Strengthened Commercialization across Payments and Digital Commerce Ecosystem
Remarkable Overseas Expansion Progress
Wider AI Technology Application
HONG KONG, Aug. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Yeahka Limited ("Yeahka" or the "Company," Stock Code: 9923.HK), a leading payment and digital commerce technology platform in China, is pleased to announce its interim results for the six months ended June 30, 2024 (the "Reporting Period" or the "first half").
Business and Financial Summary
- Our one-stop payment services continue to lead the industry and our market-leading position in app-based payments is solidified, with peak daily transaction counts reaching nearly 60 million;
- Against the backdrop of the high base in the same period last year and macroeconomic volatility, our gross payment volume (GPV) for the six months ended June 30, 2024 was RMB1,166.2 billion, representing a decrease of 17.8% compared to the same period in 2023;
- Commercialization capability was solid with our payments fee rate maintaining at 12.3 basis points (bps);
- Revenue for the six months ended June 30, 2024 was RMB1,577.7 million, representing a decrease of 23.5% from the same period in 2023;
- Revenue contribution from non-payment digital commerce services, comprising merchant solutions and in-store e-commerce services, continue to increase, with their percentage to total revenue increasing from 11.0% for the six months ended June 30, 2023 to 14.6% for the same period in 2024;
- Overall gross profit margin increased from 17.7% for the six months ended June 30, 2023 to 19.0% for the same period in 2024;
- Gross profit contribution from non-payment digital commerce services continue to increase, with their percentage to total gross profit increasing from 52.6% for the six months ended June 30, 2023 to 69.1% for the same period in 2024;
- Driven by our wider application of artificial intelligence, selling and administrative expenses decreased by 11.2% for the six months ended June 30, 2024 compared to the same period in 2023;
- Finance costs reduced by 6.2% for the six months ended June 30, 2024 compared to the same period in 2023;
- Profit for the Period amounted to RMB32.6 million for the six months ended June 30, 2024, exceeding the amount for the full year of 2023; and
- Gearing ratio decreased to 41.1% as at June 30, 2024 on the back of the Company's early repurchase of its convertible bonds using its internal cash flow.
Mr. Luke Liu, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, said, "Amid the macroeconomic volatility in the first half of 2024, we remain steadfast to our long-term vision being an all-rounded commerce enablement services provider to merchants. We made more progress increasing synergies beyond payments into other business lines, more international expansion and wider application of AI. We believe this provides higher quality of bases to seize many opportunities in the longer game and to deliver sustainable profits and value to our stakeholders. We made great strides overseas winning over 200 global brands covering more than 20,000 stores. Our investment company, Fushi, also offers proprietary and localized merchant solutions that satisfy demands from world-renowned customers. It is ramping up its products & verticals coverage. Overseas markets, especially developed ones, have many pockets with attractive economics and relatively high willingness to pay. This paves the way for a very wide channel of profits to come. On AI and technology, we also further integrated large language models for both revenue-generating and cost-optimizing purposes. Our new products helped merchants automate price setting to optimize monetization. We empowered them with precise marketing and automatic content generation tools to raise sales conversion. We also applied to our own customers servicing system, thereby meaningfully driving down our selling and administrative expenses. Our ESG efforts were also recognized internationally, for instance, in S&P Global's 2024 Sustainability Yearbook and ranked first in our industry in China. Our business uplifts underserved merchants and consumers in communities locally and abroad. In this year's first half, we increased energy usage utilization rate by 7% through constructing green data centers and treated 12 million risky transactions with wider adoption of AI."
Mr. Vincent Chan, General Manager of Capital Markets, added, "We upped both our non-payment services' commercialization and share of revenue and profit contribution. This makes our service offerings even more comprehensive and resilient than before. These non-payment businesses also enhanced their profit margins year over year. We also significantly increased sales efficiencies in our in-store e-commerce services and there is a visible pathway to run-rate profitability in the second half and sustainable growth in the years to come for this business. We also advanced our one-stop payment services' business model with wider regions covered in underserved markets, further diversified & resilient sets of verticals penetrated, more profitable customer segments served and broader customer acquisition channels through deeper collaboration with strategic partners. We served more large-and-medium-sized merchants leveraging the network and partnerships with over 5,000 SaaS providers and over a hundred of banks as we scaled our product and region coverage. Our one-stop offerings of payments plus other commerce enablement services also gave us a unique edge in digitizing for and satisfying the various demands of large-and-medium-sized merchants. We therefore maintain our market leadership with a strengthened foundation. Our proposition has always been to leverage our extensive payments platform to fully digitize merchants all around their commerce. Such full-suite technology remains our edge over others in being more agile scaling up. And now is increasingly about "Going global", as we play a more important role in the global journey of digitization."
Outlook
Mr. Luke Liu concluded, "We are committed to being the go-to commerce enablement services provider for merchants. Whilst maintaining our established market leadership in the one-stop payment services segment. We strive to continue accelerating the growth and profit contribution of other services including merchant solutions and in-store e-commerce services as we upgrade our intrinsically synergistic business model. We have a strong foundation underscored by technical set-up, merchants servicing insights and business network domestically and beyond to further our progress in international expansion into attractive segments and widespread application of AI tools for both commercialization and efficiency purposes. By being steadfast to our vision and business model upheld for over a decade, such strategies will build a natural moat against further externalities whilst equipping us with early mover advantage capturing emerging opportunities on a much wider scale in the long-term."
About YEAHKA LIMITED (Stock Code: 9923.HK)
Yeahka is a leading payment-based technology platform empowering businesses, dedicated to creating value for merchants and consumers. We are committed to expanding an independent digital commerce ecosystem by (i) providing seamless, convenient, and reliable payment service to merchants and consumers through our one-stop payment service business, (ii) enabling merchants to better manage and drive business growth through our merchant solutions business, and (iii) offering consumers high-value local lifestyle services through our in-store e-commerce service business.
For more information, please visit https://www.yeahka.com/
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