adjusted net profit margin of 30.6%.
Wu Tao, Secretary of the Party Committee and CEO of Autohome, stated that the overall operation of the company was stable in the second quarter, and innovative business continued to grow. Next, the company will continue to be guided by user needs, driven by innovation for development, and constantly explore new business models that integrate online and offline; At the same time, we will fully tap into and utilize the advantageous resources and technological accumulation of Ping An Group, actively promote deep cooperation between the two sides in various fields of the automotive ecosystem, and jointly explore unlimited opportunities for collaborative development.
Linking with Ping An to create transaction scenarios, focusing on sinking and replacement markets
In the past two years, while competition in the Chinese car market has intensified, two significant characteristics have also emerged: firstly, with the increase in car ownership and consumers' demand for car quality and performance, a large number of old vehicles are facing replacement, and the demand for replacement has increased significantly; Secondly, with the economic development and consumption upgrading of third tier and below cities and rural areas, the demand for automobiles in these regions is increasingly strong, becoming an important market for car companies to compete for. In terms of policies, in April this year, seven departments including the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued the "Implementation Rules for Automobile Trade in Subsidies", which stimulated the demand for automobile trade in consumption through financial subsidies and released the potential of domestic demand. To this end, Autohome leverages the national layout of the space station and the vast customer base and offline network of Ping An Property and Casualty Insurance to tap into the needs of sinking markets and replacement groups. Through a combination of online and offline methods, it provides services that are more in line with local consumer needs and creates new transaction scenarios.
Ping An Property and Casualty Insurance has 70 million users, of which 80% are car owners over five years old. Autohome, in collaboration with Ping An Property and Casualty Insurance, accurately identifies target customer groups through refined operations and explores massive trade in opportunities. In addition, Autohome and Ping An Property and Casualty Insurance jointly held the "Hundred Cities Renewal Car Purchase Festival" and "Hundred Cities Auto Show Renewal Season" series of activities, bringing more mainstream new energy brand models and used car exchange services to the regional consumer market. Through 2810 Ping An Property and Casualty Insurance outlets, 960000 agents, and 22000 professional service personnel, we achieved full coverage and precise outreach to the sinking market. As of now, more than 100 offline car exhibitions have been held, with nearly one million consumers participating. The number of on-site transactions has exceeded 12000, and it is estimated to drive car consumption of over 1.8 billion yuan. Autohome actively promotes the implementation of the "trade in" policy, becoming an important force in driving automobile consumption, enhancing economic vitality, promoting industrial intelligent transformation, and developing new quality productivity.
In May of this year, Autohome Space Station launched the "Satellite Plan", with the space station as the core, laying out satellite stores in surrounding low tier cities, building a "1+N" collaborative ecology, and deepening service coverage to a wider area. At present, the Autohome space station has covered 28 cities across the country and tested the satellite store model in 5 cities. Through close linkage between the space station and satellite stores, a tight sales and service network has been formed, achieving comprehensive penetration from the core to the region. At the same time, Autohome's second-hand car business uses the space station as an offline service hub, and collaborates with Tiantian Paiche and Ping An certified car owner service centers to provide service guarantees, improve the replacement business process, and stimulate consumer demand. The active expansion of business has led to an improvement in the company's performance. In the second quarter, the company's revenue from new energy brands increased by nearly 100% year-on-year, continuing to outperform the industry's sales growth rate.
Launching a digital business management platform to comprehensively empower dealers to improve quality and efficiency
The overall growth rate of the passenger car market has slowed down, and the new players dominated by new energy brands have brought structural disruption to the automobile distribution market, making the transformation of traditional dealers urgent. To assist our dealer customers in lean operation and scientific management, Autohome has launched a centralized operation system and a digital management platform. The centralized operation system processes leads quickly and efficiently through a centralized team, utilizing a centralized outbound call system to help users quickly match suitable merchants on demand and improve conversion efficiency; The digital middle platform provides a powerful and systematic digital support platform for dealer partners through infrastructure construction, digital tool empowerment, and refined operational management, helping to achieve operational management efficiency.
Taking smart series products as an example, "Smart Digital Connection" uses model algorithms to improve user labels, helping dealer customers more accurately select target users, judge their intention to trade in cars, and significantly improve the in store rate; Smart test drive "combines software, hardware, and AI quality inspection capabilities to solve the pain point of information opacity in test drive scenarios, providing digital management tools for the entire test drive process for dealers and customers, improving the user test drive experience, and helping dealers form a data loop for offline services. Autohome also collaborates efficiently with Ping An Property and Casualty Insurance's offline service team to fully tap into dealer demand and enhance coverage of low-end market customers. In the second quarter, the company's overall data product revenue increased by over 15% year-on-year.
Focusing on user pain points and creating a diverse content matrix to assist decision-making
Currently, the automotive market is facing the challenges of explosive growth in new car series and models, as well as diversified information, which makes it difficult for users to make systematic judgments about products, thereby prolonging the process of purchasing a car. In response to this pain point, Autohome has created content gameplay covering the "pre launch, mid launch, and post launch" periods of new cars around the new car release event. From exclusive 3D model speculation in the early stage, to in-depth interpretation in the middle stage, and to customized evaluation in the later stage, this series of measures not only extends the exposure window of new car core sales points, but also helps B-end customers efficiently spread product value, while assisting C-end users in making quick purchasing decisions.
Autohome also continues to deeply cultivate user content, revitalizing content from two directions: "professional" and "pan car", and expanding content forms such as live streaming and short videos, creating a comprehensive and diverse content matrix. In the field of professional evaluation, further enriching the content dimensions and adding targeted evaluation content for hybrid, new energy, and fuel vehicles; In terms of pan car content, eight IP columns have been created, including "New Car First Test" and "Top 10 Horizontal Evaluation". "New Car First Test" gathers the latest popular new cars and presents professional test reports at the fastest speed, comprehensively showcasing the charm of new cars in all aspects and dimensions. "Top 10 Horizontal Evaluation" conducts hardcore testing on the top ten popular hybrid SUVs on the market, analyzing them comprehensively from four dimensions: energy consumption, active safety, performance, and comfort. As of now, the total exposure of the 8 major IPs across the entire network has exceeded 860 million times. The layout of high-quality content has brought stable growth in traffic. According to QuestMobile data, the daily average mobile users of Autohome reached 67.91 million in June, an increase of 8.3% compared to the same period last year.
Deepening ESG practices to shape a sustainable future
While focusing on business development, Autohome actively practices ESG concepts and promotes corporate social responsibility construction. At this year's China Automotive Forum, Autohome was selected as one of the "2024 Sustainable Development Practice Cases of Chinese Automotive Industry Enterprises". Thanks to the company's high level of responsibility and continuous investment in low-carbon and sustainable development, MSCI has recently upgraded the ESG rating of Autohome from "B" to "BB".
In order to promote the comprehensive development of the youth group, AutoHome, together with the Chinese Society of Automotive Engineering, has created the "Unlimited Youth Group" public welfare study tour IP, led the youth to enter the State Key Laboratory, the automobile science popularization education base, and the automobile production enterprises, explored the latest progress of China's automobile industry in electrification, networking, intelligence, sharing, and other aspects from different dimensions, and inspired the youth to explore the spirit of automobile technology. At the same time, Autohome pays attention to the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage. In June of this year, in response to the initiative of the Dongcheng District Cultural and Tourism Bureau of Beijing, it jointly released the "Riding the Wind" series of conceptual designs and painted racing cars with Perfect World Cultural and Creative, innovatively integrating traditional culture into vehicle use scenarios and cross-border integration of racing cars with intangible cultural heritage, helping traditional culture to rejuvenate.
As an important link in the automotive industry chain and a key force driving the digital transformation of the industry, Autohome will continue to uphold a long-term development perspective, continuously upgrade and iterate its products and technologies, provide users with more diverse content and professional services, and offer customers more personalized and intelligent solutions. Autohome will also actively explore and seize growth opportunities in new business areas, injecting new vitality into the company's development, in order to create long-term and stable positive returns for shareholders.