HONG KONG, Mar 27, 2024 - (ACN Newswire) - On March 26, 2024, ZhongAn Online (6060.HK) released its 2023 annual results. For the year ended December 31, 2023, ZhongAn Online achieved gross written premiums (GWP) of RMB29,501 million, with a year-on-year increase of 24.7%. ZhongAn remained as the 9th largest P&C insurance company in the Chinese market as measured by GWP in 2023, and the fastest growing company among the top 10 P&C insurance companies in China, with underwriting profits for three consecutive years. The Group has adopted the new accounting standard for insurance contracts, HKFRS 17, starting from January 1, 2023. Insurance revenue from the P&C insurance business under HKFRS 17 amounted to RMB27,521 million, an increase of 24.2% year-on-year.
In 2023, we celebrated ZhongAn's 10th anniversary. With a decade of dedicated cultivation, ZhongAn has always adhered to "Insurance + Tech" dual-engine strategy, and has achieved high-quality growth by adopting a customer-centric approach and focusing on its core insurance business. During the past decade, ZhongAn has been dedicated to improving its technology, product, service and brand strengths, thereby achieving numerous breakthroughs from scratch, and contributing its one-of-a-kind strengths to accelerating the digital and intelligent transformation of the insurance industry. In 2023, as the only InsurTech company selected, ZhongAn Online was included in the 2023 China 500 list published by Fortune with honor, demonstrating the market's recognition to ZhongAn's decade-long brand and technology.
For a long term, ZhongAn Online adhered to the strategy of "sustainable growth with quality" as well as technology-driven cost-efficiency. In 2023, our underwriting combined ratio for 2023 was 95.2%, achieving underwriting profit for three consecutive years, and beyond the industry average performance. The Group recorded net profit attributable to owners of the parent of RMB4,078 million, this included a one-off investment gain of approximately RMB3,784 million as ZA International ceased to be a subsidiary of the Company and was accounted for as a joint venture under the equity method with effect from August 14, 2023. Excluding this one-off investment gain, the Group's adjusted net profit to owners of the Company amounted to RMB294 million, a turnaround from the previous year.
Benefiting from the domestic economic recovery and the ongoing digital transformation in the global financial industry, the Group's technology segment recorded technology export revenue of RMB829 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 40.0%., of which domestic revenue grew by more than 73% year-on-year.
Building user-centric proprietary channels
In 2023, the Company stayed focused on multi-scenario and multi-dimensional touchpoints with potential customers around the "ZhongAn" brand, continuously exploring and grasping online traffic dividend from mainstream content platforms via short video and livestreaming. Through AI customer service and Enterprise WeChat customer service, we delivered efficient cross-guidance and customized product recommendation, and continuously optimizing the contents of live streaming. This year, ZhongAn also stayed focused on cross-penetration between ecosystems, provided comprehensive insurance protection around four ecosystems, and increased value proposition to users through upgraded medical health, family, and pets related services. In 2023, the GWP of our proprietary channels increased by 31.0% year-on-year to RMB7,614 million, whose growth rate is higher than the company's overall GWP growth, and accounted for 25.8% of the total GWP. The number of paying users of our proprietary channels increased by 47.6% year-on-year to 11.36 million. Renewal rate reached 88.3%, with year-on-year improvement of 3.3 percentage points; and the average premium per user reached RMB670.
Diversified product offerings of health ecosystem provide medical coverage for over 100 million people and digital lifestyle ecosystem innovates to lead the way
In 2023, China's commercial health insurance market reported GWP of RMB903.5 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 4.4%. As China's multi-level healthcare protection system continued to penetrate and improve, there is a growing demand for multi-level, diversified and personalized health protection. Adhering to our original aspiration of provide medical insurance for 100 million people, our health ecosystem provided health insurance to approximately 28.80 million insured customers in 2023, recorded GWP of RMB9,806 million in 2023, representing a year-on-year increase of 9.2%. The health ecosystem had approximately 19.96 million individual insurance paying users, representing an increase of 23.6% as compared with the corresponding period of last year. Meanwhile, the company also published the customized products for the chronic disease patients, elderly, children, and female, as well as critical illness policy, outpatient policy, and other types of productions to meet the diversified needs of users under different scenarios.
For digital lifestyle ecosystem, ZhongAn capitalized on the booming growth of the domestic e-commerce industry, the strong recovery of the air travel business, and the explosive growth of innovative business including pet insurance. The GWP of the digital lifestyle ecosystem reached RMB12,563 million, representing a year-on- year increase of 41.6%. Among them, the e-commerce business segment amounted to RMB6,593 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 25.3%. The travel business segment provided travel protection for nearly 70 million users, recording GWP of RMB3,242 million in 2023, representing a year-on-year increase of 89.0%.
In the innovation business segment, ZhongAn closely follow the trends of emerging consumer behavior, continuously leverage technology empowerment, and rapidly launch various innovative insurance products to meet evolving insurance protection needs of users. In 2023, we launched a brand new sports accident insurance named Zhong Participation covering general sports and high-risk sports, and enriched our pet insurance product matrix, serving over 4.65 million pet owners nationwide and consolidating our highly leading position in the domestic pet insurance market.
Beyond that, along with the continued recovery of the domestic economy in all sectors, and the emergence of new hotspots such as AI and NEV, the Company ushered in a new era in the consumer finance ecosystem and the auto ecosystem. With the recovery of the consumer finance industry, ZhongAn consumer finance ecosystem recorded GWP of RMB5,551 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 22.5%. We also seized the opportunities for the NEV insurance and embracing government support, bringing new momentum to auto insurance, with GWP of NEV auto insurance increased by approximately 196.1% year-on-year in 2023 and total GWP of auto ecosystem increased by 24.7% year-on-year to RMB1,580 million in 2023
Tech segment grows fast with innovations powered by AIGC
In the long term, ZhongAn continues to focus on the development of cutting- edge technologies including artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, and big data, aiming to reshape every stage throughout the insurance value chain with technology, creating a value delivery system of "technology + service". In 2023, ZhongAn launched "Lingxi", an AIGC middle platform, EasyCreation, the pioneering intelligent content creation platform with AIGC application covering scenarios of insurance verticals, and CWisdom, the operational analysis platform (AI upgraded version) with conversational AI. ZhongAn empowers the finance and insurance industry with AI, promotes high-quality development for financial industries with core technologies and reshapes the landscape of digital finance.
In 2023, ZhongAn's technology segment continued to expand both domestically and internationally, helping many clients across the globe with their digital transformation processes. During the reporting period, ZhongAn recorded technology export revenue of RMB829 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 40.0%.
Benefiting from the industry's demand for continued digital upgrading and transformation brought by Digital China and the digital economy, our domestic technology export business recorded revenue of RMB504 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 73.2%. Number of newly contracted clients along the insurance industrial chain reached 91, of which more than 40 clients had a contracted amount of more than RMB1 million and 4 clients had a contracted amount of more than RMB10 million. ZhongAn's tech segment also made breakthroughs in expanding business into diversified sectors, serving 12 clients from the banking and securities industries, and further expanded to cover manufacturing and other high-tech industries.
For overseas technology export, ZA Tech, under ZhongAn International, founded in 2018 and headquartered in Singapore, focuses on exporting new insurance core systems and digital insurance technology experience to overseas insurance companies and insurance intermediary platforms, aiming to build a new digital operating system of the global insurance industry. As of now, ZA Tech's footprints have covered regional markets such as Japan, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and Europe. In 2023, ZA Tech recorded technology export revenue of RMB325 million, of which sustainable revenue accounted for 51%, and the gross margin increased to 46% from 40% for the corresponding period of 2022.
ZA Bank continues to build a leading financial services platform In Hong Kong
As one of the first banks in Hong Kong granted a virtual banking license, ZA Bank has become one of the virtual banks with the most comprehensive product matrix in Hong Kong market. By the end of 2023, ZA Bank had total deposits of approximately HKD11.7 billion and gross loans of approximately HKD 5.4 billion.
ZA Bank became the first virtual bank in Hong Kong to be granted a Type 1 regulated activity (dealing in securities) license by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in January 2022, and has been actively expanding its product matrix for investment business since then. The Bank officially launched mutual fund services in August 2022, successfully onboard over 100 investment fund products, and officially launched its US stock trading services in February 2024 for Hong Kong users. By the end of 2023, retail users' AUM amounted to nearly HKD 1 billion. Meanwhile, benefiting from the interest rate hike cycle and the diversification of loan products, ZA Bank's net interest margin further improved to 1.94% from 1.84% in the corresponding period of 2022. In 2023, ZA Bank recorded net revenue of approximately HKD 370 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 42.9%; With the Bank's focus on business quality and operationalefficiency improvement, the net loss margin narrowed by approximately 85.6 percentage points
The General Manager of ZhongAn Online Simon Jiang says, "In the past decade , ZhongAn had been growing on the background of FinTech development and diversification trend across the globe. In the wave of digital transformation, we remain true to our original aspirations and adhere to the concept of "insurance + technology" so as to offer more inclusive products to users, bring warm experience of ZhongAn and contribute to the building of a high-quality inclusive financial system."
About ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance Co., Ltd. (Stock Code: 6060.HK)
Founded in October 2013, ZhongAn Online P & C Insurance Co., Ltd. ("ZhongAn Online", "ZhongAn" or the "Company") is a leading digital-only insurance company in China. On September 28, 2017, ZhongAn became the first FinTech company listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. ZhongAn offers insurance products and solutions within four ecosystems, which include health, digital lifestyle, consumer finance, and auto. Focusing on InsurTech, ZhongAn leverages its advanced InsurTech experience and technological capability to facilitate the digital transformation of companies along the insurance industry value chain through the development of new digital infrastructure.
For further information, please contact ZhongAn Online IR team
Email: IR@ZhongAn.com
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