MINISO Group - Q1 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to MINISO Group Holding Limited Earnings Conference Call for the first quarter of fiscal year 2023 that ended September 13th, 2022. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the management prepared remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. Please note, this event is being recorded. Now, I'd like to hand the conference over to your host and speaker today, Mr. Eason Zhang, Vice President of Capital Markets. Please go ahead, Eason.

Eason Zhang (VP of Capital Markets)

Thank you. Hello, everyone, and thank you all for joining us. We have announced our quarterly financial results earlier today. An earnings release is now available on our investor relations website at ir.miniso.com. Joining us today are our Founder and CEO, Mr. Jack Ye, and our CFO, Mr. Steven Zhang. Before we continue, I'd like to refer you to the Safe Harbor statement in our earnings press release, which also applies to this call as we'll be making forward-looking statements. Please also note that we'll discuss non-IFRS financial measures today, which we have explained and reconciled to the most comparable measures reported under International Financial Reporting Standard in the company's earnings release and filings with the U.S. SEC and Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In addition, we have prepared a PowerPoint presentation for today's call, which contains financial and operational information for this quarter.

If you are using Zoom meeting, you should be seeing it right now. You can also revisit it on our IR website later. With that, I will now turn the call over to Mr. Ye. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to MINISO Group's Earnings Call for the 2022 September quarter. We kicked off fiscal year 2023 with an encouraging set of results headlined by strong margin performance. In spite of the short-term headwinds brought by the pandemic in China, we remain focused on our long-term strategic goals, delivering on our globalization strategy, bolstering the strengths of our product offerings, and optimizing our store network. These efforts are yielding positive results, and we continue to see our overseas operations move further along the path of recovery, where our margin profile continue to beat expectations. Thank you.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to MINISO Group's Earnings Call over the past several quarters. Value retailers are well-positioned to weather economic cycles. Our business model have demonstrated great resilience despite the pandemic weighing on our near-term results. During the quarter, we made progress on upgrading MINISO brand in China and rolling out a portfolio of bold products with gross margin increasing by about 4% year-on-year. We continue to focus on driving the strong recovery of our overseas business, which has recorded 50% year-on-year revenue growth for two consecutive quarters. Now accounts for 33% of our total revenue. Benefiting from these two drivers, our overall gross margin reached 35.7%, a record high for MINISO Group.

MINISO's globalization strategy gives us greater flexibility in dealing with pandemic-related uncertainty in China. Our directly operated overseas business turned profitable during the quarter as we continue to unleash its operating leverage. Combined with our continued progress in cost cutting, this helped us increase our adjusted net profit by 127% year-on-year to RMB 417 million in the September quarter. Our adjusted net margin reached its highest level at 15.1%. Next, I'll talk in more detail about the developments in each business segment during this quarter. Let's start with MINISO China, which recorded a revenue of RMB 1.7 billion this quarter. Revenue from MINISO China's offline business was RMB 1.54 billion, which represents a 9% year-on-year decrease, but a 20% quarter-over-quarter increase.

E-commerce revenue was RMB 163 million, decreasing by 12% year-on-year, yet increasing by 23% quarter-over-quarter to account for 6% of our total revenue. Last three years in China, the pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to offline retail business. With the ease of pandemic control policies, however, it is important to note that the most difficult time are behind us. Most MINISO retail partners are financially stable and generating a healthy return. Our inventory turnover has also recovered to the normalized pre-COVID level. Going forward, we'll continue to communicate closely with our partners and respond to their concerns in a timely manner.

In order to provide our partners with additional support, our product and operations team are conducting detailed research and analysis on different regional markets in China, aiming to help them improve the store performance from both product and operational perspective. During the quarter, we added 43 stores on a net basis, most of which were located in lower tier cities. In the near future, we'll adjust our store opening pace based on pandemic dynamics in China to reduce MINISO retail partners' operational risk. Moving on to our progress on the international front. Revenue for the September quarter was about CNY 920 million, representing an increase of almost 50% year-on-year. Revenue from our distributor model increased by 42% year-on-year. Revenue from our directly operated model increased by more than 60% year-on-year.

We are delighted to see that overseas markets sustained good recovery momentum during the September quarter, with overall sales increasing by 41% year-on-year and nearly recovering to the 2019 pre-COVID level for two consecutive quarters. GMV in our distributor markets increased by 36% year-on-year and were above the level from the same period in 2019. GMV in our directly operated markets increased by 64% year-on-year, recovering to the north of 80% of the 2019 pre-COVID level.

Jack Ye (Founder and CEO)

从重点地区来看，在海外门店6%和销售额7%的北美市场，同比增长近50%，并与2019年同期持平。在海外门店数和销售额占比9%的欧洲市场，同比增长了近20%，是2019年同期的两倍左右。占海外门店数22%、销售额35%的拉美市场，同比增长近40%，较2019年同期增长近21%。占海外门店数7%和销售额14%的中东市场，中东及北非市场销售额同比增加20%，较2019年同期增长近50%。占海外门店数近50%和销售额近3%的亚洲市场，同比增长70%，恢复至2019年同期的65%。占海外门店数和销售额2%的大洋洲，同比增长超过三倍，恢复至2019年同期近80%。

Speaker 7

Breaking down by regions. North America, which accounts for 6% of our overseas stores and 7% of sales, saw sales growth of nearly 50% year-on-year, matching the level from the same period in 2019. Europe, which accounts for 9% of stores and 9% of sales, saw sales increased by 20% year-on-year, doubling the level from the same period in 2019. Latin America, which accounts for 22% of stores and 35% of sales, increased by nearly 40% year-on-year and 20% from the same period in 2019. Middle East and North Africa, which accounts for 7% of stores and 14% of sales, increased by nearly 20% year-on-year and 50% from the same period in 2019.

Asian countries, which accounts for about 50% of our overseas stores and 30% of sales, increased by 70% year-on-year, representing 65% of the level from the same period in 2019. Oceania, which accounts for 2% of both of our overseas stores and sales, saw its year-on-year growth of more than 3x, recovering to nearly 80% of the level from the same period in 2019.

Jack Ye (Founder and CEO)

2022年以来，海外国家陆续解除疫情封锁政策，名创优品在海外拓展也由疫情时期的恢复调整，换档至高速增长模式。这个季度海外门店市场净增加54家门店，与去年同期比净增加25家。除了加速开店之外，要实现名创优品海外可持续增长，更多的商品、策略和精细化运营势在必行。上季度我们讲到商品，这季度我想分享一下本地化运营的细节。

Speaker 7

Since 2022, with many countries have gradually lifted lockdown policies, MINISO's overseas expansion has shifted from recovery model to growth model. MINISO added 54 overseas stores on a net basis during the quarter, compared to 26 in the same period last year. In addition to accelerating store grow, expansion, more localized product strategies and sophisticated operations are imperative to our sustainable growth. In our last call, we talked about product strategies. Let me share some details about MINISO's localized operation this quarter.

Jack Ye (Founder and CEO)

继去年底名创优品全球第5000家门店在美国波士顿开业之后，今年我们又把第2000家海外门店开到了法国里昂。这是中国线下零售品牌全球化发展的又一里程碑。

Speaker 7

We celebrated MINISO's 5,000th store in Boston last December. Recently, we celebrated the grand opening of our 2,000th overseas store, which is located in Lyon, France. This is truly another milestone in the globalization of Chinese offline retail brands.

Jack Ye (Founder and CEO)

全球化的中国品牌形象加本土化的门店和产品将成为今后我们在海外开店的标配。首先，为了弘扬中国传统民间艺术，法国门店开业典礼上进行了精彩的中国传统舞狮表演。我们会在更多的新店开业中推广这一做法。其次，我们对里昂门店的装修设计、产品陈列和服务体验都按照当地消费者习惯和需求进行了相应的调整。例如在门店设计，以当地粉丝喜爱的IP主题系列为主题，打造了多个互动区域，为当地年轻消费者提供了更有趣、更个性、更多元的社交互动场景。同时，门店的货架间距，货架区间特别设置了1.4米，为了使用轮椅的消费者打造无障碍的购物体验。最后，依靠强大的供应链能力，名创优品为法国消费者提供了极致品质、性价比和设计感的产品。这是普通消费者负担得起的奢侈品。不仅是我们的产品，还包括门店购物的体验和对生活增加、增加的舒适感。这正是名创优品让每一位消费者享受生活中的小确幸的价值主张的体现。

Speaker 7

We are proud to position MINISO as a globalized Chinese brand together with more localized products and operations. This is going to be a very standard strategy going forward. First of all, in order to promote traditional Chinese culture, the opening ceremony presented a fantastic Chinese lion dance, and we plan to keep it for upcoming new stores. Secondly, the decoration, the product display and service of Lyon store have been tailored to local consumers' habits. For example, the store's layout is divided into several engaging areas with different IPs, allowing young people with more interesting, more personalized and more diversified collection in one visit. Meanwhile, the store is wheelchair-accessible with shelves spaced 1.4 m apart for easy navigation. Finally, by leveraging our supply chain capabilities, we have brought quality, affordable, design-led products to French consumers, which are affordable luxuries today.

It's not just our products, but also the experience of shopping at MINISO and the comfort that it adds to life. That coincides with MINISO's mission of enabling everyone to enjoy life's little surprise. MINISO will continue to bring more playful, more appealing and more useful IP products to global fans. Following the success we had in China last winter, we recently launched new Lotso products in overseas markets such as Vietnam with initial success. We had been teasing the Lotso collection and exciting the launch on social media. On the launch day, customers flocked to MINISO stores and quickly filled the retail space. The shelves were soon cleared. In the following three days, long queues continued to form as enthusiastic shoppers waited for restocking.

At one of the stores in Ho Chi Minh, the daily sales broke the Vietnamese store's historical record on launch day. Overall, in the Vietnamese market, the debut of the Lotso service drove up sales by nearly 2x. Next, I would like to provide everyone with an update on TOP TOY. We made significant progress on executing our established strategy for TOP TOY during the quarter. At quarter end, we had 109 TOP TOY offline stores, representing an increase of 37 year-on-year and 12 quarter-over-quarter. Seven of these were Dream Factory stores and 102 were collection stores. Merchandise gross margin of TOP TOY was about 42% in the quarter, a slight increase from the previous quarter.

Revenue contribution of proprietary products stabilized at 20% for all channels and over 30% for online channel, with gross margin relatively stable. TOP TOY's net loss narrowed significantly on a sequential basis as we continue to optimize the business margin profile. We recently released our first ESG report, in which we have disclosed relevant information from governance structure, internal control, products, stakeholders, brand development, and social responsibilities. As a company with global reach, strengthening the disclosure of ESG information provides stakeholders a useful perspective to better understand the value of the company. In the future, ESG will not only be reflected in our strategy, but also be executing our daily operation. On November 11th, China's National Health Commission released a new set of refined pandemic prevention control policies, which are more scientific and more precise.

I believe that on the guidance of these new policies, the offline retail industry will see new opportunities for recovery and growth. We remain optimistic about our revenue and profit growth potential. Our profit outlook is based on our long-term confidence in China's economic development, our steadfast commitment to our vision for the offline retail business, and our determination to achieve a truly global reach. This concludes my prepared remarks. I'll now turn the call over to our CFO for financial review.

Steven Zhang (CFO)

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I will walk you through the financial results of the September quarter. Please note that all numbers are in RMB, unless otherwise stated. I will also refer to some non-IFRS measures which exclude share-based compensation expenses. Revenue in September quarter reached RMB 2.77 billion, increasing by 5% year-on-year, primarily due to 48% growth of our revenue from overseas market, and partly offset by a 9% decrease of revenue from China. Revenue from China was RMB 1.85 billion, including RMB 1.7 billion from MINISO brand, and RMB 152 million from other business, including TOP TOY. For MINISO brand, the year-on-year revenue decrease was also about 9% in this quarter, primarily due to the pandemic.

During the peak summer sales season of July and August, when the pandemic situation was also relatively stable, our GMV in China recovered to 95% of the level from the same quarter of last year. With the pandemic resurgence in September, our GMV declined to 80% of last year's level. During the quarter, an average of 2%, 5%, and 7% of stores were unable to operate due to the pandemic in July, August, and September, respectively. Excluding the impacted stores, we estimate that the average sales per store from July to September were about 85%, 90%, and 80% of the same period last year, respectively. Revenue from overseas market was $920 million, accounting for 33% of our total revenue.

The 48% revenue growth was primarily due to a year-on-year increase of 10% in average store count, and a year-on-year growth of 35% in average revenue per MINISO store in overseas market. As we have presented in CEO's speech, we are starting to see strong sales recovery from cross-border in overseas market, which helps a lot to balance our top-line growth trajectory. On sequential basis, revenue from overseas market increased by 17%, primarily due to 3% of store growth and 14% of growth in average revenue per store. Gross profit in September quarter was CNY 989 million, representing an increase of 36% year-on-year. Gross margin was 35.7%, another record high for MINISO Group, and an increase by more than 800 basis points from 27.4% in the same quarter of last year.

The year-on-year increase was primarily due to three reasons. Number one, the shift of revenue mix. Revenue contribution from overseas market, which typically has higher gross margin than domestic operations, increased to 33% from 24% a year ago. Number two, we launched a more profitable product relating to MINISO's strategic brand upgrade in this quarter. Number three, we have optimized the cost structure of certain products by leveraging our strong supply chain management capabilities. Selling and distribution expenses was CNY 373 million, representing an increase of 16% year-on-year. The increase was mainly attributed to, number one, increased rental and related expense. Number two, increased personnel related expense.

Number three, increased license expense in relation to our enlarged IP product offering, and partly offset by reduced promotion and advertisement expense due to our deferred marketing activity in China to tackle the resurgence of COVID-19. General and administrative expenses were RMB 163 million, representing a decrease of 18% year-on-year. The decrease was primarily due to the decrease of personnel-related expense. Other income was RMB 64 million compared to RMB 34 million in the same quarter of last year. Other income, net mainly consists of net foreign exchange gains, investment income from wealth management products and others. The year-on-year increase was mainly attributed to a net foreign exchange gain of RMB 52 million in this quarter, compared to RMB 4 million in the same quarter of 2021.

We have experienced a strong U.S. dollar lately, but we are well-positioned in dealing with foreign exchange risk related to this, because the majority of our sales to overseas markets are settled in U.S. dollar. Turning to profitability. Operating profit in the September quarter was RMB 510 million, representing an increase of 139% year-on-year. Operating margin was 18.4% compared to 8% in the same quarter of last year. Adjusted net profit was RMB 417 million, representing an increase of 127% year-on-year. Adjusted net margin was 15.1% compared to 6.9% in the same quarter of last year.

Adjusted basic and diluted earnings per ADS were RMB 1.36 in this quarter compared to RMB 0.60 in the same quarter of last year, increased by 127% year-over-year. Turning to the cash position. As of September 30, we had a strong cash position of RMB 6 billion. Turning to working capital. Turnover of inventories and trade receivables remains stable. Looking forward into December quarter, we expect our overseas market will continue to grow strongly. Meanwhile, our margin profile will improve on a year-on-year basis as we successfully execute our brand upgrade, see steady recovery in the overseas market, and break even on our directly operated overseas business. Our financial strategy will remain disciplined in terms of budgeting, cost controls and allocation of capital as we focus on consistent delivery of solid financial performance. Thank you. This concludes our prepared remarks.

Operator, we are now ready to take questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Your first question today comes from the line of Michelle Cheng from Goldman Sachs. Line open. Please go ahead.

Michelle Cheng (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Ye 总、Steven、Ethan，你们好，那首先先恭喜那个公司在这个环境之下还有这么好的业绩啊。那我这边想先请教两个问题哦。那第一个问题就是在国内这一块，嗯，刚刚 Ye 总也有提到说我们要跟这个，呃，加盟商更密切地做一些，呃，联系跟合作嘛。那因为过去这几个季度，其实国内的疫情反复非常的大，那能不能再，再跟我们分享一下现在加盟商这个现金流啊，跟开店的信息是否受到一些影响？那我们现在怎么看，呃，怎么看这个短期跟中期的这个开店机会，呃，主要是，呃，什么时候我们可以看到一个比较正常的一个开店的状况。那这是第一个关于国内开店的问题。然后第二个是关于毛利率这一块，就是过去几个季度也很，很，呃，明显地看到这个毛利率的提升，其实比我们的预期都还是来得，呃，还要，还要再更好嘛。那，呃，现在如果在看未来的几个季度来看的话，呃，我们怎么看这个毛利率往上的空间？那这个整体来讲，价格调整的策略啊，然后，呃，这个整，呃，目前的一个进度啊，跟公司本来的预期是怎么样？在想说这个在现在毛利已经做的相对蛮好的状况之下，这个，呃，往上的空间还有多大？那我简单先翻译一下这两个问题哦。So I have two questions here. For the first one is regarding the domestic business, given the volatile sales performance in the past few quarters, so can you share with us the retail partners' cash flow and the confidence in opening the stores. So basically what is the store expansion outlook in the short term versus mid term? And second question is regarding GP margin. So GP margin expansion has been performing pretty well, so how should we think about the upside for the GP margin, given those brand upgrade strategy has been quite successful. Thank you.

Jack Ye (Founder and CEO)

由于国内疫情发展的不确定性，进入十月份以来，国内开店仍然相对谨慎，关店率保持在比较健康水平。长期来看，正常情况下，公司关店率每年在5%到6%左右。疫情爆发之后有所提高，2020年自然年度关店率在8%到9%，到2021年为7.5%。2022年前三季度年化来看在6.4%左右。上周政府对防疫政策进行了更新，提出了更大限度地减少疫情对经济发展的影响，所以对线下零售业的恢复发展起到积极作用。短期内疫情的影响还会持续小段时间，但在积极的政策背景影响下，我们的门店网络会继续以比较健康的水平增长，门店的业绩也有望修复。

Speaker 7

Okay, thank you. Thank you for question, Michelle. This is Mr. Ye. You know, because of the uncertainty of the pandemic development in China, we have been quite cautious in terms of opening new stores on the current situation. We also have managed to make sure the store closure rate remained at a relative healthy level for us. Before the pandemic, the normalized store closure rate was about 5%-6% annually from MINISO. During the past two years in pandemic, there was some increase, however, around 8%-9% in calendar year 2020, and 7.45% in 2021. It's decreased to 6.4% in the first three quarters of 2022 on an annualized basis. Last week, the government updated its prevention policies to minimize the impact to economic and social development, I think which has played a positive role in the recovery and development of the offline retail industry. In the short term, the impact of the pandemic will continue for short while. Under the guidance of the positive policy background, our store network will continue to grow at a relative healthy level. In addition, the performance of our stores is expected to be restored. Thank you.

Jack Ye (Founder and CEO)

关于毛利率的趋势和分析。那么第一，商品净价毛利率同比提升了4个百分点以上。第二，海外收入贡献今年为33%，去年为24%，那么海外整体毛利率也高于去年，对毛利率的影响在2个百分点左右。那么国内的商品毛利率为去年同期提高了4%左右。2022年以来，我们的降本工作取得了显著的成效。商品团队系统地梳理了国内和海外近万个SKU，特别是美妆工具、护肤品、玩具公仔、袜子等品类，都要通过以下几种方式降本。首先是在不伤害消费者体验的前提下，通过简化过度包装，消除产品不必要浪费，包括产品本身包装，例如洗手液，通过将塑料外包装厚度进行调整，中筒克重减少等措施，成功地降低了成本。这种调整不会影响消费者的产品使用，但积少成多，为我们节省了一些成本，也包括我们在供应链中减少外包装的使用，降低成本。第二，是工艺材质的优化，在消费者敏感度低的部分更换为成本低的工艺和材质，并保证对终端效果影响不大。例如我们原有一款梳子，它有金色的光环镶边，原本使用的电镀技术成本较高。在新产品开发当中，我们用新的设计元素替代掉电镀环节，成本下降明显。我们还继续发挥名创优品的规模优势，充分议价。同时我们由于订单量大，稳定性高，付款及时，供应商伙伴想和名创优品继续保持稳定合作，会积极配合名创优品进行降本工作，给我们更具竞争力的价格。例如我们某些供应商为MINISO提供了更有效率的新设备，从而降低了自身原材料生产成本，保证低价。所以从这多个角度，我们来进行了毛利空间的提升。

Speaker 7

Okay. Thank you, Michelle, for question on the gross margin. First of all, our gross margin in this quarter increased about 8% compared to the same period last year. I think there are several reasons. The first reason is that our, you know, the merchandise gross margin was 4% higher than last year. Second reason is the revenue mix from overseas business in this year is 33% compared to 24% last year. If you look at the overall gross margin of overseas operation, it is higher than last year. If you quantify this, the impact to the gross margin was about 2%.

The remaining increase, I think it can be attributed to the cost-cutting measures we have taken to reduce the cost of our certain products. Since this year, we have, you know, achieved remarkable results in our cost reduction efforts. Our product team has systematically checked nearly 10,000 SKUs internally, at home and abroad, especially in certain categories such as beauty tools, skin care products, plush toys, and socks, and so on. Basically, we lowered costs of these products by different ways. The first way is to simplify the excessive or redundant packing in our products if it does not affect the consumer experience. This helped us to eliminate unnecessary waste. One example is our effort to simplify the packing material of our MINISO hand sanitizer.

The cost was successfully reduced by adjusting the thickness of the plastic bottle and the weight of the pumping head. Customers barely noticed the change, but it saved some cost for us. In addition, we also reduced the use of outer packing boxes in the whole supply chain process to reduce costs. The second way is, I think, is to optimize the production process or material. For some products, it has design or production process or even material with low consumer sensitivity, so we just replace them with lower cost alternatives. For example, we used to have a comb with a smooth golden edge in overseas markets, which needs to use an expensive technique called electroplating. In the new product development, we replaced the electroplating process with a new design element, so that help us reduce the cost.

I think the most important of all, the third way is to leverage MINISO's scale advantage to negotiate price with our suppliers. MINISO is, I think, the kind of customer that suppliers nowadays wanted because of our large volume of orders, because of our high stability, because of our timely payments. Whenever our suppliers want to continue this relationship with us, I think they are willing to cooperate with us to reduce costs and offer more competitive prices. For example, a supplier of one of our products has replaced more efficient new equipment for MINISO, so thus reducing the production costs of its own raw material and ensuring low prices. Generally speaking, that is the room for our, you know, cost reduction, in this quarter. Thank you.

Michelle Cheng (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Uh,

Speaker 7

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Lucy Yu from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Line is open. Please go ahead.

Lucy Yu (Investment Banking Analyst)

I have two questions here. First of all, operating expense saving is also one of the key reason that we achieved the record high quarterly net profit for this quarter. Could you please elaborate what we have done to achieve this cost saving? How much of that is one-off? How much of that is temporary saving? And how much of that will be sustainable into the future? Second question is on Double Eleven shopping holiday. We noticed that you have done some more promotions and more activities during Double Eleven this time. How much GMV we have achieved, and what's our strategy on the e-commerce? Thank you.

Steven Zhang (CFO)

我来回答吧。Lucy，第一个是关于我们的费率的。对，没错，确实，你看到我们的G&A是在持续性的下降，最主要的其实还是我们G&A里面的人工成本的下降。我们其实在年报中间也披露过我们的员工的数量，我们在2022年六月末的时候，公司的员工是3,372人，而在2021年六月末的时候3,648人，人数其实在持续性的下降，这反映出公司面对这种不确定的环境下，这种控制成本的能力，这个是非常明显的。然后，当然了，你也知道，我们其实从今年，去年年底吧，今年的这个开年的年初其实有一个比较大的一个项目，叫这个品牌升级，而我们认为品牌升级对MINISO这个其实非常重要，而且我们看到它的效果也是不错。那我们预计呢，其实在这个品牌升级，在整个这个下面这个几个季度仍然会在持续。你比如说下面这个季度，我们预计可能它这个品牌升级应该会有个五千万左右的一个品牌升级的一个费用，那这个费用肯定是比刚刚过去的这个九三零这个季度是要高的。所以说这一块肯定会有一点点的影响。但整体而言，我们认为整个公司的这个可控的费率，费用应该还是非常可控的。这是第一个问题。

Speaker 7

Okay, thank you for the question, Lucy. This is Steven. In terms of the question on the expense, first of all, in terms of G&A expense decrease, the main reason here is the decline in labor cost. We have also disclosed in our annual report our current headcounts, which is 3,372 at the end of June this year. The headcount was 3,648 at the end of June 2021. That is reflecting our, you know, staff turnover trends and it has some decrease. This, however, reflect MINISO's ability to control our cost under uncertain environment. Second, in terms of selling expense, you know, we have been promoting our, you know, MINISO brand strategic upgrade since this year. As you have seen that the initial result has been quite encouraging. We plan to continue to execute this strategic brand upgrade. In this quarter, there were some, you know, savings in the advertising expense. In December quarter, we currently estimate that there will be about RMB 50 million advertising expense on this project, and it's larger than the September quarter and its increase. Generally speaking, I think if you look at the expense annual basis, I think it's under our control. The expense ratio can be quite stable in the long term. Thank you.

Steven Zhang (CFO)

第二个问题是关于今年双十一。总的我们整个双十一期间的GMV是超过一个亿人民币，其中在淘宝和天猫的销售同比都增长了60%。然后我们的重点的产品，比如香薰，销售增长是超过200%的，公仔的增长是超过400%，盲盒的增长是超过了1,200%，效果还是非常不错的。

Speaker 7

Okay, in terms of second question on Double Eleven. In short, the total GMV exceeded RMB 100 million this year, and with sales on Taobao and Tmall growing by 6% year-on-year. Some of our key products, such as perfume, increased by more than 200%, plush toys by more than 400% and blind box by more than, you know, it's about 12x. Thank you.

Lucy Yu (Investment Banking Analyst)

好的，谢谢 Steven，谢谢。

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anne Ling from Jefferies. Line is open, please go ahead.

Anne Ling (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

嗨，谢谢管理层。就两个小问题，那第一个呢，就是说我们overseas那边呢，其实就说数据还是很不错的。那，是不是其实我们的那个毛利的一个增长呢，有一部分是因为我们的产品呢是在国内生产的，所以因为这个季度呢，其实那个人民币贬值了蛮多的，那这个季度呢，就是说upcoming的那个12月份，12月年末的那个季度呢也是会低很多的，这是不是说这个也是对我们的那个毛利是有一个帮助的？那这个是我第一个问题。那我第二个问题呢，还是毛利率的那个问题，就想问一下国内的我们现在的那个品牌的那个优化的话，我们现在是不是基本上有一个，基本上我的毛利率已经是超过60个百分点了？就想问一下我们有没有一个目标说我们的毛利率应该是可以，有没有一个新的一个目标，谢谢。My first question is that with RMB depreciate a lot versus other currency, does it mean that, given that we are sourcing from mainland basically, does it mean that we are able to benefit from this RMB depreciation versus other market where we get foreign currency?

Second question is on the GP margin for Mainland China. With the brand upgrade strategy, do you think that, you know, our GP margin these days is already above 60% overall? Or you know, in other words, you know, is there any particular target for our GP margin in China moving forward? Thank you.

Steven Zhang (CFO)

好，我来回答。

Anne Ling (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

谢谢。

Steven Zhang (CFO)

这个，没错，我们的海外的毛利率确实一向比较高的，比如像在这个季度，我们海外的毛利率大概是40%左右，其中呢，就是我们代理商市场的对代理商的发货的毛利率，是在32%左右。然后它大概占我们的收入六成，那剩余的是我们的直营市场，我们直营市场的毛利率是55%左右。然后呢，这个其实直营市场我们刚才也提到了breakeven，breakeven对于公司其实作用还是非常明显的，尤其是对公司这个盈利端的作用非常明显。因为在疫情这几年来，直营市场的毛利率水平虽然说相对稳定，但由于疫情，它销售并不是很正常，再加上固定成本和费用的存在呢，导致海外的直营业务一直在亏损。所以呢，随着现在海外市场逐步的正常化，销售已经变成基本正常了，而且随着规模还在快速的扩张，所以说直营市场这边的盈利的增长可以说也是非常明显的，它是一个非常明显的breakeven，当然也会拉动我们的毛利率了。至于你说的这个，美元的贬值和不贬值，其实对我们的毛利率倒没有什么特别大的影响，这一块倒没有影响，这是第一个问题。

Anne Ling (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

OK。

Speaker 7

This is Steven. For your first question about the overseas gross margin, yes, this quarter we have seen overseas gross margin as a whole was about 40%, it's quite high, of which the distributor model, which accounts for 60% of our revenue, its gross margin was about 33%. The directly operated model, its gross margin can be as high as 50%, 55%. You know, the positive effect of direct countries breakeven to the company is more about its improvement of the company's overall profitability. During the past three years in the pandemic, the gross margin of the directly operated business has been stable. However, it's because of its sales were impacted, coupled with the existence of fixed cost and expense.

That's why we incur loss in direct operated business. With the gradual normalization of overseas market and the expansion of this part of business in the future, we are quite optimistic about its improvement. As the, you know, the RMB's depreciation against the US dollar I think is not relevant to the GP margin overseas. Thank you.

Steven Zhang (CFO)

刚才提到的第二个问题，关于毛利率的一些我们的一些目标，或者说可以说是展望吧。我认为我们的毛利率提升的这个趋势应该还是可以延续一段时间。最主要的原因有几点吧。第一呢，就是我们很多降本的工作会有一个延迟的一个体现，比如我们在这个季度做了一些成本的节约，但很有可能它在下个季度本季财务报表里面体现，这第一。第二呢，就是1231这个季度是我们的海外销售的一个旺季，刚才已经提到了，海外的这个毛利率其实还是比较高的，那海外收入占比肯定会达到30%，甚至会更高，甚至会高于这个季度，那这样呢，也会拉动公司的一个毛利。第三呢，就是我们一般会跟我们的战略供应商签一个综合的返利，而这个返利呢，一般会在年底的时候实现，这个金额会更多一些，那就意味着很有可能其实到越到下半年，其实确认的这个GP应该会更多。所以说这三点都是。但是同时我还想说的就是我们对于硬提价这个事儿来拉升毛利率还是很谨慎的，我们从一开始的时候就跟大家沟通过，MINISO的这个品牌升级并不仅仅是简单的提价。那过去几个季度呢，我们更多的其实还是通过降本和产品创新，以及调整我们的产品结构，有了更多的IP产品等方式来提升我们的毛利率。而且呢，我们的价格带还是维持在一个非常合理的一个价格水平上，那对标整个竞品呢，仍然非常有竞争力的，这维持了我们这个竞争的一个门槛。谢谢。

Anne Ling (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

谢谢。

Speaker 7

Thank you. In terms of the second question on the GP margin, GP margin potential. I think it can last for a while for the three reasons. The first is that, you know, as we mentioned, we have done a lot in reducing the costing of our certain products. This works, these efforts, the results of them can be, you know, reflected in our financial statement in the upcoming quarters. The second is that as we have been approaching the holiday season of overseas market, as I just mentioned, its gross margin is relatively high, and we expected that, its sales contribution in December quarter will still maintain above 30% or higher, and that will help increase the overall gross margin. Third is, you know, the rebate from our strategic suppliers.

As we, you know, approach the year-end, and as we have surpassed the threshold we have agreed in the agreement. We can, you know, record more rebates by year-end or in the second half of the year. All in all, we are very cautious, as I just said, we are very cautious about raising GP margins through, you know, simply increasing our price. In the past few quarters, as we have communicated, we have achieved the GP margin improvement through cost reduction, cost saving, through our product innovation or through the adjustment of our product structure. At the same time, our price of MINISO products has maintained at a very, very reasonable price band, and we have kept our value proposition, which is very competitive, compared to, you know, peers. Thank you.

Lucy Yu (Investment Banking Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please contact MINISO Investor Relations team. Our contact information can be found on today's press release. We will see you next quarter. Have a nice day.