Q1 2023 BEST Inc Earnings Call

Participants

Gloria Fan; CFO; BEST Inc.

Shao-Ning Chou; Founder, Chairman of the Board & CEO; BEST Inc.

Presentation

Operator

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the BEST Inc. First Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please note, this event is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Johnny Chou, CEO. Please go ahead.

Shao-Ning Chou

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining BEST First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call today.
We delivered an exceptionally strong Q1 2023, demonstrating financial improvements across our business despite the seasonally slow first quarter and lingering effects of COVID.
The group's bottom line has improved significantly by narrowing the net loss by 32.2% compared to Q1 2022, with BEST Supply Chain Management delivering net profit in the quarter and BEST Freight reaching profitability in February and March. Global has also turned a corner, delivering an improved financial and operational results compared with Q4 2022. In addition, both Supply Chain Management and Freight's Q1 operating cash flows were positive, and we expect both business units to maintain this momentum and achieve positive cash flow for the year.
Now let's review each of our business units in more detail. For BEST Freight, we have seen a strong recurring trend in consumer consumption post-COVID pandemic, and demand for Freight services is increasing. BEST Freight's commitment to service quality and operational excellence in the past 18 months are clearly paying off, and we have vastly improved our capabilities in order to meet increased market demand.
Freight's volume for the first quarter increased by 5.1% year-over-year, while April's volume soared to 20.3%. Freight's gross loss for the quarter narrowed by 96.4% and its net loss also improved by 53.6% year-over-year in Q1.
As service quality remains the cornerstone of our Freight services, our focus moving forward will be on further improving our core competencies in the market. First, we will continue to develop digital transformation to improve our operating efficiency and ability to provide our key customers with high-quality services. Second, we will continue to synergize with BEST Supply Chain Management by leveraging our massive Supply Chain Management's key account customer base to capitalize additional business opportunities. Third, we'll develop and leverage fulfillment franchise to further enhance our service network.
Posting profitability in February and March, Best Freight's momentum is ongoing and the volume continues to improve. Looking ahead, we expect these differentiated drivers will improve Freight's profitability and generate positive cash flow throughout the rest of the year.
Moving on to the BEST Supply Chain Management. As many enterprises are developing into multiple sales channels to expand their market coverage and look to optimize their supply chain management capability to meet the growing market, the demand for third-party integrated logistics partners with higher-level service capabilities is escalating. BEST Supply Chain Management's superb service quality, technical know-how and digital transformation capabilities place us in a strong position to capture these growing opportunities.
In the first quarter, BEST Supply Chain Management's revenue increased by 7.7%, and gross margin increased by 3.7 percentage points year-over-year. Our customer base grew as well with the addition of 32 new key accounts and 36 new tender wins in the first quarter.
BEST Supply Chain Management remains the center of our synergetic logistic ecosystem. We have been focusing heavily on the digital transformation to improve our operating efficiency and enhance the system interconnectivities with our customers.
These capabilities differentiate our market offerings and bring us additional competitive advantage. At the same time, we are continuing to develop and accelerate our franchise fulfillment capabilities to broaden our network and service capabilities even further. With this in mind, we expect Supply Chain Management to remain profitable throughout 2023 with significant gross margin improvement while generating positive cash flow for the year.
Finally, let's move to BEST Global. Post-COVID, economics of Southeast Asia recovered rapidly and the volume of e-commerce business surged. The growth of cross-border activities between China and Southeast Asia also accelerated, and China is the #1 trade partner with Association of Southeast Asian Nations. With adjusted business strategy and realigned organization, BEST Global is now more resilient and in a strong position to take on this growing opportunity.
The volume of our cross-border business increased in Q1 by approximately 60% quarter-over-quarter, serviced by our robust cross-border capabilities, and our coverage for small- and medium-sized enterprise in Q1 increased by approximately 15%.
We believe we have weathered the worst of the COVID [fallout]. The steps we have taken in our global business unit to enhance our service capabilities have gone through with recurring parcel volumes and an increasing number of new key accounts. While following our adjusted business strategy placed us on the right path, more execution time is needed to fully recognize improvements in Global's financial results. What this looks like the global -- for Global in 2023 is volume growth throughout the year and gross margin breakeven in certain countries by year end.
In conclusion, we have seen clear upward trends in the first quarter across our business lines and achieved sustainable profit improvements in 2 of our 3 core businesses. We are off to a good start and are very optimistic about BEST's ability to demonstrate continued recovery and growth in 2023. We will continue to focus on our service quality, digital transformation and synergies among our business lines. With our improved and differentiated core competencies, we expect to achieve group level profitability by the end of 2023.
With that, I would like to turn the call over to our CFO, Gloria, for further review of our first quarter financials.

Gloria Fan

Thank you, Johnny, and hello to everyone.
We commenced 2023 on a strong note, improving our bottom line by narrowing total net loss from continuing operations by 32.2% and have started a great momentum for growth and profitability.
BEST Supply Chain Management achieved profitability in the first quarter and BEST Freight was profitable in February and March. Both business units are recovering quickly and growing. We expect this growing trend throughout 2023.
BEST Global is also picking up steam in the Southeast Asia markets, particularly with its cross-border activities showing a 60% growth compared with last quarter. This demonstrated BEST strong recovery capability and the effectiveness of our reorganization and cost control measures.
Our balance sheet remained healthy with a net cash position of RMB 1 billion at the end of March, and we expect both BEST Freight and Supply Chain Management will generate positive cash flow throughout the year.
Reviewing our financial results for the first quarter. Total revenue was approximately RMB 1.7 billion compared with RMB 1.8 billion in the same period of last year. The decline was primarily due to a lower Global volume and the continued impact from COVID.
Our cost control measures are improving our profit-making ability and improving our margins. Our gross loss narrowed by RMB 68.4 million, and the gross margin percentage improved by 3.8% compared with the same quarter last year.
The continued discipline of tightening our expenses and improving our operating efficiency further narrowed our net loss from continuing operations in the first quarter to RMB 257.6 million compared with RMB 379.9 million in the same period of last year. Adjusted EBITDA for continuing operations in Q1 also improved to negative RMB 206.8 million compared to negative RMB 294.6 million for the same quarter last year.
With that overview, now let's move on to key financial highlights for our business units.
For BEST Freight, first quarter revenue was approximately RMB 1.05 billion compared with RMB 1.09 billion for the same period of last year. The decline was primarily due to the wind-down of UCargo business line.
Freight gross margin was negative 0.3%, a 6.8 percentage points improvement from the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA for BEST Freight was negative RMB 59.1 million compared with negative RMB 149.9 million in Q1 of last year.
Revenue for BEST Supply Chain Management in Q1 increased by 7.7% year-over-year to RMB 440.3 million. And the gross margin improved by 3.9 percentage points to 8.2%, primarily driven by increasing distribution volume and the expansion of our customer base.
Adjusted EBITDA for BEST Supply Chain Management was RMB 9.8 million compared with negative RMB 8.5 million in the same period of 2022.
For BEST Global, Q1 revenue decreased by 26.7% year-over-year to RMB 197 million, primarily due to the decrease in volumes in Thailand and Vietnam. Its gross margin was negative 26.5%, a decrease of 20.2 percentage points year-over-year. The decrease was primarily driven by the lingering impact from COVID and the reduced volume of our certain key accounts.
Q1 adjusted EBITDA for BEST Global was negative RMB 102 million compared with negative RMB 63.4 million in Q1 last year.
Our operating expenses, excluding share-based compensation, totaled RMB 264.3 million or 15.4% of revenue compared with RMB 267.5 million or 14.8% of the revenue in the same period of 2022.
There was a one-off charge of RMB 36.9 million included in the first quarter's operating expenses. Excluding such one-off charge, our operating expenses decreased by RMB 40 million year-over-year.
Selling, general and administrative expenses for Q1 were RMB 199.8 million or 11.6% of our total revenue, excluding the RMB 36.9 million one-off charge. The Q1 SG&A expenses, excluding one-off charge, decreased by [15.7%] compared with the same period of last year due to the reduction of headcount.
R&D expenses were RMB 27.7 million or 1.6% of our total revenue compared with RMB 31.9 million or 1.8% of total revenue in Q1 of last year.
In summary, our Q1 results show the improved health of our business and how we are driving profitability. Our operations are more efficient, and we are prudently managing our costs.
Looking forward, industry-wide recovery trends bode well for us, and we are well positioned to grow our business on a sturdier base. Our dedication to quality and efficiency has produced strong results and we believe we have weathered the worst of the COVID impact.
Moving to 2023, we will further strengthen our capability in technology and domestic and global supply chain management and logistics to drive growth. BEST is well prepared and positioned to capture the rising market opportunities and achieve sustainable profitability.
This concludes our financial update. We will now open the call to questions. Thank you. Operator?

Operator

(Operator Instructions) There are no questions at this time. I will now turn the conference back to Mr. Chou for closing remarks.

Shao-Ning Chou

Thank you for joining our call. We appreciate your support of BEST. Please reach out to our Investor Relations team if you have any further questions. We look forward to speaking with you soon. Thank you very much.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.