Ping An earns US$9.45 billion net profit in first half, up 31.9 percent

By pursuing their “finance and technology, finance and ecosystem” strategy, Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China Ltd announced on Tuesday that they have delivered fast profit and customer growth in the first half of 2018.

The financial conglomerate recorded net profit of 64.7 billion yuan (US$9.45 billion) in the first six months ending June 30, rising around one third compared with a year ago, thanks to its strategy of focusing on pan financial assets and pan health care, according to its latest interim report.

Aiming to become a world-leading technology powered retail financial services group, Ping An saw its number of retail customers jump by a quarter year on year to stand at 179 million during the reporting period. Under an integrated financial business model of “one customer, multiple products and one-stop services,” each customer held 2.39 contracts on average with the group, up by 4.8 percent annually.

From January to June, the group’s life and health insurance business earned net profit of 34.3 billion yuan, rising by 44.2 percent compared with twelve months prior, while the property and casualty subsidiary boosted its premium income by 14.9 percent annually on the back of improved service.

Ping An said that its financial technology and health technology business sector contributed to 7 percent of the group’s operating profit, up by 6.4 percentage points year on year.

As of the end of June, Ping An’s technology patent applications doubled from the beginning of this year to hit more than 6,000, covering artificial technology based cognition, blockchain and cloud computing. The company has applied those technologies to scenarios such as customer development, channel management and risk control.

The financial group claimed that in the coming decade, they will create new growth drivers by applying innovative technologies to traditional financial businesses as well as five ecosystems, namely, financial services, health care, auto services, real estate services and smart city services.