Full Truck Alliance - Q1 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Full Truck Alliance's Q1 2023 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mao Mao, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Mao Mao (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator. Please note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements relating to the company's future performance, which are intended to qualify for the safe harbor from liability as established by the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to further risks and uncertainties, assumptions and other factors. Some of these risks are beyond the company's control and could cause actual results to differ materially from those mentioned in today's press release and discussion. A general discussion of the risk factors that could affect FTA's business and financial results is included in certain filings of the company with the SEC. The company does not undertake any obligation to update this forward information except as required by law. During today's call, management will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures for comparison purposes only.

For a definition of non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial results, please see the earnings release issued earlier today. Joining us today on the call from FTA's senior management are Mr. Hui Zhang, our Founder, Chairman, and CEO, and Mr. Simon Cai, our CFO. Management will begin with prepared remarks and the call will conclude with a Q&A session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. A webcast replay of this call will be available on FTA's Investor Relations website at ir.fulltruckalliance.com. I will now turn the call over to our Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Mr. Zhang. Please go ahead, sir.

Charlie Chen (Head Managing Director of Research in Asia)

Uh,

Mao Mao (Head of Investor Relations)

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today on our Q1 of 2023 earnings conference call. We are pleased to deliver another strong quarter of growth to kick off 2023, boosted by China's economic rebound as the pandemic subsides. In particular, we experienced a sizable pickup in activity following the Spring Festival in January. The improved user activity among truckers and shippers and sustainable growth across our business further accelerated our monetization efficiency in the Q1, illustrating the unique appeal of our business model while paving the way for our rapid business expansion and achievement for our long-term strategic growth.

Given that users' rights and interests are always one of the company's top priorities, we made significant efforts to further develop our user rating system and strengthen our hierarchical mechanism to improve user experience during the quarter. Going forward, we will continue to accelerate the implementation of our operational strategies, which we believe will boost order matching efficiency and create more revenue for quality truckers while simultaneously enhancing our user thickness. Looking at the rest of the year, we plan to implement more active user acquisition strategies, consistently reinforce and enrich our products and services for direct shippers, and bolster the activity and thickness of our users on platform, positioning the company to advance our long-term growth in both user scale and freight volume.

We are prioritizing the expansion of our platform skill advantage, refining its operational process, and harnessing its core competitiveness in terms of freight matching, freight capacity allocation, and freight rate management, with the goal of creating greater value for users and building a healthy and stable ecosystem for our platform. I'd like to provide an update on our share repurchase program. Pursuant to our $500 million share repurchase, announced earlier this year, as of May 21, 2023, we had repurchased approximately 5.6 million ADS in aggregate for approximately $37.4 million from the open market. Even in the current sluggish capital market environment, we are optimistic about the company's long-term vision and the development strategy, and we'll continue to reward our shareholders through share buybacks. Earlier today, we announced a change to our board.

Mr. Wenjian Dai resigned from his position as a member of the company's board of directors for personal reasons. Mr. Langbo Guo, our former Chief Strategy Officer, was appointed as the new director to fill the vacancy and was simultaneously promoted to President of the company. Mr. Guo will assume greater responsibility in certain of our middle and back-office functions and business operations. Ms. Guizhen Ma, our current director of the board, will take over Mr. Dai's previous responsibilities as a member of our Compensation Committee. We would like to express our most sincere gratitude to Mr. Dai for his invaluable contribution to FTA over the years, and look forward to Mr. Guo adding greater value to his new position. Thank you, everyone. With that, I'll turn the call over to our CFO, Simon.

He will elaborate further on our progress for the quarter and go over our operational and financial results in more detail. Simon, please go ahead.

Simon Cai (CFO)

Thank you, Mr. Zhang, hello to all of you. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today on our Q1 2023 earnings call. I will start with operational highlights, then provide a brief overview of our key financials. Our fulfilled orders grew by 20.5% year-over-year in the Q1, outpacing our expectations. Breaking down the monthly data, if we exclude the low demand during the Chinese New Year period, our platform's order volume showed a steady upward trend month-over-month. It is worth mentioning that our order volume increased by more than 30% for the month of March, this marking a record high. This better-than-expected performance was mainly attributable to ongoing improvements in user skill and activity.

In particular, we noted a significant rebound in truckers engagement, which even exceeded pre-pandemic levels. Let me dig into the details. Transportation costs for truckers decreased during the quarter as the pandemic impact eased and impediments to transportation were eliminated. On top of that, the resumption of new user registration over the past 6 months has largely alleviated the shortage of truckers we observed last year. Thanks to our effective new initiatives and product optimizations designed to enhance user experience. As well as new user acquisitions, our user retention rate and engagement level continue to improve. We have also noted that this industry competitive landscape has undergone some major changes due to the pandemic over the past 2 years. As offline models became inefficient and inaccessible for users during the pandemic, a growing number of truckers and shippers turned to online transactions and have not looked back.

As a result, our market share in the FTL transportation market has increased significantly, and the network effect of our leading market position has become more pronounced. Turning to our fulfillment rate, the robust recovery in carrier supply has made it much easier for shippers to find truckers, hugely improving matching efficiency. Our average fulfillment rate for the Q1 is 28%, a year-over-year increase of 6 percentage points and a quarter-over-quarter increase of 4 percentage points. In March, the fulfillment rate reached 30%, another historical record for us. The reduction in our matching time also reflects matching efficiency improvement. After a year of elevated levels, our median freight matching time returned to single digits during the Q1, falling to around 8 minutes.

Furthermore, in the Q1, the order contribution from our non-negotiation-based transactions, such as tap-and-go and entrusted shipment models and others, surged to a record high, improving overall matching efficiency. We are very pleased to have achieved a record-breaking performance amid high macroeconomic uncertainty and a low economic recovery, further strengthening our confidence in our long-term sustainable growth prospects and the resilience of China's macro environment. Moving on to our users, we strategically capitalized on the strong growth momentum from the Q4 last year to further broaden the scale of our user base during the Q1, driving our Q1 average shipper MAUs to 1.78 million, up approximately 23% year-over-year. March average shipper MAUs reached 2 million, also an all-time high.

Expansion of both our 688 member and non-member user bases since the resumption of user acquisition last year has resulted in further optimization of our user composition. In the Q1, the contribution from 688 members and non-paying members by number of fulfilled orders increased by 5 percentage points year-over-year, reaching 45%. Notably, our 688 members' average fulfillment rate in the Q1 was close to 50%. Going forward, we expect continued improvement in our platform's overall fulfillment rate as order contribution from low to median frequency shippers increases. On the trucker side, our average trucker MAUs responding to orders increased by more than 10% year-over-year in the Q1, with 3.55 million active truckers fulfilling orders in the past 12 months.

Additionally, our 12-month rolling retention rate of shipper members and next month's retention of truckers who responded to orders remained high at around 85%. To further boost our leading position, we promoted our brand and increased our online exposure and recognition via various media, such as app stores and short video platforms, while also amplifying our offline marketing efforts through our local sales team, attracted a sizable number of new high-quality users as a result. We believe China's huge SME community offers a significant opportunity to add new direct shipper users, particularly 688 members, to our platform. Accordingly, we plan to invest more resources and explore innovative ways to support our SME development, increase stickiness among our existing users, and appeal to more high-quality direct shippers with the goal of optimizing our user composition with a great proportion of 688 members.

A quick look at our trucker growth system. After a trial period of just over 5 months, the trucker growth program we announced last quarter now covers all truckers on the platform. As part of this program, we introduced priority rights to certain qualified truckers with early access to high-quality freight information. Our users immediately embraced the new feature, which continues to gain wide recognition from the truckers. Let's turn to our online transaction services. Revenue from our commission model reached RMB 401 million this quarter, representing an increase of 65.3% year-over-year. This robust growth was primarily driven by our sustainable growth in the number of fulfilled orders, combined with an increase in commission per order. We are also testing different commission strategies in a small group of selected cities.

The model now covers 204 cities and nearly 59% of the transactions fulfilled through us, with average commission per transaction of RMB 22.5. I think I'd like to provide a brief overview of our 2023 Q1 financial results. Our total revenue in the Q1 were RMB 1,702.3 million, representing an increase of 27.7% year-over-year, primarily attributable to an increase in revenues from freight matching services.

Revenues from freight matching services, including service fees for freight brokerage models, membership fees from listing models, and commission from online transaction services were RMB 1,397.5 million in the Q1, representing an increase of 24.9% year-over-year, primarily due to an increase in revenue from freight brokerage service, as well as continuous growth in transaction commissions. Revenues from freight brokerage service in the Q1 were RMB 772.6 million, up 16.6% year-over-year, primarily attributable to continuous growth in freight volume as a result of extended user coverage. Revenues from freight listing services in the Q1 were RMB 223.9 million, up 13.1% year-over-year, primarily due to an increase in total paying members.

Revenues from transaction commission amounted to RMB 401 million in the Q1, up 55.3% year-over-year, primarily driven by an increase of order volume as well as an uptick in transaction commission per order. Revenues from value-added services in the Q1 were RMB 304.8 million, up 42.4% year-over-year, mainly attributable to an increase in revenues from credit solutions and other value-added services. Cost of revenues in the Q1 was RMB 849.4 million, compared with RMB 683.9 million in the same period of last year. The increase was primarily due to an increase in VAT-related tax surcharges and other tax costs, net of tax refunds from government authorities.

These tax-related costs, net of refunds, totaled RMB 766.4 million, representing an increase of 28.1% year-over-year, primarily due to a continued increase in transaction activities involving our freight brokerage service. Sales and marketing expenses in the Q1 were RMB 245.7 million, compared with RMB 192.0 million in the same period last year. The increase was primarily due to an increase in advertising and marketing expenses for user acquisitions. General and administrative expenses in the Q1 were RMB 179.5 million, compared with RMB 458.4 million in the same period last year. The decrease was primarily due to lower share-based compensation expenses.

R&D expenses in the Q1 were RMB 229.9 million, compared with RMB 221.0 million in the same period last year. The increase was primarily due to higher salary and benefit expenses. Overall, the income from operations in the Q1 was RMB 165.8 million, compared with a loss of RMB 262.0 million in the same period last year. Net income in the Q1 was RMB 411.4 million, compared with a net loss of RMB 192 million in the same period last year.

Under non-GAAP measures, our adjusted operating income in the Q1 was RMB 272.4 million, an increase of 104.4% from RMB 133.2 million in the same period last year. Our adjusted net income for the Q1 was RMB 514.8 million, an increase of 171.4% from RMB 189.7 million in the same period last year. Basic and diluted net income per ADS were RMB 0.38 in the Q1, compared with basic and diluted net loss per ADS of RMB 0.18 in the same period last year.

Non-GAAP adjusted basic and diluted net income per ADS were RMB 0.48 in the Q1, compared with RMB 0.17 in the same period last year. As of March 31, 2023, the company had cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, short-term investments, and long-term deposits of RMB 25.8 billion in total, compared with RMB 26.3 billion as of December 31 last year. In the Q1 of 2023, net cash provided in operating activities was RMB 86.8 million. Looking at our business outlook for the Q2 this year, we expect our total revenues to be between RMB 1.91 billion and RMB 2.01 billion, representing a year-over-year growth rate of approximately 14.5%-20.5%.

These forecasts reflect company's current and preliminary views on the market and operational conditions, which are subject to change and cannot be predicted with reasonable accuracy as of the date hereof. That concludes our prepared remarks. We'd now like to open the call to Q&A. Operator, please go ahead.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press * then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, we ask that you please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press * then 2. For the benefit of all participants on today's call, if you wish to ask your question to management in Chinese, please immediately repeat your question in English. Today's 1st question comes from Ronald Keung with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Ronald Keung (Managing Director)

Thank you, management. In the Q1, we saw that fulfilled orders grew over 20% year-on-year, much faster than broader freight market and the macroeconomic recovery. What are the main drivers, reasons behind that? How should we expect the fulfilled order growth to trend in the Q2? Thank you.

Simon Cai (CFO)

Thank you, Ronald. I will address all the remainder Q&As in English directly. Overall, I think we are very pleased to see our platform's freight orders grew much faster than the broader market in the past quarter. We believe this rapid growth mainly came from our increased market share in the FTL market as we have consolidated our market leading position in the online freight matching services. The strong growth of order volume in the Q1 was primarily due to 2 factors. First, when pandemic's impact largely eased in the Q1 and truckers, travel was no longer restricted. 2nd, perhaps more importantly, we have observed that a considerable number of users have migrated from offline to online.

Through our user interviews, we have learned that in the current market condition, truckers and shippers in the FTL transportation market both prefer to transact online. In other words, compared with offline matching, the market share of online freight matching has significantly increased. As the market leader in the online freight matching services, we obviously benefit the most from this trend, we expect this to continue going forward. Internally, since mid last year, our continued efforts in user acquisition have also been paid off. Our new users are mostly small to medium frequency shippers who are typically direct shippers and who contribute high quality orders. In the Q1, roughly 48% of the fulfilled orders came from those low to medium frequency shippers, and this number increased from roughly 40% about a year ago.

We expect that number to keep rising. In addition, we continue to enhance our matching capabilities and the algorithm. For example, during the Q1, we improved the platform shipment origin and destination address infrastructure and broadened the overall coverage of accurate address down to street numbers. This boost truckers willingness to take orders as well as our fulfillment capabilities and reduce potential disputes. When we look into Q2, we expect the number of fulfilled orders to maintain the rapid growth momentum, we expect the number of fulfilled orders to increase about 40% in the Q2 year-over-year.

Ronald Keung (Managing Director)

All right. Thank you, management.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question today comes from Jiulu Li with CICC. Please go ahead.

Simon Cai (CFO)

Thank you. The improvement in fulfillment rate in the Q1 was mainly attributable to the change in supply and demand dynamics. Starting this year, the impact of inefficient trucker, insufficient trucker supply, which is a big headache for our shipper users over the past 2 years, have been substantially alleviated. With more truckers available, it becomes easier for our shippers to find a match without increasing the overall fulfillment rate. The optimization of user composition also contributes to the increase in fulfillment rate. Ever since we resumed our user acquisitions during the middle of last year, the proportion of direct shippers has continued to rise, both in terms of Monthly Active Users and also order contributions. Most of our low and medium frequency shippers are direct shippers with a fulfillment rate close to 50%.

Therefore, the continuous, continuously increased contribution from direct shippers will further drive fulfillment rate growth. Looking to Q2, we expect that the increased proportion of direct shippers and further extension of FTA's market share in the spot FTL transportation market. The fulfillment rate will continue to grow building on our Q1's momentum.

Operator (participant)

Thank you.

Jiulu Li (Research Analyst)

That's very helpful.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question today comes from Charlie Chen at China Renaissance. Please go ahead.

Simon Cai (CFO)

In the Q1, the growth of revenue from freight brokerage business slowed compared with previous quarters. What are the main reasons for that? Also, could you please share some color on the operational strategies for your freight brokerage business? Also, have you witnessed any changes in tax refund policies recently? Thank you. The freight brokerage service we provided to shippers mainly refers to situations where the platform enters into shipping contracts with shippers and others are fulfilled by truckers matched by the platform on an entrusted basis or truckers designated by shippers themselves. We assume the role of freight brokerage and provides VAT invoices. Beyond that, the platform also offers shippers protection against truckers' demand for fee increases and delays, as well as cargo damages to a certain extent.

Upon the fulfillment of the orders, the shippers pay service fees to us. The service fees we charge for freight brokerage services are based on a percentage of shipping fees, which was approximately 6% for the Q1, also one of the highest in the industry. We regard the freight brokerage as a business line that enhances users' stickiness. Its strategic significance lies in increasing the dependence and frequency of shippers on the FTA platform. Our data also shows that shippers who use freight brokerage service tend to ship more frequently. Currently, there's a huge demand for this service from shippers, while the user penetration is relatively low, leaving plenty room for adjustment.

Going forward, we will encourage freight brokerage users to post more matching orders and thus increasing the overall profit contribution of the business, rather than simply focus on increasing the revenue scale. Moreover, the freight brokerage business service involves a number of contractual shipping orders, which helps us gain the full picture of shippers' complete needs beyond just on-demand needs. Regarding the tax reform policy, we have not received any notices from regulators regarding a tax rebate rollback. We have multiple cooperating tax sources, and we're taking a flexible approach to adjust tax sources as the market evolves. As we only get partial refunds for the VAT and other taxes we pay, the central and local government keeps majority of the tax we contributed, which is consistent with national policy guidance.

In the future, as the tax system is upgraded, the local governments will also welcome us given our strict risk controls and the contribution to the local GDP. This positions us the leading player in the market, setting the bar for other online freight platforms and gradually raising the industry standards. Furthermore, if there were any extreme case require us together with all other freight brokerage players to adjust or otherwise terminate the freight brokerage business, the impact on our overall profit will be minimal as our profit growth contribution comes mainly from our commission business. Lastly, considering that freight brokerage requires FTA to advance VAT payment on behalf of shippers and to wait for a refund, we will carefully manage its growth rate to rein in the impact on cash flow going forward.

Charlie Chen (Head Managing Director of Research in Asia)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question today comes from Brian Gong with Citi. Please go ahead.

Brian Gong (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Uh,

谢 谢. I will translate myself. In the Q1, revenues from transaction commission surged over 55% year-on-year. May I know what are the key drivers behind that? We noticed that China's Ministry of Transport recently released a work plan in mounting platforms to lower the citing of excessive commissions. Will this affect FTA's commission strategy in the future? Thank you.

Simon Cai (CFO)

Thank you. These are all very important questions. The growth in revenue from transaction commissions in the Q1 was primarily attributable to the robust growth in the platform's overall order volume. Our commission orders increased by roughly 38% year-over-year in the Q1. Our business team makes dynamic adjustments to commission rates and penetration based on platform's real-time order volume to strike a balance among the increase in commission revenue, user activity growth and business skill improvement. As user base and order intensity continue to rise, we plan to further expand the coverage of commission orders and provenly increase the overall commission rate. Regarding the recent proposal from the Ministry of Transport for a reduction in excessive commission for transportation platforms, we understand this is a follow-up enhancement to the Operation Sunshine policy implemented last year.

This proposal strives to achieve the same goal, mainly to further safeguard the rights and interests of users in a transparent and open environment. Our commission rate is at very low level and in fact, significantly lower than other freight platforms. We do not expect the company's operations to be impacted by this proposal.

Brian Gong (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Cherry Leung with AllianceBernstein. Please go ahead.

Cherry Leung (Former Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

谢 谢 管 理 层 接 受 我 的 提 问 。 我 有 一 个 关 于 拉 新 的 问 题 。 我 想 请 问 一 下 ， 就 是 第 一 季 度 我 们 的 拉 新 的 情 况 是 情 况 如 何 ？ 比 如 说 在 货 主 侧 和 司 机 侧 分 别 ， 拉 新 的 策 略 重 点 有 哪 一 些 呢 ？ I'll translate in English. Can you please provide an update on the progress of your new user acquisition? What are the key focuses of your new user acquisition strategy on the side of shipper and trucker, respectively? Thank you very much.

Simon Cai (CFO)

Thank you. In the Q1, our overall progress in new user acquisition generally met our expectations. We implemented different acquisition strategies targeting shippers and also truckers. The shipper side, as previously mentioned, we have promoted our brand and platform through various online and offline channels, attracting more high quality direct shippers as a result. As you know, China has over 30 million SMEs who may require FTL shipments, all of whom are our potential shipper customers. Therefore, we will remain devoted to offering various transportation capacity solutions and meeting shippers involving logistics needs so as to consistently improve our penetration rate among those direct shippers. As for truckers, we already cover most of the heavy-duty trucker drivers in China, and we are expanding our reach to smaller trucks as the pandemic, supply and transportation activities resumes.

On top of online new user acquisition, we also focus on reactivating dormant truck drivers. Leveraging our on-go capabilities, we identify dormant drivers with the potential to return to our platform and offer incentives to reactivate them. In addition, we have formed cooperation with offline service areas, set up trucker service stations and temporary service points, and provided care packages for truckers during peak freight logistics period to help truckers enjoy short breaks and supplies that increase their comfort while traveling. These amenities enhance truckers' sense of belonging on our platform, while also attracting new truckers to FTA. Looking forward, we will continue to attract more high-quality truckers and shippers, sustaining our growth in both user scale and transaction volume on our platform.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. That concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any additional or closing comments.

Mao Mao (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us at Full Truck Alliance directly or TPG Investor Relations. Our contact information for IR in both China and U.S. can be found in today's press release. Have a good day.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.