管理層發言
Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to MoneyHero Group Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentations, there will be a question-and-answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chadwick Dorai, Strategic Finance Lead. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Lithia. Hello, everyone. A very good morning or good evening, depending on where you are. My name is Chadwick Dorai, and I'm the Strategic Finance Lead for MoneyHero Group overseeing our Investor Relations activities. We're excited to have you join us for MoneyHero Group's third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Today we have with us Rohith Murthy, our CEO; and Hao Qian, our CFO. Let's start with a few friendly reminders. First off, you can find detailed results in our Earnings Release located in the Investor Relations section of our website. Also, we are recording today's webcast, so don't worry if you miss anything. A replay and transcript will be posted on our website under the Investor Relations section. During this call, we will discuss some future projections and expectations for our business. Keep in mind, these forward-looking statements are based on what we currently expect and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ. We encourage you to look at our earnings release and SEC filings for a detailed discussion of these risk factors. All monetary references will be in United States dollars unless we state otherwise. Shortly, Rohith and Hao will be discussing our Q3 performance. With that, let me pass on the time to Rohith Murthy, CEO of MoneyHero Group. Over to you, Rohith.
Thank you, Chad. Hello, everyone. Today we share our performance update for the third quarter that ended 30th of September this year. This quarter, we made critical advancements in executing our efficiency strategy, which we introduced earlier this year. Our deliberate focus has been on optimizing our cost base, enhancing operational effectiveness, and strategically expanding high-margin product categories to drive scalable and sustainable growth. Q3 marked the launch of a comprehensive reorganization and restructuring exercise, streamlining our operations and optimizing team structures across marketing, product, and customer operations. These initiatives significantly improved our adjusted EBITDA by over 40% quarter-on-quarter from a loss of $9.3 million in Q2 to a loss of $5.5 million in Q3. These foundational changes position us to enter Q4 with a leaner cost base, greater financial discipline, and a clear trajectory towards operational leverage that is expected to be fully realized in the current quarter.
We also achieved a very critical milestone by centralizing all our customer data into a single platform, providing us now with a unified view of our customer figures. This advanced capability unlocks possible opportunities for cross-sell strategy, price segmentation, and more efficient marketing campaigns. As we implement these strategies, we are confident that we will deliver transformative outcomes in customer engagement, revenue generation, and operational efficiency. We continue to see strong momentum in high-margin product areas; personal loans and wealth and investment-related revenues grew significantly by 34% year-over-year and nearly five times year-over-year, respectively, underscoring the success of our strategic focus. Our insurance vertical also maintained its growth trajectory, with revenue now increasing by 36% year-over-year and contributing 9% to the group's overall revenue for the first nine months of the year.
Notably, we launched a car insurance vertical in Hong Kong with real-time pricing capabilities, a first among aggregators. This innovation improves customer experience by accelerating approvals and strengthens our leadership position in the aggregator space. Additionally, our seamless travel insurance purchase flow delivered a marked improvement in conversion rates, demonstrating our commitment to delivering tailored financial solutions that align with individual customer needs. User engagement remains a focus for us. This quarter we introduced new membership and loyalty capabilities, enabling users to create accounts, apply for products with one click, and track their rewards and incentives in real time. These features deepen user engagement and position us to deliver highly personalized offerings at the right time, which we believe will drive long-term loyalty and value. While we continue to see strong performance across our core markets, fluctuations in provider campaigns in Singapore presented certain challenges this quarter.
However, our diversified partnerships and expanding product portfolio have already started mitigating these impacts. These adjustments highlight our agility and resilience in navigating a dynamic market environment, positioning us to seize opportunities at the right time. As we look ahead to Q4, we expect continued progress towards improving our adjusted EBITDA, recovering margins, and achieving our efficiency objectives. With a sharper focus on high-margin products, disciplined cost management, and data-driven operations, we are confident in our ability to deliver long-term sustainable growth. With credit cards remaining a valuable gateway product for user acquisition, we will continue to focus on higher-margin segments to align with our profitability goals. With a leaner operating structure, robust data capabilities, and a strong cash position, MoneyHero Group is well positioned to drive shareholder value and build a sustainable, profitable business for the future.
Finally, I would like to thank our team, both present and past, whose dedication and hard work have been instrumental in navigating this transformative year. Their commitment to our mission and resilience in adapting to change have been key to achieving the milestones we've shared today. We are also excited to announce the rollout of our RSU plan, which will extend equity ownership to over 90% of our employees. This initiative underscores our belief that our team's success is linked with the success of MoneyHero Group. Together, we're building a business that will deliver sustained growth and value for years to come. Thank you all once again for your trust and support. With that, I'm now turning the call over to Hao Qian, our CFO.
Thank you, Rohith. Good day, everyone. In Q3 2024, MoneyHero’s expansion resulted in solid growth in approved applications with 6% year-over-year revenue growth to $20.9 million. We have made strong market share gains, particularly in our core markets, as we continue to expand across Southeast Asia. However, investment into strategically expanding our customer acquisition, brand building, technology, re-platforming, and data infrastructure led to an adjusted EBITDA loss of negative $5.5 million for the quarter. Now let's turn to our third quarter 2024 performance. In the third quarter of 2024, MoneyHero delivered 6% year-over-year revenue growth to $20.9 million. We realized significant growth year-over-year in the Philippines, up 49%, and in Hong Kong, up 18%, where we have made significant strides in diversifying our revenue mix by expanding partnerships with key providers and broadening our product offerings.
Our Singapore business decreased by 13% year-over-year due to the absence of campaigns from certain providers who scaled back their paid acquisition activities during this period. We are working closely with these clients to ramp up our commercial engagement, positioning us for recovery in the coming quarter. Our Taiwan business increased marginally by 5% year-over-year to $1.0 million, with the strongest growth coming from credit cards. We have successfully managed to turn around Taiwan, and continued to focus on building long-term sustainability, specifically in building new verticals to replace the lost revenue from key clients’ decisions to exit the market. Our B2B business, Creatory, remains flat year-over-year with $3.5 million in revenue, representing 17% of group revenue. We will revamp Creatory's growth and continue to leverage its platform as a competitive advantage to drive traffic and gradually decrease reliance on performance marketing.
Insurance remains our fastest-growing product vertical, with third-quarter revenue increasing by 36% year-over-year to $2.1 million. We will continue to explore new opportunities to offer more product lines to fuel both top-line and bottom-line growth. In addition to core business growth, we aim to use insurance as a differentiator to enhance user engagement in order to increase both frequency and share of wallet. For the third quarter 2024, our adjusted EBITDA improved from a loss of $9.3 million in Q2 2024 to a loss of $5.5 million. The primary drivers for the improved adjusted EBITDA loss for the third quarters are: first, our efficiency strategy. We prioritize growth through increased investment in customer acquisition, technology, re-platforming, and data infrastructure. Yet these investments were balanced by our restructuring exercise to streamline operations and focus on product gross margin improvements, leading to a reduction in costs.
Second, our partnership and new product strategy. While the exit of a major provider from two key markets, Taiwan and the Philippines, earlier this year impacted our revenue per application, we are making strides in diversifying our revenue mix by expanding partnerships with other key providers and broadening our product offerings. These adjustments position us well for sustained growth as providers scale their operations in different markets, offering additional opportunities to further strengthen our revenue base and deepen our market presence. Looking ahead, we anticipate continued improvement in our adjusted EBITDA in Q4 2024, building on the significant progress we made in Q3. With steadily improving margins, we are very well positioned for further recovery through the remainder of the year. Our comprehensive review of the organizational structure, completed alongside the successful reorganization in Q3, has strengthened our operational foundation and set the stage for growth.
As previously mentioned in our Q2 earnings call, I would like to reiterate that we are actively pursuing a growth strategy by continuing to explore strategic acquisition and investment opportunities to consolidate the industry, as we believe the timing is right for industry consolidation in Southeast Asia. We believe that there is ample opportunity for consolidation in our emerging industry, and we aim to lead the way. These two strategies will aid us in scaling both our market presence and growth for years to come. With that, I thank you for your attention today, and I turn it over to the operator to take any questions.
分析師問答
Thank you. We have a question coming from the line of Ishan Majumdar with Baptista Research. Your line is now open.
Hi. Congratulations on the wonderful result. My question is focused on the car insurance platform. What challenges do you foresee in scaling this platform across your core markets? Also, how does the integration of bolttech's insurance exchange technology specifically differentiate your platform from competitors in Southeast Asia?
Thank you, Ishan. We actually see opportunities rather than challenges in scaling our car insurance platform thanks to our strategic partnership with bolttech, and let me explain this a bit more. Firstly, as a B2B marketplace, we have launched a very innovative B2C car insurance marketplace that's now powered by bolttech’s platform. And what this means is we're able to actually provide real-time pricing and end-to-end purchasing journeys. These capabilities are first in the market and set a new benchmark for seamless customer experiences. For us, bolttech acts as a technology partner here, enabling us to deliver superior and innovative offerings. The second opportunity lies in terms of the B2B partnership for scale. Beyond being a marketplace, we're also exploring B2B opportunities, such as a white-labeled user journey and comparison tools for our partners. We believe that embedding these insurance capabilities into our partner ecosystem can achieve significant scale and provide value to a wider network of users.
Lastly, our partnership with bolttech allows us to diversify our insurance product portfolio. For example, their market-leading device protection solutions enable us to offer our users the most relevant products with comprehensive coverage, fast fulfillment, and superior service. Therefore, we view this partnership through a multifaceted strategic lens, leveraging both bolttech technology and expertise. This not only differentiates our platform but positions us as the most comprehensive and customer-centric insurance marketplace in the region.
That's wonderful. I just wanted to follow up with a specific point you mentioned about improving customer experience through this technology. Now this is something you have been focusing on even in the past quarter, as you also mentioned rolling out a redesigned mobile app and enhancements to your overall UI across your applications. Can you provide insight into how these initiatives are resonating with users so far? Are there any metrics or indicators that suggest that these updates are driving higher margin revenue streams?
Sure. Let me spend a little bit of time discussing the mobile app. When we developed the mobile app, we had a clear vision to address two critical problem statements: one from our consumers and one from our banking partners. From our consumers' perspective, particularly in markets with high credit card penetration, users often face the challenge of managing multiple cards and being unaware of the deals and discounts available to them. Our app now provides a single GPS-enabled repository of all real-time offers and nearby deals, helping our users save money, whether they are dining, shopping, or traveling. For our banking partners, we are a key acquisition channel, and we have identified opportunities to support them beyond just credit card signups. This app enables us to drive credit card usage post-acquisition, offering contextual cross-sell and up-sell opportunities for any additional products and services.
By doing this, we enhance the lifetime value of our customers. The app drives higher engagement and frequency on our platform—historically, users visit us during key financial decision-making moments. With the redesigned app, we shift this dynamic by providing daily and weekly value through features like GPS-enabled real-time offers, personalized financial insights, and more. This approach encourages more frequent engagement, unlocking new revenue streams that deliver ongoing value to our consumers and partners. Furthermore, this app opens a new channel for us to engage with our users and gather deep behavioral insights, aligning with our strategy to enhance user loyalty and unlock higher margin revenue opportunities. It’s very early days, but we are optimistic about the app's potential to enhance user engagement and boost conversion rates. We hope to share more tangible results early next year as we gather additional performance data.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Nirgunan Tiruchelvam with Aletheia Capital. Your line is open.
Thank you very much. I would like to ask a question on the trajectory of your operating results. It appears that you have achieved EBITDA positivity in this quarter and also net profit positivity in this quarter by hitting a revenue number of say $21 million. Assuming your gross margins are about 50%, it appears that your break-even monthly revenue is in the ballpark of $21 million to $23 million. Is that correct?
Thank you, Nirgunan. Just a couple of corrections. We haven't achieved EBITDA positivity, but we have greatly narrowed down our EBITDA losses and improved our margins. To your question on revenue, we focus on our revenue mix this quarter.
If I may interrupt you, maybe I'm reading the wrong column here. It states EBITDA of 6.55.
I think that this is a major impact from the FX.
So prior to that, so on adjusted EBITDA granted, it is still in the red category, but clearly you have contracted the level of EBITDA losses materially compared to what it was in the preceding quarter. Go ahead, Rohith.
Yes. Absolutely. Yes. And that's been a solid focus area for us.
Got it. I have another question. Can you explain the OCI situation, please?
OCI?
Other Comprehensive Income?
Just give us a couple of minutes to check on that.
Let me discuss the FX impact this quarter. Our net income for the period increased to $5.7 million in the third quarter of 2024, from a net loss of $7.2 million in the prior year period, primarily driven by unrealized FX exchange gains. We had those payables through intercompany transactions, and we saw the USD versus SGD and USD versus PHP fluctuate dramatically in Q3. This had a major impact on adjusted unrealized FX hedges as mentioned.
Has there been other comprehensive income losses of this magnitude in the past of $9 million since you were listed?
I need to double-check that number. As far as I remember, I do not recall.
We can check that and come back to you, but as we recollect, we do not recall such figures.
Okay, and finally, can you point to a line item in your cost and expenses which reflects the contraction in labor costs that you enacted in the preceding quarter? Where can I see that in the quarter results? Or is it too early?
I think the restructuring and reorganization, the entire initiative we executed, took place in this quarter. So, we expect to see the true benefits and complete impact of this in the following quarter. However, I am sure that there are a few things we were able to recognize this quarter, specifically, we have been doing this in a phased approach. That is how we've been looking at the overall restructuring initiatives, including overall payroll. My recommendation would be to review that in upcoming reports; we will see the complete impact of this exercise.
Thank you. Fiona Orford-Williams from Edison Group, your line is now open.
Thank you very much. I've got three questions if I may please. I'll do them all at once just going backwards and forwards. The first is on the Singapore market. You talked in the report about a comprehensive site revamp. Can you take us into more detail about the success or impact of that so far? The second question is about where your marketing priorities are for FY’25. I'm assuming that it's a continuation of the current drive towards higher margin products, but perhaps more color there. And finally, any new product developments you might have in the pipeline. Thank you very much.
Thank you for the questions. I'll start with the new product developments in the pipeline. We are excited about what we have planned because we really believe these will strengthen the value proposition for both our consumers and partners. Firstly, the mobile app launched in Singapore. This is really a frequency and engagement tool, and we plan to roll this app out to additional markets. Secondly, we successfully piloted a credit scoring feature in partnership with TransUnion in Hong Kong. This is a unique offer that empowers our users with insights into their credit profiles, and we are working on a product roadmap to scale this feature further. I also mentioned the car insurance platform launched in partnership with bolttech, which is live in Hong Kong, and we plan to extend this platform to other markets. Travel insurance is another area of focus, where we are improving user experience with a one-click purchasing journey, which offers a superior user experience when buying travel insurance on our platform.
We consistently optimize UX and UI across all content and product pages. Finally, we are testing GenAI applications across various use cases. It's in the exploratory phase right now, and we hope to launch a pilot early next year and share details around that time. As for marketing priorities, our vision is to help individuals save, protect, and grow their money effortlessly. Guided by this vision, we have adopted a strategic approach for efficient growth. Our marketing strategy focuses on two pillars: the consumer pull and operating leverage. We intend to build trust through organic growth and enhance brand recognition while reducing reliance on paid traffic to improve marketing ROI.Tactics include doubling down on SEO strategies, capturing high intent organic traffic for research-driven products, and collaborating with banking and insurance partners for high-value tactical campaigns. With a centralized data platform, we can execute precision targeting and segmentation to expand our customers' wallet share.
We're also looking to optimize paid marketing and efficiency through our influencer network while exploring ad monetization to maximize the value of our existing traffic. We're still in early stages but are excited to deliver measurable growth that helps build a trusted ecosystem for consumers and partners. Regarding the site revamp, we initiated this quarter with two key objectives: making it seamless for users to discover content regardless of where they are in the funnel and attracting users who may not be ready to transact right now. We want to educate those users and guide them through the funnel, providing the best user experience and content when they are ready to transact. The revamp encompasses both UX/UI and an entire content revamp across our markets. We believe by doing this, we can significantly enhance user engagement and improve overall conversion rates.
And is it achieving those purposes already?
We've just started rolling this out in Singapore and have seen encouraging results in terms of conversion rates on many of our pages. But Q3 was still early stages of the rollout. I think Q4 is when we will really start seeing the results as we send more traffic to these new pages. During the rollout, we send portions of the traffic through new pages, A-B testing them with our earlier set. Much of this occurred in Q3, but it’s in subsequent quarters that we will see 100% of traffic going through the redesigned pages, allowing us to assess the full impact of this initiative.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Rohith Murthy for any closing remarks.
Thank you for all those great questions. As you can see, it's been a very busy quarter for us. I would like to take this opportunity to firstly thank all of you for your support and guidance. As we approach the end of the year, I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Please take time to enjoy the break, and I will see you all in the next earnings call.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.