The core express delivery business has not improved much in terms of profitability.
Editor’s note: This article comes from WeChat public account “Deep Capital Inspect” (ID: deep_insights) , Author Cai Baowang.
When SF’s annual revenue exceeded 100 billion yuan and JD Logistics received the thanks from Zhong Nanshan, Best Express became the focus of public opinion with a negative attitude.
At the end of February this year, a video of a complete paralysis of express delivery outlets appeared on the Internet. According to the video, the outlet has been empty, and tens of thousands of packages have not been delivered or left unattended. Many customers can only find their own packages in the express delivery.
According to public information, the express delivery network in the video is a franchise point of Best Express in Changchun, and this is also the first domestic delivery company’s terminal distribution outlet to have a thunderstorm since the outbreak. After the above major operational accidents, Best Express has not yet given an official response to the outside world.
The “Huang Tanzi” express delivery outlets have always been a major taboo for the express delivery company’s operation based on franchising, which indicates that the express delivery company has poor control over its own network and cannot grasp the actual operation of its terminal outlets.
This is not the first time Best Express has been pushed to the forefront this year. Just on January 7, a video of violent sorting by Best Express’s Shandong franchise site appeared on Weibo. This is only two days away from Zhou Shaoning, chairman and CEO of Best Group, at the company’s network conference that Best Group will focus more on “operational quality and service experience” in 2020.
Netizens broke the news that a branch of Best Express in Changchun was paralyzed, letting users find pieces by themselves.
Under such a bad start, Best Group announced its 2019 fourth quarter and full-year results report on March 12.
The report shows that Best Group achieved operating income of RMB 10.77 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019, a year-on-year increase of 19.2%; non-GAAP net profit was RMB 61.119 million, a year-on-year increase of 203.5%. The profit margin is 0.6%. For the full year of 2019, the company achieved total operating income of 35.18 billion yuan, an increase of 25.8% year-on-year; a non-GAAP net loss of 124 million yuan, a loss rate of 0.4%.
The “missing position” of the company’s operations does not seem to have much negative impact on performance.
Best Group’s financial report: trade the market at a low price
As the only listed logistics company that is still losing money throughout the year, Best Group has given a good answer with rapid growth in the fourth quarter of 2019, and this seems to indicate that the company is gradually out of the long-term. Loss trouble.
Best Group achieved operating revenue of RMB 35.18 billion in 2019, a year-on-year increase of 25.8%. Among them, Best Express business is still the most important source of revenue, with annual revenue of 21.81 billion yuan, accounting for 62% of total revenue, an increase of 23.2% year-on-year.
The company’s courier business revenue increased significantly year-on-year, mainly due to the substantial increase in the number of tickets for the company in 2019. Best Express completed a total of 7.58 billion express delivery in 2019, an increase of 39% year-on-year; the company’s market share also increased by 1.1 percentage points compared to the previous year, reaching 11.9%.
Although the company’s market share is increasing, it can be seen that the growth rate of the number of tickets for Best Express business is much higher than the year-on-year growth rate of revenue, which is mainly due to the decrease in revenue of Best Express.
At present, Best Express is still in the stage of gaining market share through price wars. The company’s average revenue per unit in 2019 is only RMB 2.88 yuan, which is 11% lower than the average revenue of RMB 3.24 last year.
At the same time, Best Express’s ticket income in 2019 is among the most accessible, and it is also at the bottom. Attempts to seize more markets through deep price strategies will, to a large extent, further squeeze the profit margins of the express delivery business.
But unlike other Tongda companies that focus on express delivery business, Best Group has always followed a diversified development strategy. Except express