ONEWO aims to disrupt traditional property management with AI

Author | Zhou Zhiyu

Editor | Zhang Xiaoling

A silent industrial revolution is quietly taking place deep within the property industry.

The traditional property industry is facing rising labor costs, homogenized services, and an unresolved dependency on developers. On the other hand, AI is reconstructing the value chain, bringing about an efficiency revolution. As algorithms begin to replace human labor and data becomes a new production factor, can property management still remain in the labor-intensive stage of "sweeping floors and collecting rent"?

In the view of Zhu Baoquan, Chairman of ONEWO, the application of AI is imminent. ONEWO has also set the goal of "becoming a leading AI application enterprise" in its three-year business plan.

By using "flexible pricing" to tear open the cracks in traditional service models and employing the "Butterfly City Strategy" to reconstruct community ecology, ONEWO hopes to use AI technology as a scalpel to precisely address the efficiency pain points in the property industry.

At the performance meeting on March 26, Zhu Baoquan candidly stated that the property industry is transitioning from "certainty to uncertainty, chasing certainty," and finding new "certainty" through high dividends. The application capability of AI technology may become a new breakthrough point for the industry.

An industrial revolution is quietly occurring deep within the property industry.

Proactively Clearing Mines

ONEWO has successfully completed its performance guidance set for the middle of last year.

By mid-2024, ONEWO indicated in its performance guidance that its goal for 2024 is to ensure cash flow, with the decline in core net profit for the whole year being on par with or slightly decreasing by 5% compared to the first half. Ultimately, it achieved an operating net cash flow of 1.92 billion yuan for the year, with cash and cash equivalents totaling 13.43 billion yuan. Core net profit was 2.23 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.8%.

Zhu Baoquan stated that the company's core business is growing strongly, meeting the expected guidance, and is currently "squatting to build a bottom."

The decline in net profit and other data is due to ONEWO's proactive trimming of developer business and asset impairment operations in 2024. To ensure cash flow safety, ONEWO chose to proactively clear mines and mitigate risks from developers and related parties.

From the data, in 2024, the revenue proportion from ONEWO's developer-related business dropped to 9.5%, a year-on-year decrease of 4 percentage points, resulting in a reduction of 310 million yuan in gross profit from developer business; by the end of 2024, trade receivables from related parties amounted to 2.45 billion yuan, a decrease of 40 million yuan compared to the beginning of the year.

Additionally, due to the collection risk of receivables brought about by fluctuations in the real estate industry, ONEWO recognized a credit impairment loss of 610 million yuan in 2024. Ultimately, this led to a year-on-year decline of 38.3% in ONEWO's net profit, down to 1.26 billion yuan.

Wang Xubin, the financial head of ONEWO, stated that the recognition of these bad debts had a significant impact on ONEWO's current profits, but the company achieved its performance guidance.

The circular business revenue composed of residential property services, property and facility management services, and BPaaS solutions achieved a growth of 15.5% in 2024, with gross profit increasing by 10.0%, an increase of 340 million yuan, effectively compensating for the decline in non-core developer business.

Overall, in 2024, ONEWO achieved operating revenue of 36.22 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.2%. Among them, the revenue from the three circular business segments—residential property services, property and facility management services, and BPaaS solutions—reached 30.79 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.5%, accounting for 85% of total revenue In the past, property companies heavily relied on the "blood transfusion" growth from affiliated real estate companies, but ONEWO has completely shifted to "independent operations" in 2024. The proportion of continuous related transactions has decreased by 4 percentage points to 9.5%, and market expansion under the Diecheng strategy has become the new engine. Taking the Wuhan Xintang community as an example, after being incorporated into the Diecheng system, member activity increased by 24%, in-store traffic grew by 17%, and restaurant efficiency doubled. Such cases indicate that through high-frequency community interactions and resource collaboration, community commerce is transitioning from "space management" to "asset appreciation."

Despite pressure on net profit, ONEWO still distributed dividends amounting to 100% of core net profit, with a dividend of 1.9 yuan per share, resulting in a high dividend yield of 9.3%. This decision is supported by strong cash flow—operating net cash flow of 1.92 billion yuan and cash reserves of 13.43 billion yuan. Financial officer Wang Xubin emphasized, "Special dividends will not become the norm, but the safety of cash flow provides a buffer for strategic transformation."

It is worth mentioning that in the flexible pricing model, ONEWO's "Vanke Property Smart Choice" product has received high market recognition. This model allows property companies to determine the service baseline for projects, with customers selecting service items and frequencies as needed, based on the selected service package for pricing.

So far, over 64 cities and 160 groups of clients are in ongoing discussions, with a contract amount reaching 620 million yuan. Among them, 25 groups of clients have engaged in in-depth discussions regarding service standards and frequency choices, gradually advancing to the bidding stage, with six projects already signed and entering the site. This innovative model not only provides clients with greater flexibility but also opens up new profit growth points for ONEWO.

Property Revolution

With technological advancements, the property management sector is undergoing unprecedented changes.

ONEWO aims to solve the long-standing labor-intensive and inefficient issues in property management through technological innovation.

At the performance meeting, ONEWO's Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer He Shuhua emphasized that the company views AI as the core engine for reconstructing the property management value chain and proposed a series of forward-looking initiatives.

Firstly, in terms of scenario implementation, ONEWO has focused on breaking through three core scenarios: intelligent operation and maintenance, service quality enhancement, and energy optimization.

For example, in the intelligent operation and maintenance scenario, the AI inspection system covers 479 projects within 117 Diecheng locations, processing over 30,000 equipment anomaly alerts daily, with an accuracy rate of 94.3%, improving efficiency by 400% compared to traditional models.

This means that through the application of AI technology, ONEWO has significantly improved work efficiency while reducing the probability of errors caused by human operations. Meanwhile, the intelligent customer service and property manager AI assistant deployed in the service quality enhancement scenario can automatically dispatch work orders within 5 minutes across 135 projects and push over 1,500 management reports to assist decision-making, greatly enhancing service quality and response speed.

In terms of energy optimization, ONEWO relies on the Lingstone edge server to build a microgrid system, dynamically adjusting through AI, with pilot projects achieving energy savings exceeding 18%. This achievement not only helps clients reduce energy costs but also makes buildings greener and more low-carbon, aligning with current societal demands for environmental protection and energy conservation. More importantly, buildings with LEED certification often receive financial policy support, which positively impacts property value In addition to specific application scenarios, ONEWO has also made active explorations in technological deepening. By adopting a general large model (such as DeepSeek) + agile iterative architecture, it has built an evolvable AI infrastructure, including a knowledge-driven engine GC platform and an edge intelligent network LingShi system. These technological means not only enhance the intelligence level of the system but also lay a solid foundation for subsequent functional expansion and upgrades.

Currently, AI has shown significant effectiveness and value within ONEWO. According to statistics, by releasing repetitive labor through AI, ONEWO successfully transferred 1,200 employees to high-value positions such as community operations, with an average efficiency increase of 2.3 times. This also means that ONEWO is transforming from a traditional labor-intensive enterprise to a knowledge and technology-intensive enterprise, providing replicable innovative paradigms for the construction of smart cities.

From these data, it can be seen that ONEWO's AI layout has begun to show its edge.

Zhu Baoquan stated that the years 2025-2027 will be a critical three years for the company's capability building. During this period, ONEWO will continue to focus on the three key words of "assets, intelligence, and low carbon," upgrading from property management to asset management and energy management, fully embracing the AI era to achieve process transformation and efficiency leaps. At the same time, the company will continue to strengthen cooperation with fund companies, using efficient spatial flow management to increase asset value and helping clients reduce energy consumption costs through building energy management, making buildings greener and more environmentally friendly.

Zhu Baoquan pointed out that the goal of "becoming a leading AI application enterprise" is for ONEWO to provide services that are no longer based on headcount but rather on services allocated based on processes and AI, bringing qualitative changes to the entire industry.

Of course, challenges remain: the implementation of AI requires continuous technological investment, while the profit margins in the property industry are generally less than 10%; after clearing related business risks, market competition will become even more intense. Nevertheless, ONEWO has already carved out a new track for the industry: the future property giants will be "technology companies" rather than "labor intermediaries."

Perhaps it won't be long before, when AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) truly arrives, competition in the property industry will no longer be about the number of security and cleaning staff, but rather the speed of algorithm iteration, the depth of data accumulation, and the breadth of ecological openness. In this transformation, ONEWO is attempting to become the first player to provide a standard answer