H World Group - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the H World Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Jason Chen, Senior IR Director. Please go ahead.

Jason Chen (Senior Invesstor Relations Director)

Thank you. Good morning, and good evening, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Welcome to H World Group 2023 third quarter earnings conference call. Joining us today is our chairman, Mr. Ji Qi, our CEO, Mr. Hui Jin, our CFO, Ms. Jihong He, and our president, Ms. Xinxin Liu. Following their prepared remarks, management will be available to answer your questions. Before we continue, please note that the discussion today will include forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provision of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, our results may be materially different from the views expressed today. A number of potential risks and uncertainties are outlined in our public filings with the SEC. H World Group does not undertake any obligations to update any forward-looking statements, except as required in applicable laws.

On the call today, we will also mention adjusted financial measures during the discussion of our performance. Reconciliations of those measures to comparable GAAP information can be found in our earnings release that was distributed last Friday. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. The webcast of this conference call, as well as supplementary slides presentation, is available at ir.hworld.com. With that, now I will hand over the call to our CFO, Ms. Jihong He, for the opening speech. Ms. He, please.

Jihong He (CFO)

Good morning, and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining H World third quarter 2023 earnings call today. We are delighted to report that H World delivered another strong quarterly financial results, reflecting the continuous healthy recovery of lodging market in China. In today's call, H World Group CEO, Jin Hui, will first elaborate on the business performance and highlight our achievements. I will then go through the key financial numbers. As usual, we will have the Q&A session after management presentation. With this, I will hand over to Mr. Jin Hui.

Jin Hui (CEO)

Thank you, Jihong. Please turn to page three. As usual, let's go through Legacy-Huazhu's RevPAR recovery in the recent months. In the third quarter, we maintained our market-leading performance since the year beginning. Our RevPAR recovered to 129% of the 2019 level. The RevPAR recovery continued to be supported by ADR growth, which was mainly driven by our product mix change. Meanwhile, occupancy rate recovery also improved sequentially in this quarter. Breaking down into monthly numbers, our RevPAR in July, August, and September recovered to 132%, 128%, and 128% of the 2019 levels in the corresponding months, respectively. This strong set of numbers was benefited from the strong leisure travel demand during the summer holiday season, as well as the continuous business traveling recovery.

In addition, our RevPAR performance reflected our hotel's superior product quality and brand power, which should continue to support our industry-leading position in operational performance. This year, the rebound of China's leisure traveling demand was better than our previously expected in the year beginning. Nevertheless, we keep our cautiously optimistic view on the market outlook unchanged. We certainly saw some pent-up leisure travel demand during some of the peak seasons, such as the Chinese New Year, May holidays, and the summer holiday. But the structural changes in Chinese consumers' consumption structure post the COVID should not be ignored, especially the demand for experience-related activities were growing rapidly, with government efforts on stimulating the domestic demand. After the strong summer holiday season, our RevPAR recovered to 123% of the 2019 level during the Golden Week holiday.

For the entire month of October, our RevPAR still recovered to 120% of that in 2019. In the short term, although the macro condition could possibly remain volatile and uncertain, we will continue executing company's long-term strategies with focus on building and enhancing our products, brands, management, and execution capabilities. We will continue to expand our hotel networks and further gain market share to achieve a long-term, sustainable, quality growth.

Please turn to page four. In the current macro environment, we once again emphasize that H World China's long-term sustainable RevPAR growth is driven by the following four factors. First, continuous penetration into economically resilient lower tier cities helps H World achieve relatively stable performance in a volatile macro environment. Second, the adjustment and optimization of H World's organizational structure, along with the establishment of regional branch companies, have enabled more refined and efficient localized operations, further enhancing regional penetration capabilities. Through the establishment and operation of regional branch companies over the past year, we have already achieved initial results. We believe that in the future, regional branch companies will continue to help H World expand its network and quickly open up markets in weaker regions.

Third, continuous product upgrades and service improvements help H World hotels achieve higher premiums. Whether in the economy segment or in the mid-scale hotel category, H World insists on continuous product iteration and upgrades, using high-quality products to solidify and strengthen H World's leading position in the limited service market. Fourth, the development of mid-scale and upper mid-scale brands optimizes and improves the company's hotel structure and increases the market share of mid-scale and upper mid-scale hotels. This year, our mid-scale and upper mid-scale brand business unit, driven by the development of the three major core mid-scale and upper mid-scale brands, has achieved encouraging operating results.

With the current macro uncertainties, we want to re-emphasize the below four key points to drive our RevPAR to achieve long-term sustainable growth. Firstly, further penetrating into lower tier cities. It could help us to deliver relatively stable and solid performance with macro volatility and uncertainties, given lower tier cities markets are more resilient. Secondly, the organizational restructuring and optimization enable us to achieve more efficient, localized operations. We have accomplished some initial success since the establishment of our regional headquarters. We believe those regional headquarters will continue to support the company's hotel networks, expansions and to further penetration into regions that we were previously weak. Thirdly, the continuous upgrade and improvements of our products and services to achieve better RevPAR premium.

No matter in economy segments or mid-scale segments, we are committed to keep enhancing our products and services in order to further strengthening our dominant market position in the limited service hotel segment. Lastly, further breakthrough in the upper mid-scale segment to increase our market share and optimizes our overall hotel network portfolio. This year, our upper mid-scale segment achieved encouraging progress in operational performance, mainly supported by our three key brands.

Please turn to page 5. As of the end of September, the company operating hotel number is 9,028, of which 40% are located in lower-tier cities, the company pipeline hotel number is 2,935, of which 55% are distributed in lower-tier cities. Compared to 2022, we see the proportion of tier 1 and 2 cities has a slight increase, this benefits from this year tier 1 and 2 cities economic recovery after the epidemic, but our coverage and penetration of lower-tier cities are still continuously advancing. In lower-tier cities, Huazhu operating hotel number year-over-year increases 6%, approaching 3,600 stores, pipeline hotel number year-over-year rises to 20%, to over 1,600, the company's city coverage number also further grows to 1,217....

Please turn to page five. At the end of September, out of total 9,028 hotels in operation, 40% were located in the lower tier cities, and 55% of our 2,935 hotels in pipeline were in the lower tier cities. On a year-over-year basis, we see a small increase in the proportion in the tier one and tier two cities, thanks to the economic recovery post-COVID in those top tier cities. Nonetheless, we continue to push forward our lower tier cities penetration strategy.

In terms of absolute hotel number increase in the lower-tier cities, our number of hotels in operation increased by 6% year-over-year to reach close to 3,600 hotels, and the number of hotels in pipeline grew around 20% year-over-year to over 1,600 hotels. The number of cities that we covered reached to 1,217. Please turn to page six. We continued implementing our sustainable quality growth strategies, and to expand our hotel networks by opening high-quality hotels. Supported by strong new signings and hotels in pipeline, our hotel openings in the third quarter increased both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter.

In the third quarter, we opened 545 hotels, up 28% year-over-year, and we closed 139 hotels, which was mainly included 96, 94 Hanting 1.0 version and soft economic hotels. Under our sustainable quality growth strategy, we have been continuously cleaning up those unqualified hotels, which can help improve and the overall quality of our hotel portfolios. Please turn to page seven. The proportion of Hanting 1.0 version and soft economic hotels decreased from 26% at the end of 2020, to only 8% as the end of September this year. Over the same period, the proportion of Hanting 2.7 version and above increased from 14% to 27%. Please turn to page eight.

We emphasized that economic and mid-scale hotels will always be our core products, as we strive to better serve Chinese mass consumer market. As of the end of September, 55% of our hotels in operation were economic hotels, and 37% were mid-scale hotels. The proportion of mid-scale hotels was up three percentage points on a year-over-year basis. For hotels in pipeline, around 37% were economic hotels and 48% were mid-scale. Proportion of mid-scale hotels were up five percentage points year-over-year. In the third quarter, 91% of the new hotel openings were economic and mid-scale hotels. As you can see, while we are optimizing and enhancing our overall hotel product, quality, our limited service hotel segments, which comprise economic and mid-scale segments, are always our key focus to continue improving in order to better meet the travel and accommodation needs for Chinese mass market.

It is worth noting that within the limited service segment, we are seeing the proportion of mid-scale is increasing, which perfectly match with consumers' rising demand on better quality of accommodation product.

Pleas turn to page nine.

This year, we achieved encouraging breakthrough in the upper mid segment. At the end of September, we had 605 hotels in operation, which represented a year-over-year and a quarter-over-quarter increase of 18% and 8% respectively. And we had 357 hotels in pipeline, which grew 35% year-over-year and 13% quarter-over-quarter.

The strong pipeline growth reflects the rising brand awareness of our upper mid-scale hotels and provides solid support for the future development. 请大家翻到第10页。在中高端酒店品牌里，橙季和橘子水晶在今年取得了不错的签约。去年，公司将DH旗下InterCity品牌引入中国，成为橙季品牌，并在武汉、郑州、深圳和上海等地成功开业数家直营门店。在过去的3个季度里，橙季品牌的签约数量快速上升。截至今年9月底，管道内橙季酒店的数量已经达到41家门店，管道内橘子水晶的数量达到了一百零八家门店。逐季攀升的管道内酒店数量，体现了加盟商对橙季、橘子水晶品牌的品牌和产品的认可。请 Please turn to page 10. Within the upper mid-scale segment, our two key brands, including InterCity and Crystal Orange, both have achieved remarkable new signings this year. Last year, we launched the DH's InterCity brands in China, and opened several new leased InterCity hotels in Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai, and so on.

Over the past three quarters, the new signings of InterCity grow meaningfully.

At the end of September, we have 41 IntercityHotel hotels in the pipeline, and the number of pipeline for Crystal Orange brand reached 108. The fast-growing pipeline demonstrates that our IntercityHotel and Crystal Orange products and brands are getting more recognized and accepted by our franchisees. 以上就是华住中国第三季度业务情况的更新。下面有请集团CFO何继红为大家阐释DH最新的经营进展和战略规划，以及华住集团三季度经营和财务数据的情况。有请继红，谢谢。Here concludes our business review and updates for the third quarter of 2023. With that, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Ms.

Jihong He, to discuss DH's operational updates and our group's financial performance. Jihong, please.

Jihong He (CFO)

Thank you, Jin Hui. I will now elaborate DH's activities so far this year. Please turn to page 11. Despite Germany's slow economic recovery post-COVID, RevPAR of DH portfolio outperformed the overall German market using relevant RGI data. In third quarter 2023, year-over-year cost growth is in line with revenue growth, despite inflationary pressure in Europe, after excluding one-off adjustment and restructuring costs. Our priority remains to control and reduce costs through business restructuring, as well as leveraging on technology. At the same time, we are repositioning the current hotel product design to reflect the demand of the modern travelers. We are also spending effort in strengthening our presence in Middle East and exploring new international markets, such as Asia Pacific. I'm now going to highlight the financial performance in the next section.

Please turn to page 13. Our hotel network continued to expand in the third quarter 2023. Total number of rooms in our operation increased 11% year-over-year, and it reached 885,756. Hotel turnover increased 55% year-over-year, and it reached RMB 23.5 billion. Please turn to page 14. Legacy-Huazhu blended RevPAR recovered to 129% of 2019 and achieved RMB 278. This was primarily driven by ADR increase, which was thirty-three percent over Q3 2019 and 27.7% of Q3 2022. Occupancy still lags Q3 2019 by 1.8 percentage points. Nevertheless, the occupancy of 86% is quite a high benchmark for the size of our total portfolio. Please turn to page 15.

Legacy-DH blended RevPAR increased 4.5% year-over-year and achieved EUR 79. ADR remained flat compared to third quarter 2022, but occupancy increased by 2.9 percentage point. Please turn to page 16. Total revenue of H World increased 54% year-over-year, achieving CNY 6.3 billion. Legacy-Huazhu revenue increased 62% year-over-year, achieving CNY 5.1 billion. This achievement was possible through, first, strong domestic travel demand, especially during the summer holiday. Second, continued product upgrades and improvement of product mix. And the third, market penetration and synergy through regional offices. Revenue from a Legacy-DH also improved 26% year-over-year, driven by higher RevPAR and higher hotel turnover. Please turn to page 17. Legacy-Huazhu operating income achieved CNY 1.9 billion in third quarter 2023.

Compared to third quarter 2022 and the second quarter 2023, this is a significant improvement. This is achieved through revenue increase and at the same time, cost management effort for both hotel costs and S&G, SG&A expenses. On Legacy DH side, operating costs increased in line with the revenue increase. On SG&A side, there are some one-off effect and restructuring costs booked in Q3 2023. Taking this effort out, the SG&A cost also increased proportionally with the revenue increase compared to Q3 2022. Please turn to page 18. Legacy Huazhu adjusted EBITDA achieved CNY 2.1 billion in Q3 2023, and adjusted net income achieved CNY 1.4 billion. Legacy DH adjusted EBITDA was CNY 55 million in Q3 2023. Adjusted net income fell into negative territory of minus CNY 37 million.

On the group level, operating cash flow was CNY 1.2 billion. The fluctuation compared to Q2 2023 is due to a short-term change of timing of franchisee fee payment at the end of September. Please turn to page 19. The group is in a net cash position as of end of September. There's a net cash of CNY 3.9 billion and unutilized bank facility of CNY 2.7 billion. Please turn to page 20. We estimate the revenue in Q4 2023 will be a growth of 41%-45% compared to Q4 2022. Excluding DH, Legacy-Huazhu revenue is estimated to grow 48%-52% compared to Q3 2022. This ends the management presentation. I hand over to Mr. Chen Yibo.

Jason Chen (Senior Invesstor Relations Director)

Hi, operator. We can start the Q&A session, please.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. 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 star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the headset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Mr. Dan Xu from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Dan Xu (Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning, management. First of all, congratulations on a very strong quarter result. I have a question regarding the recent announcement of board resolution on cash dividend. I'm wondering if the company can share a bit more details on this dividend payment. For example, timing, what to expect, size of the dividend that is proposed, and whether is it a regular or special dividend? Thank you.

Jin Hui (CEO)

季宏有需要的话，季宏补充一下。这个月我们确实刚刚宣布了，董事会正在考虑派息现金股息的这样的一个事宜。那我想具体的分红政策和分红比例，我们将在董事会决议后，立刻向市场公布。啊，我想同时想补充的是，华住确实在未来以新资产，品牌管理的这样的一个战略扩张下，我们也在考虑这个让整个企业变得可持续的这样的一个现金和利润的这个表现。谢谢！ Let me answer your question first.

Yes, our board is considering a cash dividend, and once we get the approval from the board resolution, we will immediately release to the market in terms of the exact policy and the payout ratio. And I want to add another point is, as what the business is going to be more asset-light, we definitely wants to be well management on the cash and net profit going forward.

Jihong He (CFO)

Just a little bit to add to Mr. Hui Jin's comment. Huazhu, especially Huazhu China, has recovered very well. We are very confident that, especially Chinese lodging market, will continue to recover. So we expect a very stable cash flow in our future operations. And with this kind of stable cash flow and net earnings, we would like to return some of our earnings back to our investors. So we will resume our continuous stable base dividend policy, as well as special dividend policy from time to time, if our cash flow shows a very strong performance. And please just be patient. We have a couple of days until the board resolution is decided, and we will announce it in time.

As for the cash payment, we will expect it around early next year.

Dan Xu (Equity Research Analyst)

好的，啊，谢谢金总，何总，啊，我们非常期待，谢谢。

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Ronald Leung from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Ronald Leung (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

管理层，你们早上好！其实，我有两个问题。第一个问题呢，就是关于，明年的一个预期的。其实管理层对，明年的，RevPAR，还有就是开店，现在有没有一个初步的预期？第二个问题就是想，跟第一个问题也是，之前的问题也是，也是，有关的，就是，现在其实公司这个现金流，还有这个资产负债表都是，非常的强。其实，有没有说，一个最理想的一个资产负债表的架构，大概会是怎么样的？Let me ask my questions in English.

My first question is about the outlook for 2024. So, would management have any preliminary forecast for the RevPAR growth and the hotel openings for 2024? My second question is about balance sheet. So, right now, the company has a very strong balance sheet and cash flow. So, what do you think is the optimal capital structure for the company? Thank you very much.

Jin Hui (CEO)

关于第一个问题，我先回答一下，我们，将会在四季度财报之后来披露我们明年的指引。所以，但总体来讲，我们对整个中国，华住中国始终是保持一个谨慎乐观的 对未来的趋势。我们看到内循环下消费的这样的一个市场的改变和崛起，头部连锁化红利的，这个，因为华住有很多头部的品牌，我们依然在享受头部这个品牌连锁化的红利，所以我们对未来还是保持谨慎乐观的整体趋势，但具体的指引会在今年四季度之后给予具体的披露。第二个问题，季宏来解释一下。谢谢。

Let me translate the first answer. So, in terms of the expectation for next year, in terms of the RevPAR and the new openings, we will be giving the guidance to the market when we release our fourth quarter earnings, probably next year. But I just want to add, we are still keeping our conservatively optimistic view for the China business, given we think we are still having the best products and market leading position, and we are still getting benefits from the continuously China ratio improvement and further consolidation of the market. So again, we keep our conservatively optimistic view unchanged. Thank you.

Jihong He (CFO)

Okay, I will take over the question about the capital structure.

As you can see, Ronald, from our balance sheet, for the third quarter, we have a very strong net cash position. I'm very confident that with the business improving, quarter by quarter, year by year, our cash position will remain very strong. So, as a part of the effort to reward our investors, we already announced our dividend payout policy, and this policy will continue. And we also do not exclude the possibility to do some share buyback, you know, at appropriate time as well.

From our debt and equity position, you can see that we still have $500 million convertible bonds at this moment, and this will still take some time to mature, and we will continue to leverage some of the bank facilities for our short term working capital, because the Chinese interest rate is very low. So please to be assured that the financial management team of H World will look into our cash position very diligently, manage our cash and manage our reward program to our investors, at the same time also leverage the lower interest environment in China, and we will also continue to manage the overall debt position, so that we do not fall into any potential issues.

Ronald Leung (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

好，谢谢你，何总，金总。

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Simon Cheung from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Simon Cheung (Managing Director, Equity Research)

Good morning, thank you for the management's sharing! I have two questions. The first question I want to ask is, I see that your speed of adding stores is obviously much faster than other peers. What is the reason? And I remember that in the previous two quarters, Mr. Jin, you shared some situations in the South China region. I don't know if you can share the latest situations now. That's the first one. Then for the second one, I want to understand. Many investors are very interested in seeing, for example, October.

You just shared that the RevPAR has a slight decline. I want to understand the trend you see, for example, November, December. I don't know what your own thoughts are now, and what you think the reason for the decline in October is, which aspect, for example, is it the leisure side or the business side. Uh, then, let me translate it. Uh, so I have two questions.

The first questions are in relation to the hotel opening. I've noticed that H World actually been able to achieve a much faster hotel opening than a lot of the peers. Wondering what are the reasons and whether management could share with us what's the latest update with the Southern China strategies? And then the second question is in relation to the fourth quarter RevPAR, we have noticed quite a bit of a meaningful downward trend in October. Wondering whether it's technical or structural, you know, what is the outlook going into November and December, and whether it's any reasons in relation to business versus leisure traveling. Thanks a lot. 谢 谢.

Jin Hui (CEO)

好，我来回答一下关于业务的问题。确实，我们在今年，疫情后整个发展，取得了非常好的这样的一个路得到了非常好的签约和管道的数量。我相信这些，主要取决于几个因素啊，第一个就是华住在过去几年持续在中国细分市场头部品牌的构建上，啊，比如我们汉庭、全季，呃，无论 是产品升级还是市场的口碑，都取得了非常好的这样的一个反馈，所以在疫情后得到了非常好的这样的一个持续的高增长，这个其实也在预料之中。另外呢，我们在过去几年，呃，大家如果关注的话，像在中档的桔子，啊，我们在持续地培养这个中档的第二增长的这个，这个，这个，这个品牌，在过去一年也取得了非常好的品牌力的这样的一个建设效果。呃，我们桔子的最新的3.0，呃，在今年第一季度发布以后，取得了非常好的增长的这样的一个表现。所以第一个我想因素取决于我们华住已经构建的一些头部品牌的持续的高增长。第二个，呃，有利因素呢，我们确实在过去几年，在我们下沉市场，特别是过去华住比较薄弱的南方、华西、华中市场，通过我们的持续的组织的调整，这个开发能力的构建，我们取得了非常好的这个增长的表现。啊，我们在过去华住薄弱市场，呃，我刚才提到的华中、华南、华西，目前占华住整个签约比重已经超过40%以上，所以这方面的增长也大大地提升了华住在中国的市场的签约的表现。那第三个呢，其实我们已经在PPT已经展现了华住在中高端市场的持续的发力，呃，随着我们陈记、啊，桔子，呃，水晶2.0的这样的产品和品牌的完善，我相信未来在中高端的签约和市场覆盖上面我们会持续地增长。所以第一个问题，主要三个方面，第一就是头部品牌的这样的一个持续的发力，下沉和薄弱市场的快速的弥补和这个签约的快速的这个实现，还有中高端的新品牌的孵化，呃，三个领域。谢谢。

Okay, to answer your first questions. Post the COVID, since this year, we, we achieved quite good progress in terms of the new signings and the pipeline increase. This was mainly attributed to several reasons. Firstly, is for our market leading brands, especially in the limited service segment, including Hanting and JI Hotel. Over the last several years, we keep enhancing our product quality and doing a lot of products upgrades and further enhance our brand reputation...

And awareness that definitely benefits us for the increase in the new signings. And also, especially in the mid-scale segment, last year we tried to use the Orange to become our second main brand in this particular segment. And since the first quarter, when we launched Orange 3.0 version, the product itself has been very much well accepted by the market and franchisees, hence achieve the quite good new signings since then. Certainly, it's because of the lower-tier cities penetration as well as further enhance our presence in our previously weak market, including the southern part of China, western part of China, and the middle part of China.

This is the benefits from our organizational restructuring and further strengthening our business development capability on the ground. Currently, these three previously weak regions contributed more than 40% of our new signings year to date. And lastly, it is further breaking through into the upper mid segment, and mainly because of the IntercityHotel brand as well as the Crystal Orange Hotel brand, as I mentioned previously in our prepared remarks and also presentation. And we strongly confident on the further breakthrough and increase the market share for this particular segment.

关于第二个，关于RevPAR的这个情况，我也简单的回复一下，因为的确，如你们关注到十月份，也是通常黄金周以后，通常的这个淡季，中国酒店业会迎来一些淡季的这个正常的表现，季节性的一个正常的情况。我们对今年四季度对应的RevPAR恢复度，我们大致的这个预测是在%...

Jason Chen (Senior Invesstor Relations Director)

相对2019年是差不多145%到102%的这样的恢复曲线。谢谢。In terms of the second questions on the RevPAR trend. So, for October, this is pretty normal seasonality, because normally post the Golden Week holiday, there was the low season following. So this is a normal seasonality impact. And for the entire fourth quarter, we are expecting the RevPAR recovery to be in range of 115%-120%, compared to the same period of 2019. 谢谢，谢谢管理层。

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Sijie Lin from CICC. Go ahead.

Sijie Lin (Equity Research Analyst)

哦，谢谢管理层。我有一个问题，就是咱们管理层进行了一些这个下沉市场的一个考察，那可不可以分享一下，就是有哪些主要的这个观察，由此觉得这个下沉市场还有很大的机会，然后以及说在做了这个区域总部之后，我们觉得还有什么地方需要加强，然后来帮助我们把握住这个下沉市场的一个机会。我来翻译成英文。So thank you management.

You have been to some lower-tier cities to do some field research. So could you please share with us your main observations, which make you feel that there are lots of opportunities in lower-tier cities? In order to seize the lower-tier market opportunity, we have established regional headquarters. Is there any other capability that we need to strengthen? Thank you.

Jin Hui (CEO)

我来回答一下这个问题。确实，中国的城市化在过去几年仍然是一个话题，虽然已经在上百年提前实现了65%的城市化，我们可以看到下沉市场其实很大一部分也是受益于下沉市场的城市化的这个进程，这个我觉得是非常明显的，在很多下沉市场的人口还在继续，还在增加。第二呢，由于中国发达的高铁，高速公路的网络，使得整个，这个内循环下的人口流动性，特别是在一些地方鼓励推动的这个大环境下，使得整个内循环下的这样的一个流动。大家也可以看到，中国高铁的出行人口持续在上升。所以我认为这两个因素是非常重要的，一个就是得益于中国的城市化的持续的进展，第二个就是整个内循环下，这样的一个流动人口的这个增加。那下沉市场确实这个表现了比较强的，韧性，这个，受到整个，经济的这个底层韧性还是比较强的，我们可以看到。所以我们对整个下沉市场，基于这些的判断，我们认为中国还是有非常大的机会，特别是下沉市场拥有差不多10亿的人口，对吧？是一个非常，非常巨大庞大的这个人口的基数。我想如何去满足下沉市场的这样的一个消费者的，这样的一个出行的国民的这样的市场需要，也是华住作为头部企业的这个非常重要的一项，任务。第一个问题先。Okay.

So clearly, despite the urbanization rate have already achieved over 65% this year, we're still seeing that there is further urbanization progressing in the lower tier cities. And we're also seeing the population actually is also increasing in the lower tier cities. In addition to that, the high-speed railway trend further development as well as the highway networks further expanding, and we were seeing, you know, the number of passengers transported by the high-speed railway trend this year achieved a historical high.

This is mainly supported by a lot of, you know, government efforts on stimulating the domestic demand, which increased a lot of, you know, population mobilities, demand. And for the lower tier cities, we also observed that it is really a high resilient market. And, more importantly, the lower tier cities concerns over 1 billion population. We think still there is a lot of huge opportunities to further discover.

And as a leading company, Huazhu is striving to further providing good products and service to match the demand for a better accommodations in the lower tier cities. 第二个问题也非常好啊，确实也是管理层正在做的事情。除了下沉市场，对华住来讲是一个全新的市场，除了我们在组织，实现区域化，属地化这样的一个能力以外，我认为更重要的是去贴近我们的用户，我们的产品，我们的服务，我们的营销，如何在鉴于属地化的因地制宜的这样的一个能力，这是下一个阶段我们非常重要的。另外就是对我们的加盟商，下沉市场出现了很多自持物业的投资者，很多是本地的中小型地产商，有不少是企业主，有非常强的本地的实力，如何更好地满足他们的这样的一个需求，也是下一个阶段的非常重要的课题。所以总结一句话，就是如何进一步地建立贴近用户的属地化的产品、服务、影响力。Okay, so the organizational restructuring is definitely creating some of the benefits, and in line with our lower tier cities penetration strategy.

So basically, we want to be more close to our customers and more close to our franchisees, and to be more localized, because especially for the franchisee side, we are seeing a lot of, you know, new franchise, new type of franchisees. Basically, some of them are self-owned properties, some of them are, you know, local, small and middle property developers, as well as some of the business owners. We want to be close enough to them and understanding their demands as well as our customers.

谢谢京东。

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Jiwei Liu from CITICS. Please go ahead.

Jiwei Liu (Equity Research Analyst)

哎，谢谢管理层啊。我们确实关注到公司在整个中高端这块的积极布局，啊，特别是城际的签约的速度其实也是比较超预期的啊，我自己也是城际的消费者。关于城际的话呢，我想请教两个方面的问題，一个是关于目前已经开出来的这些城际门店的话，有没有更多的一些经营数据可以做一些分享，比如说像 ADR, RevPAR 之类 的。另外的话呢，就目前我们管线中的城际门店的城市分布，包括这个加盟商的这个画像大概有哪些特征？啊，主要是这样的两个问题。Let me translate my question in English. We notice the Intercity is gaining traction among franchisees, so could you tell us more about the stores' current business situation, such as ADR, RevPAR?

Besides, can you share what cities are the distribution of in the city, in the pipeline? What are the features of franchisees? Thank you.

Jin Hui (CEO)

好，我来回答一下这个问题。谢谢啊，关注到我们城际的品牌，确实去年引进以后，我们在持续打造我们产品迭代和服务的能力，还有组织的能力。应该讲现在城际呢，现在门店，开业的门店还不是太多，虽然我们在这个已开业的门店确实在 revPAR 还有全聚德这样的一个网评分都超过了我们主要竞品，但我认为这个因为我们的样本还太少，不足以来这个，这个，这个，这个跟你们披露更多，但是我们在点状已经实现了非常好的，以这个收益回报和非常好的这个品牌的影响力，这个我是非常非常自信的一点，可以跟大家分享。那么在城际的发展里面，我确实看到我们所接触的加盟商发生了一些变化，主要分两类，一类是行业里面非常头部的大-大的加盟商，因为一个城际的投资非常大，基本上要需要在 CNY 30 million-CNY 50 million 这样的投资，所以整个的，应该讲头部的，这个行业的头部，不仅仅是华住原来的头部，也有很多行业的头部的加盟商的加入，原来可能，投资其他品牌的这个头部的加盟商非常明显。第二个就是很明显的，就是有一部分开发商和资产持有人，专业资产持有人的这个参与，确实城际实现了对一些原来国际品牌在中国的平行替代，因为我们现在在这个经营的业绩，还有 GOP 的这个利润率上面，确实应该讲在目前的运营的反馈来讲，是远远胜于原来的，传统的这个国际品牌在中国的表现。谢谢。Okay, thank you. Just to answer your questions. Thanks for focusing on our Intercity brand. Since we launched last year and opened several leased, Intercity hotels in several cities.

So for this already opened hotel, given you know the scale is relatively small, we don't think it is suitable for now to compare or to release the ADR or RevPAR to the market at this moment, because it is quite selective, and we have only, you know, several InterCities hotels in operation. But if you really want to talk about these hotels' operational data, so all the ADRs and RevPARs have been already doing better than our competitors. But we are very confident to see the brand is getting more accepted and aware by our franchisees and the market. And for the franchisees, we are seeing definitely a different type of franchisees compared to our limited service segment.

There are two types of franchisees. One is definitely the industry-leading franchisee, because the Intercity hotel requires a relatively big amount of CapEx investment. So, a single Intercity hotel requires around CNY 30 million-CNY 50 million CapEx. So only those very much leading position leading franchisees can afford that much CapEx. And second, we also see a lot of, you know, property developers or local property developers and property owners, which used to, you know, doing business with those international brands, are now finding us as Intercity to be a substitute, because we are definitely leading in terms of the operational capability.

Hey, how does she?

Operator (participant)

There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand back to Mr. Chen for closing remarks.

Jason Chen (Senior Invesstor Relations Director)

Thank you, everyone, for taking your time with us today, and we look forward to see you in upcoming quarter. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Operator (participant)

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.