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DeepSeek User Kanzhun's Stock Up 10%+ On Solid Earnings

The employment app faces big opportunities, but also challenges, as more people enter the workforce and signs emerge that companies may be ramping up recruitment

Key Takeaways:

Kanzhun's net profit jumped by 42.6% to 1.57 billion yuan last year

The operator of the Boss Zhipin recruitment app saw its number of monthly active users grow by 25.3% last year to 53 million

A line from a popular TV drama says that "The choppier the water, the more expensive the fish that live there." The implication is that the tougher the environment, the greater the payoff if you can successfully see your way through it.

China's recruitment industry fits that bill, made choppy by significant growth in recent years that's the direct result of growing unemployment in an economic slowdown after three decades of breakneck growth. That landscape is providing plenty of job applicants for recruitment services, even if these companies will only truly thrive when the broader economy picks up and companies step up their hiring again.

The latest financial report from Kanzhun Ltd. (BZ.US; 2076.HK), operator of China's biggest online recruitment platform, Boss Zhipin, was sending signals that such an economic recovery might be just around the corner.

Kanzhun announced solid gains on both its top and bottom lines last year, with annual revenue up by 23.6% year-on-year to 7.36 billion yuan ($1.02 billion) and net profit up by an even greater 42.6% to 1.57 billion yuan. The company was sitting on 14.7 billion yuan in cash and short-term investments by the end of last year, up by 13.8% from the 12.9 billion yuan at the end of 2023. 

In terms of quarterly performance, Kanzhun's revenue grew by 15.4% year-on-year in the fourth quarter to 1.82 billion yuan, marking a sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. Its net profit for the three months grew by 34.1% to 444.2 million ...