Liu Hao, CEO of Zhaopin, responded to a huge loss: achieving profit and loss at the end of the year

Sina Technology news in the early morning of March 6, the recruitment of three major website Giants, two huge losses, a shrinking financial report, the network recruitment industry is quite embarrassed. Liu Hao, CEO of Zhaopin, accepted an interview with Sina Technology under pressure to question the loss of 0.17 billion yuan in advertising, saying that the actual loss amount did not reach 0.17 billion yuan, and it is expected to achieve profit and loss at the end of the year.

Liu Hao said that Zhaopin is not a public company and therefore does not disclose financial data, but he revealed that the actual loss is not as high as 0.17 billion yuan. He believes that it is still the stage of market competition and user competition. He believes that two or three years later he will see a return for advertising that has been questioned by the outside world.

Liu Hao believes that the profit of his competitors is at the expense of market share. "After all, they are listed companies, so profit needs to be paid to investors ." Liu Hao admitted that he would cut the advertising budget in the economic crisis, but he still has confidence in profitability. "As long as the economic situation does not deteriorate, the balance of payments can be achieved this year ."

Online recruitment is still in the user grabbing stage

Sina Technology: What do you think is the cause of a huge loss of 0.17 billion yuan?

Liu Hao: We are a non-public company. Financial data has never been disclosed or commented on. Although the loss disclosed by the outside world is 0.17 billion yuan, there are actually not so many companies. The sustained loss is also because nearly 3-4 years is the development phase of recruitment websites to scale and qualitative change. To occupy market share and obtain user resources, there will inevitably be huge advertising and market investment, this is also our long-term strategy. The resource investment is large, so there will be losses.

Sina Technology: I would like to give an example of a video website. It was a long time ago that it snatched users and traffic, and it took some time to realize that profit is more important. Do you think Zhaopin faces the same problems?

Liu Hao: indeed, there are a lot of new businesses on the Internet, which will be eye-catching in the early stage, but cannot convert traffic into revenue. But this is not the case for us. The online recruitment business model has been very mature and proved to be chargeable 10 years ago. Now, whether it is invested in the market or advertising, it takes time to prove the value, rather than immediately achieving results. I believe that the current investment in the next year will certainly reflect strong support.

Still confident to achieve balance of payments by the end of the year

Sina Technology: When are you expected to return a huge investment?

Liu Hao: the economic crisis will definitely affect the return time. Our annual revenue is growing fast and faces many bad market conditions. However, our core online recruitment business revenue is still growing. In this situation, there is a natural pressure to achieve revenue, but we have already set up the most expensive part of the recruitment website, such as the business, model, and maintenance platform. Once this critical point is reached, early losses can be compensated. If the market will not deteriorate further, I still have the confidence to achieve a balance of payments by the end of this year.

Sina Technology: The economy is not good, and the job pressure is also very high. It seems that recruitment websites should start to play a role, but why is it still difficult to recruit websites? Do you think the market structure has changed this year?

Liu Hao: that's what I just said. Once the critical point is reached, the early losses will soon be able to be compensated. This is also the time when the pressure on recruitment websites is the greatest. For example, how to allocate resources, and whether to overlay employees and lose potential. This year's form will determine the competitive landscape of the industry.

Without any worries about future earnings, the premise is that the share is reduced.

Sina Technology: in the middle of last year, Zhaopin announced a financing of 0.11 billion US dollars. What is the current reference of this fund? Is there sufficient funds to "burn money "?

Liu Hao: at that time, we made it clear that the funds will be used in the market, sales and products, and will not be used for acquisition. At present, we are more concerned with how to serve and retain the users and customers we have already obtained to obtain higher ROI. Different companies have different judgments about whether they are "burning money. Some companies are not clear about their business models. It is highly risky to get user attention only. Although we are also spending money, I don't think it is "burning money". I believe it will definitely produce a return, just a matter of time. This year, we will reduce our advertising budget out of our judgment on the market.

Sina Technology: among the three recruitment websites, no worries about the future earnings only make a profit. How can you meet your needs and the performance of chinaili.com?

Liu Hao: carefree future is the only company that can see public data, but their profits are not proportional to the revenue scale. No worries about the future of the quarter camp close to 0.2 billion yuan, but the net profit is only 6.8 million yuan, not very good results. However, as a listed company, there is no worries about the future and investors need to be informed. Therefore, they need to maintain profitability, but the premise of their profitability is that their market share is reduced. We can compare the situation of chinacili.com with that of Internet companies acquired by large foreign groups in recent years. We can hardly find a successful case. (Han Zhi)