ZTO Express (Cayman) - Q3 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sophie Li. Please go ahead.

Sophie Li (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. The company's results and the investor relations presentation were released earlier today and are available on the company's IR website at ir.zto.com . On the call today from ZTO are Mr. Meisong Lai, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Mrs. Huiping Yan, Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Lai will give a brief overview of the company's business operations and highlights, followed by Mrs. Yan, who will go through the financials and guidance. They will both be available to answer your questions during the Q&A session that follows. I remind you that this call may contain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Such statements are based on management's current expectations and current market and operating conditions, and relate to events that involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict, and many of which are beyond the company's control, which may cause the company's actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Further information regarding this and other risks, uncertainties, and other factors is included in the company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required under law. It is now my pleasure to introduce Mr. Meisong Lai. Mr. Lai will read through his prepared remarks in their entirety in Chinese before I translate for him in English. Head on

Meisong Lai (Chairman and CEO)

[Foreign language] 大家好，感谢各位参加今天的电话会议。2024年三季度，中通继续保持了我们服务质量在行业的前列，总体业务量达到87.2亿件，同比增长15.9%。同时，我们实现了23.9亿元的调整后净利润。中通坚持高质量发展的宗旨，在年初我们明确了加速打造差异化产品与服务，提升品牌的认知度和客户薪资的方针策略。三季度，中通继续强化运营细分环节的标准化和系统化，全链路时效指标在通达系 稳居第一。我们持续降低客诉率，赢得了平台和消费者的信赖，与各个电商平台在拓展边缘地区的投递和逆向服务等方面加深了合作，散件业务量的增速同比超40%。收入结构 \的优化有效地缓解了单票价格竞争的压力，结合良好且持续的运营成本效益和稳定的管理费用结构，中通的单票经营利润进一步扩大了领先优势。三季度，快递行业维持了较高的增长，业务量同比提升20.1%，其中低客单价电商件的比例进一步扩大。我们认为，商家及消费者的价格敏感度促成了近期低价消费的结构特征和趋势。快递行业整体高质量的持续发展将来自于宏观经济复苏的确定性和持续性。摆在我们面前的课题是在当下的市场环境下如何更好地平衡服务质量、规模、经营利润和加盟伙伴利益等核心价值间的侧重点和资源配置。资源配备，保持和扩大规模领先的竞争优势，是我们实现高数量和高质量并举发展的重大前提。本着中通一贯的务实文化，发现问题，解决问题，我们复盘了过去几个季度的工作，尤其在总部与地方的分工系统、市场动向与收费政策的调配度、增量激励的精准度和有效性，以及网络政策的普惠公平性等方面，挖掘了未来管理和执行方面可以改善的空间。具体侧重点包括：一、梳理网络政策，要求并赋能省区管理区的决策更加自主，及时和接近市场动向，增强对产量区客户体量和服务需求的综合考量，从而匹配合适的报价，协同收派两端的收入与成本差异，分层分级，精准施策，平衡收派和总部各方的资源投入和利益分配。二、品质复杂政策，落实简洁、清晰、标准化和公开透明的同时，有的放矢部署差异化的重点激励，并跟进预期管理，赋予网点确定性和信心，保障备战的主动性和执行的持续性。三、优化并落实 网格站的工作内容和联动机制，实事求是，稳步推进到角到边、末端指令和能力建设的思路和具体工作，逐步降低派件成本，提升散件占比，增加网点和业务员的收入。四、加速末端驿站信息技术体系的部署，夯实兔喜生活家的商业内容，来服务多样化的本地生活场景。在降低末端成本的同时，加深和加宽与消费者和客户的链接，从而反复主营业务。五、借助收款和支付等金融科技工具，更加实际的激励和提高末端上门服务的响应速度和按需服务的能力，提升末端收派效益。六、保持运营降本、提效措施持续产生效益的同时，系统性地关注资产设备投入和产能储备与上限的节奏，提升资源最大化利用的科学性。快递行业30多年的发展，历史体现了经济发展对快递物流强劲的需求韧性，随着行业各主角量的集中和质的分化的持续演变，经历经济周期的起伏，我们必然会面临不同的竞争的压力。自中通成立至今，每一次的挑战都是我们变革和前进的动力。作为行业龙头，中通网络服务的稳定性、体能产量的规模优势、造血能力和资金管储备、经营管理升级迭代的能力，都是我们的核心竞争力。就自身而言，我们将继续保持服务质量领先，加速扩大规模优势，保障盈利水平的合理稳健性。就合作伙伴而言，我们会持续强化末端网络的规模和经济效益根基，提高加盟商和快递小哥的收益。这些都是中通走场走远，达成企业使命，实现股东和社会价值的目标和任务。

Sophie Li (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Chairman. Please let me translate first. Hello everyone, thank you all for joining today's conference call. In the third quarter of 2024, ZTO continued to maintain its leading service quality among peers. Our total parcel volume reached 8.72 billion, representing a 15.9% year-over-year growth. Meanwhile, we achieved an adjusted net profit of CNY 2.39 billion, and our profitability remains ahead of our comparable peers. ZTO adheres to high-quality development, and we set a strategic direction at the beginning of the year to accelerate the establishment of differentiation in products and services while enhancing brand awareness and recognition. In the third quarter, ZTO further strengthened the standardization and the streamline across our operational segments. Our end-to-end timeliness ranked number one among Tongda players. The customer complaint rates continue to decline. We are winning the trust of e-commerce platforms and consumers.

Our partnerships with various e-commerce platforms have deepened, particularly in reverse logistics services and the remote area express delivery services. As a result, our retail parcels grew over 40% year-over-year. The optimization of our revenue structure has effectively alleviated pressure due to price competition. Combined with strong and sustained cost efficiency and a stable SG&A expense structure, we further widened our lead in per parcel operating profit. China's express delivery industry experienced a 20.1% year-over-year increase in the third quarter. There is an expanding proportion of low-price e-commerce parcels, and the price sensitivity fueled by the weak economy contributed to the recent trend of mixed shift. We believe that higher quality-focused growth of the express delivery industry depends largely on the certainty and the sustainability of the microeconomic recovery and growth.

The current new economic dynamics presented the challenging question of how to balance across our core values. That is, quality of services, scale, operating profit, and interests of franchisee partners. Maintaining and expanding our scale leadership advantage is one of the precursors for achieving growth with both quantity and quality. In keeping with ZTO's practical culture of finding and resolving issues, we reviewed our work for the past few quarters and identified needed improvements, particularly in division of duties and the coordination between headquarters and the provincial management, alignment of market conditions and pricing flexibilities, effectiveness of incentives, and fairness and transparencies in network policies. Key improvement tasks will focus on the following: first, reviewing pricing policies thoroughly.

We ask provincial management to be more responsive and stay relevant to market conditions, and we shall provide them with greater autonomy, making comprehensive assessment of customer needs in high production regions to better align pricing with service requirements, coordinating sales and cost differentials with customized strategies to share resource burden and profit allocation among the pickup partners, delivery partners, and brand operators. Second, eliminating complex policy to drive simplicity, standardization, fairness, and transparency. Meanwhile, be ready to provide unique incentives coupled with targeted expectations, providing certainties and confidence to network partners who will then become more enrolled and ready to respond whenever there is a call for collaboration. Third, optimizing the effectiveness of a coordination mechanism organized by locals to take pause and foster accurate communications and synchronized action.

Their key objectives are to promote end-to-end initiatives aimed at enhancing couriers' willingness to serve retail parcels, to promote infrastructure allowing direct linkage from outlets to last-mile posts. These objectives will aid the gradual reduction of delivery costs, increase retail volume, and boost income for network partners and couriers. Fourth, accelerating the deployment of last-mile IT systems and strengthening the commercial content by Tuxi Life Plus to address diverse needs of local living. It goes beyond decreasing last-mile delivery costs to deepen and expand connections with consumers and customers, and ultimately benefiting the core business. Fifth, leveraging fintech tools such as direct settlement to incentivize last-mile responsiveness and on-demand service capabilities, thereby improving the economic efficiency of pickup and delivery operations.

Last but not the least, while driving continuous cost production gain, systematically focus on the pace of capital investments and capacity reserves to maximize resource utilization in a more scientific way. China's economic growth has underscored the persistent demand for logistics services over its more than 30 years of development. As the industry continues to evolve with increasing volume concentration, yet quality bifurcation, we inevitably will face varying competitive pressures, especially amidst turning points of economic cycles. Since ZTO's founding, each new set of challenges we face has given rise to transformation and progress. As an industry leader, ZTO services stability, wide and depth of network coverage and penetration, cash generation and financial strength, ability to renew and upgrade our managerial skills, among other core strengths, all forges our competitive advantages.

For ourselves, we intend to maintain our leadership in service quality, to widen our leading scale, and to achieve sound profitability. For our partners, we are committed to enlarging the footprint and the solidified economic foundation of the last-mile post network, increasing earnings by our franchisees and couriers. These are the essential objectives and tasks for the fulfillment of ZTO's long-term growth and the corporate mission so as to create value for our shareholders and society. Next, let's welcome our CFO, Ms. Yan, to present the financial results and future plans.

Huiping Yan (CFO)

Thank you, Chairman and Sophie. Hello to everyone on the call. As I go through our financials, please note that unless specifically mentioned, all numbers quoted are in RMB, and percentage changes refer to year-over-year comparisons. Detailed information on our financial performances, unit economics, and cash flow are posted on our website, and I'll just go through some of the highlights here. In the third quarter, we adhered to the principle of profitable growth and achieved a 15.9% growth in parcel volume to reach RMB 8.7 billion, while continuing to improve the quality of services and brand value. Our adjusted net income increased 2% to RMB 2.4 billion. ASP for the core express delivery business increased 1.8% or RMB 0.03 as the impact of decline in the average weight per parcel and increase in incremental volume incentives were offset by the positive impact of the volume increases in retail parcels.

Our total revenue increased 17.6% to CNY 10.7 billion. Total cost of revenue was CNY 7.3 billion, which increased 15.2%. Overall unit cost for the core express delivery business remained flat at CNY 0.82. Specifically, unit cost of line-haul transportation decreased 9.7% to CNY 0.39, driven by better economies of scale, improvements in fleet operation with better resource utilization. Unit sorting cost decreased 6.4% to CNY 0.25, mainly attributable to improved standardization in operating procedures and increased automation. Key KA cost increased CNY 0.06, which is in line with KA revenue increases. Gross profit increased 23.2% to CNY 3.3 billion, and gross profit margin rate increased 1.4 points to 31.2%. Income from operations increased 17.3% to CNY 2.8 billion, and associated margin remained relatively stable at 26.6%. SG&A expenses, excluding SBC as a percentage of revenue, increased 0.2 points to 5%. Corporate cost efficiencies remained intact.

Income tax expenses were CNY 555 million compared to CNY 271 million in the same period last year. Let me remind you that in the third quarter of 2023,Shanghai Zhongtongji Network Technology Co., Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of the company, received an income tax refund of CNY 207.1 million for being a key software enterprise for the whole tax year of 2022. Operating cash flow was CNY 3.1 billion for the quarter, an increase of 5.9%. Adjusted EBITDA was CNY 3.7 billion, an increase of 8.7%. Capital expenditure totaled CNY 1.8 billion, and we anticipate the annual expenditure of CapEx to come in at around CNY 6 billion. We are on track to achieve another year of free cash flow. Now let's turn to our guidance. Based on current market and operating conditions, the company revises its previously stated annual guidance.

Parcel volume for 2024 is expected to be in the range of 333 billion-339 billion, representing an 11.6%-12.3% increase year-over-year. These estimates represent management's current and preliminary view, which are subject to change. We have guided down our annual volume targets based on our visibility into the rest of the year. The increasing proportion of low-value e-commerce package, which may persist for a while, presented new challenges to our approach to our overall corporate strategy. We are recalibrating focuses among quality of services, volume, market share, and profit. Particularly, modifications are being made to our pricing practices, for example, with the intention of stimulating high-volume daily average customers to work with our brand. These are with the strong intention of regaining volume growth momentum and expand our existing market share leadership. The quality of our earnings are expected to remain intact. These conclude our prepared remarks.

Operator, please open the line for questions. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your Touch-Tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question today comes from Qianlei Fan from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Qianlei Fan (Executive Director, Equity Research)

Thank you, Operator.[Foreign language] 严总，Sophie, 早上好。谢谢接受我的提问。非常高兴地看到公司三季度在宏观和消费的压力之下还是保持了稳健的盈利增长。我有两个小问题。第一个问题是关于对于市场明年的一个规划。我们当然也非常希望宏观经济能有一个很好的复苏，但是如果明年整个市场的增长质量仍然像今年下半年或者说三四季度这样，仍然是一个量有增长，但是高质量增长非常有限，低质量的增长更多的话，明年的话我们的产能规划会放在一个什么样的水平上？我们还会维持一个在15% 左右的产能规划吗？还是说我们会相应地把投资更集中、更收缩一些，去集中在市场比较有高质量的建量增长上？这是第一个小问题。第二个小问题就是关于回购计划的执行。我们的回购计划有没有更详细的执行的一些计划？我们在明年6月底之前有没有能够把我们的回购执行完的想法？我翻译一下自己的问题。

Let me translate for myself. Thank you, Management, for taking my question. I have two questions. The first question is about the capacity plan for the next year. If we continue to see relatively low-quality volume growth to continue into next year, specifically similar to what we have seen in the second half of this year, what will be our CapEx or capacity growth plan for next year? Will it continue to be mid-teens growth, or will we likely slow down the capacity growth expectation and focus on the relatively high end of the market? The second question is about share buybacks. Do we have any further updates or clearer plan on the execution of our share repurchase plan?

Is it still reasonable to assume that we are able to complete all the announced share buybacks by the mid of next year, when the plans, the end of the execution plan mentioned last time? Thank you.

Meisong Lai (Chairman and CEO)

[Foreign language] 谢谢你的提问。25年的规划，25年我们还是要做好市场份额、服务质量跟盈利的三个指标。我们的目标是扩大份额的领先优势，保持合理的利润水平，持续提升服务质量。具体的策略是，一是政策贴近市场，公平普惠。我们将深入了解市场，根据客户类型推出分层获客政策，提升政策的灵活性，精准营销，同时杜绝不合理的政策差异，增强完点信心。二是加速网点的模式化优化。我们将持续推进到角到边、末端直链及网点能力建设工作，降低派件成本，提升散件占比，优化网点运营效率，从而增加网点及业务员的收入和盈利能力。第三，就是加快布局三网叠加。我们将鼓励具备条件的网点进行转跑，通过拉直线路和减少分布次数来提升转运环节成本的效率和时效性。我们会明年，我们会在中心站点和业务员的分配上面会更加取进市场。我们相信在合理的利润基础上，散件比例要提升，然后份额也要提升。产能规划，其实中通的产能现在其实是富裕的。我们各地的分布中心其实建好的空余的产地也是比较多的。基础能力建设，中通不是支撑业务单的能力，有可能可以支撑1.5亿单，这个是不用担心的。我们未来在建量再涨30%的基础上，我们的成本，产地分布中心的成本其实是不变的，所以这个是有下降空间的。谢谢。 第一个我们会给你回答。

Sophie Li (Head of Investor Relations)

Okay. Thank you, Chairman. And I will translate for the first question, and then I'll answer the second question. The overall plan for 2025 is that we will still be focusing on the corporate strategy of balancing approach or balanced approach to all three: quality of services, volume market share, and also profit. The priorities are shifting, and also we are focusing on regaining the volume growth momentum, and it's based on a reasonable level of profit as we continuously improve the quality of services. There are many specific tasks at hand. So again, the goal is to expand our market share leadership, maintaining a reasonable level of profit as we consistently improve our quality of services. The goal is for our policy to be more relevant and designed around the customer needs and to the market. It needs to be also maintaining its transparency and fairness.

The policies are going to be simplified as opposed to too complex, so that it's easier to be understood and address very different needs of our customers. The flexibility would also be allowed, given the autonomous decision-making ability that we will provide to our regional managers. The overall intention of this initiative is to improve the trust and confidence of our network partners. The second point is to continue to improve the design of our last-mile operation. We've talked about the policy of incentivizing our network couriers to respond more towards retail parcels. The machinery that are being installed at our post would allow us to improve the proportion of our packages that go directly from our outlets to the post, alleviating work pressure of our couriers, and hence helping them work towards improvements of the retail package as a proportion of their total delivery volume, ultimately improving their earnings.

The third is, again, continuously reaching our goal of tri-layer throughput design, reduce the number of sortations overall for all those outlets that met the requirements in terms of volume to go direct between the origination and the destination outlets, or sortation centers will be encouraged to do so. This not only will help us reduce the cost, but also improve timeliness of our overall operation. Specifically for next year, regarding our capacity, the current situation of our total installed base is that it's more than capable of supporting 150 million packages a day. Many of our centers today are not at its full capacity, not running at its full capacity. So, as we focus on our corporate strategy, improving the retail proportion of our total volume, and increasing our market share, these centers with excess capacity would be ready to serve.

Now, going to the second question as far as the buyback program, the overall goal is for us to complete our plan in buyback as it being the first choice of returning value to our shareholders. And the systematic approach will be put in place, and if any excess, we will be giving back to our shareholders in the form of dividends. The buyback rhythm will be in accordance with the market development, and we shall accelerate or increase the frequency of such buyback. I hope that answers your question.

Qianlei Fan (Executive Director, Equity Research)

Thank you

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Ronald Keung with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Ronald Keung (Managing Director)

[Foreign language]谢谢赖总、严总、Sophie。第一想问的就是我们看到三季度我们每个包裹利润的系统，operating profit角度还是挺稳定的。同时可能我们的包裹增速就慢于行业。我们现在调了2024年全年的guidance，imply四季度的情况，我们是将会把每个单包裹利润和包裹增速到底是里面隐含的是一个什么的一个预计。然后我们四季度就是imply包裹增速放缓一些，到底是整个行业的情况，还是可能我们在四季度可能做更多利润，然后包裹增速可能就会环比增速，业务增速就会放缓一些。第二就是想看，刚才也提到我们2025年可能要继续稳住份额，或者要做更好的增长。里边提到散件，所以想知道我们在散件还有这些电商的推货件这个市场，我们的一个战略，然后揽件和派件这个频次在推货件会不会跟我们本身的网络可能不太类似，可能要揽派的频次更快。所以我想知道我们在网络做服务的战略，尤其2025年。我翻译一下。

Thank you, Management. First question is, we've seen a stable profit per parcel in the third quarter while volumes came slightly below industry growth. So given the full year guidance, does that imply 4Q parcel volumes will be slower? Is that a view on the industry, or are we focusing more on profitability than market share in this 4Q peak season? Second is on our reverse logistics strategy with e-commerce return parcels, what's our strategy there? The typical collection is a lot more frequent for these reverse logistics. So how are we adjusting our network for that and our strategy in gaining share in reverse logistics? Thank you.

Meisong Lai (Chairman and CEO)

[Foreign language] 谢谢你的提问。我们指引调整是因为在服务质量跟份额跟利润的平衡方面，我们认为无效快递其实是量是在增加的。中通发现了这种客户，因为中通一直倡导公平透明的政策环境。每个大客户或者是重点的产量区，我们没有特殊的派费的优化措施。我们还是着重在做平衡。四季度以来，旺季以来，其实市场价格有所回升。主要我们是认为要让网点的盈利要增强。所以公司在利润还是基本保持在合理区间，就我们没有做收费大的调整。我们的策略其实我们前面也提到，我们会在中心站点和业务员的利益分配方面，在存量增量方面会做一些调整，主要是针对明年。我们认为四季度在利润份额之间，我们还是做好不做大的动作，还是稳定的这样的一个策略。散件这个比例，因为中通今年差异化的服务，我们认为网点业务员的收入要增加，散件的占比就必须要提升。网点的盈利要增长，折叠末端的程度要增加。包括站点的能力建设，这三项工作其实是我们需要持续的推进。我们相信你散件增加了，业务员的收入就会提高。具体怎么做呢？就是三项工作持续推进，以末端为颗粒度，提高上门的揽件时效和派送时效，跟用户更近。我们效果还是非常明显的。第二件事情就是折叠末端的程度，就是要降低派件的成本。如果折叠了以后，其实可以有两到三毛钱的一票的派件成本。如果做得好的网点，它的盈利会增长。我们希望，我们非常明白一个道理，就是业务员的稳定，它的前提就是它的收入要增加。站点盈利增强，派件成本下降，它的盈利才会增强。网点好，业务员好，网络才会好。这个是对你刚才两个问题的回答。谢谢。

Sophie Li (Head of Investor Relations)

For the first question, first of all, thank you very much for your question. The guidance is based on our overall approach to balance between all three corporate strategies, and the increase in low volume or low-priced volume in the quarter persisted. So in the fourth quarter, we maintained our prior practice in the policymaking. We didn't make drastic changes, particularly for those large customers or large clients that might have concentrated volume. We didn't make special incentive policies for them because we are trying to continue to maintain a level of balance across our network. There are price increases either from the government's suggestions in the Yiwu area, or individually there are price movements directed by different market players. Again, the large changes weren't present for this fourth quarter. We were mainly focusing on working in our internal management understanding of how we would approach next year.

As I mentioned earlier, the work is cut out for us to balance across sorting center outlets as well as our couriers, so we wanted to make a better planning in order to achieve volume increases as well as achieving a reasonable level of profit, so for the fourth quarter, for the fourth quarter parcel volume, it's not necessarily slower in the market, but it is the fact that we have maintained our prior approach to pricing, but being ready and preparing for the next year. Your second question, as far as how we are able to address the increased perhaps frequency of customer needs in order to improve the retail volume, if I understand you correctly, so the thinking behind what we are trying to do to increase the retail volume is very much so driven by our intention to improve the courier as well as the outlet's profitability.

The specific tasks we have identified in all three areas, including helping the outlets to improve their ability to have direct linkage between outlets to the post so that they are able to send the packages directly to the post, on average reducing the cost about CNY 0.20-CNY 0.30, and that also helps our courier to have more time because of the automation that are being placed at the outlets, so the couriers won't need to go and spend time to help sortation. They are able to spend more time focusing on their area of services, which on many occasions has a very small radius so that they could be more responsive to go to serve door-to-door.

We believe if we focus on the last mile post as being the center of the radius of services and allow the courier to work more concentrated their effort to work with their delivery tasks, they are able to improve the percentage of retail volume, hence improve their profitability, so with our plan to, one, improve the network partners or the outlets' profitability because they are able to reduce the cost of last mile operation and improve timeliness and quality of services, so they are able to make more money, and at the same time, for our network couriers to have stable and improving profit because of increasing retail volume proportion with both, then our total network will be more stable because it's more profitable, and that is our intention and the specific tasks that we are consistently carrying out.

The initiatives are producing great results as we see a greater portion of our retail volume coming into the total business. Ronald, I hope that answers your question.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Luo Yuejiang with Haitong Securities. Please go ahead.

[Foreign language] 赖总、严总，早上好。我是海通交运分析师罗岳江。恭喜公司坚持高质量发展路线，业绩实现了一个稳定增长。我想请教两个小问题。第一个就是淘宝对京东物流开放之后，对中通快递会有什么样的一个影响？逆向件这一块的竞争会更加激烈吗？逆向件这一块的发展公司是否有进一步的指引？第二个问题是想请教一下公司其他收入项目后续应该如何展望？下面我来翻译一下我的问题。

The first one is since Taobao started cooperating with JDL, what impact it might have on ZTO? The second question is about the outlook for the other operating income items in the next quarter. Thank you.

Meisong Lai (Chairman and CEO)

[Foreign language] 电商及物流平台互相开放，标志着市场正在向更加开放和合作的方向发展。平台也将基于合理的市场竞争原则，选择更具性价比的物流服务，有助于降低成本并提升效益。这不仅为商家提供了更多元的物流选择，也为消费者提供了更好的配送服务。这个我认为对中通不会有太多的影响。我们关键是要做好自己的服务的能力。第二个问题就是逆向件会不会竞争更激烈？因为以前像中通逆向件的占比不是太高，对吧？我们今年其实随着我们的能力的提升跟质量的提升，我们逆向件的增长是可以的。关键的问题我认为自己把自己的事情做好。网络最有提升服务质量，满足用户的需求，还是效率导向。就是同样的服务，你性价比更高，同样的价格，服务更好，你一定会有更多的市场。谢谢。就提这个问题。

Sophie Li (Head of Investor Relations)

So let me translate for the first question, and I'll answer the second one. The mutual opening of e-commerce and logistics platforms marks a healthy shift towards a more open and collaborative market environment. Platforms will also choose more cost-effective logistics services based on the principle of fair market competition, which helps reduce operational costs and improve efficiency. This is not only it provides merchants with more diverse logistics options, but also offers consumers better delivery service experiences. So we think that this doesn't have a significant impact on our business because we are indeed ourselves an open platform that addresses all service needs from different e-commerce platforms. And now the second question relating to the other operating incomes, largely there is a change because the super VAT deduction is the policy has expired.

And also for that part of the operating income line, there are less certainty as it relates to for the items that are related to external policies, we are not able to make control. So, what we have expected, the fluctuation excluding those new items will be minimal. And going into the next quarters and next years, it will still be stable. Does that answer your question?

[Foreign language]谢谢管理层。我没有其他问题了。谢谢。

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Zong Feng with Western Securities. Please go ahead.

[Foreign language] 非常感谢管理层接受我的提问。我是西部证券的研究员宗峰。我有两个小问题。第一个问题是我们观察到三季度我们直客的收入是有一个非常大的增长。那么想请教为什么我们三季度的直客的收入可以有这么快的增长，以及这部分业务的毛利率大概是什么样的水平？未来这部分业务对我们净利率的贡献的占比大概是一个什么样的指引？这是第一个问题。第二个问题是我们观察到中通目前的智慧物流园区的建设其实是非常领先的。那么在这一块的话想请教就是我们的云仓业务和我们的直客业务的协同是一个什么样的情况，以及未来在云仓业务上我们的扩张是什么样的？

Please allow me to translate my question. The first question is about the KA customer revenue. We observe that the KA customer revenue has achieved an incredible growth. We want to know what's the reason behind the high growth and what's the gross margin of this business, and what's the net margin contribution to our future business. This is the first one. And the second one is about the cloud warehousing. We observe that our logistics parks develop quite quickly, and we want to know the future development plan of our logistics parks. Thank you.

Meisong Lai (Chairman and CEO)

[Foreign language] 谢谢你的提问。三季度公司直客业务3亿票，占比约3.5，直客收入为13亿，同比增加120%。直客单票收入为4.3元，同比增长31%，主要由于高单价的平台逆向客户比例增加。三季度开发中平台逆向业务约1.1亿件，环比增长25%，单票收入6块5元，环比下降17%。对总部的贡献，利润贡献约为1.5元。主要是各大平台的逆向的增加。这个未来贡献就是网络有服务能力的提升，逆向散件比例的增长，网点的盈利会增加，业务员的收入会增加。同时收入增加可以反哺派件成本的下降。对常员来讲，除了利润以外，对份额的增加是有积极的正向作用的。第二个，园区跟生态协同，中通确实我们过去几年基础设施投入持续在加大。目前主要接点城市分布中心，大概95%以上我们都具备，都已经建好了，拥有了自主产权的分布中心。对生态的影响，其实它资源可以共享，协同作用会更大。比如说我们的仓，如果过去大部分中国的国内仓都是跟分部分离的，那么中通的仓能够做到上仓下配，或者下面中卷，上面实仓，能做到零距离发货，协同作用比较明显。零距离发货它的成本效率成本更低。第二，比如说6点钟以后下的单，包括到晚上10点都能当天发出去，就是时效更快，用户的体验更好。中通的生态也是在持续的推进，云仓的效率、盈利都有极大的改善。我们认为未来一定是全链路的综合物流的竞争。所以我们会积极拥抱生态的发展，相互赋能。谢谢。

Sophie Li (Head of Investor Relations)

First of all, some statistics. In third quarter, the volume of KA businesses was 300 million, accounting for approximately 3.5% of our total parcel volume. KA revenue was approximately RMB 1.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 120%. KA revenue per parcel was RMB 4.3, a year-on-year increase of about 31%, mainly due to an increase in the proportion of platform reverse logistics customers with higher prices. In the third quarter, platform reverse logistics parcels handled by ZTO is approximately 112 million, a quarter-on-quarter growth of 25%. The unit revenue was RMB 6.5, a quarter-to-quarter contributing about RMB 1.5 per parcel to headquarters profits. The main clients come from various e-commerce platforms.

As we mentioned earlier, as ZTO continued to improve its quality of services, reduce losses, reduce customer complaints, the platforms are choosing more and more so based on its efficiency and effectiveness formulation so that as we improve our services with the same price, we are able to win more platforms' volume, and with the same quality of services, our price has more advantage built in, so as we focus on improving our own capability, we are expecting to continue to increase the retail volume, which again will help our network partners as well as our couriers to improve their quality of earnings, and in turn, as they improve their revenue and income, the entire core business will be supported as well going forward.

Now, going on to the infrastructure installed base, as we have about 95% of our sortation centers, most of them located in the centralized area either for logistics or for businesses, the capacity to serve our entire ecosystem is more advantaged because we are able to share resources, have synergies in utilizing the same investment, and produce continuous and repeated output. There are many locations where we have storage and sortation and ship out all co-located, which is what we have introduced before. It's called zero distance ship out or shipment, which not only reduces the cost but also improves the timeliness because we are able to take order all the way to 10:00 P.M., and have that order shipped out during the same day.

Our strategy in developing the total ecosystem to have more comprehensive logistics service capability is in line with our total mission to become the leader in the comprehensive logistics industry. So we will continue to improve, continue to implement this co-locating model, and driving greater synergy across the entire logistics services arena. Thank you for your question. I think this should be done.

Operator (participant)

This is a question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over for closing remarks.

Sophie Li (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you again for everyone to join today's call. I think it's worth mentioning that we are refocusing our resource and allocations. Our goal is to achieve great balance and healthy balance of profit and burden sharing across the center, either headquarters, network partners, and also our couriers. We've been doing well in the past in fair allocation and equitable allocation of cost and income, and profit among all constituents of our businesses. And going into 2025, our goal is to regain our volume growth momentum in order to resume the expansion of our volume leadership.

And at the same time, we are putting in place effective initiatives so that we will maintain our operating profitability as well as helping our network partners to improve their efficiency in managing their businesses and improving their profitability so that our network will continue to be healthy and sustainable for the future growth of the entire industry and in line with the recovery of the economy of China. Thank you again for your time, and we look forward to...