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HONG KONG and SHANGHAI, April 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter "Ping An of China," "Ping An," the "Company" or the "Group," HKEX: 2318; SSE: 601318) today announced its first quarter financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2023.
In the first three months of 2023, the domestic economy continued to recover, with household consumption picking up steadily. Global capital markets remained volatile in a complex international environment. Facing opportunities and challenges, Ping An adhered to its core financial businesses and strived to serve the real economy. The Group continued to implement its business policy of "focusing on core businesses, increasing cost-effectiveness, optimizing portfolios, and improving policies and procedures." Following the technology-driven "integrated finance + healthcare" strategy, Ping An vigorously pursued high-quality development with Chinese characteristics by providing customers with "worry-free, time-saving, and money-saving" service experience.
Thanks to Ping An Life's in-depth reform, synergies in integrated finance strategy, and the healthcare ecosystem and elderlycare service that empowered core financial businesses, Ping An delivered an 18.8% annualized operating ROE, with operating profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company reaching RMB41,385 million and net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company rising 48.9% year on year to RMB38,352 million, in the first three months of 2023. In the period, Ping An Life's in-depth reform gradually paid off amid steady, healthy business development. New Business Value ("NBV") of the life and health insurance business ("Life & Health") grew 8.8% year on year in the first three months of 2023. Like-for-like growth in Life & Health NBV reached 21.1% year on year in the first three months of 2023. Year-on-year growth in NBV of the agent channel turned positive, and NBV of the bancassurance channel rose sharply year on year. With deepened integrated financial services strategy, customer development continued to yield greater results. Retail customers approached 229 million as of March 31, 2023, and contracts per customer grew 0.3% year to date to 2.98. Ping An continued to implement its healthcare ecosystem strategy and achieved RMB40 billion in health insurance premium income in the first three months of 2023, with customers entitled to "insurance + service" benefits accounting for a steadily increasing percentage of Ping An Life's NBV.
Life & Health core indicators gradually recovered amid high-quality growth.
Ping An Life unswervingly implemented the "4 channels + 3 products" strategy in the first three months of 2023 and the reform gradually paid off amid stable operations and steady, healthy business development. Life & Health NBV grew 8.8% year on year to RMB13,702 million in the first three months of 2023. Major channels, including the agent channel, the bancassurance channel and the Community Grid channel, all achieved positive NBV growth. Life & Health net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company rose 104.5% year on year to RMB24,971 million. In the first quarter of 2023, life insurance premium income reached RMB171,767 million, up 5.6% year on year, leading the domestic insurance industry.
In respect of channels, Ping An Life's comprehensive strength in channels was effectively enhanced as the agent channel was optimized and innovative channels gradually took shape. Year-on-year growth in NBV of the agent channel turned positive. Bancassurance, Community Grid and other channels accounted for 16.9% of Ping An Life's NBV, up by 5.4 pps year on year in the first three months of 2023.
In respect of products and services, Ping An Life upgraded its insurance product portfolio, and built differential advantages under the "insurance + service" framework by leveraging the Group's healthcare ecosystem. Services offered by Ping An Life include "insurance + health management," "insurance + home-based elderlycare," and "insurance + high-end elderlycare." Ping An's home-based elderlycare services covered 47 cities across China as of March 31, 2023, and its "Shanghai Yi Nian Cheng" project was unveiled in February 2023. Whole life insurance products with a growing sum assured, represented by "Sheng Shi Jin Yue", continued to sell well and was widely acknowledged by the market.
Property & Casualty, banking, and asset management businesses improved business quality as a result of the integrated finance strategy.
The Group's retail cross-selling continued to grow as a result of its enhanced integrated finance strategy. Nearly 40% of the Company's nearly 229 million retail customers held multiple contracts with different subsidiaries. Among the Group's 354 million yearly active users, the number of retail customers who were also online users approached 211 million. Corporate customer development yielded good results. Corporate premiums achieved through cross-selling grew 4.5% year on year to RMB5,028 million, including RMB2,041 million in written premium of the corporate channel in the first three months of 2023.
Ping An P&C maintained good business quality with steady growth in insurance revenue. Ping An P&C's insurance revenue increased 7.1% year on year to RMB76,312 million in the first three months of 2023. Ping An P&C's net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company rose 45.9% to RMB4,523 million. Overall underwriting combined ratio remained healthy at 98.7% as Ping An P&C enhanced business management and risk screening.
Ping An Bank maintained stable, healthy business performance and solid asset quality. Revenue decreased 2.4% year on year to RMB45,098 million in the first three months of 2023, mainly due to ongoing support for the real economy, a narrowing net interest margin, and volatile bond and foreign exchange markets. Revenue increased 8.3% compared with the fourth quarter of 2022 amid a sustained economic recovery. Net profit grew 13.6% year on year to RMB14,602 million in the first three months of 2023. Non-performing loan ratio remained unchanged year to date at 1.05%, and provision coverage ratio was 290.40% as of March 31, 2023, indicating adequate risk provisions.
The Company's insurance funds investment portfolio achieved an annualized net investment yield of 3.1% and an annualized total investment yield of 3.3% in the first three months of 2023. The Company's insurance funds investment portfolio grew 3.1% year to date to over RMB4.49 trillion as of March 31, 2023. The Company further optimized the asset-liability duration matching of insurance funds by increasing allocation to long-duration assets including central and local government bonds.
Ping An continually promoted the "managed care model" and improved services with advanced technologies.
Ping An launched an innovative Chinese "managed care model" by seamlessly combining differentiated healthcare services with financial businesses in which Ping An acts as a payer. In this way, Ping An empowers its core financial businesses by providing one-stop "worry-free, time-saving, and money-saving" healthcare services for retail and corporate customers. Over 64% of Ping An's nearly 229 million retail customers had used services from the healthcare ecosystem as of March 31, 2023.
Ping An advanced the research and development of relevant products by effectively integrating insurance with healthcare services. Ping An Health had over 42 million paying retail customers as of March 31, 2023. Moreover, Ping An constantly improved employee health management service programs for corporate customers, covering over 10 million employees of nearly 20,000 corporate customers in the first three months of 2023. Ping An achieved RMB40 billion in health insurance premium income in the first three months of 2023, with customers entitled to "insurance + service" benefits accounting for a steadily increasing percentage of Ping An Life's NBV.
Ping An provided services via an "online, in-store, and home-delivered" network by integrating domestic and overseas premium resources including medical services, health services, commodities and medicines. Ping An had nearly 50,000 contracted external doctors in China as of March 31, 2023. Ping An partnered with over 10,000 hospitals (including all the top 100 hospitals and 3A hospitals) and over 100,000 healthcare management institutions in China. Ping An partnered with approximately 226,000 or over 38% of all pharmacies in China as of March 31, 2023, up by nearly 2,000 year to date. Moreover, Ping An partnered with over 1,000 overseas medical institutions in 16 countries across the world as of March 31, 2023. Ping An ranked first globally by the number of digital healthcare patent applications as of March 31, 2023. Ping An has one of the world's largest healthcare databases and proactively builds a leading remote consultation and treatment platform.
Ping An continuously explored innovative fintech and digital healthcare business models to accelerate the development of its businesses and ecosystems, committed to empowering its core financial businesses, supporting industrial upgrade, and serving the real economy. The Company builds leading technological capabilities and develops ecosystems mainly through subsidiaries, associates and joint ventures including Autohome, Lufax Holding, OneConnect, and Ping An Health.
Ping An focused on developing core technologies to improve the services of its core financial businesses. The Company's technology patent applications firmly led most international financial institutions, totaling 47,229 as of March 31, 2023, up by 1,152 year to date. Ping An continued to leverage cutting-edge technologies to comprehensively upgrade the end-to-end services of its core financial businesses. Sales realized by AI service representatives accounted for 49% of the total sales volume of all service representatives in the first three months of 2023. The amount of services provided by AI service representatives remained stable and exceeded 530 million times in the first three months of 2023, representing 81% of Ping An's total customer service volume. AI collected 42% of the amount of overdue loans in the first three months of 2023.
Ping An continuously furthered its green finance initiatives to support sustainable development. Green investment and financing, and green banking business totaled approximately RMB308,449 million and RMB174,112 million respectively as of March 31, 2023. Green insurance premium income amounted to approximately RMB6,565 million in the first three months of 2023.
2023 is the first year to implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China ("CPC") and is a crucial year for the implementation of China's 14th Five-Year Plan. A hard-earned start has been made. Ping An will unswervingly pursue high-quality development with Chinese characteristics and foster a new development dynamic to achieve its original aspiration of "being people-centered and contributing to national rejuvenation". The Group will continually promote the technology-driven "integrated finance + healthcare" strategy. By leveraging resources and advantages in finance, healthcare and technology, Ping An will seize opportunities presented by policies, fully support the real economy, and fulfill corporate social responsibilities to maximize value for society, customers, shareholders, and employees.
