Incident: Revenue was generally in line with expectations, maintaining a high slope to reduce losses. The company released the 23Q1 financial report, achieving revenue of 5.1 billion yuan, the same as the previous year, in line with Bloomberg's unanimous expectations; it achieved net loss of 1.03 billion yuan on a non-GAAP basis, narrowed 38% year on year and 22% month on month, corresponding to a net loss ratio of 20%, narrowed 13% and 1% year on month, respectively. The loss narrowed more than Bloomberg's unanimous expectations.
The game business is still in an empty window for the short term. During the year, focus will be on the release of sales of independently distributed products, and the channel business will benefit from industry beta. The game business achieved revenue of 1.1 billion yuan, down 17% year on year and 1% month on month.
This is mainly due to the launch of no key new products this quarter, and the natural decline in stock product flow. Looking ahead, independently issued products are expected to be released centrally in the third quarter: during the year, the key agent product “Shine! “Beautiful Girl” already received an imported game version in March. Considering the time required for localization and adjustment between the version and launch, it is expected to go live in the summer. In addition, women who have already received editions are also expected to launch their self-developed products “Shaker of Light: Gone with the Wind” and the card game “Eluhill: Starlight Dawn” during the summer. On the other hand, the channel business has begun to benefit from the industry cycle: the key two-dimensional products “Collapse: Star Dome Railway” and “Back to the Future: 1999” were launched at the end of April and May respectively. As of June 4, they had already received 4.05 million and 1.06 million downloads respectively on the Bilibili channel, which is expected to contribute to revenue growth through channel division starting in the second quarter. Looking ahead, two-dimensional products such as “White Night Aurora” and “The Seventh Epic” will be launched one after another in June. We are optimistic that the company will benefit from the industry climbing cycle brought about by the normalization of version distribution during the year as one of the important distribution channels for two-dimensional games.
The membership of the conference was stable, and the penetration rate of live streaming continued to increase. The value-added services business achieved revenue of 2.2 billion yuan, an increase of 5% over the previous year. At the end of the period, the number of paid members in the membership business was 2020 million, which was basically the same as the previous year; it is also expected that growth will resume at the same time as the supply of subsequent content gradually recovers. The number of active anchors in 23Q1 increased 35% year over year, and content supply continued to grow; the number of paying users increased 15% year over year, outperforming the MAU growth rate (7%), indicating that the penetration rate is still increasing. Looking ahead, we believe that the live streaming business is still expected to maintain a relatively rapid growth rate with increased penetration, driving the revenue side expansion of value-added services.
Inventory expansion drives the growth of advertising business. Focus on the game category benefiting from industry beta and the expansion of the pan-e-commerce category. The advertising business achieved revenue of 1.3 billion yuan, an increase of 22% over the previous year. Among them, performance advertising revenue grew close to 50%, and brand advertising and commercial advertising revenue maintained positive growth. The main driving force for growth was ad inventory growth: total VV increased 37% year over year to 4.1 billion this quarter, with Story Mode and PUGV video growing 82% and 26% respectively. From a categorical perspective, the company's advantage lies in games and pan-electronics products represented by 3C digital, home appliances, and skincare products. For the former, it is expected that the game industry will recover quarterly with the industry cycle of the game industry itself; for the latter, the “soft broad+hard broad” model continues to expand and is expected to benefit from the recovery of the macroeconomy itself.
Profit forecasts and investment recommendations. Taking into account the operating situation for this quarter, we slightly adjusted the company's 23-25 revenue forecast to $242/274/30 billion, up 11%/13%/9% year on year; net profit (loss) from the non-GAAP downwards to $33/9/034 billion. Maintain a buying rating for the company.
Risk warning: risk of macroeconomic fluctuations; risk of product launch falling short of expectations; risk of increased competition.