Autohome Inc. (NYSE:ATHM) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Also, I want to take this opportunity to comment on the used car market. We believe 2023 would be the first year to full implementation of the used car new policies. We believe that the used car market will be personal transaction driven, transforming into corporate letting business. And the used car market would also experience the transformation from the agent-based model to the dealership-based model. We believe the 2023 market of the used car, the overall growth can be 8%. We also believe the government is trying to encourage the scalability of the used car business and try to make the operation in a more standardized and compliance way. All this would further boost the healthy development of the used car market. Overall, speaking we believe with the implementation of all the supporting policies, we believe this would boost the consumption needs and vitalize the consumption demand.

So that’s why I’m quite confident about the 2023 domestic auto market. Now talking about the allocation of the cash, I would like to invite Mr. Zeng Yan to take this question.

Craig Yan Zeng: Well, thank you for the question. Talking about the cash. We have abundant reserve cash and our cash flow has been very healthy. And we also attach great importance to the shareholders’ interest. We have the net inflow of RMB 2.1 billion of the cash last year. According to our BOD meeting last quarter, we will extend the share buyback initiative. And in this quarter, we already improved this — actually the dividend payout ratio about 16% compared with the last year. So actually the dividend payout would be RMB 500 million and it will continue to grow in the future. So that is the way we are trying to actually give back to our shareholders. Now talking about the business side, we have a lot of new initiatives.

We have new investments into the content, the video-based, the live streaming based, the metaverse-based and AR-based product. And according to our new business, the data product has been thriving. And we are also looking into some other opportunities to explore the M&A deals and make our business more global presence. So thank you for the question.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ritchie Sun from HSBC. Please ask your question, Ritchie.

Ritchie Sun: I will translate myself. Thank you management for taking my questions. I have two questions. First of all, in 2023 for data products what would be our KPI? And what types of new launches can we expect? Second of all is going to this year for the used car business what will be our KPI and focus? And how should we think about the long-term adjusted net margin for this business? Thank you.

Quan Long: Now talking about the digitalized product our major purpose is trying to help our clients to lower the cost and enhance the efficiency. No matter it’s OEMs or for the dealers. So we are trying to help them to improve the efficiency and we would continuously to launch a lot of new models. And also on the other hand, we are trying to enhance the coverage of more clients and we wanted to empower these customers with our new modules. Now talking about the future direction of the new business, we are working with the autos and some of the used car business. We all have a lot of innovative initiatives. Now talking about the used car business, our major purpose is trying to establish a one-stop full chain transaction and service platform.