Thank you for standing by for Fanhua's Q3 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent background noise. After the management prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Please follow the instruction given at the time if you would like to ask a question. For your information, this conference call is now being broadcasted live over the Internet. Webcast replay will be available within 3 hours after the conference is finished. Please visit Fanhua's IR website at ir.fanhuaholdings.com under the Event and Webcast section. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may now disconnect this time. I would like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's conference, Miss Oasis Qiu, Fanhua's Investor Relations Manager. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Welcome to our Q3 2021 earnings conference call. The earnings results were released earlier today and are available on our IR website as well as on Newswire. Before we continue, please note that the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The accuracy of this statement may be impacted by a number of business risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated.
Such risks and uncertainties include, but not limited to, those outlined in our filings with the SEC, including our registration statement on Form 20-F. We do not undertake any obligations to update this forward-looking information except as required under applicable law. Joining us today are our Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Chunlin Wang, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Peng Ge, and Board Secretary, Lily Lee. Mr. Wang will provide a review of our financial and operational highlights in the Q3 of 2021. There will be a Q&A session after the prepared remarks. Now, I will turn the call over to Mr. Wang.
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Thank you for participating in today's earnings call. First off, market assessment. Despite a steady recovery in the Chinese economy, economic recovery across industries has remained unbalanced due to COVID-19 resurgence and macroeconomic control measures. Due to concerns over macroeconomic uncertainties, consumer confidence has not yet recovered fully, especially for products such as life insurance that are not considered to be imminently needed. As a result, the life insurance industry is still struggling to bounce back in a short time span.
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Second, the notice on further regulating the internet life insurance business of insurance institutions referred to as the new regulation, issued by China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, or CBIRC, on October 22, has become a trending topic in the industry. The rationale behind the new regulation is to refocus on offline insurance distribution and strengthen compliance. Insurers and brokers with a large number of offline sales outlets are set to benefit from the new regulatory change and usher in broader development opportunities.
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It is well proven that Fanhua is correct in carrying out the strategy of professionalism, professionalization, digitalization, and open platform, and in advancing the development model with positioning of catering to the demands of 400 million middle-class families for family asset allocation services. We will thus unswervingly continue down this path with an all-out effort.
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Second, Fanhua's performance in the Q3 of 2021 met expectations. China's life insurance industry witnessed a continued fall in total insurance gross written premiums or GWP in the Q3 of 2021, with a negative growth of 1.9% year-over-year. Amid deep industrial adjustments, Fanhua managed to record CNY 2.7 billion worth of total GWP in the Q3 of 2021, representing a growth of 8.9% year-over-year, with operating income reaching CNY 28.2 million higher than expectation.
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Total life insurance GWP in the industry suffered a negative growth of 0.1% year-over-year in the first nine months of 2021. Despite this, Fanhua registered CNY 8.4 billion in total insurance premiums during the same period, a higher than industry growth of 13.7% year-over-year, and CNY 219.6 million in total operating income, meeting nearly 75% of the target for 2021.
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Third, Fanhua's strategy of professionalization, digitalization, and open platform, well, went well underway in the Q3 of 2021. We saw encouraging progress in professionalization. We have approved the establishment of 22 Yuntong, or literally translated as Cloud Phoenixtree, branches or business units, among which Shenyang Business Unit and Chongqing Number One Business Unit were already open for business at the end of October. By the end of October, we have recruited 180 Yuntong advisors and over 40 Yuntong financial planners.
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We completed the target of building 10,000 digital entrepreneurial teams well ahead of schedule. We had expected to accomplish this target by November thirtieth, but as of November twenty-third, we already built over 12,000 teams. Currently, we are at the stage of operating WeChat-based online chat groups for digital entrepreneurial teams to drive conversion.
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We are also encouraged by remarkable results from our product customization strategy. As of late, Fanhua together with insurers and reinsurers, has co-launched 12 exclusive customized products including [Non-English content] number one, [Non-English content] number one, [Non-English content] Guardian number one, [Non-English content] number one, and [Non-English content]. These customized products sold online and or offline range from whole life, term life insurance, critical illness and annuity to million-yuan medical insurance, providing all-round diversified choices to meet customers' demand for health care, pension, financial legacy management, and so on. The customization strategy also enables us to establish closer bond and expand mutual reliance with our insurance company partners. In the Q3 of 2021, customized products are expected to contribute over 30% to our total new policy sales.
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Fourth, business outlook for the Q4 of 2021. Looking ahead to the Q4 of 2021, we see both challenges and opportunities. Fanhua will remain focused on the execution of our growth strategy and get prepared for this jumpstart sales campaign 2022 to achieve our full year target for 2021, while winning a good start for 2022.
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For the Jumpstart Sales Campaign 2022, our management and operation teams at all levels have made thorough preparations.
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One, sales force get geared up. More than 12,000 digital entrepreneurial teams, all the financial planners in Yuntong business unit, approximately 60 channel partners of our cloud service division and Baowang have all been mobilized to join the upcoming year-opening sales campaign.
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Abundant product supply. A total of 12 Fanhua exclusive customized products will be available for the campaign. These products include offline and online popular products, each with outstanding advantages. It is estimated that 70% of the business during the campaign will come from Fanhua's customized products.
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Strong operational support. We have established a four-level digital operation system from the group to city level and started empowering digital entrepreneurial teams and Yuntong teams through digital tools including Fanhua WeCom, RONC DOP or digital operating platform, RONC [Non-English content] etc. Supported by various targeted training programs. Kickoff meetings at different levels are also ready to go, including live streaming of the kickoff conference, which will be graced by a few distinguished guests and executives, and is expected to attract over 100,000 audiences.
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Together with our insurance company partners, we will jointly roll out unprecedented sales incentive programs, including but not limited to 12 levels of prizes and tickets to a summit. Operating income is expected to hit CNY 80 million for the Q4 of 2021 and CNY 300 million for 2021.
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Fifth, dividend plan for the Q2 of 2020, for the Q4, for the Q3 of 2021. The quarterly dividend for the Q3 of 2021 is $0.15 per ADS. The dividend is payable on or around December 22, 2021 to shareholders of record on December 8, 2021.
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Thank you. Now I would like to take your questions with Mr. Peng Ge and Miss Lily Lee. Operator, we are ready for the questions.
Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, you just have to press star and one on your telephone keypad. Again, it's star and one, if you wish to ask a question. Our first question comes from the line of Ziqian Wang from CICC. Your line is now open.
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I have two questions. First, could you please introduce more about the productivity of top sellers and new hired brokers? Second, company mentioned that the tightening of online insurance might benefit offline brokerage intermediaries. Have we seen any change of product suppliers of our company since small and medium-sized insurance companies are forced to reduce the supply of long-term insurance? Could you provide more details about the influence, say the expected influence on FYP and the commission rate? Thank you.
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To get back to you on the first question, at the end of the Q3, our registered sales agents amounted to about 300,000, and in the Q3, our performing agents amounted to about 60,000, and of which about the number of performing agents for life insurance is about 17,000. In the first nine months of 2021, the performing agents for life insurance amounted to about 50,000 in total. As for the productivity of top sellers, who are defined as those who have contributed over 10,000 APE on an annual basis, their average, the monthly average- FYP and APE contributed by these top sellers were about CNY 26,000 on a monthly basis in the Q3.
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As for our sales force, our current strategies are focused on our existing sales force, plus additional contribution by our digital teams as well as Yuntong sales force. As for our existing teams, we are establishing digital entrepreneurial teams to attract elite sales agents to join Fanhua. We are leveraging on the WeChat based online chat groups model to expand our sales organization. This strategy has been quite effective, as we can see in the quarter results. We expect that this digital entrepreneurial plan will help attract more top agents to join Fanhua in 2022.
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For the professionalization strategy, we have made good progress on this part. Our Yuntong plan has established a good reputation in the industry. As far as we know, a lot of top sales people in the industry are thinking to join Fanhua. We have done quite a lot of interviews in the past couple months. The persons that we have interviewed have good qualities, which are basically in line with our expectations. We expect our Yuntong teams will join the jumpstart sales campaigns, which will be a good opportunity for us to validate the actual results of this Yuntong plan. On the basis of this, we will further optimize our professionalization strategy. We continue to push forward this plan going forward.
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The second question regarding the new regulation on online life insurance distribution. We have done a lot of studies and interpretations of this new regulation. We believe that the nature of this new regulation is to refocus on offline distribution and refocus on financial compliance. We believe that this new policies, new regulation will provide a lot of good opportunities for insurance companies and insurance intermediaries with larger geographical reach and a larger number of sales outlets.
As for those insurance company with limited network, offline network coverage, in the past they have mainly drive the business through online distribution channel. After this new regulation, a lot of them will be compelled to return to offline distribution and the demand for intermediary channels will be a lot higher. For example, as far as we know, some of these insurance companies with limited offline sales coverage has decided to restructure their internet business units into a unit that focus more on cooperation with independent insurance agency channel.
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Therefore, we believe that insurance companies with limited coverage will strengthen cooperation with independent insurance intermediaries with a larger geographical reach and step up cooperation in terms of innovation on product customization in services, business operation as well as marketing strategies.
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Fanhua will also proactively approach insurance companies to adapt to these new changes and hopefully help Fanhua and insurance companies to pursue further business development.
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Thank you.
Thank you so much. Your next question comes from the line of Allen Feng from Morgan Stanley. Allen, you're now, your line is now open.
[Non-English content] Uh, this is Allen Feng from Morgan Stanley.
I just have one quick question. We see that the CBIRC bureaus in Henan and Beijing in the past couple of days have issued refreshed regulations on the insurance intermediaries. Particularly in Henan, the regulators aim to limit the development of the so-called MGA, the Managing General Agency model, within its jurisdiction. I just want to hear what management has to comment on this latest development. Thank you.
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Thank you for the questions. We have also noticed the new policies issued by the Henan CBIRC Bureau, and we believe that this new policy provides us more opportunities than challenges. It's in general more positive for Fanhua. As I mentioned, our sales force consists of our existing sales organization, digital teams, as well as Yuntong teams, which will form the backbone for our business development. As for the internet business for the MGA business model, these are some new practices in the industry. So far, while we have done some attempts in launching this in this new areas, the business as a percentage of the total business is still quite limited.
Therefore, the impact for us will be quite limited as well. While the restriction on these new practices will be quite positive for us in general. Due to this regulation changes, a lot of companies which used to adopt this MGA model or operate internet insurance sales, I think there will be opportunities for us to consolidate their sales teams or their customers. As of today, we have about 800 sales outlets. We would take advantage of this sales network and adopt a proactive approach to pursue cooperation with these companies or to consolidate the resources from this company. Like further business development. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Once again ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, it's star and one on your telephone keypad. Again, if you wish to ask a question, it's star and one on your telephone keypad. There are no further question at this time. Speakers, you may continue.
Thank you for participating in today's conference call. If you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to contact us. Thank you.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all now disconnect.