JD.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:JD) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript March 6, 2024

JD.com, Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $5.3, expectations were $0.65. JD.com, Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Hello, and thank you for standing by for JD.com's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's conference, Sean Zhang, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Sean Zhang: Thank you. Good day, everyone, and welcome to JD.com Q4 and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. For today's call, CEO of JD.com, Ms. Sandy Xu will share her opening remarks; and our CFO, Mr. Ian Shan will discuss the financial results. Then [indiscernible] the call to questions from analysts. Before turning the call over to Sandy, let me quickly cover the safe harbor. Please be reminded that during this call, our comments and responses to your questions reflect management's view as of today only and will include forward-looking statements and please refer to our latest safe harbor statement in the earnings press release on the IR website, which applies to this call. We will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures.

Please also refer to the reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP measures in the earnings press release. Also, please note, all figures mentioned in this call are in RMB, unless otherwise stated. Now let me turn the call over to our CEO, Sandy.

Ran Xu: Thanks, Sean. Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us today to discuss our Q4 and full year 2023 results. In Q4, we delivered healthy top line and bottom line growth and made solid progress on operations, finishing off a productive 2023. In the past year, we stayed focused on constantly improving user experience, lowering costs and increasing efficiency amidst evolving opportunities and challenges. Guided by our business philosophy, we carried out a set of proactive move to drive more sustainable growth for the long term, mainly in the areas of user experience improvement, [indiscernible] and platform ecosystem strategy. Despite some short-term impact in 2023, our strategic focus has successfully steered key operating metrics in a positive direction.

2024 will be a year of execution. Our team will take firm and steady steps to execute our existing strategies and push forward our two priorities for the new year, namely user experience improvement and market share expansion. We are encouraged by what we've seen and are confident that we are on the right path. Let me share some details. First, user engagement. In Q4, we saw the number of costly active customers accelerate at level. If looking at [indiscernible] alone, the growth was at an even faster pace in Q4, particularly in new users. We are excited to see our user momentum pickup in Q1. User behavior also trended better. For example, user shopping frequency on JD continues to rise both in Q4 and the full year. This increase was particularly driven by the growth of our loyal existing users and plus members.

This means if users stay longer with us, they tend to shop more frequently with us, a validation of our user focus on user experience and strengthening [indiscernible] share. In addition, the set of growth also translated to a robust order volume growth, hitting double-digit year-on-year in Q4 and accelerating for three consecutive quarters. In terms of JD Plus, we saw another quarter of robust growth of its member base and GMV contributed by Plus members grew faster than our total GMV in Q4. The promising progress in user engagement is a result of our stepped-up efforts in improving user experience, low price offerings and implementing platform ecosystem strategy. Looking at our efforts in improving user experience, in addition to our previously launched popular initiative, such as free shipping, instant refunds and [indiscernible] for best price guarantee, we also recently launched new customer services, such as free doorstep pickup for returns, cash back for delayed shipping.

As a result, our Net Promoter Score, the NPS, for both our 1P and 3P business, have improved substantially in Q4. As we are generating great momentum with our users, it's important to continue to build on these initiatives, which we believe will help to propel growth in 2024. Also, as an important part of our holistic approach to improving our user experience, we will continue to step up efforts including our price competitiveness and platform ecosystem. For low price offerings, from day 1, we've been pushing forward our price competitiveness for branded products and a broader selection of value for many products. During the past year, we have further enhanced our ability to offer great value in branded products and expanded our selection for white label products.

Our price competitiveness has notably improved according to our customer survey and in-house price comparison. We are [indiscernible] to see our increased both sequentially and year-on-year in Q4, a proof that user experience [indiscernible] for JV's low price offerings is picking up. We also note other key metrics are trending well. The number of our users from low share markets grew faster in Q4 compared to previous quarters and growth of order volume and ship shopping frequency generated by lower market leaders reached double digits year-on-year, outpacing that of our total users. We also note growth of low ticket-sized orders, further and far exceeded the growth of our total order volume in Q4. I want to highlight again that our price competitiveness is not supported by subsidies.

The backlog for JD's business model is always the supply chain capabilities, which enable us to generate scale efficiency and lower product costs so that we can provide better value to users while maintaining healthy financial performance. Shifting to platform ecosystem strategy. The number of active 3P merchants on our platform delivered another stellar growth both in Q4 and on a full year basis as the team did a great job onboarding and supporting them. Meanwhile, 3P users and 3P order volumes both saw accelerated growth year-on-year in Q4 and in the full year of 2023. That said, we are still at an early stage of building our platform ecosystem and we are now prioritizing monetization of our young and rapid growing ecosystem at this stage.

Therefore, we are not taken by surprise when we see revenue benefited from our 3P marketplace is lagging the growth of our 3P merchant base and orders in Q4, which was also partially driven by one-off factors. Ian will elaborate on this later. We believe this is only temporary. In fact, [indiscernible] quarter-to-date, we've seen marketplace and marketing revenues bouncing back to a stronger momentum. As shared before, our platform ecosystem encourages [indiscernible] to develop in a complementary way. Our 1P business import continues to make solid progress, thanks to our core capabilities in supply chain. In particular, users responded well to our nonstop services during the Chinese New Year holiday, our offering we've been committed for 12 consecutive years.

Also, enabled by our supply chain strength, our home appliance and electronics category continued to gain market share throughout 2023 despite industry headwinds. Going forward, we will further leverage our supply chain capabilities to build up better service capabilities, penetrate into lower-tier and offline market and strengthen our cooperation with suppliers, which we believe will lead to a continuous expansion in market share in 2024. Moreover, we saw our supermarket category trend to the right direction as dedicated itself to optimizing the supply chain and giving a better product mix and fulfillment network. We believe there will be more upside for supermarkets in 2024. Finally, I want to highlight our commitment to shareholder returns.

As announced in our earnings press release, our Board has approved our 2024 annual cash dividend payment, the aggregate amount of USD 1.2 billion, a meaningful increase compared to 2023. The Board has also approved a new share repurchase program of USD 3 billion over the next 36 months. We are committed to creating more value for our shareholders. To conclude, 2023 was a year of strategically focused and organizational upgrades, which have set the foundation for JD. 2024 will be a year of execution along the strategic road map that is in place. We will continue to build upon the good foundation in user experience, more price offerings and platform ecosystem strategy and will further build up our total capabilities in supply chain. With the market share and user experience at top of mind, we are confident in making steady progress this year.

With that, I will turn it over to Ian for our financial highlights. Thank you.

Ian Shan: Thank you, Sandy, and hello, everyone. We recorded a set of healthy top and bottom line results in Q4, ahead of our expectations as we focus on experience improvements, price competitiveness and platform ecosystem in 2023. We are also committed to sharing our success with our shareholders. The Board has approved our annual cash dividend of USD 1.2 billion for the fiscal year of 2023, representing USD 0.38 per ordinary share or USD 0.76 per ADS. Our dividend per ADS increased by 23% compared to the annual dividend paid in 2023. In addition, with that up share repurchases in Q4 and bought back 15 million ordinary shares for a total of approximately USD 203 million. As the existing program will expand soon, the Board has approved a new share repurchase program of USD 3 billion over the next 36 months.

This demonstrated our dedication to returning value to our shareholders. Now let me turn to our Q4 and full year 2023 financial performance. Our net revenues grew by 4% year-on-year to RMB 306 billion in Q4 and RMB 1.1 trillion for full year 2023, as we navigated a mix of macro recovery, seasonality factors and our strategic refocus. Breaking down the revenue mix, product revenues were up 4% year-on-year in Q4 and 1% on a full year basis. By category, electronics and home appliances revenues were up 6% and 4% year-on-year in Q4 and full year, respectively, once again outpacing industry group. We have seen solid market share expansion in these categories across every quarter of 2023 and continue to feel confident in this momentum going into 2024.

General merchandise revenue saw a turnaround to positive year-on-year growth in Q4 despite the impact of scaling back of [indiscernible] International business, the high base in Q4 2022 due to stockpiling and the seasonality impact of Chinese New Year shopping festival. On a full year basis, such factors led to a 5% decline in general merchandise revenues. Taking a closer look, categories such as home goods and decoration, sports and apparel recorded double-digit year-on-year growth in Q4. As we further enriched our product and service offerings, these categories also drove higher user traffic, conversion rates and user stickiness in the quarter. As for our supermarket category, we believe it has bottomed out and its growth trend will continue to strengthen in 2024, driven by its increasing order volume and user shopping frequency.

Service revenues grew by 3% year-on-year in Q4 and 18% on a full year basis, primarily driven by the growth of logistics and other service revenues, which were up 8% and 30% year-on-year for the quarter and full year, respectively. Marketplace and marketing revenues were down 4% year-on-year in Q4 and up 3% on a full year basis. The soft performance in the quarter was primarily due to the decline in commission revenues as a result of our enhanced support for fast-growing new merchants. While advertising revenues also experienced one-off headwinds in Q4, mainly due to the seasonality impact of Chinese New Year Shopping Festival, we believe those were short-term fluctuations and our platform is progressing well on our current strategy with a fast expanding base of active 3P merchants and accelerated growth in both 3P users and 3P order volumes.

In the Q1 quarter-to-date, we saw that marketplace and marketing revenues have resumed growth. Now let's turn to our segment performance. JD Retail revenues increased by 3% year-on-year in Q4 and 2% on a full year basis. Our Retail segment's gross margin continued to increase, both in Q4 and full year of 2023. This was driven by our improved supply chain capabilities, which enable us to offer more value to our users while recording healthy margin expansion due to increased operating efficiency. Our strategic refocus also brought tailwinds to gross margin throughout 2023. On a full year basis, Retail fulfilled gross margin was up 39 bps. Though in Q4, Retail fulfilled gross margin was down slightly by 7 bps year-on-year due to extended free shipping offerings since late Q3.

Retail segment's non-GAAP operating margin came in at 2.6% in Q4, softer than a year ago, but in line with our expectations as we invest in user experience and expanding user base. On a full year basis, Retail's non-GAAP operating margin continued to improve to a record level of 3.8%. Beyond our expectations, we are confident that our continued focus on user experience will lead to a better market position and expanded market share in 2024 and eventually present more headroom for property expansion. JD Logistics recorded a 10% revenue growth year-on-year in Q4 and 21% on a full year basis. External revenues accounted for 70% of total revenues in both Q4 and full year. In terms of profitability, JDL's non-GAAP operating margin picked up meaningfully with a 73 bps expansion year-on-year to 2.8% in Q4 and 22 bps expansion to 0.6% on a full year basis.

Before moving on to the next section, please note that following Dada's announcement in January, we are reporting the aggregated results of Dada and new business on the other segment this time. We've adjusted the results of this segment in Q4 to reflect Dada's impact. Revenues of the segment was down 9% and 11% year-on-year in Q4 and full year, respectively, primarily due to Dada's impact and the scaling back of and international business. Excluding the disposal gain and the impairment loss of long-lived assets of JD property, non-GAAP operating loss of the segment was RMB 474 million in Q4 and RMB 1.5 billion in full year, both representing substantial narrow down on a year-on-year basis as a result of the scaling back of Jingxi International business.

Moving to the consolidated bottom line. In Q4, we recorded RMB 8.4 billion non-GAAP net income, attributable to ordinary shareholders with non-GAAP net margin expanding 16 bps to 2.7%. On a full year basis, our non-GAAP net income attributable to ordinary shareholders was RMB 35.2 billion, and non-GAAP net margin was up 55 bps year-on-year to an all-time record of 3.2%. We continue to generate healthy cash flow. Our last 12 months free cash flow as of the end of Q4 was RMB 41 billion, an increase of 14% from a year ago. This was driven by our improved profitability and further optimize cash conversion cycle. By the end of Q4, our cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investments added up to a total of RMB 198 billion. To conclude, we have taken proactive actions and delivered a set of solid financial and operating results in Q4 and full year of 2023 amid evolving external environment and our business refocus.

Going into 2024, we are well set to continue to execute the strategies we have in place. We feel confident in making further progress towards our operating priorities of user experience improvement and market share expansion and we're committed to sharing our success with our shareholders. With that, I will turn it over to Sean. Thank you.

Sean Zhang: Thank you, Sandy and Ian. For the Q&A session, you're welcome to ask questions in Chinese and English and our management will answer your questions in the language you asked. We'll provide English translation when necessary for convenience purpose only. In the case of any discrepancy, please refer to our management statement in the original language. Okay. Operator, we can open the call for Q&A session.

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