Research Reports

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.……

BABA will report FY2Q18 results on Thursday, November 2nd before the markets open with a 7:30am EST conference call. Based on our data, we believe BABA is likely to report FY2Q18 revenue at least in line, with a high chance of the topline slightly better than consensus at RMB52,182.3M (52.2% Y/Y growth). ……

AOS will report 3Q17 results on Wednesday, October 25th before the market opens followed by a 10am EST conference call. According to our data tracked from the largest e-commerce channels in China, mainly Tmall.com, we project China sales of A. O. Smith in 3Q17 to be $241.3M, up 12% Y/Y in constant USD currency. Based on our data and calculations, our 3Q17 revenue projection at about $742.5M is in line with consensus at $742.09M. And, there is a chance that the company’s revenue may come in below consensus as our estimates are not conservative.……

BIDU is at a turning point in its business. The company has established its new strategy – all in AI, which we believe has played into BIDU’s strength. BIDU now has all it needs to become a leader in AI applications in China. For its upcoming 3Q17 earnings report on Thursday (October 26th after the market closes followed by an 8pm EST conference call), based on our data and calculations, we believe BIDU is likely to deliver 3Q17 top line at RMB23.683B, at least in line with or slightly higher than consensus at RMB23.547B; its guidance is between RMB23.130B – RMB23.750B. ……

TAL will report FY2Q18 results before the market opens on Thursday, October 26, 2017 with an 8:00AM EST conference call. Starting from FY3Q18, we are going to see slower expansion, but TAL will offer more high-price offerings. The company is modifying its high speed expansion to moderate expansion in physical locations. At the same time TAL has increased the quantity of higher price class offerings, which will contribute to top line growth going forward. We believe such changes are also positive to its margins. As for FY2Q18, based on our proprietary data, the topline is likely to outperform consensus expectation driven by strong growth in total class offerings and attendees. We maintain our BUY rating.……

EDU will report FY1Q18 results on Tuesday, October 24th before the markets open with an 8am EST conference call. The company has been conservative in terms of its expansion, but EDU recently changed its approach to one of higher expansion, with high growth in new learning centers and course offerings. Based on our proprietary data, we believe expansion as well as its higher utilization rate is likely to drive high growth in its topline in FY1Q18, but more so in FY2Q18. Consensus for FY1Q18 at $642.3M and FY2Q18 at $426.0M can be conservative. Certainly, the high expansion may cause near term pressure to its margins. As we believe EDU’s fundamentals and outlook are strong, we maintain our Buy rating. ……

•3Q17 revenue is likely to outperform consensus – Based on our data and calculations, HTHT’s net revenue is likely to grow 37% Y/Y (+22.0% Q/Q) to reach RMB2,430.3M in 3Q17 (Figure 7), better than consensus topline at RMB2,315.0M (+30.5% Y/Y) and the high-end of guidance range at 30% - 34% Y/Y growth. ……

Marketingand channel activities have positive impacts – Average hourly current users were up in 3Q17E toreach 45,295 from 39,558 in 2Q17, mainly due to new functions in MOMO version8.0 (Figure 1). ……

While thebundled sales issue continues to linger, based on our data and calculations, weexpect CTRP’s 3Q17E revenue to be around RMB7,700M, better than or at leastin-line with consensus at RMB7,647M and toward the higher-end of its revenueguidance range of RMB7,522.0M - RMB7,800.6M (35% - 40% Y/Y growth). ……

Course offerings upsignificantly in FY2Q18 -According to our proprietary data for FY2Q18, the number of total courses offered increased 67.9% Y/Y to 131,230. Along with that, fully registered courses at 84,869 increased 40.7% Y/Y in FY2Q18 (Figure 1). ……

The WB platform needsto be cautious in 4Q17 due to the Party’s Meeting - The 19th session of the National Congress ofthe Communist Party of China is scheduled to be held on Oct. 18, 2017.……

Based on our data andcalculations, we believe BIDU is likely to deliver 3Q17 top line at aroundRMB23.683B, at least in-line with or slightly higher than consensus atRMB23.538B. ……