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Zhihu Technology shares opened at $8.02 each on Friday, about 15.6% lower than the company’s IPO price $9.5.Zhihu IPO prices at low end of the range, valuing company at about $5.3 billion.

Zhihu Inc. announced Friday the pricing of its initial public offering, at $9.50 per American depositary share, which was at the low end of the expected range. The China-based online content company offered 55 million ADS in the IPO to raise $522.5 million, while the pricing valued the company at about $5.31 billion.

Zhihu has a similar business model as Quora where millions of people ask questions and exchange their views and experiences. Zhihu has become the largest online question and answer community in China.

Sales Breakdown

Advertising and paid memberships account for the biggest portion of the company's revenues. Advertising accounted for 86.1% and 62.4% of total revenues in 2019 and 2020, respectively. We estimate advertising as a percentage of revenues to gradually decline in the next five years as it is offset by the faster growing Paid Memberships and Content Commerce Solutions. We estimate advertising as a percentage of sales to decline to 34.1% in 2021 and 22.3% in 2025.

Paid Memberships represented 13.1% of total revenues in 2019, which increased to 23.7% of total revenues in 2020. We have assumed Paid Membership revenues as a percentage of total revenues to increase to 31.5% in 2021 and 37.8% in 2025.

Content Commerce Solutions and Other sales also increased sharply in 2020. Content Commerce Solutions revenues jumped from 0.6 million RMB in 2019 to 135.8 million RMB in 2020. In early 2020, the company launched Content-Commerce solutions, which provide merchants and brands a one-stop shop for all of their sales and marketing needs, including marketing plans. We have assumed Content Commerce Solutions as a percentage of total revenue to jump from 10% in 2020 to 17.8% in 2021 and 32.3% in 2025.

Gross Margins

The company's gross margins improved from 46.6% in 2019 to 56.0% in 2020, driven by an overall improving business scalability. We have assumed further improvements in gross margins to 57.4% in 2021 and 62.3% in 2025.

Total Operating Expenses and Operating Margins

Total operating expenses as a percentage of revenues declined significantly from 204.4% in 2019 to 100.6% in 2020. We expect this ratio to improve further to 79% in 2021, 69.2% in 2022, and 57.2% in 2025. The bulk of the improvements in operating expenses is coming from lower SG&A and R&D expenses as a percentage of revenues in the next five years.

Company Background

At the end of 2020, Zhihu had more than 43.1 million cumulative content creators that contributed 315 million questions and answers. In 4Q 2020, the company had 75.7 million average monthly active users, up 33% YoY. One of the key strengths of the company is that it is recognized as one of the most trustworthy online content communities and regarded as providing one of the highest quality content in China. Zhihu has tried to capitalize on its large user base to provide numerous multimedia functions including live streaming, e-commerce, online education, and other video content.

In August 2019, Zhihu received $434 million in funding from leading investors including Baidu and Kuaishou Technology, valuing the company at $3.5 billion. Given that the company had $97 million in sales in 2019, this would suggest a P/S valuation multiple of 36x. If we take the same P/S multiple apply to the company's 2020 sales of $207 million, this would suggest an implied valuation of $7.5 billion.

Zhihu was originally developed as a question and answer online community in 2010. At the end of 2020, there were a total of 315 million Q&As spanning more than 1,000 verticals and 571,000 topics. Zhihu is one of the top five comprehensive online content communities in China, in terms of average mobile MAUs and revenue in 2020. The company uses artificial intelligence, cloud, and big data algorithms to improve the optimization of its content and services.

Major Shareholders of Zhihu

The founder & CEO Zhou Yuanowns an 8.2% stake in the company (but 46.6% voting rights). Sinovation Ventures owns a 13.1% stake and Tencent Holdings Ltd. owns a 12.3% stake of Zhihu.

Key Demographics

The diagram below provides some of the key demographics of Zhihu user base. Males accounted for 56.9% of total users. People under 30 years old accounted for 78.7% of its total user base. Tier I and new tier I cities represented 52.6% of total user base. Many of the users of Zhihu are students and white collar professionals.

Revenue Breakdown

Advertising and paid memberships account for the biggest portion of the company's revenues. Advertising accounted for 86.1% and 62.4% of total revenues in 2019 and 2020, respectively. The company's advertising revenue is mainly driven by its MAUs and advertising revenue per MAU. The company's MAUs increased by 42.7% YoY to 68.5 million in 2020. The company started its online advertising business in 2016 and introduced paid content in 2018.

Paid memberships represented 13.1% of total revenues in 2019, which increased to 23.7% of total revenues in 2020. Average monthly members jumped by 311.5% YoY to 2.36 million in 2020, which is a testament of an increasing number of customers that value the premium content available on Zhihu.

In March 2019, the company introduced the Yan Selection membership program, making it the first payment-based questions & answers community. It provides its members with unlimited access to about 3.4 million paid content including online lectures, columns, audio books, and e-journals. This is one of the biggest strengths of the company as it shows how high quality data and content can generate serious amount of revenues and it also provides a more steady monthly revenue inflow.

Content Commerce Solutions and Other sales also increased sharply in 2020. Content Commerce Solutions revenues jumped from 0.6 million RMB in 2019 to 135.8 million RMB in 2020. In early 2020, the company launched Content-Commerce solutions, which provide merchants and brands a one-stop shop for all of their sales and marketing needs, including marketing plans, assigning the most relevant content creators to interested users, and facilitating content creation.

China's content-commerce solution market is expected to be one of the fastest growing sectors in the next several years. According to CIC Consultancy, China's content-commerce solution market is expected to enjoy a strong CAGR growth of 46.4% from 2019 to 2025 (112.3 billion RMB).

Market Opportunities

China’s Online Content Communities Market Size

Online content communities refer to UGC (user generated content)-focused (including PUGC (professional user generated content) focused online content market players where content creators are also users, who are actively engaged within the communities. The content communities generally can stimulate higher level of user engagement, more interactive user experience, and enjoy lower content cost, compared to PGC (professionally generated content) players. PGC is content created by the branded company or organization.

China's online content communities market size increased from 38.6 billion RMB in 2015 to 275.8 billion RMB in 2019 and is further expected to rise to 1.3 trillion RMB in 2025, representing a CAGR of 30.3% from 2019 to 2025, which is higher than the overall online content market growth.

China's online content community market has more diversified monetization channels including online advertising, paid membership, content e-commerce, content-commerce solutions, virtual gifting in live streaming, online games, and online education services. In comparison, the US online content community's monetization is mainly through advertising.

One of the major positives about the company is the growing trend of more Chinese consumers that are willing to pay money for higher quality content. The number of paying users in China’s online content communities is expected to increase at a CAGR of 17.1% between 2019 and 2025, which means an increase of 360.4 million extra paying users of online content communities to 588.2 million in 2025.

China's Online Content Market

China's online content market tripled from 2015 to reach 1.2 trillion RMB in 2019. This market is expected to increase to 3.7 trillion RMB in 2025, representing a CAGR of 21.4% from 2019 to 2025.

China’s Online Content Market Size (in terms of revenue), 2015-2025E

Market Size of China’s Online Content Communities (in terms of revenue),2015-2025E

China’s Paid Membership Market Size (in terms of revenue), 2015-2025E

Content-commerce solutions

To provide integrated marketing services, the online content communities provide content-commerce solutions for content creation, content distribution, and content conversion. The company provides integrated content-commerce solutions, providing merchants and brands one-stop services for all their sales and marketing needs, from making marketing plans, facilitating content creation, assigning the most relevant content creators, to distributing to the interested users. China's content commerce solution market is expected to grow from 11.4 billion RMB in 2019 to 112.3 billion RMB in 2025, at a CAGR of 46.4%.

China’s Content-Commerce Solution Market Size (in terms of revenue), 2015-2025E