Tencent Securities News Beijing time on May 21, 2018, Qudian Inc Group (NYSE:QD) released the first quarter of 2018 financial results. According to the report, the total income of Qudian Inc Group in the first quarter of 2018 was 1.717 billion yuan (US $274 million), up 105.6% from the same period last year, while the net profit was 316 million yuan (US $50.35 million), down 32.1% from the same period last year.

As of March 31, 2018, the number of registered users of Qudian Inc Group increased from 62.42 million at the end of 2017 to 65.3 million, of which the number of credit users rose from 26.2 million to 27.5 million.

Luo Min, founder and CEO of Qudian Inc Group, said that after the industry policy adjustment at the end of 2017, China's consumer credit market experienced an industry contraction. Qudian Inc quickly took positive measures and took the initiative to reduce the total transaction volume. Risk is controlled by temporarily tightening credit standards, while credit services for high-quality users are optimized to successfully reduce risks.

The total income is 1.717 billion yuan, an increase of 105.6% over the same period last year.

In the first quarter of 2018, Qudian Inc Group's total revenue was 1.717 billion yuan (US $274 million), an increase of 105.6% over the same period last year.

Since the end of last year, the market has fluctuated. In order to reduce the overall risk of the loan portfolio, Qudian Inc took the initiative to adjust his strategy, and some of the data declined. According to the financial report, the total value of online consumer financial services transactions in the first quarter was 15.3 billion yuan (US $2.4 billion), down 8.1% from 16.7 billion yuan in the same period last year. Qudian Inc's active consumer financial users in the first quarter were 4.1 million, down 13.9% from 4.8 million in the same period last year. The number of loans was 10.9 million, down 44.6% from 19.7 million in the same period last year.

"after the industry policy adjustment at the end of last year, China's consumer credit market experienced an industrial contraction, and we quickly took steps to control risks by temporarily tightening credit standards." "We took the initiative to control trading volume, but we succeeded in reducing paper risk and ushered in only a short-term, controllable increase in overdue rate," Luo said. "

Qudian Inc's first-quarter financial report showed that the observable M1+ overdue rate remained less than 1.7 per cent in the current period.

At the same time, the balance of Qudian Inc's loan increased in the first quarter. The total loan balance as of March 31, 2018 was 12.9 billion yuan, up from 11.2 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2017, according to the financial report.

This is mainly due to the increase in the average credit size of Xiaobai Maimai Inc. Yang Jiakang, CFO of Qudian Inc Group, said, "We have chosen to optimize the credit services for high-quality users." With his sensitivity to the market and excellent data analysis ability, Qudian Inc took the decision of overall tightening credit risk to improve quality user service. "our strategic decision-to tighten credit conditions for borrowers with higher credit risk, while providing better services to high-quality users-is further proof of our strong data analysis capabilities. We use an efficient platform to connect qualified borrowers with high-quality sources of funding. "

Luo Min also made a positive outlook for the next fiscal quarter. "in the first quarter, our overdue rate improved significantly. After the Spring Festival, we began to re-embrace strong consumer credit demand. At present, all signs are that the consumer financial services business will return to steady growth. "

Financial matchmaking business income of 278 million yuan, an increase of 660% over the same period last year.

According to the financial report, Qudian Inc's income from financial matchmaking business aimed at serving financial institutions rose to 278 million yuan (US $44.25 million) in the first quarter from 36.48 million yuan in the same period last year, a sharp increase of 660% from the same period last year.

Yang Jiakang pointed out that Qudian Inc is expanding the number of financial institutions to cooperate with and is committed to becoming a company that relies on data and technology to help fund provider partners issue consumer loans to users.

Yang Jiakang previously said that Qudian Inc's strategy is to be a light-asset company, lending to consumers through cooperative financial institutions, and Qudian Inc is just a platform to support and assist these loan transactions. "the direction of future transformation is to shift consumer financial business from heavy assets to light assets, from credit intermediary to information intermediary, from high financial risk to low financial risk, and to focus on flow distribution, scene connection and technical services."

The contribution income of the new automobile retail business is 546 million yuan.

According to the financial report, the sales financial leasing income of Dabai Automobile, the new auto retail business of Qudian Inc Group, was 546 million yuan (US $87.05 million) in the current quarter, with a total delivery of 6608 vehicles.

Dabai Automobile is a new automobile retail project launched by Qudian Inc Group after its listing in October 2017. led by Luo Min, it is hatched and positioned as "the first car for young people". After the launch of Dabai car, with the characteristics of "low threshold, low down payment, full transparency of fees", it is welcomed by the market.

By the end of the first quarter of 2018, Dabai had opened 175 offline stores across the country, recruiting more than 660 employees.

Yang Jiakang said, "Qudian Inc uses a huge customer base, professional data analysis tools, and strategic cooperation with automobile mainframe factories to make Dabai car sales continue to grow and continue to serve China's auto market in the future."

On April 1, 2018, Dabai Automobile and SAIC General Motors jointly announced that they had reached a strategic cooperation in six aspects: mainstream vehicle supply, channel sinking, auto finance, Internet innovation marketing, automotive aftermarket, and big data. Jointly develop a new automotive retail incremental market.

Luo Min said that Dabai aims to bring new increments to the automotive industry and empower traditional car manufacturers and the supply chain. "the operational efficiency and sales scale of Dabai continue to improve, which makes us confident in our market positioning."