Ping An's steady growth in challenging year

Imaginechina

Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China reported an operating profit of 139.4 billion yuan (US$21.5 billion) for 2020, up 4.9 percent year on year. Its net profit, however, decreased by 4.2 percent to 143 billion yuan.

The financial conglomerate said it had managed to grow its profit steadily in a challenging year, thanks to a strong retail customer development strategy. By the end of December, the group’s retail customers had increased to over 218 million, up 9 percent from the beginning of the year.

It acquired 37.02 million new customers, with over a third sourced from internet users within the group’s ecosystems. Contracts per customer rose by 4.5 percent from the beginning of 2020 to 2.76.

The number of internet users grew 16 percent to over 598 million in the past year, Ping An said.

Meanwhile, its corporate business cross-selling model achieved steady growth. Ping An said it continued to extend its “1+N” integrated financial business model to corporate business and took a segmented approach to customer development.

In 2020, the new financing scale achieved through corporate business cross-selling climbed 69.7 percent year on year and the written premium of the corporate channel achieved through cross-selling grew by 84.8 percent compared with the previous year.

Its insurance business also posted steady growth. Ping An Life & Health increased operating profit after tax by 5.3 percent year on year to 93.6 billion yuan. Ping An Property & Casualty grew premium income by 5.5 percent year on year, with a combined ratio of 99.1 percent.

The group’s innovative businesses grew rapidly. Lufax Holding went public on the New York Stock Exchange in October and Ping An Good Doctor’s online medical services registered strong growth, with revenue up 82.4 percent year on year.

Autohome’s revenue from the online marketplace and other business grew by over a third year on year against the backdrop of a weak auto market and OneConnect’s revenue jumped by 42.3 percent annually to 3.3 billion yuan in 2020.