Forensic Analyst

Jason Yap, CFA

Forensic Accounting

Kuaishou Technology / Forensic Accounting

<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/beijing-kuaishou-technology-co-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:29725:1" rel="noopener">Kuaishou Technology (1024 HK)</a> is a video creation and streaming mobile application that has a huge userbase in Mainland China.  For the 3 months ended 31 March 2021, its Monthly Active Users (MAU), Daily Active Users (DAU) and Average Daily Time Spent per User totalled 520 million, 295 million and 99.3 minutes respectively, mainly derived from Mainland China. 
While its valuation has retreated to more reasonable levels in recent months, there are still considerable uncertainties about its revenue and profitability prospects, particularly in the wake of tightening regulations in Mainland China and execution difficulties in overseas expansion.
Further, Kuaishou's catchup story to Bytedance is not playing out as expected due to user growth underperformance and average user time spent peaking in Q1 2021.  We discuss some of the underlying issues in the following sections and highlight key factors to watch in its upcoming Q2 2021 results release (expected on 23 August 2021).

Kuaishou Technology (1024 HK) is a video creation and streaming mobile application that has a huge userbase in Mainland China.  For the 3 months ended 31 March 2021, its Monthly Active Users (MAU), Daily Active Users (DAU) and Average Daily Time Spent per User totalled 520 million, 295 million and 99.3 minutes respectively, mainly derived from Mainland China. 
While its valuation has retreated to more reasonable levels in recent months, there are still considerable uncertainties about its revenue and profitability prospects, particularly in the wake of tightening regulations in Mainland China and execution difficulties in overseas expansion.
Further, Kuaishou's catchup story to Bytedance is not playing out as expected due to user growth underperformance and average user time spent peaking in Q1 2021.  We discuss some of the underlying issues in the following sections and highlight key factors to watch in its upcoming Q2 2021 results release (expected on 23 August 2021). 

Kuaishou - Q2 2021 Preview Through a Forensic Lens