Brief performance review

On November 22, 2024, the company announced its results for the third quarter of 2024: revenue of 22.585 billion yuan, +26.8% year over year; net profit of 1.168 billion yuan, -0.2% year over year; adjusted net profit of 1.782 billion yuan, or -17.5% year over year.

Management analysis

Revenue rose in the third quarter, and costs increased even more. In 24Q3, the company's revenue was +26.8% year over year, while operating costs were +35.0% year over year, and gross margin decreased 4.7 pct year over year to 22.7%. The main reasons for the increase in costs: ① an increase in the number of chain stores and agents; ② improving broker benefits and implementing a fixed salary system; ③ as the scale of the business expands, external commissions, home improvement, and housing rental costs have increased.

1. The scale of second-hand housing transactions has increased, and the monetization rate for new homes has increased markedly. In 24Q3, the company achieved year-on-year growth in both new and existing housing transactions, outperforming the market. Stock housing GTV was 477.8 billion yuan, +8.8% year over year; stock housing revenue was 6.2 billion yuan, -1.4% year over year; stock housing monetization rate was 1.30%, compared to 1.44% in the same period last year. The GTV for new homes was 227.6 billion yuan, 18.4% year-on-year; revenue from new homes was 7.7 billion yuan, +30.9% year-on-year; and the monetization rate for new homes was 3.39%, compared to 3.07% in the same period last year.

The Tri-Wing business continued to grow rapidly, further increasing its share. The company actively promoted the “integrated tri-wing” strategy. The total revenue for 24Q3 was 8.64 billion yuan, +54.3% over the same period last year, accounting for 38.3% of revenue, compared to 31.5% in the same period last year. Among them, housing rental revenue was 3.94 billion yuan, +118.4% year over year (increase in worry-free rental); home improvement revenue was 4.21 billion yuan, 32.6% year over year (orders increased, new retail contribution increased).

Continued buybacks enhance shareholder returns. As of the end of September, the company had spent a total of about $0.58 billion on repurchases this year, accounting for 3.32% of the total share capital issued at the beginning of the period. Since the company launched the repurchase program in September 2022, the company has spent a total of about 1.49 billion US dollars to repurchase, and the cumulative number of repurchased shares accounts for 8.1% of the total issued share capital before the repurchase began.

Profit Forecasts, Valuations, and Ratings

On the one hand, a series of policies since the end of September led to market recovery in the fourth quarter. On the other hand, the company increased cost investment to establish a long-term mechanism. We slightly lowered the company's 2024-2026 non-GAAP net profit to 9.01/9.58/11.06 billion yuan (previous value was 9.66/10.2/11.3 billion yuan), with year-on-year growth rates of -8.0%, +6.3%, and +15.4%, respectively.

The current price of the company's stock corresponds to the 2024-26 PE valuation (corresponding non-GAAP net profit) is 19.0x, 17.9x, and 15.5x, respectively, maintaining a “buy” rating.

Risk warning

The recovery in real estate sales fell short of expectations; the risk of negative public opinion erupted; and rates continued to be lowered.