Earnings Labs

Tuniu Corporation (TOUR)

Q4 2019 Earnings Call· Thu, Apr 9, 2020

$6.92

-0.86%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Hello and thank you for standing by for Tuniu’s 2019 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After management’s prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Today’s conference is being recorded. If you have any objections you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today’s conference call, Director of Investor Relations, Mary Chen.

Mary Chen

Management

Thank you and welcome to our 2019 fourth quarter and full year earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today are Donald Yu, Tuniu’s Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Maria Xin, Chief Financial Officer. For today’s agenda, management will discuss business updates, operation highlights and financial performance for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2019. Before we continue, I refer you to our Safe Harbor statement in the earnings press release which applies to this call as we will make forward-looking statements. Also, this call includes discussions of certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our earnings release which contains a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Finally, please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during this conference call are in RMB. I would now like to turn the call over to our Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Donald Yu.

Donald Yu

Management

Thank you, Mary. Good day, everyone. Welcome to our 2019 fourth quarter and full year earnings conference call. Looking back to 2019, it was a year marked by external events and that negatively impacted a number of short-haul destinations such as Hong Kong and long-haul destinations such as the United States, the decline in these destinations counter active growth in destinations, such as Australia and New Zealand, resulting in a flat year-over-year growth in net revenues in 2019. At the start of 2020, we were seeing strong growth across most destinations. From the beginning of 2020 to the beginning of the Chinese New Year, Tuniu achieved 20% growth year-over-year in terms of overall GMV and 40% growth in terms of packaged tour GMV. Despite a strong start to 2020 the outbreak of the COVID-19 during Chinese New Year has since then significantly impacted our business. I will first give a brief update on the status of the company following the outbreak of COVID-19. As most people are aware, the 2020 Chinese New Year has been a challenging period for the travel industry and Tuniu. Consumer industries across China have taken a major hit following the social distancing restrictions that were placed in order to reduce the spread of the virus. The leisure travel industry took the hardest hit of them all, as travel restrictions were implemented across China to contain the spread. In early 2020, China’s travel industry’s regulator prohibited the sale of various packaged tour products. Tuniu terminated the selling of most of packaged tour products and refunded or altered previously purchased packages with travel dates following the outbreak. Given the rapidly changing development, we will continue to closely monitor the situation and adjust accordingly. From a historical perspective, outbreaks that are met with fast and effective countermeasures only…

Maria Xin

Management

Thank you, Donald. Hello, everyone. Now, I will walk you through our fourth quarter and full year 2019 financial results in greater detail. Please note that that all the monetary amounts are in RMB unless otherwise stated. You can find the U.S. dollar equivalents of numbers in our earnings release. Starting from the fourth quarter of 2019, net revenues were RMB415.3 million representing a year-over-year decrease of 4% from the corresponding period in 2018. Revenues from packaged tours were down 4% year-over-year to RMB344.3 million and accounted for 73% of our total net revenue for the quarter. The decrease was primarily due to the decline in demand for travel to certain destinations. Other revenues were down 6% year-over-year to RMB107 million and accounted for 24% of our total net revenue. The decrease was primarily due to the decline in revenues generated from financial services. Gross profit was down 20% year-over-year to RMB215.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2019. Operating expenses for the fourth quarter of 2019 were RMB650.9 million, up 74% year-over-year. Excluding share-based compensation expenses, amortization of acquired intangible assets and the impairment of acquired tangible assets, non-GAAP operating expenses were RMB576.1 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 77%. Research and product development expenses for the fourth quarter of 2019 were RMB79 million, up 4% year-on-year. The increase was primarily due to the increase in research and product development personnel-related expenses. Sales and marketing expenses for the fourth quarter of 2019 were RMB239.9 million, up 15% year-over-year. The increase was primarily due to the increase in impairment of intangible assets. General and administrative expenses for the fourth quarter of 2019 were RMB341.5 million, up 183% year-over-year. The increase was primarily due to the increase in some one-time impairment charges and the general and administrative personnel-related expenses. Net loss…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question today comes from Aline Ha, a Private Investor. Please go ahead.

Aline Ha

Analyst

Hi, management. My question is how big is the impact of the COVID-19 on both the company and our industry and also are you seeing a sense of a recovery at this moment? Thank you.

Donald Yu

Management

Thank you. The COVID-19 initially broke out during the Chinese New Year. So it was a really tough period. As expected, the impact from the COVID-19 will be significant – will bear a significant impact on our first quarter results. But going forward and looking forward, we are seeing gradual increase in demand in terms of – for products, domestic products and local products. We are seeing rising demand for domestic hotels, local attraction ticketing, road trips products. We believe this is a gradual trend for the recovery for the domestic market. However, the long-haul domestic market is still currently not available. So we are mostly promoting hotels of attracting ticketing packages for local or domestic destinations. International destinations and countries is a bit of a different story. A lot of other international countries are still battling the coronavirus. So we will closely monitor the scenario internationally and act accordingly. In the last 3 to 4 years, we have developed a network of local tour operators operated by Tuniu throughout China. This will be key to capturing the increasing demand for rising demand for domestic tours both short-haul or long-haul. Given that we are one of the largest or the largest tour operator networks, we have economy of scale. Our local tour operator network is very high quality. As such, we are able to work with number of travel – other travel companies to create or high-quality packages for customers throughout China. Also with the recovering of the domestic market, social marketing tool is one of the most important way for us to reach our customers. We have invested in the social marketing tool for the past 1.5 years. And we have developed numerous features on it. Using these tools, we are able to reach our customers and engage with them even during the outbreak of the coronavirus. Another one of our key focuses during this period is the controlling of our expenses. During this period, because of the drop-off in the revenues, we are trying to reduce our everyday expenses, some of which includes using rotational program for our colleagues to work. Others include the lowering of the management’s salaries to 40% of their previous level. So the whole company is gathering momentum to act in this very special time and we believe we could get through that. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] At this time, we are not showing any additional questions. We are now approaching the end of the conference call. I will now turn the call over to Tuniu’s CFO, Maria Xin for any closing remarks.

Maria Xin

Management

Once again, thank you for joining us today. Please don’t hesitate to contact us for further questions. Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to speaking with you in the coming months. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

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