Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Vipshop Holdings Limited First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this point, I would like to turn the call to Ms. Jessie Fan, Vipshop's Director of Investor Relations. Please proceed, ma'am. Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining Vipshop's First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. Before we begin, I will read the safe harbor statement. During this conference call, we will make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that are based on our current expectations, assumptions, estimates, and projections about Vipshop Holdings Limited and its industry. All statements other than statements of historical fact we may make during this call are forward-looking statements. In some cases, these forward-looking statements can be identified by words or phrases such as "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "is" or "are likely to," "may," "plan," "should," "will," "aim," "potential," or other similar expressions. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof and are subject to change at any time, and we have no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Joining us on today's call are Eric Ya Shen, our Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO, and David Cui, our CFO. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Eric Ya Shen. Good morning and good evening, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining our first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. We delivered another quarter of strong financial and operational results in the first quarter of 2021, driven by the continued robust growth momentum in our number of active customers. During the quarter, our total number of active customers grew by 54% year-over-year to 45.8 million from 29.6 million in the same period last year. As a result, our GMV for the quarter increased by 59% year-over-year to RMB 46.1 billion from RMB 28.9 billion in the same period last year. GMV for apparel-related category, which are our bread and butter, grew even faster by 70% year-over-year. These success are the result of our focus on the execution of our merchandising strategy. We have long-term collaborative relationships with our suppliers, particularly in our core categories. Leveraging those relationships, we aim to deepen our partnerships with them to increase contribution from our Made-for-VIP Holdings Limited products. As we continue to offer value to our customers through differentiate offering from marketplace platforms, we believe we will acquire more new customers while increase the stickiness of our existing customers. Going forward, we remain committed to continuing to strengthen our leadership in China's discount retail market, aiming to generate sustainable value for our customers and suppliers. At this point, let me hand over the call to our CFO, David Cui, so that he may discuss our strategy in more detail and go over our operational and financial results. Thanks, Eric. Hello, everyone. We are pleased to have delivered another quarter of solid top-line growth coupled with strong profitability. During the quarter, our total net revenue continued to see strong growth, increasing by 51% year-over-year to RMB 28.4 billion from RMB 18.8 billion in the prior year period. Our profitability improved on a year-over-year basis. Our non-GAAP net income attributable to Vipshop's shareholders for the quarter increased by 74% year-over-year to RMB 1.7 billion from RMB 986 million in the prior year period. Our non-GAAP net margin attributable to Vipshop's shareholders for the quarter increased to 6.0% from 5.2% in the same period last year. Looking ahead, we aim to grow our top line as fast as possible while keeping our margins stable. Through offering diversified, desirable products carefully procured by our strong merchandisers on a daily basis, we will attract new customers and retain existing customers while growing our pool over time. We are committed to delivering long-term sustainable value to all of our shareholders. Now, moving on to our quarterly financial highlights. Before I get started, I would like to clarify that all the financial numbers presented today are in RMB amounts, and all the percentage changes refer to year-over-year changes, unless otherwise noted. Total net revenue for the first quarter of 2021 increased by 51.1% year-over-year to RMB 28.4 billion from RMB 18.8 billion in the prior year period, primarily driven by the growth in the number of total active customers. Gross profit for the first quarter of 2021 increased by 54.7% year-over-year to RMB 5.6 billion from RMB 3.6 billion in the prior year period. Gross margin for the first quarter of 2021 increased to 19.7% from 19.2% in the prior year period. Total operating expenses for the first quarter of 2021 were RMB 4.4 billion as compared with RMB 3.0 billion in the prior year period. As a percentage of total net revenue, total operating expenses for the first quarter of 2021 decreased to 15.4% from 15.9% in the prior year period. Fulfillment expenses for the first quarter of 2021 were RMB 1.8 billion as compared with RMB 1.4 billion in the prior year period. As a percentage of total net revenue, fulfillment expenses for the first quarter of 2021 decreased to 6.3% from 7.4% in the prior year period. Marketing expenses for the first quarter of 2021 were RMB 1.3 billion as compared with RMB 412.3 million in the prior year period. As a percentage of total net revenue, marketing expenses for the first quarter of 2021 was 4.6% as compared with 2.2% in the prior year period, primarily attributable to increased investment in advertising activities relating to customer acquisition and retention. Technology and content expenses for the first quarter of 2021 decreased to RMB 337.5 million from RMB 338.4 million in the prior year period. As a percentage of total net revenue, technology and content expenses for the first quarter of 2021 decreased to 1.2% from 1.8% in the prior year period. General and administrative expenses for the first quarter of 2021 were RMB 956.7 million as compared with RMB 839.2 million in the prior year period. As a percentage of total net revenue, general and administrative expenses for the first quarter of 2021 decreased to 3.4% from 4.5% in the prior year period. Our income from operations for the first quarter of 2021 increased by 93.2% year-over-year to RMB 1.5 billion from RMB 782.2 million in the prior year period. Operating margin for the first quarter of 2021 increased to 5.3% from 4.2% in the prior year period. Non-GAAP income from operations, which excluded share-based compensation expenses and amortization of intangible assets resulting from business acquisitions, increased by 66.0% year-over-year to RMB 1.7 billion from RMB 1.0 billion in the prior year period. Non-GAAP operating income margin for the first quarter of 2021 increased to 6.1% from 5.6% in the prior year period. Our net income attributable to Vipshop shareholders for the first quarter of 2021 increased by 125.7% year-over-year to RMB 1.5 billion from RMB 684.8 million in the prior year period. Net margin attributable to Vipshop shareholders for the first quarter of 2021 increased to 5.4% from 3.6% in the prior year period. Net income attributable to Vipshop shareholders per diluted ADS for the first quarter of 2021 increased to RMB 2.18 from RMB 1.00 in the prior year period. Non-GAAP net income attributable to Vipshop shareholders for the first quarter of 2021, which excluded share-based compensation expenses, impairment loss of investment, amortization of intangible assets resulting from business acquisitions, tax effect of amortization of intangible assets resulting from business acquisitions, investment gain and revaluation of investment excluding dividends, tax effect of investment gain and revaluation of investment excluding dividends, and share of loss or gain in the investment of limited partnerships that are accounted for as equity method investees, increased by 73.7% year-over-year to RMB 1.7 billion from RMB 986.1 million in the prior year period. Non-GAAP net margin attributable to Vipshop shareholders for the first quarter of 2021 increased to 6.0% from 5.2% in the prior year period. Non-GAAP net income attributable to Vipshop shareholders per diluted ADS for the first quarter of 2021 increased to RMB 2.41 from RMB 1.44 in the prior year period. As of March 31st, 2021, our company had cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash of RMB 15.1 billion, and short-term investments of RMB 3.7 billion. For the first quarter of 2021, net cash used in operating activities were RMB 439.0 million. Looking at our business outlook for the second quarter of 2021, we expect our total net revenue to be between RMB 28.9 billion and RMB 30.1 billion, representing a year-over-year growth rate of approximately 20%-25%. These forecasts reflect our current and preliminary view on the market and operational conditions, which is subject to change. With that, I would now like to open the call to Q&A. Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press the pound or the hash key. Please note, due to a time constraint, we will take one question at a time from each participant. If you have a second question, please disconnect and rejoin the queue by pressing star one on your telephone keypad and waiting for your name to be announced. Right. We have the first question from the line of Eddy Wang. Please go ahead. Thank you, management, for taking my question. My question is about the outlook for Q2, as well as for the second half of this year. We noticed that we had a quite successful promotion event in April. Just want to check whether or not the 20%-25% revenue growth in guidance for Q2 already factoring this very strong promotion event in April? If Eric Ya Shen can give more color on the revenue growth outlook for the second half will be very helpful. Thank you. [Non-English content] [Non-English content] Thank you, Eddy.[Non-English content] [Non-English content] [Non-English content] [Non-English content]. The second quarter guidance, we see it as rather conservative. There are a couple factors in consideration. One is that last year we didn't run the April 19th promotional event, but we did run it this year. On that basis, it's quite positive. Also last year, we saw extremely strong growth in May, particularly during the May holidays, because that was when everyone started to come out of their quarantine and really starting to travel and buy new clothes after the lockdown in China. This year we are facing much tougher comp in the beginning of May. We are going to have to see how the June promotional event period and the summertime goes to get a full picture of the second quarter. However, we are growing quite steadily and we are achieving sustainable growth driven by strong user growth. We are confident about our growth in the second half and in the long term. More specifically, we saw quite strong user growth, especially in the number of male customers that shopped with us. We believe that this is driven by our expansion into more categories. Our focus on sportswear, for example, as well as better personalization. In addition, we also saw strong growth in the number of paid Super VIPs, which are our most loyal customers that contribute to quite the sizable chunk of the overall revenue. We are quite confident about the long term growth of the business and the long term healthy development of the business. Once again ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press the pound or the hash key. Please note, due to a time constraint, we will take one question at a time from each participant. If you have a second question, please disconnect and rejoin the queue. We have the next question from the line of Joyce Ju from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Good evening, management. Thanks for taking my question and congrats on the solid quarter. My question was related to the gross margin profit this quarter. It seems like this number actually down sequentially and also quite meaningfully. I just want to get color in terms of the future gross margin trends. Is it because we have new discounting strategy or is it because probably we change our take rate deal with the brands? I just want to get more color on it. Thanks. Thanks, Joyce. [Non-English content] [Non-English content] [Non-English content] Hi Joyce, your question on the gross profit and gross margin outlook. We're quite optimistic about the long-term gross margin trends. We focus more internally on managing to the bottom line. As we've communicated in the past, we aim to grow top line as fast as possible, provided that our bottom line remains relatively stable and healthy. In the first quarter, we spent more money on reactivating old customers, getting their shopping frequency up, as well as paying more benefits to our SVIPs. For our paid Super VIP members, we are offering selectively to some members an extra 5% off, which during the test period, the cost is mostly bear by our own company. In the future, more brands will participate to share the cost. We're happy to see the net margin trends in the first quarter continues to be very solid, increasing on the net margin basis on a year-over-year basis. Over the long run, we're still quite confident and quite optimistic about the long-term outlook of our gross profits, as well as our net margins. We have the next question from the line of Thomas Chong from Jefferies. Please ask your question. Hi, management. Thanks for taking my question. I have a question about customer acquisition. Do we have any new initiatives or channels for customer acquisition that you can share with us this year? Thanks. Thank you. [Non-English content] [Non-English content] We actually have various very diversified customer acquisition channels, including targeted advertising, including endorsements on TV shows and reality shows, as well as cell phone pre-installation. At the same time, we're also exploring more into short videos, live streaming, and so on. What's different this year is that we are going to try to be even more personalized in our customer acquisition, uniformed, improved, more optimized operations in terms of how we invest our marketing RMB. We do believe that is going to be more targeted and give us better results than what we have done in the past. The one thing that is worth mentioning is that we are looking to invest a little more into live streaming. In terms of customer acquisition, we don't think that will be a much more meaningful portion of the overall marketing budget, but we do think that it's going to be increasing as compared to before. We have the next question from the line of Natalie Wu from Haitong International. Please ask your question. Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. Just wondering if we take a longer-term view, let's say after completion of COVID-19, the kind of growth rate could be the most comfortable under a stable state, and also related to margin profile at that time we expect. Just want to get some sense of your thoughts on that. Regarding the competition, just wondering what management thoughts on recent dynamic change considering anti-monopoly moves and also considering new entries, including some short video platforms. Thank you. Thank you, Natalie. [Non-English content] [Non-English content] [Non-English content] Natalie, in the long term, we are aiming to achieve a more steady and sustainable long-term growth, and we're quite confident about the long-term growth potential of our business. [Non-English content] [Non-English content] [Non-English content] [Non-English content]. Natalie Wu, on the customer acquisition channels, we are actively exploring many programs as well as short videos and testing with all the partners in terms of customer acquisition. There isn't a single channel that is at a 15%-20% of the overall customer acquisition contribution. In the future, we will continue to explore and enhance the performance of our marketing outlets. We have the next question from the line of Ronald Keung from Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question. Thank you management for taking my questions. I will be asking on behalf of Ronald. In terms of development of the Vipshop products, as management shared with us in last quarter, VIP Holdings Limited has collaborated with a few hundred brands. Just wondering how many brands have we expanded collaboration with in the past quarter? If there's any related operating metrics can be shared would be great. For example, scale of the sales and how many users have purchased Vipshop product on our app, the (uncertain), etc. Thanks. Thank you for the question. [Non-English content] [Non-English content] On the Made for Vipshop collaboration, we are currently already working with around 500 brands on the Made for Vipshop product. Every brand's level of sophistication and how much product that they're working with us and the contribution for that brand sales on our platform is a bit different. The good news is that we've seen improved conversion rates and higher sell-through rates for these products than the other products on our platform, meaning that the metrics are quite solid and prove that the strategy is on track. As it hasn't been long enough, we need more time to figure out what kind of brands this works best with and how to deepen our collaboration with brands on the Made for Vipshop products. We do believe that these products will be very important for our long-term growth and to create more differentiation from other platforms over time. We have the next question from the line of Tianxiao Hou from TH Capital. Please ask your question. Thanks management. [Non-English content] For your 3P business, what is your strategy for develop this part of business? By the end of the year, what is the management expectation for 3P business to be percentage of total business? Thank you. [Non-English content] [Non-English content] [Non-English content] On the marketplace development this quarter, the contribution is less than 5%, around 4.7%, 4.8% of the total GMV comes from sales through marketplace. We do plan to grow the marketplace business, but only provided if the user experience and the complaint rates are under our control. We want to offer the same level of experience in the marketplace business as our first party business. In terms of how much we want to grow that business, in the first quarter, the contribution, as we said, is less than 5%. In the fourth quarter of this year, we hope to get it to say slightly over 6%, but it wouldn't be a very meaningful increase in the total contribution as we still want to focus on the 1P business. We have the next question from the line of Ashley Xu from Credit Suisse. Please ask your question. Thank you management for taking my question. Just want to ask you about how do we see the destocking needs from brands in past a few months, and how do we see their needs in second half this year, and whether the previous boycott against some international brands would impact the overall needs in 3Q and 4Q? Thank you. Thanks, Ashley. [Non-English content] [Non-English content] [Non-English content] Ashley, as the brand's partner of choice in excess inventory clearance, we not only clear excess inventory that are already in stock for them, but we also grow with them via Made for Vipshop products, which we've discussed in the past and earlier in the call. We also do a lot of in-season slow moving extra inventory for our brand partners. We also contribute in many other formats. For example, some brands will choose to allocate different SKUs to different e-commerce channels to be sold. We are actually a top partner for our apparel brand partners, especially in their e-commerce and online sales, which is a very meaningful channel for a lot of our brand partners. We grow with our brand partners in terms of both gaining new shoppers for their brand as well as growing their sales. On your second question, on the Xinjiang cotton event, the impact on international brands is there, but quite minimal. At the same time, we're seeing domestic brands picking up momentum. We're seeing the search results for domestic brands and the demand for domestic brands growing quite fast. Over time, we believe domestic brands will likely take share from international brands. We have the next question from the line of Feitong Zhang from CICC. Please ask your question. Hi, Eric Ya Shen, Shen and Jessie. This is Feitong on behalf of Yang from CICC. Thanks for taking my question and congrats on the solid result. I have one question. It is about category expansion. Will we accelerate the category expansion, for example, in 3C category to acquire more users? Especially you mentioned we are now having more male customers. If so, what would be the impact on the margin? Are we going to subsidize or just be stocking for those male brands like 3C, those categories? Thank you. Thanks, Feitong. [Non-English content] [Non-English content] The contribution from male customers was up by around 5% in terms of the number of customers year-over-year. That's why we saw menswear and sportswear sales growing exponentially. Male customers as a total pool of customers in the overall contribution might continue to grow, but we will still be primarily focusing our efforts on female customers, which are our bread and butter, and for women's apparel, mainly. Male customers might be shopping with us a lot more frequently, and we might be able to acquire more male customers, but still we are acquiring them via apparel related categories. They are not going to come and be buying a ton of cell phones, driving down the margins. From our perspective, it's all about the apparel and wearable category, and we're confident that we can serve male customers quite well in this category. The one really positive thing that we see in how male customers shop is that they have much higher conversion rates and make decisions much more quickly. We will be improving our personalized shopping experiences for male and female customers when they come to our platform. We have the next question from the line of Charlie Chen from China Renaissance. Please ask your question. Thanks, management, for taking my question. Actually, I have a question regarding the average revenue per user as well as the trend going forward. I did a quick calculation. It seems that the average revenue per user for this quarter, if we use US dollar basis, actually it's year-on-year started to grow. That's actually the first time for the past few quarters. Even if you use RMB, the decline actually is very narrow already. How do you see the momentum or trend of the Average Revenue trend going forward? Also, can you give us more color on what is driving that? Is that across the board, everyone is buying more, or in particular, new users are contributing more on the Average Revenue or the old core customers are contributing more? Thank you. [Non-English content] [Non-English content] Charlie Chen? The RMB 88 free shipping impacted the ARPU in the year of 2020. Therefore, throughout the year, we saw year-over-year decline in ARPU, mostly because customers did not need to get to a certain basket size in order to get free shipping anymore. Now in 2021, you see that trend normalizing. This is, as we've communicated prior, this is what we expect, and this is because our customers are still very sticky to the platform, and this is just the change in the shopping habits due to some of the change in policy last year. We will continue to grow our ARPU going forward. One thing that we like to mention is our focus on the Super VIP paid members and their spending. On average, a Super VIP customer spends 8- 9x more than an average customer. From that perspective, if we can get more customers to join the Super VIP program, we are confident that their ARPU on the platform will also increase over time. Additionally, we continue to focus on personalization and improving the experience of each customer when they come to our platform. We do believe that over time will also increase the ARPU and stickiness of the customers. If we continue to grow the number of customers that shop with us and the ARPU of the customers, we do believe that our long-term growth prospects are quite good. Ladies and gentlemen, as we come to the end of today's conference, I would like to hand the call back to our speakers for any closing remarks. Thank you everyone for taking the time to join us, and we look forward to speaking with you next quarter. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our conference call for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.
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