NaaS Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:NAAS) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call March 28, 2024 7:00 AM ET

Company Participants

John Wang - Director, IR
Cathy Wang Yang - CEO
Wu Ye - Chief Strategy Officer
Alex Wu - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Kelly Zou - Jefferies
Wei Xiong - UBS
Eugene Hsiao - Macquarie Capital
Yiran Liu - HSBC
Ethan Zhang - Nomura

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to NaaS Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. John Wang, Director of Investor Relations. Thank you, please go ahead.

John Wang

Thank you, operator, and hello everyone. And welcome to NaaS fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023 earnings conference call. The company's results were issued earlier today and are posted online. Joining me on the call today are Ms. Cathy Wang Yang, our Chief Executive Officer; Ms. Wu Ye [ph], our Chief Strategy Officer, and Mr. Alex Wu, our President and Chief Financial Officer.

For today's agenda, Ms. Wang will provide an overview of our recent performance and highlights. Ms. Wu will discuss our operating results and Mr. Wu will go through our financial highlights.

Before we continue, I refer you to our Safe Harbor statement in the earnings press release, which applies to this call as we will make forward-looking statements. Also, please note that this call includes discussions of certain non-IFRS financial measures. Please refer to our earnings release, which contains a reconciliation of non-IFRS measures to the most comparable IFRS measures. Finally, please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during this conference call are in RMB.

I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Ms. Cathy Wang Yang. Kathy, please go ahead.

Cathy Wang Yang

Hello, everyone. I'm NaaS’ CEO, Cathy Wang. It's my pleasure to share NaaS’ fourth quarter and the full year 2023 earnings results with all of you and to discuss our recent developments.

In 2023, both our business skill and revenue saw substantial growth. A host of strategic initiatives diversified our income structure, promoting sustainable revenue growth and improving profitability.

Total revenue for the full year reached RMB320 million, a year-over-year increase of 245%, while gross profit increased 14 times to RMB89 million. Our full year gross profit margin extended from 6.6% to 27.7% year-over-year and non-IFRS net margin narrowed by 162% year-over-year.

On the operations front, we steadily expanded our charging network. Our full year charging volume reached nearly 5,000 gigawatt hours, an 81% year-over-year increase, while the total number of new energy vehicles in China increased by 55.8% during the same period. Meanwhile, we strive to improve profitability, our Mobility Connectivity Services, net take rate, has risen for five consecutive months since September 2023, turning positive in January 2024 and continues to expand in February.

While maintaining our strong market position in charging services, we also explored new business models to further diversify our income streams. Revenues from energy solutions reached RMB187 million for the full year 2023, accounting for over 58% of total revenues. This segment growth reflects our progress in shifting from an energy service provider to a comprehensive energy solution provider. Going forward, we will continue to lead the charging services market while exploring new paths to income diversification. The strong foundation we built in 2023 will empower us to consistently improve revenue and profitability, propelling the company's steady development.

Now I will turn things over to Ms. Ye Wu, our newly appointed CSO, for a closer look at our operating results.

Wu Ye

Thanks Cathy and hello everyone. I'd like to start with a brief overview of how we are leveraging AI in our business. Our AI-powered analytic capabilities are the core advantage driving our profitability.

On the supply side, we depend on AI to optimize network performance, predict maintenance needs and reduce operational costs. On the client side, AI analysis helps us understand usage patterns and efficiently deploy resources. Through refined operations and strategic pricing adjustments, we have achieved a healthy balance between growth and profitability. This AI-driven approach has propelled our growth, expanded our market share and solidified our position as an innovator in the new energy sector.

As our CEO mentioned, we are fast becoming a global provider of comprehensive energy solutions, leveraging our advantage in digital technology, artificial intelligence and various other areas. We empower the development of the entire new energy industry chain. Our power spans a diverse range of new energy-related services, such as AI-based site selection and asset assessment for charging operators and intelligent operation and maintenance services for charging stations. We can also act as a virtual power plant for grid aggregation.

Furthermore, we offer AI-driven risk control models for funders and financial institutions to accelerate asset-side development, thereby propelling the expansion of the entire industry chain. In short, we can address the full spectrum of new energy scenarios with tailored, proven, effective solutions.

In addition to cultivating broad in-house capabilities, we have constantly expanded our partnership to quickly diversify and optimize our income structure. In early 2024, we announced a collaboration with Foshan Chengcheng City Construction Group to advance regional new energy infrastructure construction. We have also partnered with China Construction Third Engineering Bureau in the fields of new energy and new infrastructure to jointly promote charging network development.

Furthermore, in February, we won the Zhejiang Energy Bureau's Governance and Supervision Service Platform construction Project, becoming a provincial government supplier in Zhejiang province and contributing our expertise to the construction of charging infrastructure. This marked another significant milestone for NaaS in Zhejiang's new energy sector, following a successful solar panel energy storage, charging, and battery swapping integrated construction project in Anji.

Also, in terms of automaker partnership, we cooperated with Great Wall Motors, GAC Energy, and Deepal Automotive to expand the new energy vehicle charging services network, enhance user experience, and broaden user acquisition channels.

Before I hand it over to our CFO, let me share an update on our ESG efforts. NaaS is deeply committed to ESG, with the overarching goal of enhancing global transportation, energy efficiency, and sustainability. This month, we were invited to participate in the 6th United Nations Environment Assembly, where we shared energy innovations combining green and digital elements. Our solutions stand as a powerful demonstration of China's commitment to global transportation, energy transformation, and environmental governance.

In addition, we recently received a climate change B-level rating certification from the Global Environmental Information Research Center, surpassing the global average C-level rating. As always, we remain dedicated to the field of green development and global carbon neutrality.

With that, I'll give the floor to our CFO, Alex for a deeper dive into our financials.

Alex Wu

Thanks, Vivian. I'll start with a review of our results for the fourth quarter of 2023. In the fourth quarter, we increased our total revenues by a substantial 119% year-over-year, to RMB64.4 million. This robust growth mainly stems from our mobility connectivity business, which has consistently recorded month-over-month upticks in profitable orders since September 2023, both in terms of their proportion of the total charging volume and total gross transactions.

This impressive growth is predominantly the result of our sophisticated data-driven pricing strategy. Additionally, our energy solutions business revenue increased 144% year-over-year, largely due to our ongoing delivery of comprehensive energy solutions, including renewable energy generation, energy management, and storage solutions.

Looking at the full year, 2023 was a record-breaking year for NaaS, with all-time high performances in each of our core financial metrics. We drove transformative growth and evolved strategically, solidifying our position as a leader in the energy digitalization sector. As Cathy mentioned, for the full year, our annual revenue grew by an astounding 245%, year-over-year, to an all-time high of RMB320.1 million. Our tremendous growth reflects scalability of our business model and the increasing demand for our services.

We made significant advancements across three key metrics. The charging volume through NaaS network, which increased by 81% to 4,968 gigawatt-hours. The gross transaction volume, which rose by 64%, to RMB4.7 billion. And the numbers of orders, which surged by 75%, to RMB213.8 million, equivalent to 6.8 orders transacted through NaaS network per second. Each of these metrics highlights our central role in driving the expansion of the industry's new energy ecosystem and contributes directly to our revenue growth.

Our primary focus has been on refining our operational efficiency across our core business segments, setting clear and ambitious goals for H1. In this way, we increased our three-year gross profit 14-fold from RMB6.2 million in 2022 to RMB88.8 million in 2023. This also drove our gross margin up from 6.6% in 2022 to 27.7% in 2023. Moreover, our non-IFRS net profit margin narrowed by 162%. The improvement in our margin was mainly due to the increased profitability in our charging services, where we're gaining more operating leverage with fixed costs accounting for a smaller portion of our growing revenue base.

Positive momentum in our gross and net take rate shows that we're advancing with greater operational efficiency. Our net take rate turned positive for the first time in January 2024 with a positive NTR of 0.75% in February, marking the sixth consecutive month of NTR growth since September 2023. Similarly, we've seen a consistent upward trend in our gross take rate, which improved to 13.02% in February, underscoring our operations-improving fundamentals.

With a notable 65% year-over-year increase in transaction volume in the fourth quarter, the progress has climbed in both NTR and GTR further underscores the effectiveness of our refined operational strategy and demonstrates our strong customer-sickness.

Our strategic focus remains on high-quality growth and improving profitability as we forge ahead under this approach. Our initiatives to enhance operational efficiency and streamline processes are yielding tangible results, placing us on a strong trajectory to reach monthly break-even at the average level by the end of 2024.

In summary, NaaS is firmly on the path toward global leadership in new energy asset management. Our journey is marked by both strong revenue growth and enhanced operational efficiency, driving our sustained growth and advancement in the new energy domain.

This concludes our prepared remarks for today. Operator, we are now ready to take questions. Thank you.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Kelly Zou from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Kelly Zou

Thanks, management, for the presentation. This is Kelly Zou from Jefferies. I have two questions today. Firstly, I would like to ask about what your strategic focus in 2024. And second is about the margin outlook. So basically, what is your view on your Chinese service business margin expansion sustainability in the next two to three years and the key drivers of the market expansion if you can share with me today? Thanks.

Wu Ye

Thanks, Kelly. I'd be happy to answer your first question. And firstly, in 2024, we will prioritize margin improvements and aim to achieve profit for a season while preserving our leading position in our platform and network. We're confident in our ability to deliver this result and remain committed to our long-term strategy.

And from a perspective of margin enhancement, historically, the majority of our laws have been attributed to the use of subsidies in our earliest stage to charging service business. We are encouraged to see NTR turn positive in 2024. Meanwhile, our overhead expenses remain relatively constant. So consequently, we are on track to achieve profitability by the end of 2024.

And secondly, on the market expansion side, we have maintained a robust growth trajectory across all of our major metrics. Our expansive ground force of over 100 personnel is repeatedly deployed throughout China to engage with all CPOs. Furthermore, an impressive 70% of our users are organically acquired, highlighting our strength in branding and user acquisition channels. Moreover, once we successfully bring together users and CPOs on our platform, we build out our digital analytic capabilities to empower the charging station stakeholders in expanding their infrastructure and enhancing their operational efficiency.

As you can see in our fast-growing charging service and energy system business, we will continue to leverage our technological strengths to monetize through our diverse business channels. In conclusion, NaaS is dedicated to improving the stability and efficiency of the global energy transportation network. With our strong technological capabilities, we are becoming a leading energy asset operator and contribute our effort in the grand paradigm shift of the energy transition.

And next, I believe Alex is going to answer your first and second question.

Alex Wu

Yeah, Kelly, let me answer your question regarding growth and margin. From growth perspective, first, let's look at markets. We're at the very early stage of EV penetration in China with only 5% of the vehicles on the road that are EV. Third-party report suggests that charging volume will grow at a CAGR of about 50% in the next seven to eight years, which means the market will grow 16 times by 2030. And public charging, as we both know, will continue to dominate as it's more efficient and requires less infrastructure investment than private charging in China.

NaaS in this very promising market is holding a leading position. And we have some unique capabilities which will sustain both our growth and our margin improvement. Number one is the analytics capabilities in that we leverage the AI-based digital technology to drive insights and enable use cases like real-time dynamic pricing. We also have a very strong local BD team with more than 100 people in cities. These are the people that understand the local charging market the best, and they have what we called hands-on approach of all the major cities in China in terms of charging.

We also connect to a large number of CPOs. By 2023 year-end, we connect to more than 4,000 CPOs, and we connect to more than 5 million users. As we continue to expand this network, a holistic offering of services can bring EV drivers and station owners together. So with the hyper-growing underlying market, a leading position in this market, and key capabilities that are unique and difficult to replicate, I have great confidence that our growth will be sustained.

Same thing can be said for the margin. The connectivity business, the largest part of our business, is currently enjoying a gross profit margin north of 80%, which is super high. Our NTR, as we mentioned in our early release, has been lifted in five consecutive months, along with an expanded NTR. Given the steady growth and controlled overhead, our gross profit will likely gradually cover expenses and margin. That explains why we set the priorities to improve margin and reach EBIT breakeven, echoed to what Vivian just mentioned.

Thank you, Kelly.

Kelly Zou

Thanks, Alex and Vivian.

Operator

Thank you for the questions. Our next question comes from the line of [Indiscernible] from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Thanks for taking my question. So I have two questions. The first is, you just mentioned the company will reach net profit breakeven this year by the year end. Could you share more details on how you will control the overall cost and improve the profitability from the bottom line perspective? So my second question is about the user growth. Given you have reduced the subsidies a lot this year, so can you share more color on how you are able to achieve online user acquisition and GMV growth? Thank you.

Alex Wu

Great. Thanks, Kim. Your first question regarding breakeven, we are confident on the goal. The goal is that we will achieve monthly EBIT breakeven by the end of this year, 2024. There are a couple of drivers for the breakeven. Number one, historically, part of our loss was due to subsidies to charging users, especially in the early stage of the charging service business. Since January 2024, we have managed to maintain our NTR as positive. Hence, our transaction level become profitable. I'm confident that we will be able to manage this NTR level for the rest of 2024.

Meanwhile, energy solution business, continue to contribute gross profit and more gross profit as the business scale up and maintain a stable gross profit margin. Besides, the overhead from our back end, are quite stable and well controlled. So if you put these things together, as a result, with gross profit from our existing business lines scale up and a stable overhead, and with a clear sign of profitability for our main charging service business. Our margin will continue to improve and we'll be able to reach monthly EBIT breakeven by the end of 2024.

So, for your second question, Kim, regarding the online user acquisition and GMV growth, how can we sustain that with reduced user subsidies? I have a couple of things to say. Well, let's start. I would like to probably take a step back and look at the market again. China is a very big country with a lot of cities in different tiers. And EV charging service, as we both know, is a localized market. So each city is different.

Our experience is that the more balanced of the local supply and demand, the higher the profitability of the whole value chain in the charging space. The natural increase of EV ownership and traffic will gradually yield a higher profitability for both CPOs and for us and further reduce the need and of course, to acquire users through subsidies. So that's a view from the market.

Secondly, the view for our operation. We have been making efforts to leverage our market know-how to acquire and maintain users more efficiently. I'll give you a couple of examples. For example, we have deployed a multi-tier membership system that can meet more specified needs for different types of users, such as taxi drivers, private car owners, commercial vehicle drivers, and so on. We also have leveraged our AI technology to further improve our efficiency of the CPOs in our platform by optimizing the real-time charging price for those operators.

Our effort is recognized by our fast-improving operating numbers even when we are reducing user subsidies. For example, we achieved a 114% year-over-year growth in charging service revenue, 55% year-over-year growth in charging volume, 48% year-over-year growth in transaction orders, and 47% growth in GMV. These fast-growing numbers suggest a strong user stickiness in the charging business.

The third thing I want to say is the ecosystem. It's worth to mention that 68% of our NaaS users overlap with the existing users on our parent company, Newlink Group's gas-fueling app. The synergy between our parent group and NaaS serves as one big advantage for us.

So in summary, with the three points that I just mentioned, including market, including operation efficiency, including ecosystem, as an early mover in the charging industry, I believe that with all these points, we will be able to achieve online user acquisition and GMV growth while we reduce our subsidies. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you for the questions. One moment for the next questions. Next question comes from the line of Wei Xiong from UBS. Please go ahead. Wei Xiong, your line is open. Please unmute locally.

Wei Xiong

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. You mentioned that NaaS has signed a partnership agreement with EV OEMs such as China’s, Deepal, GAC, and Great Wall. What would you see the benefit in such partnership and how will you monetize on these partnerships? Thanks.

Cathy Wang Yang

Thank you. That's a very good question. Currently, we have established a strong partnership with over 80% of EV OEMs in China, enabling us to provide exceptional user services for their EVs, including NIO, Li Auto, XPeng, ARCFOX, AITO, Deepal, GAC, Great Wall, et cetera. The collaboration between us and OEMs is extensive and diverse. Certainly, we assist OEMs in integrating the EV charging services into their infotainment systems. Additionally, we provide OEMs with the support they need to develop their own branded EV charging mobile application.

And furthermore, many EV chargers owned by OEMs are connected to our platform and enjoying the traffic from our user support. Lastly, through our collaboration with overseas CPOs, we are facilitating OEMs' expansion into the European and Southeast Asian markets. So this partnership gives us many advantages in the EV charging markets.

Firstly, new EV drivers are important for our user acquisition. As we build up a partnership with these EV OEMs, the new EV owners will automatically become our users and will have a strong stigma to use the underlying EV charging services that we provide. And secondly, the traffic and charging behavior information could enrich and optimize our digital analytic models, thereby assisting our valued OEM partners in delivering superior service to their EV customers.

And we can always leverage the experience in this partnership to improve our own energy asset operation models and monetize through our existing channels, such as energy solution business and charging service business. Ultimately, in the era of intelligent transportation, we're confident that we will be able to offer a more comprehensive service and enable the efficient delivery of smart energy in the new world of autonomous driving. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you for the questions. One moment for the next question. Our next question comes from the line of Eugene Hsiao from Macquarie Capital. Please go ahead.

Eugene Hsiao

Hi, thank you for taking my question. Can you provide any update on the current competition for EV charging? More specifically, are you seeing any lower level of end-user incentives being used in the market? Thanks.

Alex Wu

Thanks, Eugene. Thanks for the question. I would like to answer this question in a couple of different angles just to help people get a holistic view of the market. Because I think sometimes there are different views and sometimes there are myths that people see in the market.

First, just let's look at, I mentioned that market is a localized market in my previous answers. I would like to probably elaborate that point a little bit more. Let's look at the first batch of cities where we now achieved positive NTR. The first city that we achieved positive NTR in whole China is in Shanghai. So obviously, this is a developed Tier 1 city.

What we've seen generally as a trend is that later in those economically advanced regions, such as coastal area, we have gradually turning our NTR to positive. So overall, as the EV penetration continues to increase, we will achieve a higher NTR over the larger markets in China. So we've already witnessed this generally as a trend. So that's from a localized market perspective.

From a supply side, what we've noticed is that the number of CPOs is increasing very, very quickly, which suggests the market is getting very much fragmented and scattered. Our system indicates that by year-end 2023, we are connected to 4,270 CPOs, which is a 170% year-over-year increase. So that's 4,000 plus operators across China. So that indicates the supply side is getting more scattered.

The other, the third indication or data point that I can give is there is obviously a difference between a hyper-growth market and a developed market. If we take Europe as an example, as a developed market, the service fee for EV charging can reach somewhere between €0.60 to €1 per kilowatt hour, and people take that as normal. So seeing from that aspect, I think China is still in a fast-growing hyper-growth phase. Once the market becomes more mature, there is a very good opportunity that a higher profitability can be achieved across the market value chain.

So these are the three angles that I can provide just to help understand the market a little bit better. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you for the questions. Our next question will come from the line of Yiran Liu from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Yiran Liu

Thanks for the opportunity. As Vivian just mentioned, the NaaS would like to be a global provider. May I ask what is your overseas expansion plan? So some details will be very helpful. Thank you.

Cathy Wang Yang

Thank you, Yiran, for the question. And firstly, I would like to say certainly China being the largest and fastest-growing market for EV charging remains our top priority in our business expansion plan. And given the fast penetration of the EV, the high density of EV traffic and the popularity of public EV charging user behavior, independent research predicts a 16-fold increase in charging volume between 2023 and 2030. This implies that our underlying market is growing at approximately 50% CAGR over the next seven years. So we are confident that this change will continue to favor other business growth and expansion efforts.

But in the meantime, we believe our core technological capabilities can be transferable to other markets. Our digital analytics platform is managing one of the largest networks of EV charging stations and one of the largest EV driver user pools globally. The algorithm derived from our platform will be a valuable asset for us to enter into the new markets. So as we move forward with our global expansion, we're actively engaging different stakeholders in overseas markets.

And I'm excited to share three key aspects with you. And first, we are collaborating with leading Chinese EV OEMs to penetrate into European and Southeast Asian markets and help them to provide charging services and networks in overseas markets. We are also collaborating with overseas CPOs to provide charging services to the EV drivers in global markets. And furthermore, we are integrating these capabilities into our advanced infotainment system.

And secondly, we're also helping the [indiscernible] and developed countries to upgrade their energy infrastructure system with our mature energy solutions, such as solar panel, energy storage, and chargers. Lastly, in January, our NaaS-branded DC and AC chargers have opt-in to CE-certified in European markets. Our cutting-edge hardware technology opens up new opportunities for us to expand into markets where EV infrastructure is the key focus for future investments.

So in summary, we are laying a solid foundation to expand in overseas markets, and we firmly believe that our unique technological strengths will bring benefits to both our partners and ourselves in the global markets. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you for the question. The next question comes from Ethan Zhang from Nomura. Please go ahead.

Ethan Zhang

Okay, thanks, management for taking my question. So my question is regarding the energy solution business. I noticed there were some fluctuations for the energy solution revenue in Q3 and Q4, and I wonder if you could give us more visibility into the portraiture of this business. Thank you.

Alex Wu

Thanks for the question. Our energy solution business is mainly a project-based business. It has a seasonality, which usually is low in winter and spring, especially around immediately before Chinese New Year, and will peak in summer and fall. So the seasonality is a natural one, and I think it applies to pretty much all the major project-based business.

With the seasonality considered, though, on a year-over-year basis, we have achieved a significant 2.4 times year-over-year growth in energy solution business. We believe our core capability lies in the digital analytics capability, which is unique and difficult to replicate. With more partnerships being formed, the core capabilities are gradually recognized by our partners and by industry.

With some of the major projects we win, such as the one in Hubei, clients are impressed with how accurate we can forecast the traffic and pricing of a station that is yet to be built. With the traffic and pricing of a station determined by our AI technology, we are able to tell the client that a certain yield can be expected from a particular station even before it's been built. That is something that is of very high value for potential investors.

In 2023, we're also ramping up our service capabilities from end-to-end. Now we have energy solutions covering the full life cycle, from advisory to planning, hardware, procurement, EPC, maintenance, solar, and energy storage. And we are capable to provide full services for the new energy asset owners along the industrial value chain. So to recap, energy solution is a vital pillar of our growth. I see it also as a tool where we can monetize our connectivity ecosystem and analytical capabilities. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Thank you for the questions. Our next question comes from the line of Zoey [Indiscernible]. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Thanks for taking my questions. And congratulations on the positive NTR and improving GTR that you achieved in the past few months. How can we expect the NTR and GTR to perform in Q1 and the rest of 2024? Thanks.

Alex Wu

Okay, thanks, Zoey, for your question. You're right. Since September 2023, we have been able to improve our NTR consecutively while we're also expanding our GTR. As we disclosed in our earnings report, both GTR and NTR reached historical highs since our listing.

Let me talk about this separately. So for GTR, as we are expanding our operator network and increasing our user base, we have the advantage to negotiate a higher GTR with operators. We believe we can bargain more as the market is growing. Also, since we see the market become more scattered, as I explained before, we also think in the mid to long -- sorry, that the mid to long-tail CPOs have a stronger reliance on the traffic provided by us and further improve our bargaining power. So that's for GTR.

For net take rate, we are able to achieve a positive net take rate since the beginning of 2024. This achievement is mainly driven from the improved capability to optimize user subsidies. For example, we have deployed a membership system that could meet demands from different type of users. We have also leveraged our AI technology to optimize the real-time charging pricing for our operators. So we're basically doing, giving the subsidy in a smarter way. Hence, we can be more targeted to use our subsidies and hence increase the net take rate while we reduce our subsidies.

If I give another benchmark, the experience from our parent company, Newlinks gas-fueling mobile app, which is called [Indiscernible], is that its NTR has reached between 1.5% to 2% in the gas-fueling industry. I think that can be used as a benchmark when we consider the EV charging space in the long run. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. That concludes the Q&A session. Now I'd like to turn the call back over to the company for closing remarks.

John Wang

Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact us. Thanks.

Operator

This concludes this conference call. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you.