OREANDA-NEWS. Sky-mobi Limited ("Sky-mobi" or the "Company") (Nasdaq:MOBI), a mobile application platform and game publisher in China, today announced its unaudited financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2016.

First Quarter 2016 Highlights

  • Total revenue was RMB83.7 million (US$13.0 million) in the first quarter of 2016, compared to RMB233.0 million during the same period last year and RMB98.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2015.
  • Revenue from the smartphone business was RMB81.7 million (US$12.7 million) in the first quarter of 2016, or 97.6% of total revenue, compared to RMB219.3 million, or 94.1% of total revenue during the same period last year.

Mr. Michael Tao Song, chairman and chief executive officer of Sky-mobi, commented, “I am pleased to report our second straight quarter of profitability at the operating level and higher gross margins despite the continued challenging business environment we find ourselves in. Total revenue during the quarter continued to be impacted by even tighter control measures on payment transactions implemented by the mobile carriers in the weeks surrounding China’s annual consumer rights day on March 15, 2016. These even stricter control measures negatively impacted our topline during the quarter and more than offset our revenue strength during the Chinese New Year holidays. While we continued to implement cost control measures across our business to improve operating efficiency and flexibility in this challenging environment, we increased our cost base this quarter to motivate, attract and retain employees. With added focus from our employees, we continued to implement our game publishing strategy by concentrating on publishing a fewer number of high-quality foreign casual games in the highly competitive mobile gaming market. With the situation expected to remain unchanged throughout the year and possibly in the years ahead, we will continue to manage our business in a careful, cautious and focused manner going forward.”

Mr. Fischer Xiaodong Chen, chief financial officer of Sky-mobi, added, “We continued to fine tune our game publishing business towards high-quality foreign casual games in an effort to chart a course through what we originally believed would be a temporary tightening of policies by the three mobile carriers. Our gross margin increased as a result of our largely feature phone related multiplayer games and feature phone business, which generally have higher margins, and accounted for a larger proportion of total revenue on a sequential basis. Our near term gross margin expansion was aided primarily by strength in feature phone games as our feature phone business’s billing and payment efficiency was less affected by the control measures than our smartphone business was during the quarter. In the long term, we will continue to be more critically dependent on the development of our smartphone business as feature phones continue to be phased out of the mobile phone market.”

First Quarter 2016 Financial Results

Total Revenue

Total revenue was RMB83.7 million (US$13.0 million), compared to RMB98.1 million in the previous quarter and RMB233.0 million during the same period last year. The sequential decrease was primarily a result of (1) the three mobile carriers’ continued tightening of security policies governing payment transactions, and (2) tighter control measures on payment transactions implemented by the three mobile carriers during the weeks surrounding China’s annual consumer rights day on March 15, 2016. 

Revenue from the smartphone business was RMB81.7 million (US$12.7 million), or 97.6% of total revenue, compared to RMB96.6 million in the previous quarter, or 98.5% of total revenue, and RMB219.3 million during the same period last year, or 94.1% of total revenue. The decreases were primarily due to the continued tightening of payment security policies by the three mobile carriers.

Revenue can be further broken down into three categories: “revenue from single-player games”, “revenue from multiplayer games” and “other revenue”. 

Revenue from single-player games was RMB67.6 million (US$10.5 million), compared to RMB79.1 million in the previous quarter and RMB194.9 million during the same period last year. ARPU1 for single-player games was RMB11.3, compared to RMB10.3 in the previous quarter as the decline in the paying user base was faster than the reduction in revenue from single-player games.

Revenue from multiplayer games was RMB13.0 million (US$2.0 million), compared to RMB12.7 million in the previous quarter and RMB22.8 million during the same period last year. ARPU for multiplayer games was RMB147.6, compared to RMB173.6 in the previous quarter as the decline in paying user base was slower than the reduction in revenue from multiplayer games.

Other revenue was RMB3.2 million (US$0.5 million), compared to RMB6.4 million in the previous quarter and RMB15.3 million during the same period last year.

Cost of Revenue and Gross Profit

Total cost of revenue was RMB61.9 million (US$9.6 million), compared to RMB74.7 million in the previous quarter and RMB185.3 million during the same period last year.

The discussion and analysis below focuses on non-IFRS cost of revenue, which the Company believes more accurately reflects its operating performance than the IFRS cost of revenue.

Total non-IFRS cost of revenue was RMB61.8 million (US$9.6 million), compared to RMB74.8 million in the previous quarter and RMB184.9 million during the same period last year. Non-IFRS cost of revenue was composed of non-IFRS cost associated with payments to industry participants and non-IFRS direct cost as further discussed below.

Non-IFRS cost associated with payments to industry participants was RMB58.9 million (US$9.1 million), compared to RMB72.9 million in the previous quarter and RMB178.8 million during the same period last year. The decreases were primarily due to decreased payment channel costs, which was in line with the decrease in the Company's total revenue.

Non-IFRS direct cost was RMB2.8 million (US$0.4 million), compared to RMB1.9 million in the previous quarter and RMB6.1 million during the same period last year. Non-IFRS direct cost included salaries and benefits, depreciation, office expenses and utilities directly related to our operations. The sequential increase in non-IFRS direct cost was due to increased costs and salaries associated with motivating, attracting and retaining employees.

Non-IFRS gross profit was RMB21.9 million (US$3.4 million), compared to RMB23.3 million in the previous quarter and RMB48.1 million during the same period last year. Non-IFRS gross margin was 26.2%, compared to 23.8% in the previous quarter and 20.6% during the same period last year. The sequential increase in non-IFRS gross margin was primarily due to the largely feature phone related multiplayer games and feature phone business, which generally have higher margins, accounting for a higher proportion of total revenue. 

Operating Expenses and Profit/Loss from Operations

Total operating expenses, primarily consisting of employee salaries and benefits, training expenses, travel, entertainment and office related expenses, were RMB19.7 million (US$3.1 million), compared to RMB18.6 million in the previous quarter and RMB40.6 million during the same period last year. The sequential increase in operating expenses was primarily due to increased employee compensation in the first quarter of 2016.

Total non-IFRS operating expenses were RMB16.9 million (US$2.6 million), compared to RMB17.5 million in the previous quarter and RMB35.2 million during the same period last year.

Profit from operations was RMB2.1 million (US$0.3 million), compared to RMB4.9 million in the previous quarter and RMB7.2 million during the same period last year. Despite decreased revenue, the Company remains profitable at the operating level with higher gross margins.

Non-IFRS profit from operations was RMB5.0 million (US$0.8 million), compared to RMB5.8 million in the previous quarter and RMB12.9 million during the same period last year.

Net Profit

In the first quarter of 2016, there was no gain from disposal of associates, compared to RMB9.0 million in the previous quarter and nil during the same period last year. Share of results of associates was a loss of RMB0.9 million (US$0.1million), compared to profit of RMB2.2 million in the previous quarter and RMB4.7 million during the same period last year.

Net profit was RMB3.5 million (US$0.5 million), compared to RMB21.6 million in the previous quarter and RMB14.2 million during the same period last year. Basic and diluted earnings per common share were RMB0.01 (US$0.002) and RMB0.01 (US$0.002), respectively, which represents the equivalent of RMB0.12 (US$0.02) and RMB0.12 (US$0.02) per ADS, respectively.

Non-IFRS net profit was RMB6.4 million (US$1.0 million), compared to RMB22.6 million in the previous quarter and RMB20.0 million during the same period last year. Non-IFRS basic and diluted earnings per common share were RMB0.03 (US$0.004) and RMB0.03 (US$0.004), respectively, which represents the equivalent of RMB0.23 (US$0.04) and RMB0.23 (US$0.04) per ADS, respectively.

The weighted average number of ADSs used to calculate basic and diluted earnings per ADS for the first quarter of 2016 was 28,188,634 and 28,188,634, respectively.

Common Shares

Sky-mobi had approximately 225.0 million common shares outstanding as of March 31, 2016, or the equivalent of approximately 28.1 million ADSs outstanding.

Other Operating Data      
   
  For the three months ended  
  December 31, 2015 March 31, 2016  
       
Maopao Platform      
Average MAU2 (in thousands) 36,722 28,652  
       
Single-player games      
Average ARPU (RMB) 10.3 11.3  
       
Multiplayer games      
Average ARPU (RMB) 173.6 147.6  

Share Repurchase

The Company entered into a share purchase agreement to repurchase from its shareholders, Sequoia Capital China Partners Fund II, L.P., Sequoia Capital China Principals Fund II, L.P. and Sequoia Capital China II, L.P., an aggregate of 1,308,781 ADSs, each representing eight common shares of par value US$0.00005 per share of the Company, at a purchase price of US$2.00 per ADS (the "Share Repurchase Transaction"). The Share Repurchase Transaction was closed in May 2016. The Share Repurchase Transaction is not part of the share repurchase program announced in May 2014.

Extension of Share Repurchase Program

The Company also announced today that its board of directors has authorized (i) the extension of its existing repurchase program under which the Company may repurchase up to US$20 million (the “Aggregate Repurchase Amount”) of its ADSs to May 25, 2017, and (ii) the reduction of the Aggregate Repurchase Amount to US$10 million. The Company expects to purchase shares on the open market, in privately negotiated transactions or otherwise in compliance with all the conditions of Rule 10b-18 and Rule 10b5-1 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, at times and in such amounts as the Company deems appropriate. The share repurchase program does not obligate the Company to acquire any particular number of ADSs and may be suspended, terminated or extended at any time at the Company’s discretion without prior notice.

Business Outlook

Beginning in the second quarter of 2015, China’s three mobile carriers (China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom) implemented various measures designed to enhance security of their payment systems. These measures include suspending certain billing and payment channels and introducing additional mandatory payment verification steps to the payment process. These measures continue to discourage mobile subscribers from purchasing content from mobile application providers including Sky-mobi, resulting in revenue loss for the Company. With these measures expected to continue in the medium-to-long-term, the Company expects China's overall mobile gaming industry, and in particular, its Android casual gaming segment, to continue to be negatively impacted in the near term and potentially in the next few years.

The Company is assessing and will continue to assess the impact of these measures implemented by the three mobile carriers and their implication on its business.

Conference Call and Webcast

The Company will hold a conference call on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 8:00 am Eastern Time, or 8:00 pm Beijing Time, to discuss the financial results. Participants may access the call by dialing the following numbers:

         
United States:       +1-845-675-0438
International Toll Free:   +1-855-500-8701
China Domestic:   400-1200654
Hong Kong:   +852 3018-6776
Conference ID:   # 18548107
     

The replay will be accessible through May 31, 2016 by dialing the following numbers:

         
United States Toll Free:       +1- 855-452-5696
International:   +61 2 90034211
Conference ID:   # 18548107
     

A live and archived webcast of the conference call will be available on the Company's investor relation website at http://ir.mopo.com.

 
Unaudited Reconciliations of non-IFRS financial measures
to comparable IFRS financial measures
   
  For the three months ended
  March 31,   December 31,   March 31,   March 31,
    2015       2015       2016       2016  
In thousands (RMB)   (RMB)   (RMB)   (US$)
(Except for share and per share data)          
               
IFRS cost of revenue   (185,254 )     (74,681 )     (61,850 )     (9,592 )
Less: share-based compensation expenses   336       (133 )     98       15  
Non-IFRS cost of revenue   (184,918 )     (74,814 )     (61,752 )     (9,577 )
               
IFRS gross profit   47,754       23,448       21,802       3,381  
Add: share-based compensation expenses   336       (133 )     98       15  
Non-IFRS gross profit   48,090       23,315       21,900       3,396  
               
Total IFRS operating expenses   (40,559 )     (18,569 )     (19,737 )     (3,061 )
Less: share-based compensation expenses   5,402       1,084       2,788       432  
Total non-IFRS operating expenses   (35,157 )     (17,485 )     (16,949 )     (2,629 )
               
IFRS  profit from operations   7,195       4,879       2,065       320  
Add: share-based compensation expenses   5,738       951       2,886       447  
Non-IFRS profit from operations   12,933       5,830       4,951       767  
               
IFRS net profit  for the period   14,245       21,614       3,491       540  
Add: share-based compensation expenses   5,738       951       2,886       447  
Non-IFRS net profit  for the period   19,983       22,565       6,377       987  
               
Non-IFRS earnings  per common share              
Basic   0.09       0.10       0.03       0.004  
Diluted   0.09       0.10       0.03       0.004  
               
Weight average number of shares              
Basic   222,463,910       224,917,110       225,509,070      
Diluted   222,993,672       225,042,848       225,509,070      
               
             
Sky-mobi Limited
             
Unaudited Consolidated Statements of Financial Position (IFRS)
             
  As of   As of   As of
  December 31,   March 31,   March 31,
    2015       2016     2016
In thousands (RMB)   (RMB)   (US$)
           
ASSETS          
Current assets          
Cash and cash equivalents   337,952       88,439       13,716  
Term deposits   150,000       115,904       17,975  
Investment at fair value through profit or loss   100,979       384,667       59,657  
Trade and other receivables   111,956       107,216       16,628  
Amounts due from related parties   4,304       1,130       175  
Total current assets   705,191       697,356       108,151  
           
Non-current assets          
Property and equipment   5,374       4,740       735  
Investments in associates   89,378       77,223       11,976  
Investments in funds   12,987       12,922       2,004  
Available-for-sale investments   22,722       22,722       3,524  
Held for sale assets   -       10,924       1,694  
Other non-current assets   1,273       1,378       214  
Deferred tax assets   1,489       1,489       231  
Total non-current assets   133,223       131,398       20,378  
           
Total assets   838,414       828,754       128,529  
           
EQUITY AND LIABILITIES          
Current liabilities          
Trade and other payables   161,397       146,718       22,754  
Income tax liabilities   9,874       9,904       1,536  
Amounts due to related parties   4,742       5,716       887  
Deferred revenue   3,080       2,974       461  
Total current liabilities   179,093       165,312       25,638  
           
Total liabilities   179,093       165,312       25,638  
           
Equity          
Share capital   82       83       13  
Treasury Stock   -       (1 )     -  
Share premium   614,563       613,289       95,113  
Reserves   149,617       151,523       23,499  
Deficit   (104,941 )     (101,452 )     (15,734 )
Equity attributable to owners of the Company   659,321       663,442       102,891  
Total equity   659,321       663,442       102,891  
           
Total equity and liabilities   838,414       828,754       128,529