Hong Kong, 26th March: Earlier this week, the HC Group, an online B2B information services provider in China, reported total revenues of US$1.52 billion for the year ended 31st December 2018. That represents growth of 185% year-on-year. The revenue growth was mainly from HC’s smart industries segment – its well-developed B2B trading platform.

However, net profit dropped slightly by 1.8%, down to US$93 million. The company attributed the decrease in profit to an increase of share based compensation expense related to share award and share option granted. Dilute earnings per share in the year were RMB 0.2458 (US$0.036).