Focus Media Q3 2006 Earnings Call Transcript

Focus Media Holding Limited (FMCN)
Q3 2006 Earnings Call
November 20, 2006 8:00 pm ET

Executives

Jie Chen - Investor Relations Manager
Jason N. Jiang - Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer
Daniel M. Wu - Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

Jason Brueschke - Citigroup
Paul Deaver - Piper Jaffray
Kit Low - Goldman Sachs
Philip Lamoreaux - Lamoreaux Partners
William Bao Bean - Deutsche Bank Asia China
Simon Cheung - Merrill Lynch
Lu Sun - Lehman Brothers
Jenny Wu - Morgan Stanley
Chang Qiu - Forun Technology Research

Presentation

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Focus Media third quarter 2006 earnings conference call. My name is Jackie and I will be your coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will conduct a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference.

(Operator Instructions)

As a reminder, this call is being recorded for replay purposes.

I would now like to turn the call over to Ms. Jie Chen, Investor Relations manager. Please proceed, Madam.

Jie Chen

Thank you. Welcome to Focus Media's third quarter 2006 earnings conference call. Today, our management will discuss the company’s financial results for the third quarter of 2006 and business outlook for the fourth quarter of 2006. With me here are Jason Jiang, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, and Daniel Wu, Chief Financial Officer.

After Daniel updates you on the third quarter operational and financial performance, we will open the call for questions. This call is also broadcast through Internet and available through our investor relations website, ir.focusmedia.cn.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that during the course of this call, we will make forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. The statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding Focus Media's business objectives and plans, the expectations of the development of our networks and our outlook for the fourth quarter of 2006, for example. You can also identify forward-looking statements by terms such as will, expect, anticipate, future, intends, plans, believes, estimates, and similar statements. The accuracy of these statements may be affected by a number of different risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated.

These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, our limited operating history for our current operations and the short history of the outdoor audio visual advertising sector, which may make it difficult for you to evaluate the viability and prospects of our business, the integration of acquired business, competition from present and future competitors in China’s growing advertising market, and other risks that are outlined in our filings with the SEC, including our registration statement on Form F-1.

We do not undertake any obligation to update this forward-looking information except as required under applicable laws.

Now, I will turn the call over to our CFO, Daniel Wu, for a summary of the third quarter 2006 financial results.

Daniel M. Wu

Thanks, Jie. Good morning, and good evening to the people in the U.S. I am pleased to report to you another record quarter results for the third quarter of 2006. Our total net revenue reached $51.1 million, an increase of 20.8% from the previous quarter, and 213.7% from the same period last year.

Our third quarter revenue includes $38.9 million from our commercial location business, which is including our outdoor LED network and pre-movie advertising business; $7.3 million from our in-store business; $11.3 million from our in-elevator poster frame network; and $3.5 million from Focus Media Wireless business.

First, let me review in detail the results of the commercial location network.

Total advertising revenue from our commercial location network in the quarter was $38.9 million. For our Premier Channel A, which primarily consists of the office building locations on Focus Media's commercial location network prior to the Target Media acquisition, total network capacity increased to 15,670 time slots due to network expansion into 14 new cities.

The total number of time slots sold on our Premier Channel A in the third quarter was 6,111, increased from 5,369 time slots in the previous quarter. In Tier-1 cities, which are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, the time slots sold in the quarter 1,232, up from 1,158 in the previous quarter, which implies a network sell-out rate of 98.8%.

Average advertising revenue per time slot of Premier Channel A in the Tier-I Cities was $12,797 in the third quarter, compared to $12,320 in the previous quarter, up 3.9%.

Time slots sold in the Tier-II Cities were 4,879, increasing from 4,211 in the previous quarter, representing a network sell-out rate of 33.8% based on the increased capacity.

During the quarter, in addition to Tier-I Cities, one additional Tier-II City reached full capacity utilization, therefore capacities in three Tier-II Cities were fully sold out in the third quarter, one more than in the second quarter.

Premier Channel A contributed 66% of total commercial location revenue. Other channels, including Office Building B, Elite Channel, Travel Channel, Fashion Channel, IT Mall Channel, and the Healthcare Channel, together with our outdoor LED network and pre-movie advertising business contributed the remaining 34%.

During the third quarter of 2006, we made significant progress in increasing sales in the Office Building Channel B, which primarily consists of LCD screens acquired in the Target Media acquisition completed in the first quarter of 2006. Revenue from Office Building B in the third quarter increased by 96.8% compared to the previous quarter, while ASP, average selling price per time slot of Office Building Channel B, increased by 37.3% from the level in the second quarter of 2006.

Here are the results of our in-store network. Our in-store network generated $7.3 million in revenue in the third quarter 2006, increased by 10.8% from $6.5 million in the previous quarter. In the third quarter, we further expanded the installed base of our hypermarkets to 899 hypermarkets from 872 hypermarkets in the second quarter. As of September 30, 2006, the installed base of supermarkets and convenience stores was 1,049 and 1,946 respectively.

In the third quarter, slots sold increased from 87,450 in the second quarter of 2006 to 90,647 time slots. Our in-store network sell-out rate was 33.1% in the third quarter, relatively flat compared to the previous quarter, but this calculation is based on the increased capacity in the third quarter of 2006.

The average advertising revenue per 30-second equivalent time slot per week per store was $80 for the in-store network in the third quarter, up from $75 in the previous quarter.

Advertising service revenue from our poster frame network, which is poster frames in the elevators among residential complexes, in the third quarter of 2006 was $11.3 million, up 15.3% from $9.8 million in the second quarter of 2006. The number of frame slots on a monthly basis sold in the third quarter was 160,437, as compared to 154,793 in the previous quarter. The total number of frames available for sale increased 16.6% to 95,878 at the end of September, from 82,200 at the end of June. The network occupancy rate, sell-out rate was 60%, as compared to 63.5% in the second quarter, based on the increased network capacity. Average advertising revenue per frame slot was $70 in the third quarter of 2006, up from $63 in the second quarter of 2006.

During the second quarter, Focus Media Wireless generated revenue of $3.5 million, up 14.3% from $3.1 million in the second quarter of 2006.

Gross profit for the entire company for the third quarter was $39.9 million, representing an increase of 33.9% from $29.8 million in the previous quarter, and an increase of 242.7% from $11.6 million for the same period a year ago.

The gross margin for the commercial location network in the third quarter was 71.4%, improving significantly from 63.8% in the second quarter.

The in-store network gross margin was 36.4%, up from 32.9% in the previous quarter.

The poster frame network gross margin was 70.7%, as compared to 71.2% in the previous quarter.

The gross margin for Focus Media Wireless was 40.6%, up significantly from 26.0% in the previous quarter, as we successfully changed the wireless business model from purely serving mobile value-added service providers to serving more traditional advertisers directly.

On a blended basis, our gross margin for the third quarter was 65.3%, up from 58.9% for the previous quarter.

Third quarter operating expense totaled $14 million. Selling and marketing expenses in the third quarter was $6.5 million, or 10.6% of total revenues, with G&A expense in the third quarter was $6 million, or 9.8% of total revenue.

Intangible amortization from historical acquisitions was $1.6 million.

Operating margin in the third quarter of 2006 was 42.3%, up from 33% in the second quarter of 2006. Excluding non-cash stock-based compensation of $1.6 million and acquired intangible amortization expense of $1.6 million, the non-GAAP operating margin would have 47.4%.

GAAP net income for the third quarter of 2006 was $27.0 million, or $0.49 per fully diluted ADS, up 278.6% from $7.1 million in the same period a year ago.

Non-GAAP net income, excluding non-cash share-based compensation expenses and amortization of acquired intangible assets resulting from historical acquisitions, in the third quarter of 2006 was $30.2 million, or $0.55 per fully diluted ADS.

In the third quarter of 2006, cash flow from operating activities was $28.8 million, an increase of 128.6% from $12.6 million in the previous quarter. As of September 30, 2006, the company had a cash, bank account and also investment in available-for-sale securities of $130 million.

We continue to focus on our strategy of expanding our media coverage of Chinese urban consumers through both organic growth and strategic acquisitions. For example, in terms of strategic acquisitions, we recently signed an agreement to acquire approximately 22,700 poster frames in Nanjing, Suzhou, Changzhou, Wuhan, Dalian and Shenyang, which will be added to our Poster Frame Network.

In terms of organic growth, we are on schedule to double the capacity of our street-side outdoor LED network in prime commercial and shopping areas, which we call now mainly as ''iStreet Network'', to approximately 200 units by the end of the year in Shanghai.

Now, I would like to provide Focus Media's business outlook for the fourth quarter of 2006. Please note the following outlook statements are based on current expectations. These statements are forward-looking and actual results may differ materially.

We expect that total revenue, total net revenues for the fourth quarter of 2006 to be between $67 million to $69 million. Fourth quarter 2006 non-GAAP net income, excluding share-based compensation expenses and amortization of acquired intangible assets, is expected to be between $34 million and $35 million, or on a fully diluted basis, $0.62 to $0.64 per fully diluted ADS based on an estimated total ADS equivalent shares outstanding of 55 million.

Thank you very much. Now we will open the call for your questions. Operator, please.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions)

Your first question comes from the line of Jason Brueschke with Citigroup. Please proceed.

Jason Brueschke - Citigroup

Thank you. Good morning, Daniel and Jason. Congratulations on a great quarter. I have three quick questions. First of all, the ASPs in the Tier-I Cities were only up 3.9% sequentially, despite you guys doing a price increase at the beginning of the quarter. The question is, is that just a lag effect from people buying ahead of the price increase, or is there some other thing going on? I thought it would probably be up a little bit more.

Second question is Channel B increased about 100% sequentially. Could you give us some color on what you were able to do in the third quarter to really take that revenue up significantly?

The final question is on leverage. You have had a lot of leverage in the business the last few quarters. Daniel, could you maybe give us a comment on how sustainable you think the leverage and the model is going forward? Thank you.

Daniel M. Wu

Sure. Thank you. Jason, I will answer the first and third question, and I will ask Jason to help me answer the second question.

First of all, quickly, in terms of ASP increase, if you look, it is a 3.9% increase. You recall, as we actually told the street, we expect to increase for Tier-I Cities on average 10% every six months. So each quarter within the quarter, do remember every six months, so 10% increase gets phased into a quarter because the lagging effect of the contract, because a typical contract we sign on average of eight weeks, 12 weeks, or 16 weeks in length. Every quarter, in terms of actual ASP increase, can vary. It really depends on the particular mix of contracts we sign with advertisers and it depends on the duration of those contracts, which we signed before or after the price increase.

If you actually, let’s say assuming this quarter is 4% -- actually, the previous quarter, if I do recall, was higher than that, so if you actually compound all this growth over the year, over a one-year period, over the fourth quarter, we expect the compound effect is going to be roughly about 20%.

This quarter, it is a little bit lower. It is 3.9%. It can be higher. It really depends on the quarter. I do not want to specifically state there is a reason why it is 3.9%, not 5%, but this is how we look at this business.

In terms of the leverage of our business, do keep in mind that our business in the sector, we have a network already in place in the majority of the media. For example, in the in-store network as well as in the commercial location business, most of the stores we already have, and most of the buildings or cities we already have the networks there, so for us, the increase, the network sell-out rate of the slots inventory available for sale, if we sell more of those, actually the marginal contribution to the profit is very high, so if you look at the significant pick-up in this quarter’s operating margin up from the gross margin, so that is because of the nature of this business. As we continue to expand our business in both the commercial locations and the in-store network, as we continue the increase of sell-out of inventories we have today in our media assets, we believe the margin will continue to grow as we improve from that point.

If you look at also the guidance we provided for the fourth quarter of 2006, we are still expecting the margin to continue to improve, based on the expected increase of sales from our media assets.

I will actually ask Jason to help to address the second question.

Jason N. Jiang (Translation)

There are two very important things we did in the third quarter of 2006 on Channel B. When we acquired the Target Media business, which the acquisition was completed at the end of February of 2006, we actually acquired a network which we believe has room for improvement. The first thing we did is during the second quarter, as well as in the third quarter, actually especially in the second quarter, we have invested significant effort to improve the quality of the Target Media acquired network.

Do remember, the network itself is not the number of screens really determine how big the business should be. It is really the eyeball covered by the network really decides whether advertisers will choose to advertise in this media.

We actually adjusted -- for example, on the volume, we actually helped Target Media to adjust the volume of their network in terms of audio effects to a similar level of Focus Media. Also, in terms of position of the screens, sometimes Target Media network are not in the optimal position, and we helped to adjust the position of those screens. If you look at all those adjustments without significant expansion of the overall size of the network, so basically with improvements of the quality of the network, we have been able to make this network more attractive to advertisers.

The second effort we made is, if you recall, after the acquisition of Target Media, we integrated Target Media sales marketing force with Focus Media sales marketing force. Now, the entire, one single sales marketing force has a more integrated effort into multiple channels, so the customers also have, with the acquisition of Target Media and with the rebranding of Target Media network to Office Building Channel B, are more basically used to the media offering of the sub-channels we offer to them.

Those all helped in terms of achieving a very, very significant advertising revenue growth in Channel B in the third quarter of 2006.

Jason Brueschke - Citigroup

Great, thanks, guys. Congratulations again on a great quarter.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Safa Rashtchy with Piper Jaffray. Please proceed.

Paul Deaver - Piper Jaffray

Good morning. This is Paul [Deaver] for Safa. I understand you are not providing 2007 guidance, but what important factors should we keep in mind when we look to ’07? Should we be paying special attention to additional acquisitions, to cost synergies, to pricing, to improvements in utilization rates? Any insights into ’07 would be helpful. Then, just a follow-up on the gross margin question. Could you remind us what the target gross margins are for each of the segments?

Daniel M. Wu

Sure. We have not provided 2007 annual guidance. We expect we are considering to do that in the next quarter conference call, after we complete the budget approval process by the Board of Directors of Focus Media.

In 2007, overall we think it will be a very strong year for the overall advertising industry in China, and of course with the media Focus Media has today, we believe we are well-positioned to participate in this strong growth in 2007.

In terms of the gross margin question, if you recall, we talked about the commercial location network repeatedly during the last several conference calls. We believe actually the commercial location network in the long-term can achieve a gross margin of 75%, because right now, what we see in the city, we have the advertising slots sold out in terms of our advertising slot inventory sold out. The gross margin is higher than average. Of course, in the cities where we just entered, the advertising inventory sell-out rate is lower, the gross margin is lower than average.

We look to actually have a 75% gross margin within the next few quarters for the commercial location business.

In the in-store business, we said long-term gross margin would be lower than commercial location network because the concentration of ownership for the stores. We believe the in-store network in the long-term will have a gross margin of maybe 60%, 55% to 60%. That is lower than the commercial location network.

We believe towards the end of 2007, we will be able to achieve that target. Do keep in mind, in China still there are 20, 30 different hypermarket players competing with each other. Let’s say similar to the U.K. or the U.S., if there are only one or two providers of hypermarket business, then the gross margin could be much lower, just because the bargaining power for the location costs.

Poster frame business, you see we continue to achieve a 70% gross margin. We believe the long-term gross margin with a mature network, we can move toward 75%. Of course, you see the business is expanding. Focus Media today, the majority of the frames we have are in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen -- only four cities in China.

In China, the majority of the urban population live in condominiums with elevators, so this business can expand to many more major cities in China beyond the major four. If you look at, we are expanding our business very quickly into other parts of China, so we believe in the near-term gross margin will remain at around 70%, but long-term will hit 75%.

In the outdoor and pre-movie advertising, as well as mobile, they are so small and we are just starting those businesses in 2006, so it is a little bit too early for us to give you a long-term guidance towards gross margin, especially most of those businesses are new in China as well as worldwide. But we believe all the media business we get into, Focus Media has an internal principle of we get into a media, we want to make sure we do enough preparation, enough analysis to make sure the long-term marginal contribution for operating margin of those media will have a 40%-plus operating margins to our bottom line.

That is a long answer to a short question, so hopefully that does clarify things.

Paul Deaver - Piper Jaffray

A quick follow-up to the 2007 question, as we look toward the Olympics, when will advertisers begin buying advertising inventory in the different networks?

Daniel M. Wu

I will ask Jason Jiang, our CEO, to answer this question.

Jason N. Jiang (Translation)

Typical advertisers, based on our understanding of the industry, do planning for the Olympic advertising budget about a year ahead, so typically, the advertising budget for the Olympics were in line for one-and-a-half years, so we believe maybe advertisers will start the Olympics advertising budget planning in 2007.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Kit Low with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.

Kit Low - Goldman Sachs

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. It is probably three questions, relatively simple ones. First one starting with the average selling price for the first four cities plus the first seven cities. From a reported number, it looks like the first four cities were up 3.9% Q-on-Q. First seven cities is 2.3% Q-on-Q. If you could shed some light on ex-the first four cities, what would the three cities ASP be up by? Was it blended down because of the absolute price was lower in this in the three other cities?

Daniel M. Wu

Anymore questions?

Kit Low - Goldman Sachs

Second part relates to cap-ex. It looks like your cap-ex to date that you have spent is about $139 million. I am just trying to check your cap-ex spending relative to your original budget. Where is that spent?

The third question is pretty straightforward. On the in-store network, it looks like the Q-on-Q volume growth is about 4% versus 13% last quarter. Is it mainly seasonality or are there other factors that you would like to shed some light on?

Daniel M. Wu

The third question is relating to the in-store what growth, I’m sorry?

Kit Low - Goldman Sachs

Volume, number of slots sold. If I look at that, Q-on-Q growth of 4% versus 13% last quarter. Is it mainly seasonality or are there other factors that would be holding back the growth?

Daniel M. Wu

First of all, if you think about our strategy, for the Tier-I Cities, the big four cities, we actually sold out on the network excluding holiday seasonality in 2005, early 2005, so it is very consistent it is sold out. There is very strong demand.

In the Tier-II Cities, we started business a little bit later in Tier-II Cities, so in Tier-II Cities, the difference is many Tier-II Cities in China, right? So similar Tier-II Cities, as we started earlier on local advertising, demand is strong, we are actually seeing those Tier-II Cities, gradually more and more of those Tier-II Cities move towards capacity. When they just hit capacity, of course you know the demand balance is still not as strong as the Tier-I Cities, so sometimes you do see the ASP increase are not as strong as the Tier-I Cities, which we have reported in the numbers.

You are right in terms of the three cities. I think the three cities also grow, but on balance, you actually can calculate those numbers based on the number we provided for the press release, because the slots in a city is standard. Every single city has the same amount of slots, 24 slots a week. So you can calculate.

I think it -- obviously, based on the number we provided, among the seven cities sold out, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen of course grow faster than the remaining three cities in terms of the ASP in the third quarter versus second quarter.

Anyway, that hopefully -- as we said, we continue to see the strongest demand is still, based on the network sale rate on a consistent basis, is in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen. Gradually, we see more and more of the demand move towards the Tier-II Cities.

On your second question, the cap-ex, I think the cap-ex number you are looking at are including the acquisitions. If you look at the cash flow statement, so it is a number, I think you look at purchase of subsidiaries, amount of cash acquired, if that is the number you are looking at. I’m not sure.

Kit Low - Goldman Sachs

Right, plus the purchase of equipments.

Daniel M. Wu

I think equipments is sort of how we look at how much money we are going to invest in the network. So far, the first nine months, it is lower, but do remember, a majority part of that equipment spending is also LED, so we are investing in the LED business more aggressively, so some of the cap-ex will show up in the fourth quarter. We still expect the full-year cap-ex in terms of our investing in equipment to be approximately in the $20 million to $25 million range. We have not changed that guidance.

Kit Low - Goldman Sachs

In terms of the purchase of subsidiaries, cap-ex, your budget in terms of the frame media cities acquired, is that going to be booked in fourth quarter or is that going to be booked next year?

Daniel M. Wu

For the framing, you mean the 22,700 frames which we acquired in the other cities, right?

Kit Low - Goldman Sachs

Correct.

Daniel M. Wu

That acquisition has not closed yet. It will be closed by the end of December of 2006. Those acquisitions are very small. If you look at those acquisitions, they are very, very small, and the acquisitions are based on an earn-on structure, so without any net income contributions, legally there is a very small amount of money we need to pay them.

Those acquisitions will be included in the quarter after the acquisition is completed, but the impact on the overall number will be very small.

The third question is in terms of slots sold in the in-store business. If you look at the in-store business, I think a lot of people would say if you go back to look at Focus Media commercial business, if you look at -- I will just bring some quick numbers.

In the first quarter of 2004, which is about four quarters, five quarters after we launched the commercial location network, we launched the commercial location network in the beginning of 2003. Third quarter revenue is $2.6 million, $2.7 million. In the June quarter, 2004, that is the sixth quarter after we launched, $5.5 million. In the September quarter in 2004, it is $7 million.

If you look at the in-store network, the in-store network is actually growing very healthy. If you look at, you know, we started the in-store network in April of 2005. Right now, it is the sixth quarter after we initially launched the in-store network. We have achieved $7.3 million in revenue, so it is growing very healthily.

I really do not comment on specific quarter to quarter effects, because do remember commercial location network is different from the in-store business, because commercial location network varies city by city. In-store network, you have to expand by entire hypermarket shares. The hypermarket is not organized, is not city by city. So of course, the cost of the in-store network, initial up-front costs will be higher because once you sign a hypermarket, you have to install the entire country for that particular hypermarket.

In terms of revenue growth, we do not see anything slower than our commercial location network that we started early 2003.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Phil Lamoreaux with Lamoreaux Partners. Please proceed.

Philip Lamoreaux - Lamoreaux Partners

This is my first time on the call, so I am trying to figure out what your inherent organic growth is, ex your acquisitions. Could you help me, if you took out the Target Media acquisition and whatever others you have, understand what your basic growth is?

My second question is as you guide the street to some number, earnings guidance, are you generally using the GAAP? I guess you are using maybe non-GAAP fully diluted ADR shares. Is that what the street has accepted? Thank you.

Daniel M. Wu

Thank you. Two questions. On the first question, if you look at Q2 to Q3 in 2006, that is all principally organic. There is a very small acquisition we made, which contributed a very, very small amount, much less than 1%. It is the movie theater advertising. We closed that acquisition on September 1, 2006, so there is only one month contribution, a very small amount. Q2 to Q3, everything is organic.

Of course, we acquired the Target Media business in the first quarter. We acquired the frame media business in the fourth quarter of 2005. All those acquisitions have added to our revenue.

Target Media, we actually are not able to break out because Target Media is no longer operating as a separate business. Target Media network has already been integrated into the Focus Media main network, as well as their infrastructure and back-office and sales marketing team integrated into Focus Media. Anything today is not comparable to the Target Media business we acquired from Target Media shareholders.

Going forward, the guidance we provide is we typically provide two numbers. We give revenue, net revenue, net of business tax which, you know, we have to pay in the media industry, and also we provide non-GAAP EPS, because non-GAAP EPS is a GAAP number excluding share-based compensation expense, as well as intangible amortization due to historical acquisitions, because that number really is a finite period number. It does not last forever, so that is why we are excluding those two numbers.

EPS is based on our assumption of 40,000 ADS outstanding at the end of the next quarter, and that is how we calculate the EPS. Hopefully that clarifies your question.

Philip Lamoreaux - Lamoreaux Partners

Thanks very much. I gathered then your sequential growth of around 21% is more of what we should look forward to, rather than this phenomenal year over year? Is that what you are suggesting?

Daniel M. Wu

Exactly, because the year-over-year comparison, last year, we did not have the frame media, we did not have the wireless business, and we did not have the Target Media acquisition in the same period last year.

Philip Lamoreaux - Lamoreaux Partners

Thanks very much.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of William Bean with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed.

William Bao Bean - Deutsche Bank Asia China

I just wanted to get an update on the location contracts and the percentage in Shanghai and Beijing that are now exclusive?

Daniel M. Wu

The business has not changed. The majority of our location contracts, essentially all of the majority contracts in Beijing/Shanghai are still exclusive. When we have an exclusive contract, we typically renew those contracts with an exclusive agreement.

I cannot comment on specific contracts because we have so many contracts out there, but essentially all of the contracts are exclusive.

William Bao Bean - Deutsche Bank Asia China

Okay, and if you could give an update on rental trends over the remainder of this year and into next year, especially for the top four cities, that would be great.

Daniel M. Wu

I think in terms of rental, we continue to expect the rental, given Focus Media’s dominant position in the big cities in China to be reasonable, but it will increase due to two factors. For the contract we renew during those periods, we expect rental to increase in line with inflation, but still remember, there are new buildings, there are new constructions in those four cities, and we will continue to expand our network. Of course, we also do keep in mind, as we have discussed in previous conference calls, we continue to focus on optimizing the network. So if there are buildings which we believe the rental costs are particularly higher than reasonable, and that may be due to historical reasons of competing between Focus Media and Target Media. If that building is higher than the value of that building, we will negotiate a lower rate upon expiration of those contracts.

William Bao Bean - Deutsche Bank Asia China

Do you see the blended average going up more gradually, or do you see it actually accelerating and then decelerating later on?

Daniel M. Wu

We actually think our business will grow continually with the build-up of commercial space in the big cities, so we think the rent cost, as an absolute number, will continue to grow. Of course, in terms of comparing with revenue, it will be slower than the revenue. I think the guidance we provided into the long-term gross margin is actually taking that particular factor into consideration.

William Bao Bean - Deutsche Bank Asia China

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Simon Cheung with Merrill Lynch. Please proceed.

Simon Cheung - Merrill Lynch

Thanks for the call. I have three questions. One, I pick up from the press release, you mentioned that in the commercial buildings, you added about 14 additional cities. I am just wondering whether these cities are actually acquisition from the regional distributor. If not, or if so, then how many target cities are you planning on for the year-end?

Secondly, just on the commercial buildings, you mentioned that Channel B, you had done really well. I was just wondering what the price in Channel A and Channel B after the integration of the network.

Lastly, could you remind me of the tax rate guidance for this year, and hopefully you could also give out some guidance for next year. Thank you.

Daniel M. Wu

I think the 14 cities we talked about in the press release that we added, first of all, do remember those cities are more like between Tier-II Cities and Tier-III Cities. These are much smaller cities in terms of population. The local advertising rate will be lower based on the less population. Those cities we actually got from a network integration with Target Media. With some of those cities, we already start building into those cities, and some of the cities also already have a Target Media business, which we do not have the business. We believe it is better to put those network into Focus Media Premier Channel A and Focus Media network.

There are a lot of mix things going on, but any of those cities, first of all, they do not contribute. It is the first quarter we are adding them. They did not contribute anything material to the overall revenue. Also, this is from the benefit of our own direct investment as well as the integration of Target Media.

Second, in terms of pricing of Channel A and Channel B, they actually are listed on the website, so you could go to Focus Media's website. We have a price chart for all the Channel A by city, as well as all the sub-channels, including Channel B, so you can look at this direct comparison of those rates.

Third, in terms of tax, this year, we believe our income tax rate to be below 5% annual basis. Next year, with the tax qualification, the tax benefit qualification we have today, we believe we will continue to enjoy a 5% or less income tax rate. Of course, we need to apply for those exemptions at the end of the year to the local government, but we believe, we are very confident we will be able to achieve that.

Starting from 2008, after 2007, starting from 2008, we believe our tax will be higher, and that is because there is a new corporate tax proposal already initially improved by the State Council. It is being finalized and we believe the integrated tax will require us to pay a statuary tax of roughly about 23%, 24%. Of course, there are certain exemptions we can benefit, just like any other country. We believe after 2007, the income tax rate will be level around 15%, 16%. That is how we look at our tax. Of course, this is subject to the prevailing government regulations and tax laws.

Simon Cheung - Merrill Lynch

Sorry, just one quick follow-up on the second point. What I meant is the pricing discount. For example, we know the extension --

Daniel M. Wu

Okay, understood. I think overall, if you look at the Focus Media business, any city is the same. Any sub-channel is the same. When you start in a channel, if there is occupancy, the network sell-out rate is low. Let’s say it is 10%, 20%. The discount rate will be higher, because it is a new business we are selling to advertisers, and also it is a fixed cost business. The key thing, when the sellout rate is 10%, 20%, the key thing is to increase the sell-out rate towards 80%, 90%. So this time it will be higher, so maybe 70%, 80% discount, so when we move towards 30%, 40%, 50% sell-out rate of any network in any channel in any city, the discount rate will gradually decrease because we have a more stable base of advertisers and we have more experience with those advertisers, so we will be able to gradually reduce those discounts on the individual contract we negotiate with each advertiser.

As we continue to bring new advertisers, the new advertisers, we typically on the first time when they trial it, sometimes they have a better discount. When we move towards 50% run-rate, so let’s say the discount is maybe 60%, 70%, but if you look at we move towards 80%, 90%, the discount rate will be lower, maybe 50%.

If you look at the overall network today, roughly the discount mixture between Tier-I Cities, where the discount is lower, and Tier-II Cities where the discount is higher, given the lower sell-out rate, is roughly about 50%, 60% for the overall network. Each city, each channel depends on the inventory sale of that particular network.

Simon Cheung - Merrill Lynch

I’m not sure if you can share with us about the fallout rate in the Channel B network?

Daniel M. Wu

What rate, I’m sorry? Of course, they are lower. Each city is different. Of course, generally speaking, they are lower than Premier Channel A. Right now, we see some of the cities in Channel B. They have approached 100%.

If you remember, when we acquired Target Media, the growth of all the networks by Target Media and their sell-out rate of their middle inventory is much lower than Focus Media. That is why their gross margin is much lower than Focus Media.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Lu Sun with Lehman Brothers. Please proceed.

Lu Sun - Lehman Brothers

Thank you for taking my questions. I have three questions.

One is, how much of your Focus wireless revenue, as you come from non-mobile Rev A service business?

Secondly, I want to get a sense of location costs as a percent of your total cost for the in-store business, and also for the frame media business, since those two business lines seems to be seeing some flattish margins, or even margin decline in the quarter.

Finally, the same for commercial network. How much of your total cost is actually coming from location-related costs? Thank you.

Daniel M. Wu

On the wireless front, as we said, we continue to see the mix of the sales more heavily towards the traditional advertisers. But we actually do not have a breakdown of those numbers. The reason why is in some of the traditional sales, we still share revenue, or we still work together very closely with mobile value-added service providers.

For example, recently we did an ad for launch at premier restaurant channel for [Abologne] and Chopsticks, and we actually, some of the data provided, we worked together with the mobile value-added service providers to do those demographic specific advertising based on the data they have.

In many of those situations, it is very difficult to separate which is from which part. We do believe right now, we see many more business from the traditional advertisers, which we actually enjoy a much higher margin, than the wholesale business to the mobile value-added service providers.

Today, it is still more than at least 50% of the business is still from the mobile value-added service providers. That is a rough ballpark of how we sort of look at the business. We believe that mix will continue to move towards the traditional advertisers.

Your second question in terms of location costs on the in-store network and frame media, if you look at the in-store network, as we talked about, in-store network is different from the commercial location network. In-store network is a nationwide business.

Let’s say we start with China Resource, and we actually have deployed the entire network for China Resource stores in Guangzhou, in Shanghai, in Beijing. It is not like all other cities. It is not like the commercial location network where you only build up a network in the city you do business.

Of course, the up-front cost for the in-store business, both in terms of rental as well as cap-ex, is higher than the commercial location business. If you look at the size of the network today, after six quarters when we launched the in-store network, the total number of panels in the in-store network is 36,000, so it is much higher if you compare it to the commercial location network after six quarters of the initial launch of the commercial location network.

Given the different nature of those businesses, the in-store network, the gross margin will be lower at this point in time, because that is a requirement of high, up-front costs, given the nature of the industry.

From our point of view, this is something it is within expectation of Focus Media management and it is no different from how we expect this market will play out.

In terms of Framedia, the gross margin is actually very similar. If you actually look at the Framedia business this quarter, if you actually take out the decimal point, it is 71% versus 71%. So I really do not want to comment on zero point factor difference in terms of gross margin, but the gross margin has a lot to do -- if you see the number of slots sold increase, the ASP in the per frame sold increase, the gross margin has to do with the fixed cost nature. It is the 0.5% difference after a percentage point has to do with how many inventories will be acquired, will be expanding the network.

If you remember, in the press release we expanded the total number of frames at the end of Q3 versus the end of Q2 by 15%. That expanding of the frames does not become revenue producing right away, as you look at the network sell-out rate is 60% this quarter.

In terms of your commercial location network in terms of -- sorry, Lu. Your last question is relating to the location cost for the commercial location network for major Tier-I Cities?

Lu Sun - Lehman Brothers

That is right. For both Tier-I and Tier-II, roughly how much of your total costs actually come from location costs?

Daniel M. Wu

I think this is something we also discussed in the previous calls briefly as well. If you look at a city, you go to a new city, the first thing before you sell, you have to build a network. Even before we get revenue, the location costs will be more than 0.5% off the revenue. You always start it with the business. Without the scale of the network, you cannot even sell to advertisers. We do not sell by building basis or panel basis. We sell by the entire city. The first step would be building a network in the city.

If you think about when we start with the network sell-out rate was zero, the location cost was humongous.

I think the question is more better answered in a way that, assuming the network is sold out 100%, so if the sellout rate on a 12-minute cycle is sold at 100%. We look at location costs to be 20% of the revenue, or less than 20% revenue. It really depends on the situation. That is how we look at the business.

Lu Sun - Lehman Brothers

I just have a quick follow-up. It seems like you have dominant market share in the Tier-I Cities, and also probably the top Tier-II Cities. Now you are expanding to a lot more Tier-II Cities, what is your expected market share in the new cities? How many new cities do you plan to enter?

Daniel M. Wu

I will ask Jason to answer this question.

Jason N. Jiang (Translation)

Now that we are already in the Tier-I Cities and top Tier-II Cities, we continue to expand our business into further Tier-II Cities. If somebody really wanted to compete with us, that would be a story three years ago. Given today Focus Media's dominance of the business, we really do not see much competition in those cities, especially if you keep in mind Focus Media is dominant in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, those major cities, and also many of the advertisers, let’s say Volkswagen, Nokia, we believe at this point in time have not started focusing on those cities. Probably in the near future, they will start focusing on those cities.

Right now, we look at all the markets we are entering. We have more than 90% market share. There are no other local guys competing with Focus Media in this sector anymore.

Of course, there are a lot of cities we partner with our distributors, so with those cities, when they start turning profit, we look to acquire those distributors as we have done historically. That is how we look at our business.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jenny Wu with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.

Jenny Wu - Morgan Stanley

I have several questions. The first one, could you give us a breakdown on the revenue from push and pull in your wireless advertisement?

Daniel M. Wu

We actually do not have a breakout of that particular part, but I do want to say the majority of today’s revenue for the wireless business is from push business, because both the traditional advertising business, as well as the advertising business with mobile value-added service providers are push-based.

Into the pulling, it is a part of the business. It is more like pulling depends on the demographic of the users. That statistic is still being refined. We do have customers using that system, but still on a very limited basis. So pull is still a very small percentage of our revenue for the wireless business.

Jenny Wu - Morgan Stanley

Second question, could you give us the revenue from the pre-movie advertising network?

Daniel M. Wu

It is immaterial. You can assume it is almost like nil for the third quarter, because we just launched this business on September 1, 2006. Keep in mind the movie theater advertising, both in terms of number of screens as well as the number of movies in China is much, much smaller than the U.S.

It is a long-term strategic positioning in that particular attractive market, but the actual revenue contribution this quarter is almost nil.

Jenny Wu - Morgan Stanley

Last question is, do you have a target for the revenue contribution from each channel?

Daniel M. Wu

From each -- you mean each of the commercial location, in-store, Framedia?

Jenny Wu - Morgan Stanley

Yes.

Daniel M. Wu

That also is a difficult question, because it is all based on -- as you know, Focus Media's strategy is to maximize our coverage of media, media coverage of urban consumers’ eyeball. Going forward, we may continue to add other business to our business mix, other medias which allow us to cover the urban consumer’s eyeball.

It is hard to say what will be the potential revenue contribution, but assuming without expanding, based on the current business we have today, we expect commercial location network as a percentage of revenue today is roughly 63.7%, will decline in the long-term. Of course, each quarter it may vary, because it just grew up large numbers.

For the in-store network and the Framedia business and mobile advertising business, will possibly in the long-term to contribute slightly higher. Do keep in mind the commercial location network today includes the LED business’ pre-movie advertising business. When those businesses become more than a 5% revenue contributor, we will break those out and those will be reported separately as a different media.

Jenny Wu - Morgan Stanley

Thank you.

Operator

Your last question comes from the line of Chang Qiu with Forun Technology Research. Please proceed.

Chang Qiu - Forun Technology Research

Good morning, Daniel. I have a few questions. First, a simple question. To get your net revenue, should we just separate your business tax evenly across your various revenue lines?

Daniel M. Wu

Okay, what is the next question?

Chang Qiu - Forun Technology Research

The next question is your LED business, per unit, how much cap-ex we should look at? Normally, for the depreciation, how many years we should use for the schedule.

Daniel M. Wu

Any further questions?

Chang Qiu - Forun Technology Research

That is about it.

Daniel M. Wu

Okay, thank you very much. First of all, I will answer the first question. In terms of the calculation of the net revenue from each of those media, there is a footnote in the back. You actually would break down on the gross revenue level as well as on the past business tax by each of those media. If you look at the footnote in the back, you can get net revenue for each of those media doing the subtraction from that.

The second question is the last question, so I will ask Jason to answer this question. In terms of depreciation in paying years, it is very straightforward.

Jason N. Jiang (Translation)

The LED cost actually is pretty open in the market, so you can look at the current LED costs. It really depends on the size of the LED screen. A typical cost of the LED screen per square meter is roughly RMB 30,000 to RMB 40,000. Some of the LEDs we have, if you look at what we have today, the network of 80 LEDs we have in [inaudible], they are roughly about four square meters, so you can roughly calculate how much that costs.

Of course, if the LED screens, we are going to build a much larger size, the cost will be much higher because it is really based on the square footage of the LED screen.

Chang Qiu - Forun Technology Research

A related question is because that is put outdoors, the LED network is outdoors, do you worry about any damage, maybe by traffic accident or any other kind of damage? The depreciation would be quicker?

Daniel M. Wu

I really do not think damage has to do with depreciation. I think you are right in terms of potentially people will drive cars right into the LED screens, but I do not think that could be intentional, or people want to do that. Right now, we do not have any experience based on the network we have today, but I do not rule out in the future that there may be a truck running into the LED.

Depreciation is 10 years because those are typically how LED screens get depreciated, because they actually build for outdoor. They last for a long time. We believe, based on the service contract we have with the suppliers, the vendors, we believe a 10-year depreciation is reasonable.

Chang Qiu - Forun Technology Research

Okay, that’s great.

Daniel M. Wu

Thank you very much.

Jie Chen

Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call for the third quarter. We look forward to speaking with you next quarter. Thank you.

Jason N. Jiang

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you for your attendance in today’s conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Good day.

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