Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Pinduoduo 4Q 2019 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Ms. Xin Yi Lim, Director of IR. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Rachel. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Pinduoduo's earnings release was distributed earlier and is available on the IR website at investor.pinduoduo.com as well as through GlobeNewswire services. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that this conference contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the US Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended and as defined in the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminologies such as will, anticipate and similar statements. Such statements are based upon management's current expectations and current marketing -- market operating conditions and relate to events that involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the company's control, which may cause the company's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties or factors are included in the company's filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The company does not undertake any obligations to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable law. On today's call, our CEO, Colin Huang will make some general remarks on our performance last year and the implication of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and our outlook for 2020. Our VP of Strategy, David Liu, who will then elaborate further on our specific strategic initiatives as well as take us through our financial results for the fourth quarter and the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019. Now it is my pleasure to introduce Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Colin Huang. Mr. Huang, please go ahead.

Thank you, Xin Yi. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2019 results announcement. Before we begin, allow me to first extend our deepest condolences to those whose lives have been affected by the coronavirus outbreak and to those braving the front lines to save others. We salute to you. The recent events, reminded me of what I wrote at a beginning of our letter to shareholders a year ago. The world is changing at an unprecedented pace, good and bad change are simultaneously unfolding, many of which are expected and some may even leave people anxious or in disbelief. 2019 was an important formative year for Pinduoduo. We built out our capacity -- capabilities, innovated our offerings and continue to invest in our users to enhance engagement and drive scale in our business. Our efforts were well recognized by users with our annual active buyers exceeding 585 million and our monthly active users reaching 482 million. Thanks for your ongoing support of our users, merchants and our partners. We also crossed a new milestone. Our 2019 GMV surpassed RMB1 trillion representing a year-on-year growth of 113%. Our order volume also grew 77% year-on-year to RMB19.7 billion. In 2019, our team expanded to around 6,000 employees as we build out our key internal systems and infrastructure. We continue to execute our open platform strategy to prioritize the interests of our users and to benefit all participants in our ecosystem. Specifically, we invested in sourcing and a supply chain management in C2M and agriculture and in strengthening our IP rights protection. And David will elaborate on these later. I'm pleased to note that as a company we emerged from 2019 larger in scale and a stronger in capabilities, we are better equipped to…

Thank you, Colin. Thank you, Colin, and hello everyone. Let me first recap our key initiatives in 2019 and discuss the relief efforts and measures that we have implemented since the outbreak to support our consumers and facilitate recovery of the SME activities on our platform. From day one Pinduoduo has sought to create an open platform that will align the interests of our merchants and partners to serve our users better, offering them an experience of more savings and more funds. Our top priority remains the same, to deepen the trust and engagement with our substantial user base. We did so by first investing in sourcing and offering a broader range of products at compelling value for our users to purchase without hesitation. Second, we continue to push for greater efficiency upstream in agriculture and in manufacturing industries through our C2M initiatives to deliver tailored, high quality choices for our consumers. Third, we further invested in technology and operations to strengthen our IP rights protection program. We continue to see strong growth in our user base. As we further increase our reach and understand our users better, we are seeing how their interest and needs evolve across categories and price points. Improving our capabilities to source attractively priced high-quality product and to surface them effectively is a key to elevating the shopping experience on our platform. The innovative RMB10 billion subsidy program we launched 2Q last year has become synonymous with our platform, and proven effective encouraging users to venture out and try new product categories. This program also encourages our user to share great deals more frequently within their network. In addition, we ramped up our cross-border business to offer users popular imported products ranging from electronics to cosmetics and casual luxury, directly from reliable and competitive sources.…

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Mr. Thomas Chong of Jefferies. Please ask your question.

Hi, good evening. Thanks, management for taking my questions and wish everybody is in good health and stay safe. My question is about recovery trend across different product categories in the first two weeks in March. Can management share about how it trend versus the same period last year. And my second question is about the GP margin. We noticed that the GP margin is over 80% in Q4. So how we should think about the GP margin trend going forward and our investment areas in 2020? And finally, I have a quick question about the sales and marketing expenses. Given the fact that it's going to be quite dynamic in the next couple of quarters, should we still assume that as a percentage of revenue there would be a leverage on marketing spending? Thank you.

Hey, Thomas, thanks for the question. With regard to your question on recovery, I would say that it is too early yet to assess the full impact of the coronavirus outbreak. During this period, our priorities are still with our users, merchants and ecosystem partners. So as discussed, we plan to continue subsidizing the SME merchants on our platform, and to focus on improving the user experience. As we noted, we believe the investments today and by standing behind our users will accrue value for the shareholders in the long run. That said, I will note that as we launched at the end of February, a three-day campaign on RMB10 billion subsidy shopping festival on the theme of people returning to work, we have sensed a recovery on consumer demand. So, during the first half-hours of that campaign, we sold over 50,000 iPhones on our platform and 20,000 MAC lipsticks. That give us confidence that the longer-term demand for the industry remains unchanged. Your second question was with regard to gross margin trends. And I would say that as we continue to move forward with our investments, it will fluctuate from quarter-to-quarter between 70% to 80%. We will invest as needed and to build infrastructures, and I would not read too much into the patterns. And finally, I think Thomas, you had a question around sales and marketing. As we have discussed with investors previously, we do not have a quarterly target for our sales and marketing spend, instead we make our decisions on sales and marketing spend based on internal ROI hurdles. So if we see an attractive opportunity to spend, we will go ahead and do so. Going forward and for the 2020 as I mentioned, this will continue to be an year in investment for us. And of course as the scale grow our platform grows, certain leverage is likely, but I would not -- I would not -- I will say that there is no fundamental change in terms of how we are managing the sales and marketing expense.

Got it. Thank you.

Thanks, Thomas. And operator, before we go to the next question, just a reminder for all the analysts to keep your questions to one question, so that we can get around to more people. Thanks. Next question please.

Your next question comes from the line of Jerry Liu of UBS. Please ask your question.

Hey, thank you guys. Management, I just want to ask about long-term consumer behavioral changes. First of all, during this outbreak period, have you seen any changes in GMV mix, potentially more consumers having enough trust in the platform to buy fruits and vegetables, any kind of new categories. And secondarily on the supply side, as we've seen some pressure for the merchants. Do you see any potential structural changes as we recover from the outbreak? For example, maybe more manufacturers could turn their attention toward the domestic market versus exporting? So I'm just wondering what are some of the long-term implications. Thank you.

Sure. As the fight against the coronavirus continues in China, I would say that we have seen certain changes in behavior because of the extended period of time that people are staying inside their homes. And we have seen more users turning to Pinduoduo during the crisis for their daily needs. So our DAU numbers in the fourth quarter have held out very well -- have held out well versus the end of last year, and we are doing our best to meet our users' requests and needs. In terms of -- and I would say that the outbreak has also encouraged more users to conduct more of their activities digitally online and including the purchases of agricultural produce. And last year, as we noted that agricultural products accounted for RMB19 -- RMB136 billion on our platform and we are already seeing that trend to grow in the first quarter.

All right. Next question please.

Your next question comes from the line of Gregory Zhao of Barclays. Please ask your question.

Hi management. Thanks for taking my question. So on the user size, so we see very strong users growth in the past quarter. I just want to know what's your plan to further improve the user engagement such as like some new functions like live streaming or gaming or some cultural functions to further like enhance the engagement. Second one, the take rate. So the implied take ratio varied stable year-over-year expansion. So just wanted to understand more about what kind of new advertising products you will develop to improve the monetization? Thank you.

Sure. As we have discussed the priority for our platform is to focus on growing user engagement. So we, of course are paying attention to different new medias or ways of engaging. And we decided introduce live streaming function for our merchants a few months ago on popular request. And we will observe how things proceed before pushing monetization of live streaming. I would also say that timing was probably play out as hometown consumers during the special time, were also more receptive to watching live streaming. So live streaming we have sold a variety of goods in agriculture. Live streaming has been surprisingly popular. Recently with the live stream that we did featured mayors from different agriculture areas, spotlighting the local produce and we have seen strong support from our users with 15 tons of passion fruit and over 10 tons of orange juice sold out in one day. Your second question, I think was regarding take rates. We do not manage our business toward the specific pay rate targets. In fact over the past few quarters, our priority has been bringing on-board, high quality merchants who can offer our users a broader range of selection and giving them better value and better experience. As such, we are continuing to offer merchants preferential rates and as our activities of users build on our platform, I believe monetization will naturally follow.

Thank you.

Operator, next question please. And please everybody keep to one question. Thanks.

Your next question comes from the line of Alicia Yap of Citigroup. Please ask your question.

Hi, good evening management. Thanks for taking my questions. Can management actually elaborate a little bit when you say first quarter will be negatively impacted? Could you help us frame and think relatively impact on the GMV terms, the active buyers term and also on the revenue terms? Will there be a scenario that we even see a negative GMV growth or the negative revenue growth? Thank you.

As you know, we do not give guidance on GMV or any financial metrics. So I will keep the comments really generic. As we have seen a broader -- so the epidemic, I would say has a broader impact across the businesses in China, the industry and we are no exception. Chinese New Year is a seasonally low quarter for e-commerce and this -- in this year the impact has been prolonged because the lack of labor force and logistics disruption. A number of products were sold out on our platform and it could not be replenished in time and other products were experiencing shipment delays and simply undeliverable. That said, I would note that our platform has been a very fast growth platform. So any setbacks does not change our perspective in terms of opportunity for the entire year.

Okay. Thank you.

We would also state that the broader adoption of e-commerce during the outbreak is actually a favorable thing for the overall industry and for Pinduoduo.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Natalie Wu of CICC. Please ask your question.

Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. I'm just wondering for the RMB9 billion of the marketing dollar spending in the fourth quarter, how much is related with subsidizing new users and how much is related with the subsidizing the existing ones? And it would be great if management can help us understand the evolution of the ratio in the past several quarters? Thank you.

Thanks, Natalie, for the question. But as you know, we do not give such breakdowns and I would just say that we continue to manage our spending on new user assets as well as on coupons and subsidies very dynamically based on where we see the market opportunities.

Operator, next question please.

Your next question comes from the line of Han Joon Kim of Macquarie. Please ask your question.

Great. Thank you. I just wanted to understand what your GMV mix by category might look like at the end of last year and then how you might want to see that change this year. I think you talked about agriculture quite a bit. It sounds like it's almost 20% of your mix. But just overall apart from that, what are some of the categories you want to incubate further this year? Thank you.

Sure. So as I mentioned, agriculture GMV was RMB136 billion out of RMB1 trillion, so it's really more -- it's like 13%. That said, overall mix of GMV on our platform has not changed. Apparels and FMCG continue to account for roughly 50% of our GMV. And as we look forward, the idea is actually not to target specific changes in category mix, but to increase the debt offerings that we have and we actually see opportunity for growth across all the sectors.

Next question please.

Your next question comes from the line of Eddy Wang of Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.

Hi management. Thank you for taking my question. I just have a very quick follow-up on the apparel category. So some of the platform have mentioned that they have been increasing immature option in apparel brands. So, have you witnessed any potential for more brands addition in the -- in terms of the apparel in our platform to do such destocking in March and second quarter of this year? Thank you.

What I would say is, in terms of spending behavior, over the course of the first quarter because of the outbreak, consumers initial preoccupation were around health related products and devices and that certainly has an impact on their spending behaviors around the discretionary product. However, as China resumes to normal, that pace of recovery starts to pick up, we have seen continued demand across discretionary growth and across different categories. As I mentioned earlier, earlier in the February when we did a three-day campaign, we sold 20,000 MAC lipsticks in the first half hours. So I think overall, we expect the trends for the whole year to continue to be quite positive. The other thing that I would note, this is a platform that we have around 600 million users now with monthly active users close to 500 million. Brands are approaching us more and more so to participate and take advantage of our ecosystem.

Thank you.

Next question.

Your next question comes from the line of Piyush Mubayi of Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question. Mr. Mubayi, your line is now open.

Hello. You crossed the magic RMB1 trillion GMV figure in record time in 2019. What categories ramped up in the year? What would be the areas of focus for 2020 category-wise? And how is the lower tier versus high tier mix changed for the last year and how should we think of this -- all of these parameter through 2020? Thank you.

Sure. Thanks, Piyush. As we do not give specific breakdown between different sectors, I will comment generally in terms of trends. As our user base continues to grow, our user distribution from population perspective have not changed necessarily. However, what we have seen is because of the trust that we are building with our user base, we are gaining more confidence and consumers are shopping with greater ease on our platform and we continue to observe that they have more and more needs that we can address as a platform. So moving forward, I would say that it is about, again increasing the diversity of the product that we have, the breadth of product we have across all the categories and it is about increasing their frequency of purchase on our platform, which accrue to an increasing our average order value. Specifically, I would say that you know because of the behaviors that we are seeing, we do see growth in electronics and beauty categories, given the interest that we see in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities.

Thank you. And could I ask another question, I know you said one only.

Make it short.

When I look at the pace of your active buyer addition, if you continue the pace of the last two years on average, in 10 months you would have caught up with the market leader and you'd have over three quarters of 1 billion active buyers. At that point of time, how does the business change for you?

China is a very large market and as you know e-commerce penetration is only around 25%. So frankly, I think we are not so preoccupied with what our competitors are doing or where we are, but in terms of how can we be doing things better on our own platform. As we stand today, I think it is again about continuing to build trust with our users, continuing to increase the engagements and continue to create a unique fun and interactive experience as well.

Yes, I think Colin want to add.

Yes, well, I think it's interesting question and it's a very good observation. It's true that if we continued this pace and the user base will be very similar even surpassing the major competitor. So -- at the other hand, I think it is really a question that we should ask the other party. I mean even today there are still a lot of press release and all the talking about lower tier city users, but when we are looking at 1 billion user base, what's the difference between lower tier and the upper tier. So it's kind of interesting to me that people still dividing the users between lower-tier cities and upper-tier cities. And as you rightly pointed out, very soon, the question itself of lower-tier and first-tier cities will be meaningless. So at that point of time, it's not your question that's valid to us, but it's also a question valid to all the players in the market. And so -- and together with this very unusual time during the coronavirus, a lot of the user behavior has been changing. So I would say it's going to be a very interesting time in the next two years.

Thank you.

Next question please.

Your next question comes from the line of Joyce Ju of Bank of America. Please ask your question.

Good evening, management. Thanks for taking my question. I actually like to get more colors in terms of the impact from coronavirus. I noticed you have mentioned that from the demand side, a couple of categories suffered a kind of like demand shock. But I just want to know from the supplier side or the supply chain side, what you have observed, like for your merchants, what kind of challenging they are facing and you mentioned Pinduoduo is going to invest to help these merchants to recover their business. What the platform has done and what's the like new initiative ahead? And also just for financially, so we recognize those kind of investment or support for SME merchants in the revenue side, i.e., take rate or they will actually impact our gross margins for the next couple of quarters? Thanks a lot.

Thank you for that. So in terms of impact to the merchants on our platform, we would note that because of the prolonged suspension of travel in China, the ability to return to work, the ability to start, fulfill orders and start to manufacture has been impacted for most of the players in China and this is particularly will be felt for the small and medium enterprises. Pinduoduo as a platform has the unique ability to help and support these SMEs to return to their normal operations. And as I mentioned earlier, we have reserved RMB1 billion to fund the subsidy of RMB2 to RMB4 per order for merchants fulfilling orders through this time period. And from a modeling perspective, we expect this to be hit to the take rate.

Got it. Thanks.

Your last question comes from the line of Binnie Wong of HSBC. Please ask your question.

Hi, good evening management. Thank you for taking my questions. So I think following on just basically if you see that our customer base, our trailing 12 months active users is already catching up with our close competitor. And in terms of the ARPU right, annual spending per active customer. Of course, we are still at a gap of about may be say one-eighth or maybe one-seventh of it and how are we seeing that we can go deeper into the customer wallet. Is this through, because I think in terms of category expansion, we are properly also quite rich already. So or maybe you think there is certain roon to increase the categories or there is further room in terms of upselling, and how are we achieving that? Thank you so much.

Thank you for that question. First of all, I would note that we added almost 2 times the users as our co-competitors in the fourth quarter. And that has an impact to our ARPU, which would take time to catch up. So as the users mature on platform, we do expect to see that their annual spending to increase over time. And in terms of strategy for us in the near term, it's going to be continuing to engage the users to increase their interactions and to help build their -- increase and continue to build their trust with our platform. Colin, I think you wanted to say something.

Yes. My answer will be really short. I think it's just a matter of time. And with that said, please don't over estimate our speed to increase that, but I also think that you shouldn't underestimate our potential to increase that in the long run. So, yes, the answer will be, it's just a matter of time. Just wait and see. Yes, thank you.

We have reached the end of our presentation. I would now like to hand the conference back to today's presenters for your closing remarks.

Thanks Colin and David and thanks everyone for joining us on the conference call today. If you have any further follow-on questions, please feel free to reach out to the IR team. Thank you and have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen this does conclude the conference for today, thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect.