The demand for the service industry rebounds the most after the end of the epidemic, and competition has not yet been seen as a threat (BOSS Zhipin conference call).
The following summary provides additional information disclosed during the conference call for financial report. For a review of the financial report interpretation, please refer to "BOSS 直聘: Resisting the Headwinds, Awaiting the 'Unsealing'".
Analyst Q&A
Q: Blue-collar manufacturing - The online penetration rate for blue-collar workers in the manufacturing industry is very low. However, various internet companies (online recruitment platforms/non-online recruitment platforms such as live streaming platforms) are joining in. What are the reasons for the low online penetration rate of online recruitment platforms in the past? What are the pain points for blue-collar workers in the manufacturing industry? Why hasn't it developed all this time?
Two key words: extremely complex and extremely solid; one number: four.
The relationship between the four parties has been extremely complex and solid for a long time, and in many places, there has been a situation where bad money drives out good money. The Chinese blue-collar manufacturing industry involves all four parties, making it very difficult.
What Boss does: Boss focuses on work; it is very natural for internet platforms to stand with workers, that is, "user first"; with the shortage of new young labor force and the difficulty for factories to recruit workers, which has existed for several years and will continue to exist, factories will become the most important party in the future. When both the platform and the factory stand with the workers, there is no other choice for intermediaries.
As I just shared, the number of trustworthy intermediaries has multiplied since this year, and more and more intermediaries are willing to stand with workers. So I believe that this issue of low online penetration rate can definitely be resolved.
Q: New user registration has been suspended for nearly a year, while other recruitment platforms are actively acquiring users. The growth of C-end users is rapid, but B-end user payment situation lags behind Boss Zhipin. What could be the possible reasons?
Real user growth lies in paying for new users is just one means of acquiring users, but not the only one. If we care about the competitive landscape,
Q: In the second quarter, under the impact of the pandemic and macro factors, what are the trends in the payment rate and ARPU? What are the trends in the payment rate and ARPU for small and medium-sized enterprises?
The overall business situation is very healthy, with both the payment rate and ARPU being very stable. However, there is a huge number of small and medium-sized enterprises, and they have strong resilience. If the macro environment improves, we believe they will quickly recover, and we have already seen similar trends.
However, due to the relatively stable payment rate and ARPU of small and medium-sized enterprises, the decline in revenue during the pandemic period is mainly caused by changes in the overall number of small and medium-sized enterprise users.
Q: New business: White-collar business and Direct Search Assistance. Revenue expectations? Profit margin?
After two years of development, we are currently intensifying our efforts through the Direct Search Assistance project to develop a headhunter consultant - hunting enterprise - white-collar talent ecosystem. Today, Boss Zhipin has established a user ecosystem based on services for white-collar users and headhunter consultants.
Q: The macro pressures in the second quarter and their impact on revenue? Based on the current recovery trend, what is the business guidance for the second half of the year? The epidemic has had a significant impact on Boss Zhipin. We have conducted an analysis, and the data shows that the epidemic and the weak macro environment have affected this year's revenue.
We have already seen some signs of recovery, and our business will also be able to recover.
Q: In the face of competition, what is the future market strategy? How to improve profitability?
In the first two weeks of June, the platform's DAU increased by 10% compared to the previous period, mainly due to the rapid recovery after May following the epidemic;
In June, companies with less than 100 employees had the fastest recovery rate; the demand for recruitment in the service industry was strong after the epidemic.
From these numbers, we can see that our small and medium-sized clients have strong resilience and a strong ability to recover.
Regarding the recovery of profitability: In the first quarter, due to seasonal reasons, the margin was low (11%). In the next few quarters, our profitability will recover. In the second quarter, the profitability will recover but will be lower than the levels of 3Q21 and 4Q21 (30%+).
As of May 31, the total number of failed registrations since registration was stopped is 45 million. (As disclosed in the last quarterly conference call, the number of failed registrations before March 15 was 34 million)
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