**Summary** In the first half of 2025, Ping An Insurance's life and health insurance new business value grew 39.8% year-on-year, with the investment portfolio achieving a 3.1% non-annualized comprehensive investment return.

Against the backdrop of channel reforms and product portfolio adjustments, what kind of mid-year report card did Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (referred to as "Ping An", 601318.SH, 2318.HK) deliver in the first half of 2025?

On August 27, Ping An held its 2025 interim results conference. Performance data showed that in the first half of 2025, the company achieved operating profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company of RMB 77.732 billion, up 3.7% year-on-year; operating revenue of RMB 500.076 billion; and shareholders' equity attributable to the parent company of RMB 943.952 billion, up 1.7% from the beginning of the year.

"2025 marks the year with the strongest sense of crisis, deepest strategic advancement, and largest service upgrade efforts in Ping An's 37-year history," said Ping An Chairman Ma Mingzhe in his message to shareholders in the interim report.

Regarding the first-half performance, Ping An CEO and Co-CEO Xie Yonglin expressed satisfaction with management's operating results for the first half of the year, citing three reasons: first, the group's overall performance was very stable; second, the group's main business showed very strong growth; and third, the group continued to drive innovation.

From core business indicators, in the first half of 2025, Ping An's life and health insurance new business value grew 39.8% year-on-year, with new business value margin (by regular premium) rising 9.0 percentage points year-on-year; agent channel new business value grew 17.0% year-on-year, with per capita new business value rising 21.6% year-on-year; bancassurance channel new business value surged 168.6% year-on-year.

Notably, Ping An will distribute an interim dividend of RMB 0.95 per share in cash to shareholders, up 2.2% year-on-year.

Regarding share price performance and expectations, Fu Xin stated, "Gold will always shine, and we believe it can shine even brighter. First, the life insurance industry is currently in a golden development period, with industry demand and growth gradually being released, showing tremendous potential. Second, Ping An's comprehensive finance and healthcare-retirement advantages are gradually materializing, and the healthcare-retirement moat is being progressively built. Currently, Ping An's valuation multiples are very low, and I believe more investors will continue to recognize Ping An's value, making the gold shine brighter."

**New Business Value Grows 39.8%**

From the current effectiveness of Ping An's life insurance reforms, in the first half of 2025, Ping An's life and health insurance new business value reached RMB 22.335 billion, up 39.8% year-on-year; new business value margin calculated by regular premium was 30.5%, up 9 percentage points year-on-year; operating profit reached RMB 54.621 billion, up 3.5% year-on-year.

In terms of channels, in the first half of 2025, agent channel new business value grew 17% year-on-year, with per capita new business value for agents rising 21.6% year-on-year. As of the end of June 2025, the proportion of sales personnel with college education or above in the overall workforce increased by 1.5 percentage points compared to the end of June 2024.

Specifically, for the bancassurance channel, new business value in the first half was RMB 5.972 billion, up 168.6% year-on-year. It is understood that in bank cooperation, Ping An has strengthened cooperation with leading joint-stock banks and city commercial banks, promoting channel expansion and quality improvement.

Additionally, community financial service channels have intensively cultivated existing customers, achieving a 0.4 percentage point year-on-year improvement in renewal rate for existing customers' full premium payments in the first half. As of the end of June 2025, 301 outlets were established in 198 cities, with an elite team of nearly 30,000 people.

Bancassurance channels, community financial services, and other channels contributed 33.9% of Ping An Life's new business value.

Regarding the growth in new business value in the first half, Ping An Co-CEO Guo Xiaotao analyzed that this was mainly due to the continuous release of triple reform dividends driving business growth. First is the multi-channel strategy reform dividend. Previously, life insurance only had agent channels, but now there are bancassurance and community financial channels. In the first half of this year, Ping An's bancassurance channels, community financial services, and other channels contributed 33.9% of Ping An Life's new business value. Second is the "product + service" reform dividend. Currently, the financial industry is gradually entering a stage of homogeneous competition, and only value-added services can truly achieve differentiated competition. Therefore, the company emphasizes value-added services, which can effectively meet customers' diversified needs and contribute long-term development momentum for itself. Third is the dividend from AI-empowered business. Ping An has continuously invested in technology in the past, utilizing AI and data analysis to significantly improve the sales team's customer acquisition, retention, and marketing conversion efficiency.

"Based on these triple reform dividends, the company is confident about the full-year development of life insurance business and confident about the continuous growth of NBV (new business value)," Guo Xiaotao said.

Additionally, it's worth noting that comprehensive digitalization strategy is Ping An's top priority for 2025. Currently, Ping An has built a three-layer large model system consisting of general models, vertical domain models, and application models.

According to Xiao Jing, Chief Scientist of Ping An and Executive Vice President of Ping An Technology, in the first half of 2025, AI agents saved nearly RMB 6.5 billion in annual costs, served 2.2 billion customer visits annually, and served over 30 external banks. In risk control, Ping An P&C's anti-fraud intelligent claims interception reduced losses by over RMB 6 billion, up 6% year-on-year. Ping An's unique micro-expression technology covers over 4.5 million customers and saves over RMB 4 billion annually.

**Moderately Increasing Equity Asset Allocation**

From Ping An's investment performance, in the first half of 2025, facing a complex and volatile market environment, Ping An's insurance funds investment portfolio achieved a 3.1% non-annualized comprehensive investment return, up 0.3 percentage points year-on-year; non-annualized net investment yield was 1.8%, down 0.2 percentage points year-on-year.

Ping An explained that the increase in non-annualized comprehensive investment return was mainly due to balanced asset allocation strategy and forward-looking deployment of high-dividend equity assets; the decrease in non-annualized net investment yield was mainly affected by the maturity of existing assets and the decline in maturity yields of new fixed-income assets.

The interim report shows that over the past 10 years, Ping An has achieved an average net investment yield of 5.0% and average comprehensive investment return of 5.1%, exceeding the long-term investment return assumptions of embedded value.

With the warming of equity markets, insurance funds' market entry pace has significantly accelerated this year. According to data disclosed by the National Financial Regulatory Administration, as of the end of the second quarter, insurance funds invested in stocks totaled RMB 3.07 trillion, compared to RMB 2.43 trillion invested in stocks at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024, meaning insurance funds made net purchases of approximately RMB 640 billion in the first half.

Regarding future equity investment directions, Xie Yonglin revealed that since this year, investor confidence in the A-share market has continued to recover, and China's market valuation levels remain in a reasonable range. As patient capital and long-term capital, Ping An will moderately increase equity asset allocation around two directions: new quality productive forces and high-dividend value stocks.

Notably, recent disclosures from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange show that Ping An and its subsidiaries Ping An Asset Management and Ping An Life have respectively increased their holdings in China Taiping H shares and China Life H shares, both triggering disclosure thresholds.

When Guo Xiaotao responded to "why increase holdings in peer companies" at the results conference, he stated that whether investing in peers or other industries, Ping An follows a "three feasible" principle: looking at whether a company has reliable operations, promising growth, and sustainable dividends. This is Ping An's core standard for measuring how to invest in a company and whether to hold these companies' stocks for the long term.

"We believe that with the continued decline in our liability costs, continuous optimization of asset allocation, and healthy, sustained, and stable development of capital markets, we will further dynamically match between high-yield stocks, value stocks, and growth stocks, enabling our asset allocation to effectively keep up with capital market development," Guo Xiaotao said.

Recently, DBS Bank issued a latest research report on Ping An, reaffirming its "Buy" rating and clearly indicating that Ping An remains its preferred investment target among Chinese insurance stocks. DBS Bank maintained its target price of HK$69 for Ping An H shares unchanged, while giving an A-share target price of RMB 68.41 based on a 15% premium.