AsiaInfo Technologies announce its annual results for the year ended 31 December 2024.
In 2024, the Company continued to advance its strategic transformation, strengthen its ability to empower industries and digital transformation through the combination of technological innovations such as artificial intelligence and big data, and promote its business deployment in various application areas. However, due to the impact of corporate customers, especially operator customers, who continued to significantly reduce costs due to their own growth pressure, the revenue amounted to approximately RMB6,646 million, representing a year-on-year decrease of 15.8%. Among them, the revenue from the Three New business amounted to approximately RMB2,599 million, decreasing by 10.3% year-on-year, which accounted for 39.1% of total revenue representing a year-on-year increase of 2.4 percentage points.
To cope with the transformation of traditional businesses, the Company achieved remarkable cost control through various cost reductions and efficiency enhancement initiatives such as using AI tools to enhance delivery efficiency, strengthening centralised procurement and full coverage of one-stop official consumption platforms, etc., and the gross profit margin stood at 37.4%, remaining stable. Profit for the year was approximately RMB516 million, with the net profit margin increased to 7.8%, representing an increase of 1.3 percentage points as compared with last year, still maintaining a good profitability.
The Board has attached great importance to Shareholders' interests and returns, and after giving due consideration to the Company's business development, profitability, and cash flow level, and has recommended a final dividend of HK$0.252 per share, representing a final dividend payout ratio of 40% of profit for the year. Including the special dividend of HK$0.16 per share declared, the total dividend for 2024 will be HK$0.412 per share.
In 2024, the Company continued to deepen its focus on telecommunications, automobile, consumer and finance industries, and cooperated closely with Volcano Engine as a core ISV, and built a lifecycle private domain operation platform based on enterprise WeChat to create an integrated online and offline operation system. In addition, through model innovation and the establishment of advantages in "AI+Big Data", the Company has achieved significant growth in the automobile, consumer, finance and other industries.
In the vertical industries market, the Company focuses on two major fields, the development of 5G private network and application, and large model application and delivery. By the end of 2024, the Company's 5G private network has cumulatively shipped 50 sets of core networks and more than 21,000 base stations. The Company will form differentiated competitive advantages by providing industry-specific 5G private network products and intelligent applications, striving to become a leading company in the field of 5G private networks and applications.
AsiaInfo Technologies was the earliest to start and the fastest to implement the large model delivery business. It has established long-term cooperative relationships with leading domestic cloud computing and large model vendors, and has developed and accumulated a collection of delivery tools with core competitiveness in more than 200 projects.
Before the arrival of 6G, the overall investment in the telecommunications industry continued to be in a cyclical downturn. The Company's traditional BSS businesses faced the need for transformation and upgrading, to reduce costs and enhance efficiency to cope with the decline in traditional business revenue and to increase new revenue sources through technological innovation and customer expansion. In 2024, the revenue of BSS business amounted to approximately RMB3,948 million, representing a year-on-year decrease of 19.1%; while the revenue of OSS business was approximately RMB818 million, a slight year-on-year decrease of 1.8%.
In terms of business development, the Company introduced innovative technologies such as "AI+" and "Large Model+" into traditional businesses to overcome challenges. In 2024, the Company made significant breakthroughs in the field of AI empowerment, with the total number of AI large model related projects exceeding 100, and business coverage continued to expand.
Looking ahead to 2025, the Company will adhere to the development strategy of seeking progress while maintaining stability, consolidating the foundation of the main business of telecommunications to ensure the stability of business fundamentals, and focusing on the AI large model delivery business, 5G private network and application, and digital intelligence-driven operation.
