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Benefiting from the year-on-year increase in gross margin of core business, Hunan TV & Broadcast Intermediary (000917.SZ) achieved a nearly 30% year-on-year increase in net profit despite a decline in revenue in the first half of this year.

Hunan TV & Broadcast Intermediary announced tonight that it achieved an operating income of 1.798 billion yuan in the first half of 2024, a year-on-year decrease of 8.23%; the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 69.9806 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.96%.

It is worth noting that the gross margin of the company's core businesses has all improved year-on-year, with the gross margin of advertising operations, investment management revenue, and gaming revenue increasing by 2.01 percentage points, 4.13 percentage points, and 0.4 percentage points respectively.

As the first listed media company in China, the company's main business includes cultural and tourism, investments, advertising, and gaming, among which cultural and tourism and investment businesses are the two core businesses of the company.

In terms of business segments, cultural and tourism consumption in China has been continuously increasing this year. Data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism shows that in the first half of 2024, there were 2.725 billion domestic trips, a year-on-year increase of 14.3%, and domestic tourists spent a total of 2.73 trillion yuan on their trips, a year-on-year increase of 19.0%.

Hunan TV & Broadcast Intermediary previously stated that the company adheres to the 'small investment, big output' cooperation model, seizes high-quality cultural and tourism resources in local areas, and strives to implement 2-3 new projects in Hunan province throughout the year. According to the financial report, Hunan TV & Broadcast Intermediary has already launched 7 projects in 6 cities and prefectures in Hunan province, including Xiangtan Wanlou·Mango Youth Wharf, Chenzhou 711 Times Town, Miluo Quzi Cultural Park, Nanyue Chenxi Inn, Anhua Tea Horse Ancient Road Scenic Area, Mango City, Mango Future Art Center, etc.

The benchmark project, "Xiangtan Wanlou·Mango Youth Wharf", started operation in March 2023 and has been promoted to one of the top ten scenic spots in Hunan Province in terms of visitor traffic. The financial report shows that during this year's "Labor Day" period, the scenic spot attracted 0.1243 million visitors for check-in over 5 days.

In May this year, the company's Dongzhou Island cultural tourism project landed in Hengyang. This is the company's 8th cultural tourism project to land in Hunan Province, with the project expected to open in September 2024.

Hunan TV & Broadcast Intermediary stated that although the continuous heavy rainfall in Hunan Province in 2024 has had some impact on the company's cultural tourism project operation, the overall operation of the cultural tourism business of the company remains stable. At the same time, the company is actively seeking high-quality cultural tourism projects for mergers and acquisitions, cooperation opportunities, and promoting the extension of the cultural tourism business industry chain outside Hunan Province.

In terms of investment business, the company's subsidiaries Dacheng Venture Capital and Dacheng Wealth Wisdom are well-known domestic venture capital institutions, with a total fund management size of nearly 60 billion yuan, investing in more than 760 companies. The financial report shows that in the first half of this year, Dacheng Wealth Wisdom achieved operating income of about 0.22 billion yuan and a net income of about 0.171 billion yuan.

The company also stated that factors such as the slowing down of the IPO pace in the capital markets, new regulations on shareholding reduction, etc., may exert pressure on the company's venture capital projects exits. The company will take effective countermeasures to advance the implementation of the "large asset management" global strategy.