Research Reports

Sogou is promoting its business as a leading vendor in artificial intelligence (AI); particularly with its partnership with Tencent (700.HK, HK$429.40, Not Rated), the business of AI makes more sense. While this part of the business has not shown real results, we believe SOGO can deliver solid 4Q17 results. ……

BIDU’s aggressive development in news feed and AI not only generated an additional source of revenue, but at the same time increased the total usage of Baidu search and mobile APP. In addition, the views and paying users increased for iQiyi, while BIDU decreased its investment in Nuomi. ……

BZUN continues to gain new brand customers as well as gain new services from existing customers. Among all Tmall operators, BZUN is unique in that it is qualified to run different categories of commerce and provide multiple types of services. ……

EDU has started its rapid expansion since last quarter due to high demand from students and parents. As a result, our proprietary data shows that the company’s total course offerings, attendees as well as revenue are likely to experience high growth in FY2Q18.……

Offline presence or new retail is the trend for China e-commerce vendors, and JD along with BABA is in the leading positions. JD has several ongoing initiatives, which include supply chain and logistic services, experience stores, unmanned convenience stores, and pharmaceutical and fresh food stores. ……

BABA is the leading vendor in new retail and is leading the integration of online and offline. The company’s new retail development – acquiring/investing in leading offline chain department and grocery stores – is more advanced than all of its peers in China, and coverage already includes major metropolitan areas in China. ……

Starting from last quarter, TAL reversed its rapid learning center expansion and growth decelerated a bit. We believe the company is trying to mitigate the possible side effects from rapid expansion, such as the potential lowering of course utilization rate and teaching quality. We believe such adjustment may need a couple of quarters. ……

•New version 8.4 has been positive to MOMO’s platform – On November 6th, MOMO released version 8.4, which aims to increase monetization of both live broadcasting and other new social functions. Thus far, we have seen a positive impact to MOMO’s platform as a result of this new release. ……

Recently, Weibo has been making changes to its site and redirecting traffic to lower level of users. The changes actually caused negative reactions from some key opinion leaders (KOLs) as traffic to their posts slowed. The changes have not been stabilized and we believe a few of the changes is an early sign of slowdown in Weibo’s platform. ……

Starting from late 2Q17, YY’s live broadcasting users and hosts have been growing as a result of its business adjustment. The adjustments include new features and new content in its live broadcasting platform. New features and content include PK between hosts, entertainment on demand and social games to increase user engagement and platform activity levels as well as monetization. ……

Based on our data and calculations, we believe BITA’s 4Q17 revenue is likely to be at about RMB2,508M, better than consensus at RMB2,447M. ……

While the number of paying dealers as a percentage of registered dealers seems high, ATHM can still enjoy high growth and take more market share. As China is switching from an internet or virtual economy to a real economy, the close relationship with offline dealers can enable ATHM to expand its business into many new areas, such as big data market intelligence and auto financing facilitation. ……

NTES will report 3Q17 results on Wednesday, November 15th after the close of the market followed by an 8pm EST conference call. Based on our data for 3Q17, we believe NTES’s 3Q revenue is likely to be better than consensus at $1,890.6M (RMB12,550M) driven by better ecommerce while the game business was a bit soft. ……

WUBA will report 3Q17 results on Monday, November 13, 2017 before the market opens with an 8am ET conference call. Based on our data and calculations, we believe WUBA’s 3Q17 revenue is likely to outperform consensus at $387.7M (RMB2,569.6M) and our model at $394.2M driven by the growth in total paying merchants. In China’s housing market, the data showed some slowdown in transactions, which we believe can be a negative growth factor for the company’s housing business. However, as WUBA is innovating new ways of doing business, including big data driven business and monetization as well as more rentals in the housing sector, we believe the company has the capability to weather the weakness in the housing market. We maintain our BUY rating.……

YY will report 3Q17 results on Tuesday, November 14th after the market opens with an 8am EST conference call. Based on our proprietary data, we believe YY’s 3Q17 revenue is likely to be better than consensus at RMB2.811B and guidance range of RMB2.75B - RMB2.85B driven by changes made within entertainment live broadcastings as well as strong momentum of game broadcastings. ……

JD will report 3Q17 results on Monday, November 13th before the market opens with a 7:30am EST conference call. Based on our data, JD’s 3Q net revenue is likely to be in line with consensus at RMB83.6B and higher than the mid-point of 3Q17 topline guidance of RMB81.8B – RMB84.2B (36% - 40% Y/Y growth). ……

ATHM will report 3Q17 results on November 7th before the markets open with a 7am EST conference call. We are expecting the company to report revenue better than consensus based on our data and calculations. ……

WB will report 3Q17 results on Tuesday, November 7th before the market opens with a 6am EST conference call. WB preannounced its 3Q17 results, with revenue at $320.0M and non-GAAP net income at $115.2M. As such, we are making adjustments to our model based on the 3Q preannouncement. Based on our data and calculations for 4Q17, we believe WB may provide guidance close to $369.5M, significantly better than consensus at $337.5M as the Street has not been adjusted to reflect this preannouncement. We maintain our Buy rating.……