AsiaInfo Technologies announces 2024 Annual Results Achieves full year profit exceeding last year
Recommends a final dividend of HK$0.252 per share and a special dividend of HK$0.16 per share
Results highlights: - Leverage on the mature cost control mechanism and the well-controlled cost, gross profit margin remained stable.
- Profit for the year was approximately RMB516 million, achieving a full-year profit better than last year. Profit margin increased by 1.3 percentage points to 7.8%, maintaining good and healthy profitability.
- Gross profit margin remained stable at 37.4%, reflecting the effectiveness of cost reduction, efficiency enhancement and cost control initiatives.
- Revenue amounted to approximately RMB6,646 million. Revenue from the Three New business1 amounted to approximately RMB2,599 million, accounting for approximately 39.1% of its total revenue and representing a year-on-year increase of 2.4 percentage points.
- Attached great importance to Shareholders' interests and returns, and has recommended a final dividend of HK$0.252 per share, representing a final dividend payout ratio of 40% of profit for the year. Including the special dividend of HK$0.16 per share declared, the total dividend for 2024 will be HK$0.412 per share.
- In 2025, the Company will adhere to the development strategy of seeking progress while maintaining stability, consolidating the foundation of the main business of telecommunications to ensure the stability of the business fundamentals.
- Building on the firm advancement of the Three New business and focusing on laying out the three major strategic growth points: AI large model delivery business, 5G private network and application, and digital intelligence operation, so as to promote the Company to achieve higher quality development.
HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach Newswire - 11 March 2025 - AsiaInfo Technologies Limited ("AsiaInfo Technologies" or the "Company", which together with its subsidiaries, is referred to as the "Group"; HKEX stock code: 01675), is pleased to announce its annual results for the year ended 31 December 2024.
In 2024, the Company continued to advance its strategic transformation, strengthen its ability to empower industries and digital transformation through the combination of technological innovations such as artificial intelligence and big data, and promote its business deployment in various application areas. However, due to the impact of corporate customers, especially operator customers, who continued to significantly reduce costs due to their own growth pressure, the revenue amounted to approximately RMB6,646 million, representing a year-on-year decrease of 15.8%. Among them, the revenue from the Three New business amounted to approximately RMB2,599 million, decreasing by 10.3% year-on-year, which accounted for 39.1% of total revenue representing a year-on-year increase of 2.4 percentage points.
To cope with the transformation of traditional businesses, the Company achieved remarkable cost control through various cost reductions and efficiency enhancement initiatives such as using AI tools to enhance delivery efficiency, strengthening centralised procurement and full coverage of one-stop official consumption platforms, etc., and the gross profit margin stood at 37.4%, remaining stable. Profit for the year was approximately RMB516 million, with the net profit margin increased to 7.8%, representing an increase of 1.3 percentage points as compared with last year, still maintaining a good profitability.
The Board has attached great importance to Shareholders' interests and returns, and after giving due consideration to the Company's business development, profitability, and cash flow level, and has recommended a final dividend of HK$0.252 per share, representing a final dividend payout ratio of 40% of profit for the year. Including the special dividend of HK$0.16 per share declared, the total dividend for 2024 will be HK$0.412 per share.
Digital Intelligence-driven Operation Business Stabilises and Rebounds
In 2024, the Company continued to deepen its focus on telecommunications, automobile, consumer and finance industries, and cooperated closely with Volcano Engine as a core ISV, and built a lifecycle private domain operation platform based on enterprise WeChat to create an integrated online and offline operation system. In addition, through model innovation and the establishment of advantages in "AI+Big Data", the Company has achieved significant growth in the automobile, consumer, finance and other industries. Digital intelligence-driven operation business revenue stabilised and rebounded in 2024, achieving a revenue of approximately RMB1,106 million, representing an increase of 0.4% year-on-year, accounting for 16.6% of total revenue, and revenue from results-based and commission-based charging models accounted for 25.4% of the revenue of the digital intelligence-driven operation business. The Company will accelerate the scale development of the results-based charging business model, and strive to become a leading enterprise in the results-based charging model industry.
Vertical Industries Digital Business Prioritized Quality to Refocus on its Development Direction
In 2024, the Company continued to be empowered by 5G, big data, AI and other innovative technologies, focusing on key industries such as energy, transportation, government affairs, etc., to create industrialised products and solutions, and to grasp opportunities for the upgrading of the vertical industries digitalisation and intelligent transformation. In the vertical industries market, the Company focuses on two major fields, the development of 5G private network and application, and large model application and delivery. By the end of 2024, the Company's 5G private network has cumulatively shipped 50 sets of core networks and more than 21,000 base stations. The Company will form differentiated competitive advantages by providing industry-specific 5G private network products and intelligent applications, striving to become a leading company in the field of 5G private networks and applications
The business expansion in vertical industries involves large-scale customer orders, which means that revenue is significantly impacted by individual orders, leading to considerable volatility. The Company also paid more attention to the balance control of the pace of development and quality. Leveraging its mature order quality accessment procedure, the Company precisely identified and proactively gave up high-risk and large-scale government and enterprise orders exceeding RMB1 billion. Meanwhile, this segment of business experienced a revenue decline from RMB965 million to RMB676 million in 2024 due to the construction cycle and adjustments of the 5G private network for nuclear power, accounting for 10.2% of the Company' s total revenue.
Large Model Delivery Business Gains Momentum
AsiaInfo Technologies was the earliest to start and the fastest to implement the large model delivery business. It has established long-term cooperative relationships with leading domestic cloud computing and large model vendors, and has developed and accumulated a collection of delivery tools with core competitiveness in more than 200 projects. Additionally, it has a mature team and management experience that undergo extensive training in various delivery tasks each year, forming a special set of "planning methodology + a set of tools + a professional team" for the large model delivery system of AsiaInfo. Through a highly customised large model business, the Company addressed the complex application scenarios of large model for the leading representational clients in business, defining the business implementation logic and standards, and building a formidable business stronghold against our rivals in terms of industry and technology. Long-tail customers ensured a continuous project revenue and profit sources by means of software subscription and standard product sales. Through strategic cooperation with leading cloud vendors and large model vendors such as Alibaba Cloud, Volcano Engine, Baidu AI Cloud, DeepSeek, etc., the Company has constructed an endto-end industry large model solution covering vertical fields such as government and enterprise, energy, finance and transportation. The Company will firmly implement the development strategy to become a leading enterprise of large model delivery and make positive contributions to the development of large model application by leveraging its own advantages of technology accumulation and close cooperative relationships with major foundational large model manufacturers.
Decline in Traditional Business, Slight Decline in OSS Business
Before the arrival of 6G, the overall investment in the telecommunications industry continued to be in a cyclical downturn. The Company's traditional BSS businesses faced the need for transformation and upgrading, to reduce costs and enhance efficiency to cope with the decline in traditional business revenue and to increase new revenue sources through technological innovation and customer expansion. In 2024, the revenue of BSS business amounted to approximately RMB3,948 million, representing a year-on-year decrease of 19.1%; while the revenue of OSS business was approximately RMB818 million, a slight year-on-year decrease of 1.8%.
In terms of business development, the Company introduced innovative technologies such as "AI+" and "Large Model+" into traditional businesses to overcome challenges. In 2024, the Company made significant breakthroughs in the field of AI empowerment, with the total number of AI large model related projects exceeding 100, and business coverage continued to expand. In terms of customer development, the Company successfully acquired an important project of HKT (Hong Kong Telecom), and undertook the project, a Southeast Asia-based operator, further expanding the overseas market. The Company had successfully breaking through the OSS market of China Unicom to achieve breakthroughs in multiple provinces, and achieving breakthroughs in the OSS market of China Mobile in multiple provinces, which fully demonstrated the Company's competitive advantages in the field of OSS and its business expansion capabilities.
Future Prospects
Dr. TIAN Suning, Chairman and Executive Director of the Group, said, "Looking ahead to 2025, the Company will adhere to the development strategy of seeking progress while maintaining stability, on the one hand, consolidating the foundation of the main business of telecommunications to ensure the stability of business fundamentals; on the other hand, building on the firm advancement of the Three New business and focusing on laying out the three major strategic growth points: the AI large model delivery business, 5G private network and application, and digital intelligence-driven operation, so as to promote the Company to achieve higher quality development."
In the field of traditional businesses, the Company will realise refined operations through optimising operation modes, innovative management modes and reducing headcounts to improve efficiency, significantly improve cost-effectiveness, and ensure traditional businesses profitability. Specifically, the Company will integrate AI and large model technology and comprehensively upgrade the intelligence level of business support systems, focusing on promoting customer joint innovation and R&D cooperation, centralising and intensifying the construction of support systems, the localised substitution of M domain, and market development of new customers, so as to effectively alleviate the downward pressure of BSS business; and focus on centralising and intensifying the operation of layout network, application of "AI/large model/intelligent body+" technology, integration of resources in OSS market segments, and expansion of the network equipment business, and further expand our market share by continuously improving our technological capability and market penetration rate.
In the AI large model delivery business, the Company will expand its strategic cooperation with Alibaba Cloud, Baidu AI Cloud, Volcano Engine and other leading basic large model vendors, through resource integration and complementary advantages, collaboratively develop the large model application market and be committed to the industry leading enterprises. The Company will focus on refining the large model delivery platform construction, optimising the chain of delivery tools, innovating the delivery methodology, continuing to consolidate the core competitive advantages in delivery scale, quality control and cost optimisation, etc., and building a differentiated competitiveness with a high technology threshold.
In the field of 5G private network and application, the Company will further develop the integration of "5G+AI" technology, consolidate its leading position in nuclear power, new energy, mining and other advantageous industries, and continue to expand the market share of 5G private network solutions. At the same time, the Company will actively expand emerging application scenarios such as power network, petroleum and petrochemical, airport, port, etc., and provide customised 5G private network products and industry solutions that create a differentiated competitive advantage and strive to become a leading enterprise in the 5G private network field. The Company will build a complete 5G private network industry ecosystem through technological innovation and scenarios engagement to achieve continuous expansion of market coverage.
In the field of digital intelligence-driven operation business, the Company will focus on key industries such as telecommunications, automobile, consumer, finance, etc., continue to strengthen data governance, model algorithms and scenario application capabilities, and develop the synergistic innovation with operators, Volcano Engine, Lingyang, Tencent, and other strategic partners in the field of AI and big data. The Company will fully leverage the technical advantages of "AI+Big Data", accelerate the scale development of the results-based charging business model, and strive to become a leading enterprise in the results-based charging model industry.
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