This article is from WeChat public account: News interface (ID: wowjiemian) , author: Feng round, from FIG title: Oriental IC


There is still a loss in China’s head courier company, which is the

Image Source: Vision China

In addition, Best Group said that according to the current market conditions and operating conditions, considering the lower average price per express delivery and the slower growth of the “store + revenue” segment, the annual revenue forecast for FY 2019 will be lowered to The company’s revenue for the fiscal year 2019 is estimated to be 36.5 billion to 37.2 billion yuan.

Bai Shi Group owns BES Huitong. Although the company started late, it got Alibaba’s support from the A round of financing. The A-G round before the listing was funded 8 times, and Ali participated in 5 times. In the golden age of e-commerce dividends in 2010, Best Buy acquired Huitong Express. Although the founding time is the shortest, but backed by Ali, the Best Group still has a place in the highly competitive express delivery industry.

In the A-share listed company, SF Holdings (002352.SZ), Yuantong Express (600233.SH), Shentong Express(002468.SZ), Yunda Holdings (002120.SZ) have not lost money. In the same period, the US stocks listed in the US-based express (ZTO.N) net profit in the first half of the year reached 2.04 billion yuan. In this way, Best Group is the only loss-making head express company.

Data Source: wind, Interface News Research Department

What is it, let the Ali Group’s Baishi Group lose money for years?


Why is the loss?

Objectively speaking, comparing the Best Group with SF Express and the three links is somewhat “unfair”. As can be seen from the company’s product revenue structure, express service revenue only accounts for 61.09% of operating income. In addition, the company’s freight business, supply chain business, shopping malls and other business contribution revenue accounted for 15.03%, 6.49%, 9.04%.

Data Source: Wind, Interface News Research Department

At the end of the day, the main reason for the loss of the Best Group is that it is still due to cost and model issues.

The Best Group is currently a franchise operating model and is a typical light asset business model. The headquarters only needs to be responsible for the national hub transshipment center system, and the end collection will be handed over to the franchisee.

And the “exclusive” franchise system of Best Group has adopted a lighter business model. Among the several express giants that adopt the franchise model, only BES Huitong adopts the method of not buying land. According to Wind statistics, as of the first half of 2019, only the amount of land use rights disclosed by Baishi Group was zero. In terms of the amount, even if the land use right is the least, the annual amortization amount is as high as 0.73 billion yuan.

Data Source: Wind, Interface News Research Department

In addition to not buying land, the operating center of the Best Group also uses the rental model. Bai Shi Group only made a small amount of modifications to the leased space to adapt to the site demand, and did not own the vehicle. Instead, it adopted the mode of outsourcing and financial leasing to build a fleet for trunk transportation. Taking this kind of operation mode of light asset application to the extreme, it has certain positive effects on the company’s expansion scale and seizing the market, but it does not bring much benefit to the cost reduction.

The rental fee data shows that as of June 30, 2019, the non-current assets of the Best Group through operating leases accounted for 23.88% of the total assets; in contrast, Shentong, Yuantong, Yunda, and Shunfeng several express giants The lease fees for the long-term deferred expenses disclosed accounted for a maximum of 1.5% of the total assets. From the perspective of the loss, the leasing model does not necessarily contribute to profits.

Quantity Source: Wind, Interface News Research Department


Bai Shi’s “尴尬” positioning

The operation center also adopts the leasing model and is related to the positioning of the Best Integrated Logistics Service Provider by Best Group.

Zhou Shining, president and CEO of Best Group, once said that Baishi can’t say to do logistics and to be a comprehensive supply chain.

Wind statistics show that most of the current executives of Best Group have a technical flow background. Zhou Yuning was the head of digital communications such as Bell Labs, president of UTStarcom China, and president of Google China. It can be said that the Best Group has laid down the technical factors since its inception.

This may be one of the reasons why Ali favors this company.

From 2015 to the present, Ali has held 11% of Yuantong, 10% of Zhongtong, 49% of Shentong and 29.08% of Best Group. On the surface, the companies that Ali invested in belong to the same field, but in fact they have their own focus.

After the listing of the above four companies, the allocation of assets has shown different orientations: Yuantong Investment focuses on land and transshipment centers; Shentong focuses on investing in land and vehicles; Zhongtong invests in vehicles, transshipment centers, land, etc. The overall leadership is relatively strong; Baishi Group focuses on investment automation.

The Best Investment Group’s focus on automation is also seen in the R&D expenses over the years. Taking the latest data as an example, the research and development expenses of the Best Group in the first three quarters of 2019 accounted for 70% of the net profit, while the second-ranked SF, R&D expenses only accounted for 22% of the net profit. High R&D expenses are also one of the reasons for the company’s losses. According to Wind data statistics, Except that Zhongtong did not disclose its research and development expenses, Best Group is the company that invested the most in technology research and development in the franchise system.

Data Source: Wind, Interface News Research Department

At present, the supply chain, store plus, freight and other businesses of Best Group have developed considerably, but the company’s investment in technology research and development has not yet had a significant boost to the business. This can be seen from the income of the supply chain business.

According to the announcement of the Best Group, the supply chain system refers to one of the key business processes and relationships of the enterprise that provides goods, services or information to the end customer from the initial material supplier to the entire chain of the end user. Kind of integration. Although the company has entered the field earlier, it has no advantage. SF entered the supply chain business in 2018, but achieved revenue of 1.843 billion yuan as of September 30, 2019. The Best Group cut into the supply chain business in 2008, and achieved only revenue of 1.583 billion yuan as of September 30, 2019. Only from the perspective of income, the judgement is high.

At present, the Best Group may be playing a bigger game in the next game, but the final game is unknown.

This article is from WeChat public account: interface News (ID: wowjiemian) , author: Feng Yuanyuan