Huize Holding Limited - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Huize's First Quarter 2025 Learning Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in the listen-only mode. After the management prepare remarks, we will have a question-and-answer session. This conference call is being recorded, and the webcast replay will be available on Huize's IR website at ir.huize.com under the Events and Webcast section. I would like to hand the conference over to your physical host today, Mr. Kenny Lo, Huize's Investor Relations Manager. Please go ahead, Kenny.

Kenny Lo (Investor Relations Manager)

Thank you, Operator. Hello everyone, and welcome to our First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Our financials and operational results were released earlier today and are currently available on both our IR website and GlobeNewswire Services. Before we continue, I would like to refer you to the safe harbor statement in our earnings press release, which also applies to this call as we will be making forward-looking statements. Please also note that we will discuss non-GAAP measures today, which are more thoroughly explained in our earnings release and filings with the SEC. Joining us today are our Founder and CEO, Mr. Cunjun Ma, COO, Mr. Li Jiang, Co-CFO, Mr. Ming Han Xiao, and Co-CFO, Mr. Ron Tam. Mr. Ma will start the call by providing an overview of the company's performance and operational highlights, followed by Mr. Tam, who will go over our financial results for the first quarter 2025.

We will open up the call for questions. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Ma.

Cunjun Ma (Founder and CEO)

[Foreign language] 大家好，欢迎大家参加辉泽2025年的第一季度业绩发布电话会。

Kenny Lo (Investor Relations Manager)

Hello everyone, and thank you for joining Huize's First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call.

Cunjun Ma (Founder and CEO)

[Foreign language] 2025年，面对宏观经济与国际格局的持续波动，辉泽始终坚守以客户为中心。基于多年来对用户需求的深刻理解，我们前瞻把握市场趋势，携手了头部保险公司持续完善产品矩阵。与此同时，我们加快推进了AR技术在各个业务环节的深度应用，实现了显著的降本增效，为长期价值创造奠定了坚实的基础。一季度，公司实现了总营收2.8亿元，促成总保费14.4亿元，环比增长了38%。其中，首年保费达到了7.3亿元，环比增长了31%。续期保费7.1亿元，环比增长了46%。

Kenny Lo (Investor Relations Manager)

In 2025, against the backdrop of ongoing macroeconomic and geopolitical volatility, Huize upholds its customer-centric approach. Leveraging years of insights into customers' needs, we stay ahead of market trends and now working alongside leading insurers, continually expanding and refining our product offerings. At the same time, we are accelerating the integration of AI across our operations, driving remarkable productivity improvements and further optimizing our cost structure to lay the solid foundation for long-term value creation. In the first quarter, operating revenue exceeded RMB 280 million, with gross written premiums and first-year premiums facilitated on our platform increasing 38% and 31% sequentially, reaching RMB 1.4 billion and RMB 730 million, respectively. Renewal premiums also grew 46% sequentially to approximately RMB 710 million.

Cunjun Ma (Founder and CEO)

[Foreign language] 累计投保用户突破了1,100万人，当季新增用户39万，其中长期险投保用户平均年龄为35岁，二线及以上城市用户占比连续多个季度稳定在35%以上。以首年保费计算，长期险建军保费达到了5,400元，环比上升了58%，反映公司长期深耕高价值客户群的经营成就显著。截止今年2月底，长期险第13个月和第25个月年度累计继续率持续高于95%，稳居行业领先水平。

Kenny Lo (Investor Relations Manager)

Huize remains committed to providing full-life cycle insurance solutions for its high-value customers. By quarter end, our cumulative number of users surpassed 11 million, with 390,000 new clients added during the quarter. The average age of long-term insurance customers was 35, with over 65% residing in high-tier cities, where we have consistently achieved this percentage over the past few quarters. In terms of FYP, the average ticket size for long-term product rose 58% to over RMB 5,400, underscoring the effectiveness of our sustainable customer strategy. As of the end of February, 13th and 25th month persistency ratios for long-term insurance maintained industry-leading levels of over 95%.

Cunjun Ma (Founder and CEO)

[Foreign language] 截止一季度末，辉泽与143家保险公司保持稳定合作关系，持续创新推出差异化的定制产品。2025年以来，银行存款和理财产品收益呈现下行趋势，客户财富保障需求进一步凸显。辉泽联合新华人寿迭代推出快享服3号，旨在通过成本取息的方式守住老百姓的钱袋子，充分发挥储蓄类保险长期稳健的保值增值。

Kenny Lo (Investor Relations Manager)

As of the end of March, we had strong partnerships with.

Cunjun Ma (Founder and CEO)

[Foreign language] 此外，辉泽也在增加分红险品种的定制能力。在中英福满加系列的基础上，我们联合陆家嘴国泰人寿推出金满一族6号分红型增值终身险，携手复兴保德信人寿推出新海汇选的分红型养老年金。在市场整体从固定收益型产品向浮动收益型产品转型时期，进一步巩固了辉泽在国内分红险的领导地位。与此同时，配合集团国际化的战略布局，辉泽联合招商信诺人寿推出了小淘气全球版的少儿重疾，依托保持在海外的优质资源，崭新支持了全球理赔及海外就医等安排。

Kenny Lo (Investor Relations Manager)

As of the end of March, we had strong partnerships with 143 insurance companies and continue to develop and launch differentiated customized products with insurer partners. With declining use on traditional bank deposits and wealth management products, demand for wealth protection solutions has intensified. In response, we partnered with New China Life to launch Bliss No 3, a savings product striving to achieve sustainable returns for customers. Additionally, we expanded our portfolio of customized participating products, building on the "Fu Man Jian" series co-launched with Aviva-COFCO. We partnered with Cathay Lujiazui Life Insurance on Jin Man Yi Zu No. 6, a participating incremental whole life insurance product. This was followed by the launch of Xing Hai Hui Xuan, a participating annuity product co-developed with Pramerica Fosun Life Insurance.

These customized products were designed to cater to the industry-wide demand shift from fixed returns to floating returns, further solidifying our leadership in China's participating insurance segment. In view of our global expansion strategy, we introduced Xiao Tao Qi Global, a children's critical illness product co-developed with Cigna and CMB Life Insurance that leverages their overseas resources to offer global client settlement and overseas medical support.

Cunjun Ma (Founder and CEO)

[Foreign language] 随着生成式AR和AR智能体的不断革新，固有企业工作的工作流模式产生了颠覆式的变化。辉泽持续实施AR+战略，为业务场景、内部运营等各个领域落地AR应用，提升服务体验和内部效率。基础建设上，我们已经在企业内部部署了辉泽AR智能体开发平台，锐意构建自主的AR生产力。在充分使用开源人工智能模型的政策主导下，我们积极地推行大模型的私有化部署，确保核心数据不出狱，满足金融级的安全合规要求。另一方面，公司积极推行低代码的AR智能体开发，支持各部门通过可视化的工具自主开发AR智能体，进行全员生产力革命，让AR智能体已成为辉泽新一代的数字员工，助力企业迈向智能化方向发展。一季度，公司实现成本结构持续优化，销售费用、管理费用、研发费用等三项运营费用合计环比下降了29%，体现显著的降本增效。

Kenny Lo (Investor Relations Manager)

The rapid advancement of generative AI and AI agents is transforming traditional enterprise workflows. Under our AI+ strategy, we continue to enhance both the user experience and operational efficiency. We have deployed the Huize AI agent development platform internally with a goal of developing independent AI productivity. Leveraging open-source AI models, we have implemented private domain deployment of large language models to ensure data security and regulatory compliance. At the same time, we are actively promoting the development of local AI agents to accelerate AI agent creation using visualization tools. This is driving a company-wide productivity revolution with AI agents acting as a new generation of digital employees. In the quarter, we have further optimized our cost structure and reduced operating expenses, with total operating expenses falling by 29% sequentially.

Cunjun Ma (Founder and CEO)

[Foreign language] 辉泽一直贯彻以客户为中心的原则，致力于通过创新科技打造个性化的保险服务体验。一季度，我们正式上线了AR APP智能入口，为客户提供7×24小时的在线保险代理支持。AR服务已覆盖授权咨询、保险产品推荐等核心场景，达到了日均服务超过1.5万人。同时，我们全面重构了用户售后服务流程体验，其中小马理赔AR智能体正逐步实现了报案、审核、赔付全流程的自动化。目前，我们已完成理赔报案全场景的AR化，并将陆续向APP与小程序开发。在全面上线后，小马闪赔的整体效率预料会从一天压缩到一小时，为客户提供最高效的理赔体验。小马理赔持续为理赔客户提供可靠安心的保险理赔服务。一季度，小马理赔总金额达到1.9亿元，总结案件数达到了36,000件。

Kenny Lo (Investor Relations Manager)

Our customer-centric approach leverages innovative technologies to deliver personalized insurance service experiences. During the quarter, we launched an AI-powered smart portal on Huize's app, offering 24/7 insurance agent support. Our AI services now cover key customer lifecycle touchpoints, including policy inquiries and product matching, serving an average of over 15,000 users daily. We are also revolutionizing after-sales claims processing through Xiaoma Claims AI agents, achieving end-to-end automation of claims reporting, review, and payout. With AI now capable of handling all claims reporting, we are now working to extend this innovative feature to our apps and mini programs. This innovation is expected to reduce processing time on Xiaoma Flash Claim from one day to one hour upon full rollout. During the quarter, Xiaoma Claims facilitated RMB 190 million in claims across 36,000 cases, providing customers with efficient and reliable insurance claim services.

Cunjun Ma (Founder and CEO)

[Foreign language] PVI Insurance 公司上线五年期及十年期的重疾险，丰富产品线的同时，满足客户多元化的保障需求。Pony Insurance Tech 为越南保险市场持续赋能，带来创新变革，标志着集团国际化进一步重要的里程碑。我们正在有序地推进新加坡、菲律宾等海外市场的业务，稳步迈向 2026 年海外应收占比 30% 的目标。

Kenny Lo (Investor Relations Manager)

Our international brand, Poni Insurtech, continues to deliver strong growth momentum, underscoring the vast and tactical potential of Southeast Asia. Our Vietnamese operation, Global Care, maintained solid traction and grew total policy count by 29% compared to the first quarter in 2024. The growth rate in premiums and revenue increased by 35% and 34% year-over-year, respectively. We recently partnered with Viettel Post, a leading logistics service provider in the region, to expand our distribution network, further growing our team of independent financial advisors and enhancing the reach and conversion capabilities of the GTech platform. On the product side, Global Care launched five-year and ten-year critical illness insurance products in collaboration with PVI Insurance, enriching our product portfolio to better meet customers' diverse protection needs.

Poni Insurtech continues to drive the transformation of the Vietnamese insurance market through innovation and marks a crucial milestone of our international expansion. We are making steady progress in expanding into Singapore and other overseas markets, and are on track to achieve our goal of reaching 30% of total revenue contribution from international markets by 2026.

sustainable returns for shareholders.

Global macro and geopolitical conditions remain volatile, yet insurance demand in China and across Asia stays resilient with digital adoption accelerates. Drawing on deep customer insights and AI-driven product innovation, and strong momentum in Vietnam and other Southeast Asian markets, Huize delivered another quarter of solid growth and operating agility. Looking ahead, we will widen our range of savings and have products for high-value clients, embedding ourselves host a large language model platform across the service chain to lift efficiency and experience. Internationally, Poni Insurtech further taps into Singapore and other priority markets, keeping us on cross-overseas revenue targets. Grounded in product innovation, customer experience, and AI enablement, Huize will continue to create win-win value for insurers and customers while delivering sustainable long-term returns for shareholders.

Cunjun Ma (Founder and CEO)

[Foreign language] 接下来，请我们的 CFO Ron 给大家详细解读我们的业绩和财务数据。

Kenny Lo (Investor Relations Manager)

This concludes my prepared remarks for today. I will now turn the call to our CFO, Mr. Ron Tam, who will provide an overview of our key financial highlights for the first quarter.

Ron Tam (Co-CFO)

Thank you, Mr. Ma and Kenny. Good evening, everyone in Asia, and good morning for those in the U.S. It's Ron here. Despite a challenging macroeconomic and geopolitical environment, we have delivered yet another quarter of resilient performance, during which the first quarter for both total gross written premiums, GWP, and first-year premiums facilitated on our platform increasing by 37.8% and 30.9% sequentially, reaching CNY 1.4 billion and CNY 730 million, respectively. Total operating revenue remained at CNY 284 million. Our financial position remains very robust, with a combined balance of cash liquidity of around CNY 202 million, or $28 million, as of the end of the March quarter. This resilient performance was driven by our efficient omnichannel distribution network, our focused efforts to continue to acquire high-quality customers from the market, and the deployment of advanced proprietary AI solutions.

Crucially, we have made significant progress in executing on our international expansion strategy, which is a key growth driver for long-term sustainable growth for the company. Our strategic focus has remained on long-term insurance products, which continue to account for over 90% of total GWP facilitated on the platform. Leveraging on our robust omnichannel distribution network and advanced AI solutions, we are significantly strengthening customer acquisition and engagement, adding approximately 390,000 new customers during the first quarter of 2025. This brings our total customer base count to 11 million as of the end of the first quarter. In addition, repeat purchase ratio for our long-term insurance products stood at a very high level of 38%, demonstrating our ability to continue to unlock the lifetime value of our high-quality customer base through effective upselling and cross-selling.

We've also seen reasonable reductions in all three kinds of operating expenses, ranging from 15%-48% quarter over quarter, which has improved our expense-to-income ratio by 11.5 percentage points quarter over quarter to 29% in the first quarter of 2025. In addition, total operating expenses have fallen by 29% compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. The reduction reflects decisive actions in continued workplace optimization, broad deployment of AI-driven automation, which has sharply reduced manual workloads and boosted efficiency throughout the business flow. These results demonstrate the strength of our intelligent cost control framework in delivering real cost savings and productivity gains in the business. A clear illustration of our AI-driven productivity gains is the use of localized AI avatars in marketing. These avatars can replicate a human voice and appearance in under a minute, producing highly engaging insurance content that is virtually indistinguishable from a live presenter.

Integrated with our content management platform, the system now automates script generation, video editing, and distribution, creating a seamless end-to-end workflow. As a result, we are scaling our social media presence with richer, more compelling content while materially reducing production time and cost. Our international growth engine, Poni Insurtech, delivered yet another solid quarter and remained central to our long-term strategy. Building on the success of our proprietary AI toolset in China, we are now looking to deploy these solutions across our overseas operations to streamline workflows and deliver a more personalized customer journey. Vietnam continues to provide a robust proof of concept for our Southeast Asia playbook, and we are making steady progress towards entering Singapore this year. These initiatives will further diversify our revenue mix and establish additional scalable growth drivers for the group.

In closing, we believe that we are well positioned to capture the opportunities emerging from China's rapidly evolving insurance landscape and the broader Asian market. Domestically, robust demand for long-term protection underpins a healthy, sustainable growth trajectory across the value chain. Internationally, Poni Insurtech allows us to replicate and apply our China-proven model and proprietary AI capabilities to high-growth Southeast Asian markets, particularly among the young, rapidly expanding middle class. By combining advanced data analytics, end-to-end AI enablement, and disciplined market penetration, we aim to cement Huize's status as Asia's premier insurance tech platform, seamlessly connecting consumers, carriers, and distribution partners, and delivering durable value to all stakeholders. We now open up the call to questions. Thank you very much, and over to you, Operator.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question on the phone, please press star 11 and wait for a name to be announced. To cancel your request, please press star 11 again. One moment for the first question. Our first question comes from Amy Chen from Citi. Please go ahead.

Amy Chen (Investment Banking Associate)

Hi, this is Amy from Citi. Thank you for the opportunity for me to ask a couple of questions. The first one would be regarding selling expenses. We noted that the first-year premiums facilitated in the first quarter saw around 15% year-over-year decline. However, selling expenses was up by 7%. Where's the gap here? The second question is on sales momentum in the second quarter and your outlook for the rest of 2025. The industry is expecting another round of pricing rate cuts in the third quarter. Has this somehow boosted customer demand so far? Thank you.

Ron Tam (Co-CFO)

Thank you, Amy. It's a pleasure to have you again on the call. I know that you had three questions to you just now. The first one is regarding the year-on-year decline on FYP versus an increase in selling expenses, I believe, right? I think to address the question on the FYP decline, I would note that in 2024, in the first quarter, there was actually a pricing cut effective during the quarter, which has also led to much sales during that quarter. I think effectively we are comparing the first quarter of 2024 versus a relatively high base for the first quarter of last year. I think that has to do with a high base effect for 2023, albeit that in the first quarter of this year, we have further driven our revenue growth from not just domestic, but also from international markets.

That has to do with the reasons I just cited on the high base effect of last year. On the gap between the FYP downturn and the channel increase, I would note that the international business in terms of gross margins is relatively lower than the domestic business. Therefore, I think that has been reflected in what you noted in terms of the gross margin decline in the first quarter of 2025. On your second question regarding the outlook for the rest of the year, we do think that Q1 for 2025 is probably the rock bottom for this year. In Q2, we are seeing a very decent momentum. Obviously, the international market is still in a high growth phase.

For the domestic China market, we are seeing a revival of growth, given that the transition to the power products has basically been complete over the last two quarters, and channels have adjusted to the new product regime. I think that in Q2, we are seeing growth across different products. What you noted, that the expectation for a further pricing rate cut on August 31, which is now widely rumored and expected to be put in place, we do expect that there will be an effect on rush sales in the third quarter, particularly in the months of July and August, where we have seen similar situations in the last year and also in the past few years as well. Although we would note that the pricing rate at this time, because relatively speaking versus previous episodes, is relatively muted.

Given that we're already in a sort of 2% handle kind of return level, the incitement for consumers to purchase would probably see a diluted effect versus what we have seen in the past years. We do expect that Q3 will be strong, with August being the peak for domestic sales of savings products. Hope that answers your question, Amy.

Amy Chen (Investment Banking Associate)

Yeah, thank you, Ron.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for the questions. One moment for the next question. Next question comes from the line of Kenny Lim of UOB Kay Hian. Please go ahead.

Kenny Lim (Equity Research Analyst)

Good evening, Ron. I'm Kenny from UOB. I have two questions for my end. The first one, how do you expect the enforcement of balancing across the agency channels to affect your two-year business? How does it change the overall industry competitive landscape? My second question is about the latest international revenue contribution in first quarter. Also, what is the latest progress of your business expansion plan in Singapore and Philippines? Yeah, that's all.

Ron Tam (Co-CFO)

Thank you. Thank you, Kenny, for your support. Two questions. One on balancing KEI, which is the regulatory rule change impacting commissions for various channels. Given that we have lived through this regulatory change in the last 12 months now, and we do hear and expect that similar measures will be implemented and imposed upon the tied agency channel, which you have noted in your question. If such a measure would be implemented in the second half of this year, we do expect that the so-called impact on our business would be positive because what that means is that the playing field is leveled among the different channels, among bankers, brokers, and agencies, tied agencies. Therefore, we do expect that there will be a continued so-called exodus of agents from the tied agency model into independent third-party platforms such as ourselves.

We would likely be capturing an additional influx of productive agents if such a measure will be implemented on the agency channel. On the overall market, I would think that a similar observation will be seen across our competitors as well. As a whole, I think the market would continue to gravitate towards a more independent third-party kind of broker agency distribution model. We do note that right now in China, the third-party intermediary still accounts for less than 10%. I think still 5%-6% of overall premium distribution versus what we see in more mature and developed markets such as Japan or Hong Kong or even Singapore, where we see that intermediary broker agency distribution is as much as 30%-50% of the market.

In the long-term secular trend, we do see that the intermediation of premium distribution will continue to be in favor of platforms such as ourselves. The second point that I would note here is that we do see that independent financial advisors or independent agents are increasingly favoring platforms where they can get access to a wide variety of products from different providers such as ourselves. We have over 100 products on our platform that we can facilitate for agents to serve the customers. Also, especially in the digital age whereby agents would require digital tools to serve the customers and to make sure that the customers have a very efficient and digital purchase journey. For the likes of the incumbents, this may be a difficult solution to be provided and where we have a very clear and strong advantage on the competition.

Overall, we do think that the impact will be positive, and we would wait and see when the measures will be implemented on the agency channel. Your second question on international market expansion, we are very much on track in terms of our expansion into Singapore. We would likely be able to give a further material update in our next earnings call as to what our Singapore development has materialized into, hopefully into an operational status by the third quarter. We are working very closely with regulators in the meantime to finalize arrangements and to make sure that our recruitment of necessary personnel for the business is in place. Our target is to be in business on this model by the third quarter of this year. Philippines, we are still progressing.

Given that we are now prioritizing Singapore as a business development market, we likely will see Philippines in the second half of this year. Thank you, Kenny.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for the questions. With that, I'd like to hand the call back to Kenny for closing remarks.

Kenny Lo (Investor Relations Manager)

Thank you, Operator. In closing, on behalf of Huize's management team, we would like to thank you for your participation in today's call. If you require any further information, feel free to reach out to us. Thank you for joining us today. This concludes the call.