Orient Securities anticipates that Kuaishou-W (01024) will continue to grow in DAU throughout the year, achieving an average DAU target of 400 million in a single quarter in the second half of the year.
The Zhitong Finance App learned that Orient Securities released a research report stating that maintaining the Kuaishou-W (01024) “buy” rating, the company's adjusted net profit for 23-25 is expected to be 102.71/161.23/22.535 billion yuan, and the adjusted net profit for 2024 is estimated to be 16.123 billion yuan, corresponding to a reasonable value of 241.8 billion yuan/266.6 billion HK$266.6 billion, with a target price of HK$61.28 billion.
According to the report, Kuaishou DAU grew steadily, and MAU reached a record high, and the average time per capita remained above 120 minutes: 4q23 Kuaishou DauyoY +4.5% to 383 million; MauYoY +9.4% to 700 million, a record high. By the end of 2023, the total number of connected user pairs reached 33 billion. In terms of user growth, the company optimized the growth efficiency of various channels. The customer acquisition cost per unit of new users continued to decline year on year, and the subsidy cost for the 4Q Express Edition DAU decreased year on year. In terms of content consumption, as of the end of 2023, Kuaishou Starlight Skits had launched a total of nearly 1,000 skits. Of these, more than 300 hit skits were broadcast over 100 million, and the average number of daily paying users for 4Q skits was more than 3 times that of the year. Users' search mentality continues to penetrate. The average number of users using Kuaishou search increased by more than 16% year over year in the 4th quarter, and search marketing service revenue increased nearly 100% year over year. The bank expects DAU to continue to grow throughout the year 24, and achieve an average DAU target of 400 million in a single quarter in the second half of the year.
According to the report, in a single quarter, the company's 4q23 gross margin YoY+7.6pct and qoq+1.4pct reached 53.1%. The bank believes that as the share of high-margin advertising and e-commerce businesses in the revenue structure increases, gross margin is expected to continue to rise. 4Q23 achieved adjusted net profit of 4.362 billion yuan (the agency's agreed estimate was 3.255 billion yuan), and its 4Q23 operating profit in China reached 4.25 billion yuan. The bank believes that in the future, under the core regional focus strategy, overseas countries are expected to accelerate the achievement of break-even.