KE - Q1 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by for KE Holdings Inc's first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Ms. Siting Li, IR Director of the company. Please go ahead, Siting.

Siting Li (Investor Relations Director)

Thank you, operator. Good evening and good morning, everyone. Welcome to KE Holdings or Beike's first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. The company's financial and operating results were published in the press release earlier today and are posted on the company's IR website, investors.ke.com. On today's call, we have Mr. Stanley Peng, our Co-Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Efficer, and Mr. Tao Xu, our executive director and chief financial officer. Mr. Peng will provide an overview of our strategies and business developments, and Mr. Xu will provide additional details on the company's financial results. Before we continue, I refer you to our safe harbor statement in our earnings press release, which applies to this call as we will make forward-looking statements. Please also note that Beike's earnings press release and this conference call include discussions of unaudited GAAP financial information as well as unaudited non-GAAP financial measures.

Please refer to the company's press release, which contains a reconciliation of the unaudited non-GAAP measures to comparable GAAP measures. Lastly, unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during this conference call are in RMB. With that, I will now turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Stanley Peng. Please go ahead, Stanley.

Stanley Peng (Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Thank you, Siting. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining Beike's first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. During the past quarter, we have witnessed the real estate market in China, along with various other industries rebounding from the pandemic. GTV of Existing Home sales in China increased by 51%, while GTV on new residential home sales increased by 7%, with sales of the top 100 developers growing by 2%, all on a year-over-year basis. Existing Home Transactions GTV on our platform increased by 78% year-over-year in the first quarter, and our New Home sale GTV increased by 44% year-over-year in the first quarter, outperforming the industry by a great extent.

In the past few years, amid the tremendous volatility in the market, our continued investment in our ACN network and infrastructure, our persistent support of quality service providers, and our efforts to shift toward higher quality, more efficient development, have enabled our outstanding performance during the market recovery process. As the external market gradually stabilizes and our organization gets stronger, we face pivotal questions, such as where we can find our more growth opportunities going forward? What are the drivers and how much upside is there in the next 10 years? Will we play defense or continue to pursue high-speed growth? How will we allocate our significant cash position? These questions are important to both our investor and our company.

Having pondered these questions, today, I would like to take this opportunity to face the future together and share my thoughts on our course over the next decade. Most importantly, we are a organization that always seeks development because we are committed to making the industry better. Our mission give us a great cause. Beike was established to serve our mission of Admirable Service, Joyful Living. It has made us who we are rather than the other way around. We won't stop. Of course, in our business, development and growth cannot be measured with high-frequency data, but it needs to be viewed with a three-year perspective. Sustainable growth is not expansion, not scale. Rather, it arises from customers and their unmet needs.

In the past, our initiatives, such as transparent transactions, authentic listings, full commission refunds for failed transactions, and protection of secure transactions, were all originated from the question, which needs in the housing industry have not been met? Meeting these needs requires us to think big and think far. At this point in time, customer demands in the housing industry are far underserved. Customers' demands for better living, including the quality of homes, quality of Home Renovation and Furnishing products and services, and a better home rental experience remain largely unfulfilled. These are real needs, which will provide us with significant room to grow in the future. To achieve sustainable development and growth, the key is to improve our capabilities.

First, our development will be built on our stronger engine collaboration network, which forms the foundation of our infrastructure, holding quality as our prerequisite and home listings at its core. A series of rules and mechanisms empower seamless collaboration of brands, stores, and agents within this network. Our ACN's core underlying assets is our customer trust in agents. We believe that a rule-based competition for quality service among service providers will offer customers higher transaction efficiency and enhance their service experience. In the future, our ACN can include additional rules and cover more links along the housing ecosystem value chain, which translates to huge potential for innovation in the network. As such, the most critical foundation for our development is to establish and maintain the connection between ACN and stores, as well as ensure collaboration quality while increasing customer trust in the ACN, all together making our ACN stronger.

Second, development comes from the rise of high-quality brands. Brands are built on commitment to customers and their trust, as well as an organization's ability to create emotional connections with its customers. In the future, I believe virtuous competition will empower high-quality brands to connect and aggregate more outstanding stores and agents, which in turn will help foster stronger capabilities within the ACN network to improve service providers' efficiency, thereby taking their incomes to the next level. Third, development is also propelled by the enhancement of service providers' efficiency that is centered around quality. For 20 years in the past, we benefited from the tailwind of rapid market growth. The main development cost of the real estate brokerage industry was about achieving scale growth with quality as our prerequisite.

Whereas fundamental industry efficiency did not improve substantially, given the average transaction per agent has been hovering at 0.3 per month. Looking at the next 10 years, we think we will see a shift to enhance efficiency with quality as a core focus. We firmly believe that this is the right path, even though it is difficult. As quality improvement deliver a better customer experience and efficiency can drive agent success, ultimately resulting in the success of store, brands, our platform, and industry as a whole. On store front, the trend towards large stores is inevitable going forward. Only large stores can bring high incomes to store owners and agents while raising the operational threshold. We need to invigorate store owners' entrepreneurial spirits and furnish them with parts to strengthen their multiple and larger store management capabilities.

Meanwhile, we will need to stimulate high-quality agents' motivation to help them grow, as well as nurture and retain them, which also serves as a crucial measure to enhance store efficiency. On the service provider front, in the residential service industry, where agents and stores are at the core, the rising personal value of service providers is also an irresistible trend. With the potential for lifelong careers, the value of service providers in our industry grows over time, and they deserve more in terms of income and rewards. Their growth and development also lead to better experiences for customers, which is why we are committed to prioritizing the rights and the interests of service providers.

Our next step is to improve the working environment and the mindset of service providers by committing to the institution of initiatives that ensure their well-being, with focus on areas such as rest and vacation time. There are many opportunities for improvements and progress in this industry, and we are determined to make that happen. In terms of efficiency improvement, the adoption of scientific management and technological applications have consistently driven progress in the industry. We'll continue to empower future efficiency gains. Scientific management has been a crucial component and way of thinking for Lianjia to overcome growth bottlenecks in the past. Through a series of tools and measures that we have accumulated, we can discover the laws dictating events to guide our actions and ensure we achieve our goals.

Ability to balance both long-term and short-term objectives is also crucial during the process of development. We believe that combining scientific management with care for people will help us reach our next level of success. In addition, our organization has stemmed from a combination of service-oriented and engineering-oriented genes, and the integration of industry practice and technology application are the underlying driving forces for our continuous development. The emergence of new technologies such as AIGC is also poised to significantly improve industry efficiency and make high-quality service providers even more valuable, propelling us to new heights. Everything we do starts with taking care of customers. Reflecting on our path to success, we recognize that our ability to dedicatedly address customer pain points has been integral to our growth, and customer satisfaction is the foundation of our success.

The optimal choice generally benefits both customers and service providers. Taking authentic home listing as an example, it's clear that such listings are precisely what our customers need. As we persist in promoting these listings, customers gradually progress from doubt to belief, fulfilling our service providers with a tremendous sense of motivation that propels the entire team to improve their capabilities. We apply this same mentality across our organization, from the Existing Home business, New Home business, Home Rental business, and Home Renovation and Furnishing business to broader housing services. In each case, this mindset has inspired us to develop our capabilities, earn customer recognition, and forced our growth, our own growth, opening vast possibilities for expansion. Every time we embark on a new venture, we remain true to our original aspiration.

We strive for development and growth in order to meet our customers' needs and resist tendencies to geared towards entropy increase. We reduce costs and increase efficiency to avoid large company syndrome and improve our operational capabilities. We firmly invest in our foundational capabilities rather than make quick profits and extend our scale in a haphazard manners. All of these efforts are aimed at providing the best possible service to our customers and creating lasting value through transcending market cycle. We also focus on shareholders' return to both rewards and align ourselves with like-minded investors who share our long-term vision and will stay with us through the market cycles. Finally, what makes our organization different is the culture shaped by a group of great people. We have been inspired by customers and service providers.

Behind this culture, there is a mission that drives us to keep moving forward. Admirable Service, Joyful Living. We aim to have service providers understanding and pursue what's right and to help customer to give meaningful feedback to our service providers. Our value lies in harnessing what's right to motivate positive feedback and to have it reward what's right. We are genuinely inspired and moved by this. We firmly believe that our presence in this industry represents a difference for industry practitioners and customers alike. This difference will spread and influence more people. Together, we will climb to top of our next mountain. Thank you. Next, I would like to turn the call over to our CFO, Tao Xu, to review our first quarter financials. Thank you.

Tao Xu (Executive Director and CFO)

Thank you, Stanley. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. Before going into the detail of our first quarter financial results, I would like to provide a brief update on how to market in the first quarter. Since the beginning of this year, the real estate market has staged a significant recovery, bolstered by a February policy of preventing risks and supporting demand, coupled with a concentrated release of pent-up housing demand from the pandemic. Notably, the sitting home market saw a strong pickup, with housing prices beginning to narrow their year-over-year decline and show their return to quarter-over-quarter increase from the sequential decline in previous periods. The New Home market also experienced a moderate recovery, with the consumer confidence improving as effect of the one-off release of pent-up demand and the seasonality were all starting in March. Market transaction volume began to normalize from an excessively high level.

By taking from relatively stable scale of our ACN network during the market protracted slump and the effective promotion of refined operations for stores and agents, we proactively capitalized the market recovery tools and the seasonal dividend as the market rebounded at the beginning of the year. As a result, our GTV growth significantly outperformed the market. According to Beike Research Institute, in first quarter, GTV of Existing Home sales in China increased by 51.2% year-over-year, while Existing Home Transaction GTV on Beike platform grew by 77.6% year-over-year. Data from National Bureau of Statistics also showed that the GTV of the New Home sales in China increased by 7.1% year-over-year, while the New Home Transaction GTV on Beike platform rose by 44.2% year-over-year.

Our net revenue in the fourth quarter reached RMB 28.3 billion, representing a 61.6% increase year-over-year, beating both the hand of our guidance and the street consensus. The increase was driven by our highly efficient operations, stable monetization capability, and organic growth in our Home Renovation and Furnishing services. Our gains were further bolstered by the better-than-expected market recovery. In the difficult environment since the second half of 2021, we implement the staunch cost and expense of optimizations and consistently refined our operations, which made our organization more efficient and agile. These efforts empower us to deliver strong performance in profitability during the market downturn. They have also allowed us to start this year in a position of the strength, gaining great benefit from our increased operating leverage. We report a continued improvement in multiple financial metrics.

Our Q1 gross margin was at 31.3%. GAAP net income reached RMB 2,750 million, while non-GAAP net income jumped to RMB 3,551 million in the quarter, compared with the RMB 28 million in the same period of 2022, and an increase of 137% compared from the fourth quarter of 2021 with a similar revenue scale. By segment, our net revenue from the Existing Home Transaction Services increased by 49.3% year-over-year to RMB 9.2 billion in Q1. Primarily driven by a 77.6% increase in GTV.

Among that, the Existing Home Transaction GTV from Lianjia rose by 43.2%, of which the revenue was recorded on a gross basis, while GTV by connected agent jumped by 117.9% year-over-year in Q1, fueled by the notable property market recovery in many Tier 2 cities, of which the revenue was recorded on a net basis, resulting in the slight smaller growth of the Existing Home revenue compared to GTV. Our net revenue from New Home Transaction Services increased by 42.2% year-over-year to RMB 8.4 billion in Q1.

Thanks to our outstanding sales capability, vast customer base from the Existing Home Transaction, and the operation integration of the New Home and Existing Home business, faster New Home settlement by Lianjia, and the targeted market coverage in the first and the second-tier cities that were first to recover at the beginning of the year. Particularly, cooperation with the state-owned developers account for 46% of our sales revenues. Benefiting from the effective coordination with Home Transaction Services, the contract sales of our home renovation and the furniture business totaled RMB 2.7 billion, up 108.2% year-over-year. The revenue amounted to RMB 1.4 billion, rising by 54.3% year-over-year, both on pro-forma basis.

Our net revenue from Emerging and Other Services increased by 222.1% year-over-year to RMB 1.3 billion in Q1. Primarily attributable to the increase of net revenues from Rental Property Management Services and the financial services. Our more streamlined cost and expense structure has led to a significant increase in single-quarter profitability amidst the substantial recovery of the market. In particular, the contribution margin of Existing Home business jumped to 49% in Q1, up by 11.3 percentage points from the same period of 2022. 11.9 percentage points from Q4, benefiting from the notable revenue increase, the year-on-year decrease in the fixed cost, and the relatively stable variable cost ratio.

The contribution margin of New Home Transaction Services reached 27%, up by 8.8 percentage points from the same period of 2022, mainly driven by the increased percentage of the high-profitability projects and the more streamlined personnel structure. Driven by the higher margins from the Existing and the New Home business, increased the proportion of Home Renovation and Furnishing services with a higher margin, as well as a smaller percentage of the costs related to store and other costs of the net revenues. Gross profits increased by 186.1% to RMB 6.3 billion in Q1. Gross margin increased to 31.3% in Q1 from 17.7% in the same period of 2022. Our GAAP operating expenses increased by 7.5% year-over-year to RMB 3.4 billion.

Among that, sales and the marketing expenses increased by 50.3% to RMB 1,294 million. Mainly due to the consolidation of Chengdu and the organic growth of Home Renovation and Furnishing services. General administrative expenses increased by 60.1% to RMB 1,621 million, mainly due to the increase of the share-based compensation expenses. Notably, with the healthy cash collection of the New Home business, we have a bad debt provision written back of RMB 127 million in Q1. Research and development expenses decreased by 39% to RMB 457 million, mainly due to the decrease of the personnel cost and share-based compensation as a result of the decreased highcount.

While maintaining our investment in the new business, including the Home Renovation and Furnishing, our total non-GAAP expenses in Q1 was at RMB 2.61 billion, representing a notable decrease both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter. Income from operations was RMB 2,987 million in Q1, compared to loss from operation of RMB 980 million in Q1 2022. The increase in gross margin and the improved operating leverage have brought about the increase in operating margin to 14.7% in Q1, from -7.3% in the same period of 2022. Our non-GAAP income from operations was RMB 3,830 million in Q1, compared to non-GAAP loss from operations of RMB 450 million in the same period of 2022.

Non-GAAP operating margins increased to 18.9% compared to -3.6% in the same period of 2022. Q1 net income was RMB 2,750 million, compared to net loss of RMB 620 million in the same period of 2022, and a net income of RMB 1,059 million in Q1 2021. Non-GAAP net income was RMB 3,561 million in Q1, compared to RMB 28 million in the same period of 2022. Our cash position and cash flow remain robust.

At the end of March 2023, on the basis of one-time payment of year-end bonus before the Spring Festival, the combined balance of our cash-like items totaled RMB 85.3 billion, or $12.4 billion, up by RMB 7 billion from the end December and RMB 16.2 billion from the end of Q1 2022. Among which, the combined balance of our cash equivalents, restrict cash and short investments was RMB 66.6 billion. The balance of our long-term cash-like items, mainly liquidity in the long-term investments, amounted to RMB 18.7 billion. Our net operating cash inflow was RMB 7.6 billion in Q1, remaining positive for the sixth quarter in a row.

Under our stringent receivable management, our cash collection from the New Home business has exceeded New Home revenue for seven quarters in a row, totaling RMB 8.84 billion in Q1. New home DSO was at only 59 days in Q1, further shortening by five days from Q4 and 93 days from the same period of 2022. Turning to the guidance of the second quarter of 2023, we expect total revenues to be between RMB 18.5 billion and RMB 19 billion in Q2, representing an increase of approximately 34.3%-37.9% from the same period of 2022. This forecast consists of potential impact of the recent real estate-related policies and the macroeconomic recovery status that constitutes the current and preliminary view of our business situation and the market condition, which are subject to change.

The past three quarters represent significant market conditions. In the third quarter of 2022, the market was on the path of the recovery, despite the impact of the unusually hot summer, recurring pandemic outbreak in sporadic cities, and the financial strains in the New Home market. Based on historical trends, we believe the market had returned to 80% of its normalized level, and we're recording a non-GAAP net income of RMB 1,888 million during the quarter. The fourth quarter of 2022, nevertheless, was extremely difficult. The market was hit hard by the home buyers' low purchase intentions, the widespread pandemic outbreak across country. Facing these formidable challenges, we demonstrated resilient profitability with a non-GAAP net income of RMB 1,547 million.

Moving to the first quarter of 2023, the market become excessively heated driven by three factors. The regular home purchase demand, the concentrated release of pent-up demand that had been suppressed by the pandemic, and some home buyers early entering into the market for the fear of the rising prices. This led to the market rapidly rebound at the start of this year. In this extremely hot environment, we recorded a non-GAAP net income of RMB 3,561 million during the quarter. In these three consecutive neutral, extremely cold and hot markets, we maintained a remarkable profitability, which clearly demonstrates the value of our platform. We do not favor an overheating market, nor do we fear excessively cold ones.

Rather, we prefer the markets that prioritize housing is for living in, not for speculation, where supply and demand are balanced, enabling us to showcase our value and achieve the sustainable development. Particularly, in the first quarter, Beike and the platform agents remained objective and rational, become the counterforce to the market boom. In terms of our financial strategy, building upon our core business and fully optimize the cost and expense structure, we will continue to enhance the quality of our operations and foster effective growth. Our internal industry capabilities that help us survive the market adjustments, we will connect them while target the regional resources allocation to improve the collaboration quality, attract the industry to compete for the access, and improve the agents' productivity and the store's efficiency.

Regarding the New Home business, we will continue to strictly abide by our management bottom line and aim for appropriate scale expansion based on the balanced operations, financial health and risk control, and in accordance with the market conditions. Meanwhile, we will make reasonable and appropriate investment in sales and marketing based on the pace of market's recovery. We will also decisively invest in the application of cutting-edge technologies. Regarding our two wings business, Home Renovation and Furnishing, and the Rental Property Management Services, we are now in pursuit of fast scale expansion that can be done in the short term. Rather, we expect to validate our unique economy model at some core cities this year, and building the benchmark cases to replicate it in the larger scale.

In addition, we are more determined than ever to invest in our long-term capabilities, including product development capability, supply chain, and the service cost improvement, as well as continuously enhance the service providers' professional competency and elevate customer satisfaction. Overall, we will be more proactive with our initiatives that contribute to long-term growth and greater vision. Similar to what we did before with our commitment for the transparent pricing and authentic listings, we will ultimately invest in our people, our growth, and our service quality. We'll also endeavor to explore the application of new technologies, such as AI, to operational scenarios in order to tap into more productivity potential of the frontier service providers and the industry in general. The journey of 1,000 mi is made one step at a time.

In vast market of residential services, we will fortify our foundation with quality at our core, make relentless effort to improve the service providers' working environment, and bring a better housing service experience to customers. With respect to recent government guidelines, we carried out studies right away, and we'll make unremitting efforts with all parties to serve customer for joyful living. This concludes my prepared remarks. Now, we are open for questions. Operator, please go ahead.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speaker phone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. For the benefit of all participants on today's call, please limit yourself to one question. If you have additional questions, you can re-enter the queue. If you are going to ask the question in Chinese, please follow with the English translation. Today's first question comes from Harry Chen with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Harry Chen (Equity Research Analyst)

This is Harry Chen from Citigroup. Thank you, management, for the opportunity. First of all, I'd like to congratulate on extremely solid results in the first quarter. My question is regarding the general housing market. We see that the housing market was in great shape in the first quarter of this year. Have there been any structural changes in the market? A series of leading indicators since March seem to show both the Existing and the New Home markets are relatively soft. What are the company's observations of the latest market conditions, and how to interpret this leading indicator? What's the company's view about the future trends of the Existing and the New Home market, and how will the market performance differ among different city tiers? Thank you.

Tao Xu (Executive Director and CFO)

Thank you, Harry. Regarding your first question, in the first quarter, the release of pent-up home construction demand, along with the support of the easing policies, contributes to a significant rebound in China Existing and the New Home market, followed by a normalization of the market. Overall, the China housing market experienced a moderate recovery with new characteristic, including the demand for home upgrades becoming a solid driving force in the market. The Existing Home as the major market contributor, and the second-tier cities are the strongest players. In particular, in the fourth quarter, the GTV of Existing Home sales in China increased by 51% year-over-year, but was 25% lower than that in the first quarter of 2021. The GTV of the New Home sales grew by 1.4% year-over-year.

The fourth year-over-year increase in past six quarters, while GTV grows by 7% year-over-year, the second-highest year-over-year growth in history. Price-wise, Existing Home price ended their 17 consecutive quarters of decline and they grow by only 0.4% quarter-over-quarter, with the year-over-year decline narrowing to 5.5%. New home prices increased by 0.7% sequentially in the first quarter, with year-over-year decrease narrowing to 1.4%. Home upgrade demand was the main contributor to the market for the recent round recovery and future market growth. This demand come from the people that already own at least one home and are looking for the upgrade.

The proportion of the home upgrade demand exceeded 70% in the first quarter of this year, up 7 percentage points from 2019. Notably, over 45% of this demand was for the first time upgrades. The implication of this increased demand on the market as follows: Number one is client with a home upgrade demand are bound to enter the Existing Home market first, as most of the New Home channel sales customers come from the Existing Home market. New home recovery is predicated on the rally of the Existing Home market. Number two is for clients, especially for those who home upgrade demand is rigid, they are usually time sensitive as they are facing the life change event, such as getting married or have children or for the children's education.

As such, their demand cannot be met by New Home, which are mostly for delivery housing. This is a positive for the Existing Home market and the move-in ready New Homes. The third is in the market dominated by a home upgrade demand, supply and demand in the market changes simultaneously. Higher demand for the home upgrade naturally leads to more Existing Home listing without putting downwards pressure on the housing prices. Cities with the higher increase in the home listing also have larger transaction volume and higher prices. For example, at the end of the first quarter, home listing in Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Changsha, Wuxi and Chengdu rose by over 50% quarter-over-quarter. That transaction volume all grow at a higher rate with a steady price increase. Number four is due to a longer decision-making process and the higher transaction complexity.

Home upgrade transaction has a higher requirement for the professional and the quality housing services, which will promote industry upgrades. In the most recent round of market recovery, the Existing Home market significantly outperformed to the New Home market. The structural support of the home upgrade demand and delivery issue of the New Home both made the home buyers more inclined to purchase Existing Homes. As a consequence of this, the Existing Home market recovery in January already ahead of the rally in the New Home subscriptions in February. The Existing Home Transaction in various regions also accounted for a rising share of the total housing transaction, up from 32% in 2020 to 38% in the first quarter of this year. The housing market recovery of the second-tier cities was more pronounced.

In the first quarter, GTV of Existing Home sales in the second-tier cities on our platform increased by 120% year-over-year, far higher than the 40% and 105% in the first tier and the third-tier cities respectively. The greater rebound in the second-tier cities is attributable to a lower base in 2022, better local industry structure and infrastructure, stronger population appeal, and the more relaxed mortgage and the home purchase restrictions. With the New Home market, with such marginal sales recovery in the first quarter, high quality private developers have regained some of their enthusiasm for the land auction in core cities. The proportion of land acquired by the private developers in terms of value recovered from 17% in 2022 to 32% in the first quarter of this year.

The land auction premium rebounded to 3.2%. Regarding your second question, we would like to say as a market from January to May, we not only need to prevent selective blindness to the difficulties affect due to our beliefs, but also prevent ourselves from closing our eyes to any improving business data right in front of us due to the pessimism, lest we miss the opportunity of the market. It's true since March, the market has indeed experienced a certain degree of adjustment, but we need to remain calm during the significant market upswings and refrain from the being overly bearish during the market corrections. The market correction is a partly return to normalcy of the release of the pent-up demand. It also reflects the intensification of gains and the bargaining between the homeowners and the buyers, which slowed down the transaction pace.

The market rebound in the fourth quarter quickly increased the homebuyers' expectation for the higher housing prices, which are well ahead of the macroeconomic growth as the homebuyers expect income improvement. The disparity in price expectations, combined with more listing in the market from relatively New Homes intended for the home upgrades, reinforce the back and the forth between the homeowners and the buyers, slowing down the transaction pace. Nevertheless, we believe the current market adjustment is within the range of normal seasonal adjustment. The transaction volume of the adjustment remained at a relatively higher level. In April, the Existing and the New Home subscriptions still grow by over 40% year-over-year. Meanwhile, the market stabilized beginning in May. Therefore, we are still in a stage of a moderate recovery.

We believe the future market will be generally stable, but it will take more time to determine the certainty around the pace and the magnitude of this, of the market recovery. We're continuing the positive policy environment, improve the housing price expectations and the recovery of the resident income expectations, as well as the progress on the timely delivery of the presold homes will all provide support for the continuous market improvement down the road. On the policy front, a series of the supportive policies that began at the end of 2021 has underpinned recovery of the housing market in the first quarter, which acts as the anchor of the China macroeconomic development. Further policy relaxations with the room for the improvement and the deepening will drive further economy recovery.

The easing policy have recently spread to the first-tier cities and core region of the second-tier cities. Since March, cities and the district of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Beijing have relaxed their policies. The strong second-tier cities like Hefei have narrowed the scope of purchase re-restrictions. Targeted easing policy in the first-tier cities and increasingly relaxed cities in the second-tier cities and the third-tier cities will open up the home upgrade transaction channels to better fulfill home upgrade demands, further lifting the market confidence. The rest of the housing price expectation need to continuously improve. According to survey data from the Beike Research Institute, in the first quarter, the share of the respondents expecting the housing price to rise increased by nine percentage points quarter-over-quarter, which may provide support to subsequent market recovery.

As the rest of the income expectation need to improve further as well, this cannot be realized immediately after policy are relaxed. It takes more time and patience. The central bank's first quarter data already shows the improvement in resident employment and the income expectations, and also for the delivery issue of presold New Home and developers that default continue to exert pressure on the recovery of the New Home market. We did notice that delivery of presold houses has been improved this year. All these factors continue to improve, the market's moderate recovery momentum will be sustained. Going forward, the Existing Home market will continue to outperform in the New Home market, particularly in the first and the strong second-tier cities.

This is because the cities have greater room for the policy implementation and a higher proportion of Existing Homes, relatively limiting the New Home supply and inventory, as well as a stronger attraction for the population. Thank you, Harry.

Harry Chen (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you, Benjamin.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question today comes from Eddy Wang with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Eddy Wang (Executive Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you, Benjamin, for taking my question. Congratulations on the very great results. My question is that, you know, Beike has significantly outperformed the market across different business lines in the first quarter. Could you please share how the company achieved this very strong results and performance, and how should we think about your performance relative to the overall market going forward? Thank you.

Tao Xu (Executive Director and CFO)

Thank you, Eddy. In first quarter, our company significantly outperformed the market across all of our large business. Our GTV of the Existing Home sales increased by 78% year-over-year in the first quarter compared to the market growth of 51%. Our market penetration rate increased by 6.6% quarter-over-quarter. Our GTV for New Home sales increased by 44% year-over-year, compared with the market of 7% increase. Our penetration rate increased by 1% quarter-over-quarter. Firstly, we need to emphasize this, our significant short-run outperformance is similar to what happened in two years ago, that is the second quarter of 2020, follows the pandemic outbreak. We expect a return to normal interest year as well.

In Q2 2020, our market penetration of Existing and New Home increased by 6% and 2% respectively, both quarter-over-quarter. In the third quarter, as the market has normalized, our market gain has also returned to 1% increase quarter-over-quarter. The difference in the sales recognition may also be one of the reasons why our data significantly exceeds market. The Existing Home market data is based on the online registrations when transactions are closed, while our data is based on the contract signing, which leads to the online closing date by around half a month to one month. Excluding above factors, our first quarter performance also demonstrated our strong ability to capture the market opportunities during the recovery cycle.

Firstly, we supported and retained the high-quality service providers during the market downturn, which has enabled us to reap the benefit of the market recovery. Our view on the future market is that those who can attract the existing and the high-quality service providers will be the ultimate winner. In the fourth quarter, we took advantage of the recruiting season and the exit of many other players in the industry to grow our coverage of existing stores and agents. As a consequence of this, we ended the fifth and the sixth consecutive quarter of decline in the number of stores and agents respectively. Our number of active stores increased by around 6% quarter-over-quarter to over 39,600, and the number of our active agents increased by as much as 18% quarter-over-quarter, crossing the number of agent is 410,000.

Secondly, our service provider did not idle during the market downturn. They continued to improve their professional skills and consult the community friendly services during the pandemic, which earns them the long-term trust of the current and the potential customers. As the market recovers, those better-known professionals becomes customers' go-tos. In two years period of 2021-2022, 4,600 store owners completed courses in our Beike Huaqiao Academy, while agents on our platform completed over 24 million hours of professional training through various online and offline courses. Investment in enhancing the capability and accelerating the growth of both agents and the store owners will yield benefit that will transcend the market cycle. We also iterate and refine our business operation strategy. Before 2020, we focused more on growing our number of store and agents.

Beginning in this year, we will limit the number of new store and agents, leverage our analysis of the different businesses districts. We will only allow the new addition in non-saturated areas. Meanwhile, we will identify the problem in different areas and operate in a targeted manner to better support and empower store owners and the agents. Our capabilities in the Existing Home market enable us to succeed in the New Home market. More than 50% of our New Home customers come from the Existing Home market. Our proficiency in the Existing Home sales support our ability to better seize the business opportunities as the New Home market recovers. In cities where we hold advantage in the Existing Homes, we can expand our reach more significantly in the New Home market.

For example, in the first quarter, our New Home sales market penetration in the cities such as Wuhan increased by more than 5% quarter-over-quarter. Finally, a healthier ecosystem in both Existing Home and the New Home market will help establish a virtuous business cycle, naturally leading to a sustained market penetration gains. Regarding our Home Renovation and Furnishing services, the overall renovation market rebounded in the fourth quarter along with the real estate market. The contract sales of the Beike's Home Renovation and Furnishing services grew by 108% year-over-year on performance basis. In particular, referrals from our core business contributed to over 40% of total contract sales.

Leading cities such as Beijing have been witnessing a continuous improvement in their single city operational ability, with an increase in the volume of the renovation orders surpassing that of Existing Home Transactions, setting the new records of monthly profitability, along with emerging cities gradually gaining momentum, contributing more to overall performance. In summary, while our market penetration will be normalized in the short term, in the long run, we will consistently expand our reach to the wider resident services, which provide an ample room for growth with high certainty. Thank you.

Eddy Wang (Executive Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you, Tao Xu.

Tao Xu (Executive Director and CFO)

Thank you.

Eddy Wang (Executive Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Congratulations on the results again.

Tao Xu (Executive Director and CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Timothy Zhao with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Timothy Zhao (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, Stanley, Tao Xu, team. Thank you for taking my question, and congrats on the very strong results. My question is about the efficiency improvement, as you mentioned in your prepared remarks. Just wondering if management see any opportunities for further efficiency improvement after very strong Q1 results. How do you plan to achieve them? Additionally, are there any specific measures the management have in their mind for this year to further improve the quality of the services to customers? Thank you.

Stanley Peng (Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Okay, thank you for the question. Regarding efficiency improvements, we have already mentioned some ideas in our prepared remarks. The key to focus on customer experience and enhance the capabilities of stores and agents while improving our platform ecosystem and mechanisms. We have implemented many initiatives to greatly enhance the customer experience over the past 20 years. This has helped us to win customer trust and become a top choice for both customers and service providers through initiatives such as transparency, pricing, authentic listing and Housing Dictionary. Now our commitment to the protection of secure transactions. Through these efforts we have addressed many key pain points that a customer face on the transaction side as they continually improve the industry ecosystem as well as its efficiency.

As the market supply and demand gradually balance, pain points of owners become increasingly prominent. Their needs have undergone changes and ability to better meet these needs will be an important directions for enhancing customer experience in the next stage. Furthermore, this year, we will iterate our commitment system for housing transaction services, enhancing the overall customer experience by addressing core pain points. At the end of 2022, our platform offered 56 service commitments to customers in our housing transaction services. The fulfillment of these commitments is far more important than their quantity. Therefore, we will prioritize commitments that address our customers most relevant pain points and promote high quality management of our service commitments. Firstly, we will focus on more targeted brand level service commitments.

Secondly, we will steadfastly improve the quality and the fulfillment of commitments that cover key customers' pain points, such as compensation for damage caused by water leakage. Thirdly, we will provide commitment guarantees to both end customers and our business partners. For our Home Renovation and Furnishing business, the key to success lies not in customers acquisition of our marketing, but in the quality of delivery, fulfilling commitments is more important than simply making promise. To address key pain points of our renovation services, we must set clear fulfillment standards and responsibilities, enhance our fulfillment capabilities and tackle industry-wide challenges. This is next breakthrough that we are targeting. Meanwhile, the pain points for our core business customer arise more from the housing product side.

For the transaction side, the key drivers for improving efficiency lies with helping high performance agents to better and earn more and providing them with a clear career path to become experts in community and housing relative services. Only in doing so could a customer receive professional quality and diversified housing and related services. On efficiency enhancement for the long term, we have put tremendous effort. First, the average income of agents in our industry still lags far behind the average wage in our society. Only when agents have a healthy income can they maintain a long-term career and achieve higher productivity. We establish and continue to a healthy ecosystem and a competitive mechanism that awards cut-throat and efficient competition.

By providing long-term, high-performance practitioners with more resources and improving their income, we can retain them in the industry. This can be achieved through platform, system, rank refinement, adequate and reasonable coverage, efficient cooperation, professional training for store owners and agents, as well as by adopting the cost-effective large store model. Secondly, technological advancements such as AIGC continue to present opportunities for service providers to improve their efficiency. Exploring and effectively utilizing these products and tools, we'll have a lot significant efficiency for more, for our service providers in our core and emerging business. That's my answer. Thank you, Timothy Zhao.

Timothy Zhao (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question today comes from Xiaodan Zhang with CICC. Please go ahead.

Xiaodan Zhang (Equity Research Analyst)

This is Xiaodan from CICC. Thanks, management, for taking my questions, and congrats on another strong quarter. My question is on New Home Transaction Services. As mentioned in the last quarter's call, Beike planned to dynamically adjust the credit ranking of developers based on market conditions, which may in turn expand their addressable market. Could you please update me on the progress of that? Additionally, have you noticed any changes in the channel penetration rate, commission and split rate in the market? What are the measures the company has taken in response to those market changes? Thank you.

Tao Xu (Executive Director and CFO)

Thank you, Xiaodan. Beike is a company with a strategic focus. Regardless of the market conditions, we know what to do and what not to do. This is especially true for our New Home business. Last year, we established a solid foundation for the safer operation and optimized the business conduct of New Home Transaction Service industry. We have improved the service capability for the high-quality SOE developers. In Q1, the proportion of the New Home sales had increased to nearly 46%. Our cooperation with a larger number of SOE developers is also a validation of our ability to provide the high-quality service and our high sales efficiency. We have transformed the industry payment mechanism to protect the receivable security of the service providers.

Projects with the commission advance have higher sales efficiency than those without, which is a win-win situation for all parties involved. We have also established a safer work environment for both consumers and service providers. This is the right choice, regardless of the market environment. In this year, the overall market is experiencing a moderate recovery. Strategic-wise, we will maintain consistent and stability without focusing on the short term or being overly aggressive and blindly pursue scale. We will focus on the better collaboration with upstream developers and further safeguard the interest of all of the service providers in Beike platform. First, we have set minimum commissions bid with our channel partners to prevent the blind pursuit of profit, which would lead to a deterioration of the downstream ecosystem.

Second, we are strengthening the requirements of the reciprocal protection period, which extend our receivable requirements to ensure the equal protection of the agents and the developers. Third, the refined management, we are strengthening the management of the New Home sales external channel to achieve the tiered management, further empowerment, and to allocate the resources more efficiently to them. We also conduct the rating for the New Home projects in order to better organize and allocate our agents to accelerate the sales through of the high-quality listing, therefore improving the efficiency. Fourthly, we are enhancing our efforts in ecosystem governance with more than 5,000 cooperating New Home projects implementing a private phone number protection services. More than 4,000 New Home projects covered by a commitment from both developers and the platform to transparent operations.

With our full strategic initiatives and a stable market environment, we expect our New Home business will achieve a more win-win situation, greater safety, and more dynamic growth in this year. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We're approaching the end of the conference call. I will now turn the call over to your speaker host today, Ms. Siting Li, for closing remarks.

Siting Li (Investor Relations Director)

Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact Beike's investor relations team through the contact information provided on our website. This concludes today's call, and we look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Thank you and goodbye.