H World Group - Q4 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to H World Group Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to hand you over to H World Senior IR Director, Mr. Jason Chen. Please go ahead.

Jason Chen (Senior Director of Investor Relations)

Thank you. Good morning, and good evening, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Welcome to H World Group 2023 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Earnings Conference Call. Joining us today is our chairman, Mr. Qi Ji, our CEO, Mr. Jin Hui, and our CFO, Mr. Jun Zou. 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 under 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 yesterday. 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 CEO, Mr. Jin Hui, to discuss our business performance in 2023. Mr. Jin, please.

Jin Hui (CEO)

[Foreign language] In 2023, the domestic traveling industry experienced strong momentum of recovery. Along with the robust rebound of the industry, H World continued implementing our sustainable high-quality growth strategy and achieved great results. First of all, let's take a look at our achievements in 2023. Please turn to page three.

Thanks to the strong leisure demand and the gradual recovery of business demand post the pandemic, in 2023, our China business achieved a robust recovery, with RevPAR recovered to 122% of the 2019 level for the whole year. Entering into 2024, we still see our RevPAR performing steadily so far. [Foreign language] Our hotel network continued to expand. Please turn to page four. Excluding the economic softer brands, we opened a total of 1,641 hotels in 2023, reached a record high in terms of annual opening number. At the same time, we closed 789 hotels in 2023.

However, if excluding the low-quality economic softer brand and HanTing 1.0 version, the closures were only 273 hotels, a slight increase from 237 in 2022. The high closure number in 2023 demonstrated our determination to remove or upgrade low-quality hotels in an accelerative manner, which is in line with our sustainable quality growth strategy. In terms of our pipeline, by the end of 2023, our hotels in pipeline reached 3,061, another record high. [Foreign language]

The limited service segment remains our key strategic focus. Our economic and mid-scale products, which target the mass market, are the key drivers of our network expansions. Breaking down our hotels in operation, hotels in pipeline and hotel opening in 2023, the proportion of economic and mid-scale hotel were 92%, 85% and 90% respectively. [Foreign language] H World has set a specific brand strategy, named Iron Triangle, to develop the economic and mid-scale segments. The Iron Triangle strategy consists of our three key brands, namely HanTing, JI Hotel, and Orange. In 2023, we have upgraded products for all these three brands.

Please turn to page six. Firstly, our HanTing products were being constantly upgraded. The proportion of Hanting 1.0 version were significantly declined from 28.5% as of 2020 to only 4.4% as of 2023, while the proportion of Hanting 2.7 and above version steadily increased from only 34.4% as of 2020 to 71.2% as of 2023. As the first flagship brand with the longest history within the group, Hanting has maintained its market competitiveness and attractiveness to customers and franchisees through continuous product innovation and upgrades. [Foreign language] Please turn to page seven.

We launched the newest version 5.0 for JI Hotel at the end of last year. The new version further elaborates the lifestyle of oriental aesthetic and shows confidence in distinctive Chinese style service. Starting from the stage of design, JI Hotel 5.0 version implements the concept of sustainable development, such as adopting prefabricated design, intelligent lighting system, and environmentally friendly construction system. These implementations could largely help reducing environmental pollution and energy consumption.

Additionally, we also explored some new business models in the public area or lobby area of JI Hotel 5.0 version. We introduce an innovative tea space or tea house in JI Hotels, public area and also further strengthening the [core team] products, which is the scenario-based retail business. [Foreign language] Lastly, our Orange brand, we launched LOHAS version in 2023. Please turn to page eight. After only one year post its official launch, Orange LOHAS version has already gained tremendous popularity in the market. As of 2023, the LOHAS products accounted for 58% of the total pipeline of Orange Hotel. [Foreign language]

H World continues to expand geographic coverage of our hotel network. Please turn to page nine. We kept on penetrating in lower tier cities in China. As of 2023, around 40% of hotels in operation were located in Tier 3 and Tier 4 and below cities, representing a two percentage points increase compared to 2022. At the same time, 55% of hotels in pipeline were located in lower tier cities. Also, the percentage number were lower compared to 2022, its absolute number were higher. As of 2023, the number of city coverage was 1,257, added 131 new cities penetration compared to 2022. [Foreign language]

In addition, our capabilities of localized development and operation in the previously less penetrated or weak areas in China has been improving significantly, and we achieved an initial result post our organizational restructuring by establishing regional headquarters. Please turn to page 10. In the South, West and Central China, the total new signings in 2023 increased more than 100%, 80% and 40% year-over-year, respectively, and increased more than 200%, 130% and 110% compared to the pre-COVID year of 2019 respectively. [Foreign language]

Please turn to page 11. Our upper mid-scale segment development is continuously progressing. As of the fourth quarter of 2023, there were 645 upper mid-scale segment hotels in operation, representing a 23% year-over-year increase and a 7% quarter-over-quarter increase. There were 386 upper mid-scale hotels in pipeline, representing a 34% year-over-year increase and an 8% increase on a sequential basis. Combining the hotels in operations and hotels in pipelines together, the total number of our upper mid-scale hotels reached 1,031 in 2023. We are very glad that we had achieved our target, which was set in the second quarter of 2021. However, it is still far from enough. We will continue to strengthen our footprint in the upper mid-scale segment, mainly through our core brands, and strive to become a leading brand in the market in the foreseeable future. [Foreign language]

Please turn to page 12. Being one of our core brands in the upper mid-scale segment, IntercityHotel launched its new products in 2022, and the number of its pipeline hotels has quickly increased to 53 at the end, at the year end, demonstrating the high market recognition and acceptance of the brand and the products. Turning to page 13. At the same time, the Crystal Orange gained a good momentum of new signings as well. By the end of 2023, the number of hotels in pipeline reached 119, which doubled from the beginning of 2023. [Foreign language]

Lastly, let's review our performance in regards to the membership and the central reservation system. Please turn to page 14. The total number of members continued to increase to 228 million in 2023, and has ranked number one worldwide. Direct bookings through our central reservation systems was 62.6% in 2023, representing a nine percentage points increase on a year-over-year basis. All in all, we continued to reinforce our membership program and the central reservation system? [Foreign language] After discussing our achievements in 2023, let's now go through our key strategic focus in 2024.

Please turn to page 15. Service excellence, centric, sustainable growth, quality growth will be the strategic focus of Legacy Huazhu in 2024. This strategic focus is divided into three major areas. Firstly, high quality hotel network expansion. In the limited service segment, we will continuously expand our footprint nationwide by executing our Iron Triangle strategy, which focus on less penetrated areas and the lower tier cities. In the upper middle segment or selected service segment, we will consistently implement our multi-brand strategy to further strengthen our presence.

Secondly, customer centric product upgrades and service excellence. In terms of product quality, we will continue to upgrade old hotels and introduce new products for each brand to meet our customers diversified needs. In terms of service quality, 2024 marks the beginning of a year of service excellence for H World. It means that we are going to put more emphasis on service, which provided to both our customers and the franchisees to continuously enhance their experiences and satisfaction.

Lastly, the digitalized based organizational capability enhancement. Continued improvement on both products and service quality would be difficult in the absence of a strong support from a strong organizational and digitalization capability. We are going to further enhance our management capability and operational efficiency in the areas such as supply chain optimization, integrated marketing program, talent reserve, organizational capability, and so on, through a comprehensive digitalization process. By doing so, it could help us to establish a solid foundation to support our business development in a rapid and sustainable manner.

[Foreign language]

Please turn to page 16. In terms of our overseas business, there are four major strategic focus. Firstly, transforming to asset light model. Secondly, continuously focusing on cost reduction and profitability improvement. Thirdly, further strengthening direct sales via H Rewards global loyalty program. And lastly, looking for the APAC and the Middle East growth opportunity. [Foreign language]

Thank you. All above are our 2023 review and the 2024 strategic focus discussions. Now, I will hand over the call to our CFO, Mr. Jun Zou, to discuss our 2023 fourth quarter and full year operational and financial reviews. Mr. Zou, please.

Jun Zou (CFO)

Thank you, Jin Hui. Good morning and good evening to everyone. Let's go through our operational financial review for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2023. Please now turn to page 18. In 2023, we continued to expand our hotel network. Our overall number of rooms increased 13% year-over-year to over 912,000 rooms by the end of 2023, compared to over 809,000 rooms as of end of the last year. Our hotel turnover for the full year of 2023 was CNY 80.4 billion, representing a 62% increase compared to 2022. Excluding DH, Legacy Huazhu's hotel turnover grew 66% year-over-year to CNY 73.3 billion. Now, let's turn to page 19.

Since China lifted the travel restriction in late 2022, we saw a strong rebound in leisure travel and a gradual recovery in business travel throughout 2023. Blended RevPAR for Legacy Huazhu reached CNY 242, representing a recovery of 122% compared to the 2019 level, and a year-over-year increase of 54%. The robust RevPAR growth was primarily driven by ADR, which raised 27% to CNY 299 in 2023, which was mainly due to our product mix change as well as continued product upgrade over the last few years. Occupancy rate also improved throughout the year to 81% for the full year of 2023. Now, page 20.

For DH business, full year 2023 blended RevPAR grew 14.5% year-over-year to EUR 71, which was driven by 1% increase in ADR and a 7% increase in occupancy rate to 63% OCC. Now, please turn to page 21. In the 4Q 2023, our total revenue for the group, group increased 51% year-over-year to CNY 5.6 billion, exceeding our previous guidance of 41%-45% year-over-year growth. For the full year of 2023, our group revenue increased 58% year-over-year to CNY 21.9 billion, of which Legacy Huazhu achieved 64% year-over-year revenue growth to CNY 17.4 billion, and the DH grew 39% year-over-year to CNY 4.4 billion.

The revenue growth of Legacy Huazhu was driven by the strong travel demand in China, as well as our continued product grade and the market penetration throughout the regional offices. For DH, its revenue growth was attributable to the market recovery on network expansion, as well as favorable exchange rate. Now, please turn to page 22. Hotel operating costs were CNY 4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023, and CNY 14.3 billion for the full year of 2023. The year-over-year increase was primarily due to our business recovery, and the QOQ increase in the fourth quarter was mainly due to CNY 200 million impairment loss on the Legacy Huazhu level, as well as CNY 162 million impairment from Legacy DH. The increase of our hotel operating costs was slower than our revenue growth, reflecting operating leverage of the business.

Now, pre-opening expenses reduced meaningfully as we continue to execute our asset-light strategy and become more selective on opening lease and owned hotels. SG&A expenses were CNY 970 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, and CNY 3.2 billion for the full year of 2023. The year-over-year increase in SG&A were mainly due to increased personnel costs, OTA commissions, and promotional expenses, along with business recovery. Overall, we achieved operating leverage and delivered income from operation of CNY 757 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, and CNY 4.7 billion for the full year of 2023, compared to the operating loss in the fourth quarter and full year of 2022. Turning to page 20.

Legacy Huazhu reported adjusted EBITDA of CNY 1.3 billion in the fourth quarter, 2023, and CNY 6.8 billion for the full year of 2023. Please take note that the reported adjusted EBITDA consisted of several one-off items, including around CNY 590 million gains from selling our Accor shares and other investments, and around 213 million COVID-related tax subsidy and the rental reduction for the full year of 2023, and also a unrealized foreign exchange gain of CNY 71 during the year of 2023. Now, for the full year of 2023, our DH business reported a positive adjusted EBITDA of CNY 87 million.

Our group adjusted net income were CNY 657 million in fourth quarter of 2023, and CNY 4.1 billion for the full year of 2023. Compared to net loss in the fourth quarter and the full year of 2022, our operating cash flow improved significantly, reached CNY 2.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023, and CNY 7.7 billion for the full year. Now please turn to page 24. As of December 2023, the group had CNY 10.5 billion cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and time deposits on hand, and was in a solid net cash position with CNY 5.2 billion net cash, including time deposits. We also had CNY 2.8 billion unutilized bank facilities as end of last year. Now let's turn to page 25.

In November 2023, we declared approximately $300 million cash dividends, which include a $200 million regular dividend and a $100 million special dividend. We also repurchased about $122 million worth of, worth of shares from the market during the first quarter of 2023, fourth quarter. As we become more asset-light and cash rich, we'll continue to reward our shareholders with dividend impacts. Now, please turn to page 26 on guidance. For the first quarter of 2024, we expect our revenue to grow 12%-16% compared to first quarter last year, or 11%-13%, excluding DH. For the full year of 2024, we expect revenue to grow 8%-12% year-over-year, or 8%-12%, excluding DH.

We'll further accelerate our high quality network expansion, setting our gross hotel opening target of around 1,800 hotels in 2024, and we expect to close about 650 hotels. With that, we're ready to take your questions. Operator, please open the line for Q&A.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. To ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Once again, that's star one one for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Dan Xu from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question, Dan.

Dan Chee (VP)

[Foreign language]

Jun Zou (CFO)

[Foreign language]

Dan Chee (VP)

[Foreign language] Please allow me to translate my question. We would like to understand the recent franchise signing process, progress. Do we have a target for this year on signing, in particular on products and city distribution? Do you see any significant differences when compared with last year? When it comes to hotel opening, congratulations again on the record high opening last year. I remember CEO Mr. Jin mentioned about one bottleneck of annual hotel opening is supply chain and also construction. I saw you increase your gross opening target to 1,800 hotels this year, another record high. So does it mean that we now have made progress in this bottleneck issue? Should we expect gross opening to gradually increase every year going forward if signing keeps up? Thank you. That's all.

Jin Hui (CEO)

[Foreign language]

Yeah, let me answer your first questions. So over the last several years, we did do some of the right things in terms of to improve our capability, in terms of organizational operation, but we also get benefits from three major areas. One is the benefits from the continuously generational improvements in the market, especially going to be benefiting the top tier companies like H World. By giving this benefits that we as well as our continuously efforts on building our brand awareness, we indeed getting a good position in terms of getting to the leading position in different segments, such as like economy and mid-scale that we have.

So several brands are at the leading position. The second benefits is from the lower-tier cities benefit penetration. We caught the opportunity several years back, and we started to build our organizational capability, our human resources to support the lower-tier cities penetration opportunities. Certainly, as we also catch the opportunity for the, for example, the consumption upgrade and also the leisure traveling demand increase which help us to develop the upper mid segment. [Foreign language] Given our established capability, we are confident that we're going to be having another good new signings for this year as well as the new opening for the year just like we, we just give the guidance for the 1,800. [Foreign language]

In terms of the supply chain, you are right, last year, just because of the post-pandemic, there was a capacity bottleneck as well as given the industry recovery was very robust.But however, we don't think there's going to be the supply chain going to be the problem or the bottleneck going forward.In fact, they're going to be a very good supportive factors for us, for future sustainable, high quality growth.

Dan Chee (VP)

[Foreign language] Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Dan. Next question comes from the line of Simon Cheung from Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question, Simon.

Simon Cheung (Managing Director)

[Foreign language] That’s the first question. So let me do a translation. So，the CEO Jin Hui just earlier mentioned that there's the company has greatly benefit from three macro structural trends in the hotel industry over the last three several years。Just wondering whether he has observed any new structural trend of opportunities as well? [Foreign language] The second question related to the margin and the cost. Last year they did quite well in terms of the EBITDA margins, particularly in the China business. And wondering management can whether they can share with us, you know, the costs as well as the margins guidance for 2025. [Foreign language]

Jin Hui (CEO)

[Foreign language] Okay. Let me answer your first questions. Apart from the three benefits that I just mentioned, going forward, we think that the China luxury market definitely has the opportunity, especially on the service excellence front. No matter there is an economic or mid-scale, upper mid-scale segment, we observed that the customers has been more and more looking for a value for money, a good products, good service, products. So, for us, we definitely going to be around their demands, the customer centric, to further build up our capability, from different and many aspects, including the operational capability, sales capability, as well as the marketing capability to fulfill their demand.

Our management goal is to help the Chinese luxury company to be the world class in the upcoming future. But and also including those matured markets, maybe for example, some of the market are getting very matured. But we think there are still a lot of opportunities to redo the market again through the product upgrades through providing a good, good services to the customers. So all in all, we think going forward, the opportunity going to definitely from the service excellence together with the sustainable growth.

Jun Zou (CFO)

Simon, I will address your second question regarding cost and profitability. Now, while we continue to strive for healthy growth and service excellence, we will also, you know, focus on improve our management system, streamline operation, and meticulously measure ROI of every dollar that we spend. So our overall goal, you know, is still to strive for a operating leverage, and that's definitely our goal.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Simon.

Simon Cheung (Managing Director)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Simon. Our next question comes from the line of Ronald Leung from Bank of America. Please ask your question, Ronald.

Ronald Leung (VP)

[Foreign language] Let me translate the two questions that I have. My first question is about the RevPAR growth outlook. What is management's expectations for the RevPAR growth in 1Q 2024 and also full year 2024? My second question is about the enhancement of the service quality. Could management advise what could be the areas that the company didn't do well enough in terms of the service quality? It is possible to provide any specific initiatives to enhance service quality in 2024 and beyond? Thank you very much.

Jin Hui (CEO)

[Foreign language] Okay, let me answer your first question in terms of the RevPAR. So, again, last year post the pandemic, and for the entire year, we clearly see that the RevPAR recovery was mainly driven by a very strong leisure traveling demand. But however, the business traveling demand was relatively slower compared to the leisure in terms of the recovery. Therefore, given the high base of 2023 RevPAR, now 2024, we're gonna be a little bit conservative. So that's why, for the full year, we expect that the RevPAR gonna be flattish to a low single digit growth on a year-over-year basis. For your second question, in terms of the service quality, so definitely the service excellence is not our short term goal, but the long term.

So for us, we put this into our strategy because we think it's gonna help us to grow into the next stage. Clearly, we are seeing that not only that we are rapidly growing our networks, but also the customers are evolving rapidly as well. We are now facing a lot of, you know, diversified group of new customers, and we are trying to use the both products and services to further improve their experiences and satisfactions. For example, just give you an example for the new group of the customer, like, there are a lot of, you know, marathon events hosted everywhere in China.

So how we can fulfill their demands, but their demands might not be the same as those general business travelers. So, again, what I want to emphasize is, the service excellence strategy is not the short-term goal for the company, but it's a long-term goal for us. It's not a slogan, it's actually, it's our management goal to bring the company grow into the next stage. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Ronald. Our next question comes from the line of Sijie Lin from CICC. Please ask your question, Sijie.

Sijie Lin (Analyst)

[Foreign language] So I'll translate my questions into English. So, what's the RevPAR guidance for Q1? Would you mind share with us? We got a higher growth opening and net opening this year, which we think is a very good thing and achieve a real high quality growth. Considering that we are opening hotels with higher RevPAR, meanwhile closing hotels with bad performance, how much percentage of RevPAR growth will be contributed by this mix upgrade? Thank you.

Jin Hui (CEO)

Thanks for your question, Sijie. In the first quarter, our RevPAR probably will grow around the low single digits. And as you mentioned, we will maintain a healthy growth with service excellence. However, you know, in the meantime, we also encourage you to look at, you know, indicators like drivers other than RevPAR. The RevPAR is definitely one of our drivers, but you know, we're rapidly shifting from an asset-heavy model to asset-light model. And more and more, you know, franchise and franchise hotels will be opened throughout the year.

And, therefore, you know, there will be different drivers that drive our growth in the future. And that's something we can discuss, you know. And, while we, you know, while we are opening more and more mid-upscale hotels, you know, we are also thinking into, you know, low-tier cities. So the impact of new hotels to our RevPAR will be blended. Thank you, Sijie, for your question.

Sijie Lin (Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Lydia Ling from Citi. Please ask your question, Lydia.

Lydia Ling (Director of Equity Research)

[Foreign language]

Jin Hui (CEO)

Lydia [Foreign language]

Lydia Ling (Director of Equity Research)

Oh, oh, sorry, sorry. Let me translate the question first. And so my first question is, why the, what we want to follow up on the store opening. Actually, the pace of the store opening accelerate this year. So want to check out how about the, like, the franchise confidence currently in the market, given the macro conditions? And also, if is the company going to actually provide more support to the franchisee? And my second question is on the overseas business, the DH business, and so it's already like to have the, like, the positive EBITDA for last year, and so how to actually, like, further drive the profitability this year? Any target for this year? Thank you.

Jin Hui (CEO)

[Foreign language] Let me answer your first question in terms of the franchisee. So definitely, a healthier return or ROI for franchisees and very important thing for H World. That's what we are putting a lot of efforts on, to helping them to get a good return to open every hotel that can help them to make, make money. So we definitely will again provide a good service, just like what we discussed before. We're also going to provide a good service to the franchisees and also some of the supportive policy to help them to continuously open good hotels. For some of the existing franchisees, we, we definitely going to helping them to open every hotels and with, with a good return.

And then for the new franchisees, especially for the new regions and the new segments, for example, the lower-tier cities and the upper mid segment, we are dealing with a lot of, you know, new franchisees that was not existing before. For example, a lot of, you know, local property companies, governments, as well as the SOEs. So, all in all, that's for the franchisees, definitely, what we are trying to do is, one, is providing their good services and the supportive policies, just to ensure that every hotel they open, we are going to have a good return and ROI.

Jun Zou (CFO)

Hey, Lydia, I'm going to answer your second question about DH's profitability and cost structure. Now, firstly, you know, we're determined that DH will move steadily to an asset-light business model, and we are making progress in that area. Secondly, DH is try their best to achieve operational efficiency, and by creating a lean and mean organization. Thirdly, we are actually, you know, meticulously keeping an eye on all major capital and operational spending in DH business level. And with all that efforts, you know, we, we, are determined to help DH, you know, gradually improve their profitability and gradually turn cash flow positive. Thank you, Lydia, for your question.

Lydia Ling (Director of Equity Research)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We have reached the end of the question and answer session. Thank you very much for all your questions. I'll now turn the conference back to the management team for any additional closing comments.

Jin Hui (CEO)

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

Operator (participant)

Thank you. That concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.