Huatai Securities: NEWBORNTOWN's revenue last year met expectations and continued investment in AI and short dramas, rating "Buy"

Huatai Securities published a report stating that NEWBORNTOWN (09911.HK) forecasted revenue of RMB 6.76 billion to 7 billion for last year, with a median of RMB 6.88 billion meeting expectations. The firm believes that the performance growth benefited from the rapid growth of social products such as SUGO and TopTop, and the self-developed multimodal algorithm model Boomiix empowered social products. Additionally, the short drama platform contributed incremental revenue, premium games achieved growth, and the company's financial statements incorporated the performance of NBT Social Networking Inc. since last year, which also had an impact.

The firm noted that in the fourth quarter of last year, the companion social platform SUGO ranked 6th in revenue among social networks in the Middle East region according to Sensor Tower, continuing to rise compared to the previous year. It is expected that SUGO and TopTop will maintain high growth this year, with the company's mass audience business expected to maintain a growth rate of over 30% for the year. However, the diversified audience social business is expected to decline year-on-year due to regulatory impacts. In terms of innovative business, the firm believes that "Alice Dream: Merge Games" is expected to continue to release profits after entering the profit recovery period in the first half of last year; the short drama platform is expected to contribute traffic to various products, further expanding the synergy between businesses. The company's innovative business is expected to achieve a growth rate of 30% this year.

The firm maintains the company's profit forecast for last year at RMB 949 million, but considering the ongoing investment in AI and short drama business, it has lowered the profit estimates for this and next year to RMB 1.173 billion and RMB 1.463 billion, respectively. The firm is optimistic about the company's continued growth potential as a leader in overseas pan-entertainment social networking, maintaining a "Buy" rating, with a slight adjustment of the target price to HKD 16.22