Bitauto Announces First Quarter 2020 Results.

BEIJING: Bitauto Holdings Limited ("Bitauto" or the "Company") (NYSE: BITA), a leading provider of internet content & marketing services, and transaction services for China's automotive industry, today announced its unaudited financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2020[1].

Bitauto First Quarter 2020 Highlights

Revenue in the first quarter of 2020 was RMB1.74 billion (US$245.5 million), compared to RMB2.73 billion (US$386.2 million) in the corresponding period in 2019.

Gross profit in the first quarter of 2020 was RMB1.11 billion (US$156.6 million), compared to RMB1.67 billion (US$235.7 million) in the corresponding period in 2019.

Net loss in the first quarter of 2020 was RMB1.28 billion (US$180.6 million), compared to net income of RMB92.8 million (US$13.1 million) in the corresponding period in 2019.

Non-GAAP net loss in the first quarter of 2020 was RMB1.04 billion (US$146.6 million), compared to Non-GAAP net income of RMB284.7 million (US$40.2 million) in the corresponding period in 2019.

Net loss attributable to Bitauto in the first quarter of 2020 was RMB832.1 million (US$117.5 million), compared to net income attributable to Bitauto of RMB32.5 million (US$4.6 million) in the corresponding period in 2019.

Non-GAAP net loss attributable to Bitauto in the first quarter of 2020 was RMB643.5 million (US$90.9 million), compared to Non-GAAP net income attributable to Bitauto of RMB152.1 million (US$21.5 million) in the corresponding period in 2019.

Mr. Andy Zhang, chief executive officer of Bitauto, said, "The COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent nationwide lockdown contributed to a significant year-over-year decline in new passenger vehicle sales for the first quarter of 2020, adversely impacting our advertising and transaction businesses. However, we were pleased that our key operational metrics maintained stable growth despite the challenging situation."

"We were encouraged that daily active users (DAU) of our Bitauto media app and the combined DAU of both the Bitauto media app and Auto Pricing app increased by 259% and 46%, respectively, in April 2020 compared with October 2018, when we introduced the upgraded Bitauto app, according to QuestMobile. Despite the industry headwinds, our overall number of sales leads in the first quarter remained resilient with only a slight decline year-over-year and the proportion of our organic sales leads maintained an upward trajectory, reaching approximately 73%. With continuous improvement in the quantity and quality of our sales leads, our subscription business continued to gain recognition from our dealer customers. As a result, our annual retention rate for paying subscribers...