Newborn Town (Newborn Town; HKG: 9911), one of the frontrunners of the global social networking and entertainment industry, announced its 2023 annual results on March 21st.
The company’s revenue increased solidly in 2023, reaching RMB3,308 million with an 18% YoY increase. The revenue of the social networking business reached RMB2,972 million, while the revenue of the innovative business was RMB336 million.
According to the announcement, Newborn Town’s high-quality growth strategy has continued in 2023. The company’s net profit increased by 165% YoY to RMB761 million. The profit attributable to equity shareholders of the company reached RMB513 million, representing a 294% YoY growth. The adjusted EBITDA was RMB675 million, representing a rise of 80% compared to the corresponding period in 2022. The gross margin reached 52%, up 14 percentage points.
Since its debut in the global markets in 2013, Newborn Town has grown into a leading tech company in the social entertainment industry. The company has focused on its core business, the ‘pan-audience social networking business’ while eyeing the ‘diverse-audience social networking’ and ‘quality game’ businesses for years.
MICO, YoHo, SUGO and TopTop are four flagship apps under Newborn Town’s ‘pan-audience social networking business’ and have made rapid strides as they’ve evolved into top-notch platforms that aim to meet users’ diversified social demands among emerging markets such as the MENA region and South East Asia.
The year of 2023 has witnessed a series of upgrades in this business segment’s social apps. Among the ‘first-mover’ apps, MICO has tailored more services to meet the social needs of MENA users. YoHo, an audio-based social platform, has added more localized features and refined its operations, leading to a continued increase in profit. In 2023, these two apps continued to keep their leading position on the top 30 of the list of Chinese non-game publishers in terms of overseas revenue released by data.ai.
TopTop, the game-oriented social platform in Newborn Town’s ‘second-mover’ apps portfolio, has progressed in enhancing its user growth system and fostering a lively atmosphere within the community. These efforts have led to an over 2x YoY increase in revenue and an over 6x YoY rise in profit.
As another ‘second-mover’ app, the companion-based social app SUGO has gained over 3x YoY increase in revenue and over 6x YoY rise in profit in 2023 as it optimized the in-app matchmaking strategy. This app has also been a frequenter in the above-mentioned list from data.ai since 2023 and has seen a continued uplift in ranking.
Notably, Newborn Town is the social entertainment company with the most number of apps on data.ai’s list, which is the result of its endeavors to implement the ‘replication’ strategy for social apps in this business segment and a reward for Newborn Town’s unremitting exploration of the MENA region.
Since 2017, Newborn Town has taken steps to explore the MENA region, which is considered as a promising market for the social networking and entertainment industry.
By diving deep into Muslim users’ social needs and carving out multiple social scenes with localized quality content, Newborn Town has achieved a 30% YoY increase in revenue from its core apps in the MENA region; from 2020 to 2023, the growth CAGR was ~32%.
Plus, Newborn Town has also focused on the social needs of the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, Newborn Town officially consolidated the ‘diverse-audience social networking business’ to start a new chapter exploring this realm.
The ‘diverse-audience social networking business’ mainly targets global markets. Based on a comprehensive observation of social trends among LGBTQ+ people, Newborn Town launched the social app HeeSay, which aims to encourage LGBTQ+ people to share, express, and connect.
This platform leverages the user base and brand influence that the international version of Blued has accumulated in different markets. It completed the ‘dating app to community app’ upgrade and officially debuted in over 70 countries and regions on January 1st, 2024.
As the annual result revealed, the ‘diverse-audience social networking business’ contributed to revenue of RMB353 million and profit of RMB102 million. HeeSay was expected to accelerate its global exploration due to Newborn Town’s deep localized operations capabilities.
Newborn Town’s innovative business also achieved remarkable breakthroughs during 2023 as its flagship game, Alice’s Dream: Merge Island, witnessed a continued rise in monthly revenue.
In the fourth quarter of 2023, Alice’s Dream reached an average monthly revenue of over 8 million US dollars and has frequently been at the forefront of Sensor Tower’s lists regarding overseas revenue and downloads.
Based on that success, Newborn Town rolled out new apps like Taylor’s Secret, Merge Cove and Sudoku. And Sudoku ranked third on the US mid-core casual games list for June 2023, as released by data.ai.
The global casual games market is estimated to reach approximately 25 billion US dollars in 2027. Based on the forecast, Newborn Town will further upgrade flagship apps’ monetization capabilities and profitability. Furthermore, the company will create more quality games with high lifetime value while steadily incubating new products.
“The company will stick to its high-quality growth strategy and continue its commitment to the ‘pan-audience social networking business’ in the MENA region. Besides, we won’t stop tapping into the LGBTQ+ social networking and quality games industries to explore more possibilities and engage more global users, thus achieving diversified and sustainable growth,” Li Ping, CEO of Newborn Town said.
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