Welcome to the ENN Energy Holdings Limited annual results, and I am Karen, the IR and ESG Director. First of all, I would like to introduce the CEO, Mr. Zhang Yuying. We have Mr. Gong Luojian, Executive Director and President. We have Mr. Wang Dongzhi, the Executive Director and CFO. We have Ms. Cheng Lu, Executive Vice President, and also Ms. Liu Min Karen. Also the Deputy CFO, Mr. Zong Bo . For 2024, the global situation was challenging with structural transformation as well as geo-global pressures. The company had been able to achieve a win-win situation, providing multiple products and providing value. Today we will have two parts. We will be reviewing the results, first of all. Now, I will be providing the 2024 review of the performance of the company for you.
I would say for the last year, we all know that the external situation had been complicated for the property market and also industrial production. There had been a lot of pressure, and the external market had been very changeable. At the same time, there had been price pressures as well. In the year, we have been able to persevere with our efforts, and we have been developing in a number of areas in the different sectors, and we were able to achieve the guidance, the targets that we have provided with you in the beginning of the year. In the year, we have increased by 10.2% to RMB 6.7 billion. We have been able to increase our gas business by 4.2%. As for I&E, we have been able to put all the projects into place, and it is a 10.8% increase for I&E.
The profit increase was 16.2%. For the households, it is an increase of 18%, and the gross profit has increased by 4.2%. This is for retail. Cash flow is very important because of the situation. We have been able to continue with our dividend payout. Our free cash flow had increased significantly by RMB 630 million. Year- on- year, it is RMB 3.73 billion, and dividend for the year is a 45% dividend payout ratio. This is a situation, and it provides us with future development opportunities. The company is adamant on safety. Safety is most important for the company in our pipeline network and for our customers. Smart is very important. It is very significant, and it is also very physical in terms of our safety. We have digital intelligence employed in all scenarios for our infrastructure and for our security.
We have been able to provide more customers to satisfy their needs online. Also, with digital intelligence, we have been able to meet the demands and the needs of our customers, in our large clients, in our household clients, and our clients in the I&E, the industrial and commercial field as well. As we have been recognized by various awards, we have been able to achieve AA ratings, and we have been able to be rated as the most progressive company. Further, we have been given good ratings, not only for MSCI, S&P Global, and we have been selected as a Sustainable Yearbook ( China Edition) 2024 Top 5 company.
For financials, profits from wholesale of gas, overseas gas declined, but at the same time, we have been able to explore deeper into the domestic market, and we achieved a 10.2% core profit growth in domestic business with intelligent innovation services. We continue to optimize our sales in natural gas, in I&E, and also domestic businesses. The increase for I&E, it had increased by 16.2%, and this increases the future profitability of the market. VAB had increased by 18% for gross profit to RMB 2.97 billion, and we continue to transform our business. We show a steady growth in retail gas, I&E, integrated energy, that is, and value-added business with increasing contribution with transformation businesses. The I&E business in particular had benefited from the consolidation of our associate companies' profits.
Together with that, including our JVs and associates, the increase for gross profit for I&E business was 19.9%, and VAB gross profit increased by 24.1% year-on-year. On that basis, we have been able to sustain our cash flow and also provide a very good dividend return to our shareholders through our disciplined investments. We have a healthy debt structure, and we have strong credit ratings. As mentioned, we have a very good credit rating from the major rating agencies, and we have decreased net gearing ratio and debt level. Credit ratings assigned to the company had been good and stable, respectively. We have always been adamant on managing well our risks. Next, let's look at the business overview. For retail gas volume, it had increased sales by 4.2%. For commercial and industry, it had been 5.1%. The spread had been 5.4% per unit.
That is our core strategy, and we have been able to achieve that as well, both for our volume and also for our retail gas gross profit. The latter had increased by 12.8%. We, at the same time, have been able to provide a number of strategies, including for our customers, their characteristics in their needs and demands, and providing the transformation for them, and also providing the incentive in terms of price for them so that they were able to transfer from coal to gas and from other forms to gas, and also extending therefore our customers, helping the company in exploring and expanding the market, and also using our model to customize and also to optimize the solutions aligned to our clients' requirements and also to our own production processes.
For the commercial clients and grasping the opportunity of the policy for transfer to gas in 2024, we have had a number of strategies and items. Through these strategies and work, we have been able to achieve over 2 million cubic meters of demand. These are newly installed capacity for industrials was 12.17 million cubic meters per day, and for commercials, it is 2.93 million per day. We also have intelligent households that the newly developed residential household had been 1.62 million. We have been able to complete the residential gas cost pass-through for 101 projects cumulative, adjusted gas price for 63% of household customers to market rates. Through this diversifying resource portfolio with multi-strategy approach, we have been able to reduce our procurement cost. We have been able to lower the RMB 2.77 per unit to RMB 2.69 in the 2024 financial year.
We have been able to support this long-term stable supply from the three major oil companies as well as through a resilient resource portfolio building to deploy financial hedging tools to optimize our procurement costs. We therefore have this resilient and also flexible sourcing portfolio. We have been able to proactively secure the contracts from the major oil companies as well as access to PetroChina's long-term agreement for resource supply. The resilient resource portfolio had been able to give us a good hedging strategy for price to mitigate price volatility. We, at the same time, have been able to aggregate customer demand and leverage intelligent flexibility resource, integrating the solutions and enabling cross-region matching to meet our customers' needs.
In Anhui, a customer, for example, we have been able to consolidate all our strategies of service to this customer so that they are able to flexibly combine the unconventional gas and also contracted gas, etc., so that they are able to meet their demands for their operation. We also utilize intelligence for efficient and secure operations throughout our network, enhancing the 67 stations, our plants and stations, using intelligent upgrade and also in our intelligent pipeline as well, which is over 1,000 km. At the same time, we lower the leakage and lower the loss from the pipeline and also from our network so that we are able to optimize our productivity. For integrated energy, we promote the steady growth of I&E business, and it's reached 41.57 billion kWh , which is almost 20% year-on-year increase.
We have been able to have cumulative projects in operation of 356, and newly added projects is 60. The cumulative installed capacity is 13.3 GW. Maximum capacity for the year was 66.23 billion GW. Sales volume is 41.57 billion GW. For penetrating our industrial and commercial customers, we leverage our I&E usage and supply for intelligent solutions to these customers to expand our business rapidly. For example, in a number of industries, the original technology was manual and using gas, and that was low productivity. Through this intelligent process and also for our algorithm that we provided to the dyeing and dye vats industries, the returns of our customers had been increased, and we have been able to sign further contracts as well. There are about 8,000-10,000 more of these possibilities in the pipeline. We are able to provide the solutions to our customers.
This is not only in the dyeing business; it is also in vehicular production and in other sectors as well. We provide this demand-driven supply with intelligent supply demand equipment and coordination. For the environment, we have also innovated our intelligence digital provision to fulfill our building customers' quality and comfort requirements, and in particular for comfort requirements. For installed capacity of building, we have been able to achieve 0.54 GW and cumulative installed capacity 2.6 GW. For our industrial park projects, we continue to integrate our energy resource to implement l , i.e., microgrid models, actively securing small and micro industrial park projects. Tapping into these customers, we improve quality and efficiency.
In the year, we have been able to install capacity for industrial parks, 0.53 GW, and cumulative installed capacity is 3.29 GW, and there is a lot more potential in this particular field. For the key strategies, we continue with our major strategy. On the one hand, to increase the profitability of existing clients and also the potential clients. Existing customers that we have developed for industrial parks is eight, and newly added parks is five for the year. Unlocking intelligent value and continuous lean operations, we continue to innovate in products and support lean operations for cost reduction and efficiency enhancement, and therefore optimizing our returns. We also leverage the policy of intelligence to tap customers' needs and to achieve rapid growth in value-added business. For value-added business, we achieve steady growth in average transaction value per customer with rapid expansion in intelligent products in quality life business.
This includes kitchen and household products, and we have been able to achieve core product strengthening with penetration rate of 23.9%, and the expanding offering of our intelligent products with rapid growth to RMB 819 million, which is a year-on-year growth of 474%. Also, our average transaction value per customer had increased from RMB 476 per household in 2023 to RMB 612 per household in this year. The year-on-year growth for gross profit for upgrading quality service had been over 1,000% to RMB 20 million. For our core products and also accelerating our brand name building in the integrated service and value creation and boosting product sales of our own brands had been increased. In particular, we have been able to increase our kitchen appliances sales by 48.8%, of which self-owned brand sales had increased 62.2% to 293,000 units.
The number of partners outside concession areas have also increased by 2.5 times. A rapid increase and development of intelligent products have also helped us to achieve sustained service revenue. From our simple sales of products, it is now product sales plus service model. We also have long-term services that provide us with exemplary revenue. For this part, it is 28% of our service revenue for the long-term contracts. We have quality lifestyle understanding, leveraging our intelligent solutions to explore value-added or new value-added business models. These include kitchen renovation, home services, instant retail, etc., all providing convenience and reduction of time for our customers. We feel that this potential sector is huge. The revenue had increased to RMB 70 million, an increase of 1,186%.
Going forward, we continue to be under pressure from the global environment being complex and uncertain, and there are cyclical and structural issues in the domestic economy. On the other hand, facing challenges, facing uncertainties, we continue with our core strategies to provide good pricing and also a multi-pronged approach using our intelligent systems to provide customer-centric service. We continue to be committed to our strategic upgrades as well. Also, for our commercial customers, they will be our main area of further exploration for increasing our customer base. Further, we will optimize our cost structure through resource flexibility integration and also leverage our intelligent capabilities for efficient and safe operations. That is for natural gas sales. As for I&E integrated energy, we implement a Load-Source-Grid-Storage sales model to serve our industrial park clients.
We match production processes to enhance factory energy efficiency and product quality. We continue to be customer-centric. For our VAB, value-added business, we will precisely identify customers' need to expand the business and also to explore innovative products to enhance our quality services and create an intelligent household and unlock future potential. We will use our platforms for the households to increase and enhance our professional service capabilities. We have role-based intelligence, which helps households to select the best services as well. In the year 2025, the entire team from the company will be facing up to challenges, and we will be putting in our best to bring you the best results. We understand that yesterday there was a joint announcement for a transaction.
On the other hand, because of the need for a financial advisor to be present before there can be any responses, this is because of regulatory requirements. Therefore, for efficient communication, we ask that you focus your questions on the performance of the company's 2024. Thank you for your understanding.
I have a question. First of all, for our free cash flow, there has been a good increase of 20% from last year. For our dividend, it seems the growth had not followed up. How should we look at this, please? For dividend, what is to be expected in the future? For the domestic business, it is growing by 10%, and that's pretty good. The LNG trade is just one-off. How do we look at dividends payout in the future? A second question, do I ask it now or do I keep it till later?
Perhaps we can answer the first question first. Thank you, Dennis, for your question. For this year, we are strengthening our financial controls. Also, as mentioned just now, the financial controls is the free cash flow is RMB 3.71 billion, which is a significant increase from last year. Our dividend policy had been stable in 2023. It was HKD 2.95 in terms of payout, and we have increased that. We continue to be stable in our policy for dividend payout. In the future, we will still be looking at our operating needs, our cash flow in order to determine our dividends.
Is there a guidance for us? For compliance of regulation, we understand that. In terms of the business, can you give us some description? For example, compared to last year, what are some of the changes for the first two months? What are the changes in sales of gas for residential and also for I&C customers? Can you give us some highlights? Also for last year, for the guidance of 20% growth in I&E business and also sales of energy would increase, and also VAB business gross profit margin guidance had been not achieved by a small margin. How do you see that? Compared to last year, there were also a lot of residential pass-through as well. What about this year? How do you see this year, 2025, as well in terms of the dollar margin as well?
First of all, I repeat, unfortunately, because of the regulatory requirements, we are not able to provide the past two months or the figures therein. But just now, Mr. Zhang had already given you the 2024 operations and also some of the outlook as for macroeconomic situation. Also, with our understanding of our clients and our execution capability, we continue to provide our shareholders with healthy returns. I can only answer the question to here because of regulatory requirements.
Citib ank, Liu, I have a couple of questions. First of all, it was 10% more in terms of dollar margin, and that is better than expectation. Why is that, please? Also, the three oil companies, they have announced that recently that there will be certain changes. I want to know, with these announcements from Sinopec, etc., how would this impact your purchase of gas? What would the cost difference be compared to last year, for example?
The three oil companies from March of next year, natural gas resource price that had been new announcements.
This is for the one-year cycle. We have signed the one-year contract. This is what we have got for Sinopec. There are a few changes. First of all, for contracts concerning heating, it is 65% from 60% last year. Basically, this is for heating. For non-heating, it is a 4% drop. Another point is Shandong, Anhui, Jiangsu, Henan, these major areas, the price for gas will be increased of 2 fen to 5 fen. Also, there will be changes in terms of the peak period pricing as well. Compared to the last cycle or last period of time, the consolidated pricing is slightly increased. For the policy for China oil, it is basically in terms of the changes in terms of gas. Their pricing policy compared to the previous period of time is slightly lower.
Sinopec is not clear at this point in time. It may be that there will be a 30% in terms of their price adjustments. We do not know yet for Sinopec. We will have to go ahead and see. Perhaps I can answer this question. Basically, compared to the beginning of the year, we gave you a guidance. Just now, as mentioned by Mr. Zhang, for our retail gas price, there are a few factors that I would want to talk to you. First of all, the cost pass-through is one point. The other is purchasing. As mentioned just now, for purchasing, we have a number of sources of purchase of gas. Without doubt, we will be able to choose cheaper natural gas source so that our dollar margin would be optimized, would be enhanced.
Thirdly, if we increase our capacity, if we are big enough in terms of scale, then for sales and supply of natural gas, it will be more flexible and convenient for us in our adjustment and allocation. For example, the peak and off-peak pricing, we will be able to enhance the pricing of that. Our dollar margin will definitely be improved. This is how I see the situation. Also, further, just now, Mr. Gong had provided you an answer, but I will give you some details as well because at our department, we have done some detailed analysis. For XinAo contract, for most of the provinces, this is a 1 fen-4 fen increase in terms of price. The other provinces have been lowered because the structure of gas use is different from province to province. For Sinopec, there is a one-fen decrease, which is significant.
This is a rather favorable pricing. On this basis, looking at external pricing, external market pricing, there may be fluctuations. This is just by way of supplement to the answer just now. Next, Albert, please.
Thank you very much for the opportunity. For 2024, we see that there is a 4 mile, $0.04 in terms of dollar margin. For consolidation, the gross profit margin, it seems that for our JVs and associations, they seem to be doing less than expectations. They have not been performing as expected. Why is that, please? For the connection, the volume for connection is better than expected. Can you talk about the industry in general for, let's say, connection to new property projects? Is it that the property doldrums had already passed us? How do you see the industry, please?
Thank you for the question. For our consolidated financial resources, you see that the associated companies have been doing well. Tangshan has also increased. Baoding had also increased price by $0.04. There has been an increase of RMB 400 million as a result. Our shareholding is about 30%-40% for these associated JV companies. This is already reported just now in the presentation because of dollar margin optimization and because of increased sales and also with cost optimization. Therefore, the performance for our JVs and associated companies have been doing well. As for connection being better than expectation, to answer this question, it is better than guidance for two reasons. The first reason is that in the past one year, we have increased our existing customers' connection for our old customers' connections in the major provinces, Heilongjiang, Guangdong, Henan, etc.
For Fujian, the changing to gas had been the goal is 99% conversion. For last year, in fact, we have put in more emphasis and efforts in connecting the existing clients. The central government in June or July of last year had come up with some policies. Also, there is a very important policy, which is conversion or redeveloping old towns and also safeguarding the delivery of new flats. These policies have also helped in terms of our residential connection.
Senior Securities Lee, I have two questions. First of all, concerning the IC and residential sale price in 2024, what was the dollar margin and how much was adjusted on the basis of 15% and how do you see the future outlook? A second question on connection. The profitability had fallen from connections. For the entire year, what is the profits for connection? Also, how much of that is from existing customers? The connection, how much would the profit from connection fall further?
Thank you very much for the question. First of all, you talked about the dollar margin for the two types of customers. It is $3 for I&C and residential is lower by 2 miles-3 miles. They are more or less the same. For this year, for some of the pricing that had not been adjusted last year, we will continue to do so this year. These are basically just for pricing increase that we have not done for last year. We will be continuing this year. As for connection profits, it had fallen by 5% compared to last year. There are a couple of reasons. First of all, the number of connections for the residential household had decreased compared to last year.
Therefore, with the cost of connection spread out among the connections volume, there is an increase in terms of cost per customer. Also, there are some structural situations. Fujian Province, for example, is slightly lower in terms of connection fee and some other provinces as well. Therefore, there was this decrease in terms of connection fee revenue.
HSBC. For Value Added Business, just now you talked about the revenue increase. For each unit, each household, it is $600. What is the components of this? For the products and services, intelligence service and products, how much is that a part of it? Also, for the IE business, how do you see the returns from IE integrated energy business from your different projects?
First of all, for the intelligent household, as Mr. Yuying had mentioned in the presentation, we have been able to increase our penetration as well as our per unit price. Penetration is 62%. For existing clients, it is 61.5% penetration. For C, it is RMB 336 in terms of per unit price. You asked what are the components of this price. Basically, it is on heating and also maintenance as well. The revenue from these sources are rather stable. Last year, for gross profit margin, it is RMB 8 billion from this particular source. As for the long tail, it is in safety, AI monitoring, and also for our products, for household intelligent products for household. That is 18%.
Thank you for the opportunity. I would like to know for this year, how do you see the pricing in terms of energy pricing, electricity pricing?
There are a couple of reasons. For our costs, there have been decreases. At the same time, we are lowering the price for our clients, but our own cost structure lowering had been faster, more deeper than that. We are integrating our service. On the one hand, we provide more intelligent operation, and at the same time, we optimize the entire network. This will also increase our productivity as well. Even though the tariff is in a lowering situation, on the other hand, we are well provided for to counter that particular pressure.
Thank you very much for the opportunity. I'm Hong Po from Huatai Securities. First of all, for 2024, for safety investments, what amount was it? It is bigger than last year, but how do you see safety incidents? Also for this year, for the I&C customers, what is your strategy? Are there any changes? Will you still be cutting price to increase overall profitability? What is the strategy for your customers in commercial and industrial?
Yes. As you have mentioned in the past few years, whether it is a company and the industry, safety had been put in the first and foremost. In a number of areas, that is for old networks and pipelines, there will be certain works done on them. The safety requirements in the past no longer satisfy nowadays' needs. We will be advancing our maintenance and also in terms of our investments into maintenance, we are advancing the resources there. For your second question, we do not go into that kind of details, but it will be about RMB 1 billion in terms of network safety investments.
We do not go into such details, but maybe after the meeting, I can give you further investments for safety in terms of different networks. Because of time, we will have to end the meeting here. Please approach our IR if you have further questions. We'd be happy to entertain them. Thank you.