Ping An Insurance group's net profit rises 38% to nearly US$16b in 2017

Ping An Insurance (Group) Co posted a 38.2 percent year-on-year jump in net profit to 99.97 billion yuan (US$15.79 billion) in 2017, boosted by a fast-growing customer base and strong technological research and development, according to its latest annual report.

The Shenzhen-based financial group said its net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company surged 42.8 percent year on year to 89.08 billion yuan.

Ping An said that it has 166 million individual customers, up 26.4 percent from the start of the year. The number of contracts held by each customer with its various subsidiaries rose 5 percent from the start of 2017 to 2.32. The group’s profit per customer added 14.2 percent annually to 356 yuan.

The life and health insurance segment boosted its new business value by around a third year on year and reaped a 35.5 percent in operating return of embedded value, a common valuation measure in the life insurance industry.

Ping An Property & Casualty posted a 21.4 percent jump in its premium income to over 200 billion yuan while it grew its market share by 1.3 percentage points.

Ping An Bank's retail banking revenue and net profit surged 41.7 percent and 68.3 percent respectively, compared with the same period of last year.

Lufax Holding, the wealth management arm of the financial group, had assets under management totaling 461.6 billion yuan as at the end of 2017, a rise of 5.3 percent from the start of the year.

Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Ltd, also known as Ping An Good Doctor, runs China's largest online health management platform serving 190 million people. It raised US$400 million from a pre-IPO financing.

Another two technology subsidiaries under the group, Ping An Medical and Healthcare Management Co Ltd, or Ping An Healthcare Technology, and OneConnect Financial Technology Co Ltd, have each raised US$650 million from their A round financing.