HONG KONG, June 31, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Yidu Tech Inc. ("Yidu Tech" or the "Company", together with its subsidiaries and consolidated affiliated entities, the "Group", HKEX: 2158) announced its annual results for the fiscal year ended 31 March 2024 ("FY2024" or the "Reporting Period"). The management provided detailed explanations on the key performance highlights, development strategies, and future outlook. Owing to the Company's "Focus" strategy, Yidu Tech has seen further improvements in operational efficiency, profitability, and business competitiveness.

The Company's total revenue in FY2024 was recorded at RMB 807.1 million, and gross profit margin increased to 42.1% from 34.1% year-on-year ("YoY"), representing an increase of 8.0 percentage points, hitting an all-time high. Adjusted net loss narrowed from RMB448.7 million to RMB158.1 million, down 64.8% YoY, and cash flow continued to be optimized. During the reporting period, the Company continued to invest in AI technology, especially in the development and commercialization of its proprietary large language model in the medical vertical field to maintain a leading position in the opportunities of the large language model era.

During the results conference, Yidu Tech's management stated that excluding strategic investments in proprietary large language model, non-cash items, and non-operating items, the adjusted EBITDA for our current business has achieved profitability, moving from a RMB 327 million loss to a profit of RMB 31.1 million for the first time this fiscal year. "It further elaborated that this could be largely attributed to the effects of the Company's timely adoption of the 'Focus' strategy. In the face of new opportunities for technological innovation and industrial upgrading driven by generative AI technology, the Company seeks to further play a leading role in innovation, accelerate the commercialization of large language models in healthcare, and provide safer, more inclusive, and more precise intelligent solutions for the entire medical ecosystem, in order to create long-lasting value for investors."

Yidu Tech's management commented during the results conference that the Company's operating cash outflow continues to improve, and that it is no longer spending extensively on its operations. Over the past three fiscal years, the Company's net operating cash outflow has decreased consecutively each year. In FY2022, the figure was recorded at RMB 639 million, in FY2023, it decreased to RMB 463 million, and in FY2024, it further dropped to RMB 230 million. If this trend continues, cash flow is expected to break even in the new fiscal year. 

Management added that as of market close on June 27, the Company's P/B ratio has decreased to 1.06. Not including the valuation of its domestic and international businesses, its market value is still lower than its fund reserves on hand. As such, management believes that the Company's share price is still severely undervalued. Notably, renowned sovereign fund BIA has continually increased its shareholding of Yidu Tech by 21.50% over the past two months. The management is confident in the Company's long-term growth potential and hopes to continually create innovative technologies and increase returns to its shareholders.

Continuous Upgrade of the "AI Medical Brain", Breakthroughs in "Technology + Application"

Over the past year, the Company has continued to upgrade and iterate YiduCore, its "AI Medical Brain", comprehensively strengthening its functions in processing efficiency, comprehension and reasoning capabilities, as well as precise adaptation to complex application scenarios. During the reporting period, the Company has continued the development and training of large language model in the medical vertical field based on 500 billion fine-trained Tokens, with model training for 6B, 13B, and 70B parameters completed. Yidu Tech's proprietary large language model has passed the deep synthesis service algorithm filings of Cyberspace Administration of China.

In terms of data, YiduCore has cumulatively processed and analyzed more than 5 billion authorized medical records from over 1 billion patients, covering over 2,500 hospitals.

In terms of algorithms, in May 2024, in the MedBench evaluation, an authoritative evaluation platform launched by Shanghai AI Laboratory and Shanghai Digital Medicine Innovation Center, Yidu Tech's large language model ranked first in each of the three key dimensions of medical knowledge Q&A, medical language understanding, and medical safety and ethics, and achieved the highest overall score.

In addition to technological breakthroughs, YiduCore's commercial applications have also continuously expanding. By leveraging Yidu Tech's large language model, the Company has enhanced project sustainability and provided 24/7 health management services to over 5 million users.

Large Language Model Empowering a Comprehensive Healthcare Ecosystem Solution, Three Major Segments Progressing in Synergy

Driven by the core technologies of YiduCore, the Company's three major business segments are progressing in synergy, further solidifying its prominent market position.

During the reporting period, the revenue of the Company's Big Data Platform and Solutions segment reached RMB 313.6 million, representing a YoY increase of 41.4%. As of 31 March 2024, the total number of the Company's top hospital clients increased by 14 to 102 as compared to the same period last year, while the number of regulator and policymaker clients increased by 9 to 43.

Revenue from the Company's Life Sciences Solutions segment amounted to RMB 324.0 million, representing a YoY increase of 28.1%, with gross margin increasing by 14.6 percentage points to a historical high of 32.1%. As of 31 March 2024, the Company achieved a 151.1% revenue retention rate for its top 10 clients in terms of revenue, with average transaction value of customers increasing by 75.4% YoY. Among 20 of the top multinational pharmaceutical companies (MNCs), 16 of them constitute the Company's clients. In terms of clinical research, the Company has performed 321 clinical research cases, including clinical trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies and investigator-initiated trials, as well as 246 prospective and retrospective real world studies (RWS).

Finally, revenue from the Health Management Platform and Solutions segment was recorded at RMB 169.5 million, with gross profit margin hitting 58.1%, up 17.4 percentage points YoY. During the reporting period, the Company continued to increase its market penetration rate of the government's supplemental Medicare program, Hui Min Bao (惠民保), as well as cumulatively winning bids and serving 4 provinces and 12 cities, including Jiangsu Province, Beijing, Shenzhen etc. As of 31 March 2024, the number of active users who have completed at least one transaction on Yidu Tech's health management platform increased to nearly 27.6 million.

The arrival of the large language model era has accelerated the popularization and penetration of artificial intelligence in the healthcare industry. As a leading company in China's AI medical industry, Yidu Tech strives to seize any relevant market opportunities created by generative AI and large language models by firmly investing and innovating in this domain. At the same time, the Company will also continue to consolidate its business model, improve operational efficiency, and achieve sustainable improvements in profitability and growth, in order to generate increasing long-term, high-quality value to stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem.