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HONG KONG and SHANGHAI, April 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter "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, 2024.
China's economy gradually recovered in the first three months of 2024, with capital markets picking up. However, there were still growth challenges including insufficient demand and weak economic expectations. Amidst opportunities and challenges, Ping An focused on core financial businesses and strengthened the insurance protection function to serve the real economy under its business policy of "focusing on core businesses, boosting revenue and cutting costs, optimizing structure, and enhancing quality and efficiency". Following the technology-driven "integrated finance + health and senior care" strategy, Ping An continuously consolidated its integrated finance advantages, remained customer needs-oriented, and pursued high-quality development.
The Group's operating profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company reached RMB38,709 million. Three core businesses, namely Life & Health, property and casualty insurance, and banking, resumed growth and delivered RMB39,816 million in operating profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company, up 0.3% year on year. Life & Health showed significant growth momentum. Life & Health NBV amounted to RMB12,890 million in the first three months of 2024, up 20.7% year on year on a like-for-like basis. NBV per agent climbed 56.4% year on year. Ping An continued to develop its integrated finance model. Retail customers increased 1.0% from the beginning of the year to nearly 234 million and contracts per retail customer reached 2.94 as of March 31, 2024. Ping An continued to implement its health and senior care ecosystem strategy. The Company achieved nearly RMB40 billion in health insurance premium income in the first three months of 2024. Customers entitled to service benefits in the health and senior care ecosystem contributed about 70% of Ping An Life's NBV in the first three months of 2024, up 6 pps year on year.
Life & Health achieved double-digit growth in NBV, and enhanced strength in channels.
Ping An Life furthered the "4 channels + 3 products" strategy and achieved outstanding performance in key business operating indicators. Ping An Life achieved steady business development thanks to comprehensive advancement in sales channels, improved business quality, and diverse products and services launched. Life & Health NBV amounted to RMB12,890 million in the first three months of 2024, up 20.7% year on year on a like-for-like basis. NBV margin was 22.8%, up 6.5 pps year on year on a like-for-like basis. From January to March 2024, Life & Health realized premium income of RMB185,346 million, an increase of 1.2% year on year, leading the industry in terms of scale, and continuing to improve its operating trend.
In respect of channels, under the value proposition of high-quality development, Ping An Life continued to deepen the transformation and build multi-channel professional sales capabilities, significantly improving the development quality. Ping An Life improved the business quality of the agent channel, and continuously increased team productivity by recruiting high-quality agents through high-quality existing ones. NBV per agent climbed 56.4% year on year in the first three months of 2024, and the proportion of "Talent +" new agents increased by 11.0 pps year on year. Ping An Life furthered the exclusive agency model with Ping An Bank, and continuously expanded partnership with high-quality external banks. In addition, Ping An Life standardized outlet operations, and continuously boosted operational efficiency. Overall policy persistency ratio of all retained customers in the cities with Community Grid outlets improved by 2.5 pps year on year as of March 31, 2024.
In respect of products, Ping An Life continued to focus on three areas, namely wealth management, pension insurance, and protection insurance, meeting customer needs for diverse insurance products. By leveraging the Group's health and senior care ecosystem, Ping An Life built differentiated advantages by enhancing its three core services: health care, home-based senior care and high-end senior care. In respect of health care, Ping An Life provided health management services to over 10 million customers in the first three months of 2024. Ping An's home-based senior care services covered 54 cities across China, and nearly 100,000 customers qualified for the home-based senior care services as of March 31, 2024. Ping An established the "Ping An Concierge Senior Care Service Alliance" jointly with partners and released the "5-7-3 Home Safety Renovation Service" in March 2024 to help seniors improve their quality of life. In respect of high-end senior care, Ping An has unveiled high-end senior care projects in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Foshan.
Ping An continuously advanced its integrated finance strategy, maintained steady growth in P&C and banking businesses, and delivered stable return in insurance funds investment.
Ping An provided "worry-free, time-saving, and money-saving" one-stop integrated finance solutions under a customer-centric philosophy. Retail customers increased 1.0% from the beginning of the year to nearly 234 million and contracts per retail customer reached 2.94 as of March 31, 2024. Retail customers and contracts per retail customer have increased 17.9% and 10.1% respectively since December 31, 2019.
Ping An P&C maintained stable business growth and healthy business quality. Ping An P&C's insurance revenue rose by 5.7% year on year to RMB80,627 million in the first three months of 2024. Overall COR rose by 0.9 pps year on year to 99.6%; COR excluding guarantee insurance was 98.4%, up year on year mainly due to snowstorms on early days of the Chinese New Year and increased customer travels. The snowstorms adversely impacted COR by 2.0 pps in the first three months of 2024.
Ping An Bank maintained steady business performance and stable asset quality. Ping An Bank improved operational cost-effectiveness via digital transformation, strengthened asset quality control and management, and enhanced non-performing asset recovery and disposal. Net profit grew by 2.3% year on year to RMB14,932 million. Non-performing loan ratio was 1.07% and provision coverage ratio was 261.66% as of March 31, 2024. Ping An Bank's capital adequacy ratios at all levels met regulatory requirements, and its core tier 1 capital adequacy ratio rose to 9.59% as of March 31, 2024.
Insurance fund investment returns performed well and the portfolio steadily increased. The Company's insurance funds investment portfolio achieved an annualized comprehensive investment yield of 3.1%, and an annualized net investment yield of 3.0% in the first three months of 2024. The Company's insurance funds investment portfolio grew 4.4% from the beginning of the year to more than RMB4.93 trillion as of March 31, 2024. The Company is committed to creating stable investment incomes through macroeconomic cycles, and meeting liability needs under a liability-driven approach, taking solvency as a core metric.
Further developing the health and senior care ecosystem as a new driver of value growth.
Ping An's health and senior care ecosystem created both standalone direct value and huge indirect value by empowering our core financial businesses through differentiated "Product + Service" offerings. Over 63% of Ping An's nearly 234 million retail customers used services from the health and senior care ecosystem as of March 31, 2024. They held approximately 3.37 contracts and RMB57,600 in AUM per capita, 1.6 times and 3.6 times those held by non-users of these services respectively.
Ping An made significant progress in customer development by effectively integrating insurance with health and senior care services. The Group's health and senior care ecosystem had over 45,000 paying corporate clients in the first three months of 2024. Ping An Health had nearly 40 million paying users over the past 12 months. Ping An achieved nearly RMB40 billion in health insurance premium income in the first three months of 2024. Customers entitled to service benefits in the health and senior care ecosystem contributed approximately 70% of Ping An Life's NBV in the first three months of 2024, up 6 pps year on year. Over 10 million customers of Ping An Life used services from the health and senior care ecosystem in the first three months of 2024. Notably, over 60% of Ping An Life's newly enrolled customers used health management services in the first three months of 2024.
Ping An provided services via an "online, in-store, and home-delivered" service network by integrating domestic and overseas premium resources. The Company had about 50,000 in-house doctors and contracted external doctors in China as of March 31, 2024. Ping An partnered with over 36,000 hospitals (including all top 100 hospitals and 3A hospitals), over 100,000 healthcare management institutions and approximately 231,000 pharmacies (over 37% of all pharmacies, up by nearly 1,000 from the beginning of the year) in China as of March 31, 2024. Moreover, Ping An launched nearly 600 home-based senior care service items in 54 cities across China. Overseas, Ping An partnered with over 1,300 healthcare institutions in 35 countries across the world as of March 31, 2024, including eight of global top 10 and 54 of global top 100.
Ping An continuously built leading technological capabilities, which have been widely utilized to empower its core financial businesses. The Group's patent applications led most international financial institutions, totaling 51,700 as of March 31, 2024. From the perspective of transforming and upgrading Ping An's core businesses, technology benefits are reflected in higher sales, better business efficiency, and stronger risk management. The volume of services provided by AI service representatives reached about 420 million times, accounting for 80% of Ping An's total service volume in the first three months of 2024. AI-driven product sales accounted for 58% of total product sales achieved by service representatives. Claims loss reduction via smart risk identification reached RMB3 billion.
Ping An actively fulfilled its social responsibilities and furthered green finance initiatives. Ping An achieved RMB10,682 million in green insurance premium income and provided RMB2,677 million for rural industrial vitalization through "Ping An Rural Communities Support" in the first three months of 2024. Ping An received a "Low Risk" ESG risk rating from Morningstar Sustainalytics with a score of 17.0 in 2024, ranked first in the Chinese mainland's insurance sector.
Looking ahead, China's economic fundamentals are improving, and the trend of economic recovery will remain unchanged. Ping An will maintain its strategic focus on core financial businesses, continue advancing its technology-driven "integrated finance + health and senior care" strategy. The Company will keep its business resilience, build its strengths, and continuously improve operations and management to promote business recovery and growth. The Company will continuously improve the quality and effectiveness of financial services for the real economy, contributing to China's development into a financial powerhouse.
