Aurora Mobile Limited (NASDAQ:JG) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Aurora Mobile Limited (NASDAQ:JG) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript March 12, 2024

Aurora Mobile Limited isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Aurora Mobile Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I’d now like to hand the conference over to your host today, Christian Arnell. Thank you. Please go ahead, sir.

Christian Arnell: Thank you. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Aurora Mobile’s earnings release was distributed earlier today and is available on its IR website at ir.jiguang.cn. On the call today are Mr. Weidong Luo, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Shan-Nen Bong, Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. Guangyan Chen, General Manager. Following their prepared remarks, they will be available to answer your questions during the Q&A session that follows. Before we begin, I’d like to remind you that this conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

These forward-looking statements are based upon management’s current expectations and current market and operating conditions, which are difficult to predict and may cause the Company’s actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties and/or factors are included in the Company’s filings with the U.S. SEC. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable law. With that, I’d now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Luo. Please go ahead.

Weidong Luo: Thanks, Christian. Good morning and good evening, everyone. Welcome to Aurora Mobile’s 2023 fourth quarter earnings call. Before I comment on our Q4 results, I would like to remind everyone that the quarterly earnings deck is available on our IR website. You may refer to the deck as we proceed with the call today. Overall, if I were to give a comment for the performance of this quarter, the appropriate discussion for this quarter is growth, growth and growth. The reasons are as follows. Firstly, we have a record, for the first history, consecutive quarters of positive adjusted EBITDA. Secondly, our total revenue grew every single quarter in 2023. Thirdly, Developer Subscription revenue also recorded sequential revenue growth in all quarters of 2023.

Fourthly, our gross profit also grew in every quarter of 2023. Last but not least, our overseas product, EngageLab, continue to expand globally and recorded great results this quarter. Next, let me shed more light on the business and revenues. For our total group revenue, we achieved a steep growth of 5% quarter-over-quarter, driven mainly by the growth in Developer Services revenue. Now let me go through our different revenue streams. Developer Services revenue, which consists of subscription services and value-add services, decreased to 1% year-over-year but grew 8% quarter-over-quarter, mainly due to the weakness in the value-added services, offset by the 5% growth in subscription services. Next is the detailed discussion of each business line.

Subscription services revenues were RMB48.8 million, up 5% over year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. This was mainly driven by increase in ARPU both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. Within the year 2023, the Subscription Services revenue grew sequentially in all four quarters, mainly due to the steady increase in ARPU throughout the year. In Q4 2023, our team has completed a handful of private deployment purchase for many customers. I’m very encouraged by this trend and believe more good results will come. Some of the notable new and renewable customers in this quarter include but not limited to [indescribable], China Telecom, China Pacific Insurance, Everbright Bank credit card center and [indescribable] just to name a few. Value-added services revenues were RMB6.8 million decreased 60% year-over-year but increased by 38% quarter-over-quarter, which was due to the annual single day and Double 12 online shopping festival in Q4, where advertisers increased their spending and more budget allocation to us.

However, no such event in Q3. Next, I would like to share with you on some exciting news and great achievements we did have in Q4 for our EngageLab business. Firstly, by the end of 2023, we had more than 170 customers signed up to purchase our EngageLab products. This we saw a tremendous 70% growth between the quarters. Secondly, the commercial contract value of EngageLab has RMB15 million, representing a great 50% growth between the quarters. Thirdly, our EngageLab customers are from 17 different countries around the world. As we show in our Q3 earnings graph, we aim to grow this business every quarter, and we did it. We achieved great milestones between the quarters for EngageLab business. I’m very proud of the hard work that the team has putting over the past quarter in order to record such an impressive customer number and contract value growth.

This is by no means an easy task consists during the top overseas market environment and the uncertainty causing the air. We continue to see strong demand for our EngageLab products overseas. Our EngageLab product is a non-store customer engagement platform, enabling our customers to use any of the following messaging channels, app push, web push, e-mail services, SMS service, WhatsApp and WhatsApp business API. Based on the feedback we received the key major advantage of our EngageLab product is it allows our customers in different countries and regions to engage their own customers in an effective yet cost-efficient manner. We aim to ensure we stay ahead again by continuing to fine-tune our products on a regular basis. More importantly, for us to meet and achieve our goal, customers — expect our global customers’ expectations.

With that, I will now pass the call over to Shan-Nen, who will share more about the vertical applications and other aspects of our financial performance for this quarter.

Shan-Nen Bong: Thanks, Chris. Next, I’ll go over the revenue for Vertical Applications where it is made up of financial risk management and market intelligence. Vertical Applications had a tough quarter, where revenue recorded single-digit decline both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. However, for financial risk management, revenue grew 17% year-over-year and stayed pretty much stable quarter-over-quarter. The 17% year-over-year revenue growth was positively impacted by a 26% customer number growth. In particular, one good trend that we have observed is that the fact that customer number has recorded sequential growth in every quarter of 2023. The Q4 customers that we have signed up include but not limited to Meituan, 360 Finance, [indiscernible] and many other licensed financial institutions throughout China.

As for market intelligence, the revenue decreased 40% year-over-year and 10% quarter-over-quarter due to the continued great demand for Chinese-based app data as the investment sentiment towards Chinese ADR still remains lackluster. Nevertheless, amidst this slow market condition, we still managed to sign up some well-known large customers such as Baidu, Ite, Taobao, 58 and many top-tier global hedge fund and investment funds. I’ll now go through some of the key expenses and balance sheet items. On to operating expenses. The Q4 operating expenses was at RMB61.2 million, representing 36% decrease year-over-year but slightly increased 2% quarter-over-quarter. Overall, we are very pleased with our expense control and monitoring efforts between the years.

In summary, our Q4 OpEx has decreased year-over-year by RMB34.2 million. This is a testament of our commitment to wisely spend every single penny. And if you look at the OpEx on an annual basis, it has decreased by RMB108 million between the years, representing a 30% decrease year-over-year. This again show the management determination to effectively execute its cost-saving plans as previously announced. I think at this stage, the Company is well managed and ready to — is ready for the next growth phase cycle. With this relatively low OpEx to run the business, so long as we execute top line growth fairly well, I believe the group result will come sooner rather than later. Next, I’ll go to the individual OpEx categories. In particular, R&D expenses decreased by 23% year-over-year to RMB27.1 million mainly due to lower headcount and reduced salary costs and associated share-based compensation and a decrease in server depreciation expenses due to the growing cloud initiative.

Selling and marketing expenses decreased by 10% year-over-year to RMB22.1 million, mainly due to a decrease in salary costs resulted from headcount reduction as we further make adjustment to operate at the optimal level. G&A expense decreased by 66% year-over-year to RMB12.1 million, mainly due to onetime noncash impairment loss of RMB32 million recognized in last year Q4 of 2022. Further streamlining of the headcount also contributed to the decrease in salary costs between the years. And for the quarter ended 12/31 ’23, the adjusted EBITDA which is calculated as an EBITDA excluding share-based compensation, reduction in force charges, the impairment of long-term investment and change in fair value of foreign currency contracts, we recorded another positive adjusted EBITDA in this quarter.

And this is a historical event where we have consecutive quarters of positive adjusted EBITDA. On to the balance sheet. I’ll share two very important KPIs that we closely monitor. We continue to maintain a healthy AR turnover days at 38 days which is a two days improvement quarter-over-quarter. These two shortened days is very important as they let us collect cash from customer added even shorter period of time. We believe this 38 days turnover is leading the industry in terms of collection days. Secondly, one of the key financial KPIs that we track for performance of SaaS company is the total revenue, which represents cash collected in advance of customer for future contract performance continue to be the high balance of RMB141.5 million. This is the eighth consecutive quarter where our deferred revenue balance has exceeded RMB130 million.

This is very important as we are collecting more cash in the advance from customer and this greatly improve our cash flow, at the same time, mitigate risk of bad debt. On the cash flow, we have another great quarter in Q4 of 2023, where we recorded net operating cash inflow of RMB11 million and total cash inflow of RMB16.6 million. And this was a combination of our sales team actively collecting cash from customers, and we tightly control our cash spending. Next, total assets were at RMB349.1 million as of December 31. This includes cash and cash equivalent of RMB115 million, accounts receivable of RMB34.3 million, prepayments and other current assets of RMB20.2 million, fixed assets of RMB1.4 million, long-term investment of RMB112.9 million, goodwill of RMB37.8 million and intangible assets of RMB17.9 million resulted from the SendCloud acquisition in March 2022.

Total current liabilities were RMB241.3 million as of December 31, 2023. This includes accounts payable of RMB21.1 million, current operating lease liability of RMB4 million, deferred revenue of RMB141.5 million, accrued liabilities of RMB74.7 million. At this juncture, let me take a few minutes here to summarize the growth quarter that Chris has mentioned earlier. In Q4 of 2023, our total revenue and Developer Subscription revenue grew in every single quarter of 2023. Gross profit has also recorded sequential growth in all quarters of 2023. And for the first time in the history, we have consecutive quarters of positive adjusted EBITDA. Total annual operating assets decreased by RMB108 million between the years. And our EngageLab product operating globally, signing up more and more customers and contract every quarter.

We have done many things right in this quarter and the result has shown as such. We are very pleased with the Q4 execution efforts and numbers. Nevertheless, we will not sit on our laurels. We will continue to execute our plan and deliver the goods. Lastly, before I conclude, I’ll give an update on the share repurchase plan. In the quarter ended December 31, 2023, we have repurchased 53,000 ADS. Cumulatively, we have repurchased a total of 188,000 ADS since the start of our repurchase program. And this concludes management’s prepared remarks. We’re happy to take your questions now, Christian?

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Q&A Session

Operator: [Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question. First question is from the line of Calvin Wong from Spica Capital. Please go ahead.

Calvin Wong: First of all, congrats to your management for consecutive quarters of positive adjusted EBITDA. This is a great result, well done. I would like to have two questions, if I may. The first one, a follow-up on this adjusted EBITDA. I just want to hear from management how you see this adjusted EBITDA will trend going forward in 2024? That’s the first question. And second question again on EngageLab. We have been tracking your engaged lab business every quarter. So, it seems that it has been doing great with better than our expectation results in terms of customer number and contract value every quarter. So, we would like to know two things: A, are you expecting such explosive growth every quarter going forward; and B, what is the revenue contribution by EngageLab in this quarter?

Shan-Nen Bong: Okay. Thanks, Calvin. Let me take a minute to recap your question. So, you have two questions. One is on positive adjusted EBITDA and the other one is on EngageLab. Yes, let me take this question. Yes. I guess, yes, we are very pleased with the fact that we delivered another quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA in Q4 of 2023. And as I said, this is a historical event for us since IPO to have two quarters of positive adjusted EBITDA. This is possible to the hard work that we are putting every day, day in and day out. And I believe besides the fact that you, our shareholders and investors are really thrilled see this positive adjusted EBITDA that we have recorded. And if we peel through, the most important thing that I think we’d like to deliver the message is the OpEx numbers over the four quarters, you’ll see one good trend there as mentioned.

Between the years, the annual OpEx of between 2023 and 2022 has actually decreased by RMB108 million. So, in summary, we have saved or trimmed our more than RMB100 million expenses in 2023 to various cost-cutting initiatives that we have undertaken from headcount reduction and then we reviewed all the expenses. We even reduced our office rental space. So, we have been working hard over the past year to seriously reduce our OpEx in the past 12 months. So, what this means is really, really important. With this much lower OpEx, we are in a good position for 2024. As I said, so long as we continue to grow our top line domestically or through EngageLab globally, I believe sooner or later the positive adjusted EBITDA will come as a natural course of events.

So, this is an answer to your first question. And second question is on EngageLab. Yes, I think we are very true. And as mentioned by Chris, he’s really happy to see that things have been trending well. I guess the fact that this is no fluke, it’s a result of again our commitment and our investment by the Company and the dedication by the team to expand overseas. And let me recap the great achievement in for Q3 for EngageLab that Chris has mentioned. Firstly, the contract value has grown 50% between the quarters, achieving cumulative up to RMB15 million by Q4. And secondly, the customers’ number has grown 70% to 170% between the quarters. And this 70% revenue — customer number growth is simply impressive. And thirdly, our customer has come from 17 different countries around the world.

So, in summary, we do have high hopes for this business to grow every single quarter. As I mentioned in the previous quarter, in addition to using ISV, independent software vendor arrangement that I talked about last quarter, we have started selling teams to overseas market to further solidify our position there, and just last week started the team as more in Singapore to kick off our expansion plan. And we believe the overseas market, especially Southeast Asia, is where we can first grab more market share due to the proximity, the culture of familiarity and high penetration of Chinese cellphones there. So, this is the EngageLab. And for the revenue contribution that you talked — you asked, it is still not material. This is simply the fact that, as you’re aware, we recognize revenue based on amortization depending on the length of the contract, be it one year or two years.

So, the RMB15 million contract that I mentioned earlier will make its way to the books over the years. However, one number that I can share with you is the recognized EngageLab revenue, which is overseas revenue, has grown 8x from Q1 of 2023 to Q4, which means the revenue recognized is on exclusive growth. So, if I may summarize, I would like to leave this message with you and all the callers in today’s call is the fact that our EngageLab business is doing great. We will continue to invest in the necessary infrastructure to ensure rich service delivery and quality service, and we’ll continue to explore every single market in Southeast Asia every quarter. Calvin, hope this answered your question.

Operator: We will now take our next question. This is from the line of Brian Kinstlinger from Alliance Global Partners. Please go ahead.

Brian Kinstlinger: I have a whole bunch. Subscriptions are growing nicely, you mentioned due to the higher ARPU. Can you talk about new customer accounts? I think I heard 26 in the quarter. But generally, what are new business trends like, what industries are driving this recovery? And maybe discuss your ability to continue to grow subscriptions and the impact the Chinese economy might have on this service offering or is having.

Shan-Nen Bong: Okay. Yes. Thanks, Brian. This is Shan-Nen. I guess for industry for subscription, we don’t see any particular concentration. I think it’s across the board. As we mentioned a couple of quarters ago, for the past few years, we have seen a change in terms of how people look at push notification investment. Rather than investing in their own infrastructure, employing employees, engineers to do this work they now are more than willing to outsource to a company like us. So, we see this change in terms of mentality by companies. That’s where we pick up all the new customers, be it private cloud or public cloud. So, this — we do not see any concentration in terms of where the new customers are growing.

Brian Kinstlinger: And then, can you just speak to the Chinese economy? Is it neutral right now to the impact on your revenue? Is it offsetting the strength in demand and you could do much better on the recovery? Just kind of take us through the impact the economy is having on your subscriptions in China.

Shan-Nen Bong: Sure. If you compare domestic and overseas, I’m sure you can sense that overseas market is where the growth is from. Yes, domestically, we do not see such explosive growth, but we still — we think that it will go through a stable but relatively low growth domestically.

Brian Kinstlinger: EngageLab is not having a big impact on your revenue. So, I assume still the growth in recovery is coming in China now?

Shan-Nen Bong: Yes, yes. But the growth is much slower compared to EngageLab.

Brian Kinstlinger: And then, can you quantify the change in ARPU per subscription that’s driving this? And is there still opportunity to grow ARPU even more? And if so, what gives you that confidence?

Shan-Nen Bong: Sure. The — if you look at the ARPU from Q1 of 2023, it’s around RMB8,000, and come Q4, it’s RMB11,000, okay? So, this is where we have seen a 17% growth year-over-year. And we do see this to continue to grow but at a much slower pace, probably about single-digit 5% growth. And partly of this is the fact that we are able to complete some of the private cloud project as well, which is of much bigger contract value. So yes, so this is what is driving the ARPU growth. On an annual basis, the same customers, we are not able to increase the price too much.

Brian Kinstlinger: Got it. That’s helpful. And then in terms of non-subscription revenues such as Vertical Applications, I know this includes market intelligence and other services. But it seems like that revenue base has stabilized. What has to happen in terms of market conditions to begin to get confident that revenue line will begin to recover and grow even more?

Shan-Nen Bong: Yes. If you look at the advertising business, in a way, we do not invest as much in it. So, we’ll let it run on this natural cost. So, this very much fluctuate, depends on the overall sentiment, right? If you look at how the fourth quarter pan out every single year, the advertising market will peak in Q2 and Q4. Q2 being the 6/18 online festival. And then the Q4 is just what Chris has mentioned, we’ve got Double 11, Double 12. So, these are the two peaks. So that is for value-added service. And for Vertical Applications, I think overall, market intelligence is still a bit slow in terms of the demand for Chinese ADR APP numbers. But what we’ve seen is the financial risk management is doing well. It’s doing well.

It’s increasing 17% year-over-year. So, this is where we earn money to the credit companies or the banks who are trying to get the creditworthiness of individual lenders or the borrowers — the borrowers of their credit cards. So, we see this trending up in terms of the inquiries each bank is buying our services. So, if you look at the three non-subscription business, financial risk management is something that we have higher hopes in terms of continued growth.

Brian Kinstlinger: Got it. And then just to the balance sheet, it looks like quarter-to-quarter, you increased tax by RMB4 million. I think I heard cash flow, if I did a quick calculation from operations, was up RMB1 million and change. So, what were the other sources of cash that increased RMB4 million compared to the cash flow of RMB1.3 million sequentially?

Shan-Nen Bong: Sure. Sure. We — in Q4, we divested one of the investments that we have made. So, we made some — we received some additional cash based on that. So, those are — that’s under investing activities.

Brian Kinstlinger: That divestiture does have any impact on revenue?

Shan-Nen Bong: No, not at all. It’s pure divestiture of investment.

Brian Kinstlinger: Great. And then lastly, on seasonality, I assume the first quarter is your weakest quarter given holidays. Correct me if I’m wrong. And help us with any other seasonality. I think you said the second and the fourth quarter, you’re strongest. Or I just want to make sure that I understand completely the seasonality.

Shan-Nen Bong: Sure. If you look at overall in terms of business, even the entire China, if I may, the Q1 will be slow simply because of the fact that it’s Chinese New Year, February is a shorter month, everybody is away. So, the last thing they want is to sign contract and do everything else. So Q1 will definitely be a slow season. But for non-subscription business, I think only the value-added service which is the ad service were picked in Q4 and Q2. The others, assuming if the economy is doing, as it should be, we should see an uptrend every single quarter from Q1.

Brian Kinstlinger: And to the previous caller’s question, given the seasonal weakness in the first quarter, I assume you won’t be EBITDA positive, but in quarters following that, you will be? Is that how — am I reading it right? Or am I not reading that right?

Shan-Nen Bong: Yes. I think it will be pretty much what you say. Q1 will be — it will be difficult to get positive EBITDA.

Brian Kinstlinger: Right. Do you think you’ll be around breakeven after?

Shan-Nen Bong: Yes, that’s the goal. That’s the goal, yes.

Brian Kinstlinger: Nice work on the recovery over the year.

Weidong Luo: Thank you, sir.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] There no further questions at this time. So, I will now hand the conference back to Christian Arnell for closing remarks. Thank you.

Christian Arnell: Thank you, everyone, for joining the call tonight. And if you have any further questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the IR team. That concludes the call. Thank you, and have a good evening.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.