Cheetah Mobile Inc. (NYSE:CMCM), the Chinese mobile internet group, beat Wall Street’s estimates on revenue in the first quarter thanks to an impressive number of monthly active users (MAU).
In the opening three months of the year, Cheetah, the maker of the Piano Tiles 2 game and the streaming product Live.me, reported revenue of US$182.6mln or RMB1,145.1mln, which surpassed Wall Street’s consensus estimate of US$180.34mln.
Cheetah’s average number of global mobile monthly active users came to 574mln in the first three months of the year. Customers from outside of China accounted for three-quarters of that figure, underlining Cheetah’s international reach.
On a non-GAAP basis, its diluted income per shares was US$0.08 per share, which matched analysts’ expectations.
Cheetah’s gross profit jumped 2.9% year over year to US$120.2mln or RMB753.9mln in the quarter while its gross margin was close to 66%, up from 61.5% in the year-ago quarter
Cheetah draws its hundreds of millions of monthly active via products such as Clean Master and Cheetah Keyboard. It also makes considerable revenue by selling advertisements to companies and mobile advertising networks, which are looking for access to its large base of mobile users.
In the second quarter, Cheetah expects its total revenue to fall between US$163mln and US$172mln.
The company has been listed via ADRs on the New York Stock Exchange since May of 2014.
In pre-market trade, Cheetah's shares dipped 3.5% to US$11.88.