After repeated delays in the release of various companies, the first earnings season in 2020 is finally coming to an end before the arrival of April.
Under the high pressure of the black swan epidemic, although the companies reported the results of the fourth quarter of 2019 in this earnings season, it is clear that investors and analysts have been impatiently looking into the next quarter:
How much has the epidemic affected company performance? Perhaps with a more pessimistic expectation, the epidemic remains as strong as ever, and who else is left?
These questions cannot be answered from the data in this financial report. Fortunately, there is also a regular conference call between analysts after the earnings report. In this earnings season, we have listened to the conference calls of analysts on Tencent, Ali, Baidu, Pinduoduo, Netease and other top Internet companies. No company has escaped the problems related to the epidemic. We have captured some signals from the incremental information provided by company executives.
E-commerce: Everyone said it was difficult, except for Jingdong
There is a saying circulating recently on the market: “in 2003 SARS, everyone started shopping online, which gave birth to e-commerce represented by Taobao”, and concluded that “the new crown epidemic, e-commerce enterprises will show their skills again.”
17 years have passed and my memory has deviated. In fact, although Taobao was launched during the SARS period, the boom of e-commerce was not much related to the epidemic. Nowadays, the connection between e-commerce and the real economy is becoming more and more tight, and the supply and demand ends are weakening. It is even more impossible for e-commerce to stand alone.
Alibaba Group CFO Wu Wei’s statement in the earnings call may confirm this speculation. During Alibaba’s third fiscal quarter of fiscal 2020 (corresponding to the fourth quarter of 2019) earnings conference call held on February 13, Wu Wei said that based on what he saw in the 12 to 13 days since the beginning of February, he speculated that March The company’s overall revenue growth rate in the last quarter will be negatively affected. China’s retail market, local life services and other businesses may even experience negative quarterly revenue growth.
However, Alibaba’s management seems to believe that the supply side, which is subject to physical production, is the main source of the company’s negative impact. Two weeks after the Spring Festival, the merchants failed to resume operations, the logistics capacity was insufficient, and the failure to fulfill a large number of orders has adversely affected the platform.
Alibaba Group Chairman Zhang Yong said in response to analyst questions that whether the impact of the epidemic will improve depends on the supply side, including the supply of products, the supply of material transportation capacity, and the supply of services. To this end, Ali