Revenue and Operating Profits Both Hitting New High
NetDragon Websoft Holdings Limited (“NetDragon” or the “Company”; Hong Kong Stock Code: 777), a global leader in building internet communities, today announced its financial results for fiscal year 2021. NetDragon’s management team will hold a conference call and webcast at 11:00am Hong Kong time on 30th March 2022 to discuss the results and recent business developments.
Mr. Dejian Liu, Chairman of NetDragon, commented, “We are proud of our achievements in 2021 as we delivered yet another year of strong all-round performance. 2021 marked our fifth consecutive year of growth in revenue, operating profits and net profits, and this would not be made possible without our deep investments made in our technologies, IP and sales partnership network. In 2021, our revenue increased by 14.6% YoY, reaching RMB7.0 billion as both our gaming and education businesses continued to grow strongly.”
“Our education revenue in 2021 increased by 32.2% YoY, the highest growth rate in the past four years, as we saw accelerated market growth driven by increasing demand for blended learning solutions around the world. As K-12 educators look for technology tools to educate and interact with students in the new normal of learning, our Promethean products have proven to be the best option in the market as we continued to maintain our number one market share position in the international markets[1]. Our country rollout strategy also continued to make progress. During the second half of the year, we successfully completed the first pilot phase for English Smart Classroom Lab project in Thailand and expanded our strategic cooperation with Ghana Ministry of Education with a target to implement a country-wide blended learning platform. In Egypt, we recently signed a definitive contract to supply 94,000 Promethean interactive flat panels to K-12 schools across the country, another milestone in our long-term partnership with the Ministry of Education.”
“Our gaming business recorded 6.1% in revenue growth and 7.8% in core segmental profits growth as we continued to pursue a balanced, sustainable growth strategy, which resulted in across-the-board revenue growth from PC and mobile platforms, as well as in both China and the overseas markets. Our flagship IP Eudemons continued its upward growth trajectory with a 7.8% YoY revenue increase. We also saw our annual revenue from the Eudemons IP grew by 3.5 times in the past 5 years on the back of a series of significant enhancements in content, gameplay and overall user experience. In December, we successfully launched our new ACGN[2] mobile game under our new IP Under Oath, which not only attests to our ability in new genre development capability, but also significantly extends our reach to young players and lays a solid foundation for our overseas expansion to capitalize on the huge ACGN addressable market overseas.”
“We would like to reiterate our commitment to enhance shareholder value as we continue to execute capital return measures including share buyback and dividends in view of our confidence in future growth prospects and our ability to generate sustained free cash flow. In August 2021, we announced a 3-year share buyback program[3] with a total repurchased amount of up to US$300 million, and to date, we have repurchased 16.2 million shares amounting to US$38.0 million. In total, we returned US$186.4 million to our shareholders in 2021 via a combination of share repurchase and dividends declared, including a US$100 million special interim dividend announced in January 2022.”
Fiscal Year 2021 Financial Highlights
- Revenue was RMB7.0 billion, representing a 14.6% increase YoY.
- Revenue from the gaming business was RMB3.6 billion, representing 51.8% of the Company’s total revenue and registering a 6.1% increase YoY.
- Revenue from the education business was RMB3.2 billion, representing 45.9% of the Company’s total revenue and registering a 32.2% increase YoY.
- Gross profit was RMB4.5 billion, representing an 8.4% increase YoY.
- Core segmental profit[4] from the gaming business was RMB2.1 billion, representing a 7.8% increase YoY.
- Core segmental loss[4] from the education business was RMB411.7 million, representing a 28.4% improvement YoY.
- EBITDA was RMB1.8 billion, representing a 12.8% increase YoY.
- Operating profit was RMB1.4 billion, representing a 27.4% increase YoY.
- Non-GAAP operating profit[5] was RMB1.5 billion, representing a 14.6% increase YoY.
- Profit attributable to owners of the Company was RMB1.1 billion, representing a 11.4% increase YoY.
- Non-GAAP profit attributable to owners of the Company[5] was RMB1.3 billion, representing a 13.0% increase YoY.
- The Company declared a final dividend of HKD0.40 per ordinary share (2020: HKD0.25 per ordinary share), subject to approval at the coming annual general meeting. Total dividends for the year (including special interim dividend declared in January 2022) amounted to HKD2.23 per ordinary share (2020: HKD0.50 per ordinary share), representing approximately 93.8% of the total profit attributable to the owners for the year.
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