Core views
In '22, the company achieved revenue of 3.6 billion yuan, an increase of 22% over the previous year; the adjusted net loss was 1.2 billion yuan, an increase of 450 million yuan over the previous year; of these, paid membership/vocational training/advertising business/content business solutions were 12.3/2.5/9.3/1.03 billion yuan respectively, a year-on-year change of 84%/442%/-20%/6%, respectively. Among them, the performance of the member and vocational education business was impressive. On the revenue side, the company's losses continued to expand. We think the company's cost reduction and efficiency strategy may continue to advance, and profit side losses are expected to continue to narrow. .
Brief review
Revenue continued to grow steadily, and losses continued to expand. On March 22, 2023, Zhihu released its 2022 financial report. The company achieved revenue of 3.6 billion yuan in '22, an increase of 22% over the previous year, slightly lower than our previous expectations; in '22, the company's adjusted net loss was 1.2 billion yuan, an increase of 450 million yuan over the previous year; of these, paid membership/vocational training/advertising business/content business solutions were 12.3/2.5/93/1.03 billion yuan respectively, a year-on-year change of 84%/400%/-20%/5.8%, respectively.
The membership business led to a steady increase in revenue, and the membership & vocational education business performed well. Zhihu's revenue for the fourth quarter of 2022 was 1,114 million yuan, an increase of 9.32% over the previous year, achieving gross profit of 629 million yuan, with a gross margin of 56.42%. Looking at the single quarter, the company's revenue growth was driven by business segments such as paid memberships, advertising, and content commercialization solutions: (1) Paid membership revenue continued to grow strongly, reaching 403 million yuan, up 92.8% year on year. The average number of monthly paying members in the fourth quarter grew 112.5% year on year, and the number of monthly paid members of Yanxuan column grew at an impressive rate of 112.5% year on year. (2) Advertising revenue was 275 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 27%, mainly due to the negative impact of the epidemic. (3) Content commerce solutions amounted to 298 million, a year-on-year decrease of 19%, mainly due to pressure on the advertising industry in '22. (4) The revenue from vocational training was 84.6 million yuan, an increase of 281.1% over the previous year. This significant increase was mainly due to the company's continuous growth and diversification of online courses, as well as the revenue contribution of the company's recently acquired business during the period. The vocational training business continued to grow rapidly and is expected to become the company's second growth curve. We believe that with a resilient and innovative business model, Zhihu has become a content-oriented company that continues to maintain positive revenue growth. In the future, it will shift its focus to high-quality user growth, which is expected to achieve continuous and stable revenue growth through a high-quality content ecosystem and user quality.
Profit forecast: On the revenue side, we expect the company's revenue for 23/24 to be 45.8/5.69 billion yuan respectively, up 27%/24% year-on-year respectively.
Risk warning: The risk that macroeconomic and consumption recovery falls short of expectations due to repeated domestic epidemics; demand in the advertising industry continues to decline, and recovery in the post-pandemic period may fall short of expected risks; Internet policy regulation and US audit risks for China University; the risk of falling user retention and per capita usage time falling short of expectations; the risk of a decline in the company's commercialization process and user growth falling short of expectations; risk that the company's new business development falls short of expectations; competition in the company's vocational training business increases; risk that the number of content creators falls short of expected risks; risk of falling in the number of content creators; other videos such as short videos The risk of competition in the industry, the risk of competition with companies in the same industry.