Incident: The company disclosed 2023Q4 and annual results announcements, and the company's revenue was positive year-on-year. 2023Q4 achieved revenue of 630 million yuan, +0.9% YoY, +12.8%; 23Q4 adjusted operating profit of 0.26 million yuan, compared to -170 million yuan in the same period last year, successfully reversing losses; 23Q4 adjusted net profit to mother of 0.14 billion yuan, compared to -160 million yuan for the same period last year.
Looking at it by business,
1) B-side: 2023Q4 achieved revenue of 550 million yuan, -2.8% YoY, +10% month-on-month, and the number of verified enterprise users was 1.29 million, +14.5% YoY, and +2.5% month-on-month, mainly due to the company's industry-leading production and research capabilities, in-depth brand advantages and flexible and effective sales strategies; the cumulative number of job postings was -6.7% YoY, and the number of new job postings per year was -1.0%. The recovery of jobs highly related to corporate strategic development is still slow, and the middle and high-end recruitment market is still under pressure.
2) C-side: 2023Q4 achieved revenue of 80 million yuan, +34.9% YoY, +32.2% month-on-month. The year-on-year increase was mainly due to the gradual restoration of spending intentions in the fourth quarter of 2023; the number of registered individual users was 95 million, +12.6% YoY, and +3.0% month-on-month, mainly due to the company's effective user operation strategy and more intelligent matching algorithms.
3) H side: The number of verified headhunters was 210,000, -0.3% year-on-year, +0.3% month-on-month. In the third quarter of 2023, the company cleaned up abnormal headhunting accounts for the first time. Excluding this positive measure, the number of verified headhunters continued to increase year over year in 2023.
Profit side and expense side: 2023Q4's gross margin and net margin were 71.3%/2.2%, respectively, -2.8/+27.8pct, mainly due to the product portfolio shifting to more service-intensive products; 2023Q4's sales/management/R&D expenses ratio was 44.2%/21.9%/16.1%, respectively, and -28.6/+5.2/-2.8pct year on year.
Expand new businesses and create new growth poles.
1) Duo Hunting RCN: At the end of September 2023, the company officially released the key incubation multi-hunting cooperative network platform, Duo Hunting RCN. By the end of December 2023, Duo Hunting RCN had established cooperative relationships with more than 50 companies, covering more than 1,500 headhunters, 70% of which had participated in order delivery.
2) AI intelligent interview products: 2024Q1 has launched AI intelligent interview products, which can support more accurate and efficient batch interview recruitment with the power of AI. The upgraded intelligent interviewer will match the evaluation model applicable to the needs of the enterprise from more than 100 dimensions, analyze the resume and ask accurate questions. Such products can help companies improve user recruitment efficiency and user satisfaction, expand customer base, and open up more market space.
Profit prediction and investment advice: The company's leading high-end online recruitment platform has a highly sticky customer base and an efficient BHC business model. In the future, on the basis of adhering to the “one vertical, one horizontal” strategy, the company will focus on developing a “platform+SaaS+ service” model to achieve mutual empowerment of the three. We expect the adjusted net profit of the company to be 1.8/2.0/30 billion yuan for 24-26. The adjusted net profit to the mother is used to calculate the current stock price corresponding to the 24-26 PE 8/6/4 times, respectively, and maintain the “recommended” rating.
Risk warning: Risk of epidemic disturbances and economic fluctuations, increased industry competition, and insufficient customer growth.