Kanzhun Soars 10% on Q1 Expectations Beat

(CapitalWatch, June 24, New York) The stock of Kanzhun Ltd. (Nasdaq: BZ) skyrocketed 10% in New York Friday, ending the week 16% higher overall as it wooed investors with quarterly financials.

The online HR company in China posted better-than-expected results for the first quarter Friday, showing revenue growth of 44% year-over-year to $179.5 million. Kanzhun generates the vast majority of its revenues from online recruitment services, while also offering paid value-added services to job seekers. In the first quarter, the latter segment increased nearly 66%, the report said.

Net loss narrowed significantly to $1.9 million. Excluding the impact of share-based compensation expenses, adjusted net income for the first quarter reached $19.1 million.

"While facing the negative impact of the pandemic's resurgence in China, we believe that our quality services and technologies continue make us well positioned to serve the needs of our users and uphold our social responsibility in overcoming difficulties during these challenging times," Kanzhun's founder, chairman, and CEO, Jonathan Peng Zhao, said in the statement today.

Kanzhun also saw a slight increase in the average MAUs, which hit 25.2 million compared with 24.9 million in the same quarter of 2021. These include both job seekers and hiring companies that logged in at least once during a month.

Paid enterprise customers in the year through March 2022 increased by 41% to 4.1 million, according to the report.

Net cash generated from operating activities was $46.4 million, an increase of nearly 78% year-over-year. Balance of cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments was $1.96 billion. In March, Kanzhun launched a share buyback program, under which it could repurchase up to $150 million of its ADSs.

The company said it expects to generate between 1.09 billion yuan and 1.10 billion yuan in the second quarter of 2022. That would imply an increase of up to 5.8% from the same period a year ago and reflects the impact of the Covid-19 lockdowns in certain cities of China.

Shares in Kanzhun closed at $27.34 per share Friday – that's up 16% from a week ago.