Baozun Inc. (BZUN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by for Baozun's First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's call, Ms. Wendy Sun, Senior Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations of Baozun. Please proceed, Ms. Wendy.

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Our first quarter 2025 earnings release was distributed earlier before this call and is available on our IR website at ir.baozun.com as well as on PR Newswire services. We have also posted a PowerPoint presentation that accompanies our comments to the same IR website where they are available for your download. On the call today from Baozun, we have Mr. Vincent Qiu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Ms. Catherine Zhu, Chief Financial Officer; Mr. Junhua Wu, Director and Chief Strategy Officer of Baozun Group; and Mr. Ken Huang, Chief Executive Officer of Baozun Brand Management. Mr. Qiu will first share our business strategy and company highlights. Ms. Zhu will then discuss our financials, followed by Ms. Wu and Mr. Huang, who will share more about our e-commerce and brand management segments, respectively. They will all be available to answer your questions during the Q&A session that follows. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933 as amended, the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended and the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based upon 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 to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties or factors is included in the company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and its announcement notice or other documents published on the website of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited. All information provided in this call is as of the date hereof and is based on assumptions that the company believes to be reasonable as of this date and the company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law. Finally, please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during this conference call are in RMB. In addition, we may elect to use adjusted in place of non-Generally Accepted Accounting Principles or non-GAAP in order to reduce aural confusion that may arise from our discussion about financials related to the GAAP brand. It is now my pleasure to introduce our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Vincent Qiu. Vincent, please go ahead.

Thank you, Wendy. Hello, everyone, and thank you all for your time. I'm pleased to report that Baozun continues to execute our strategic transformation with constant quarterly progress. Our revenue streams are now more diversified and our operational excellence continues to strengthen across the businesses. Baozun Group achieved 4% year-over-year revenue growth. BEC sustained a stable top-line, while BBM accelerated its strong momentum with 23% year-over-year sales growth. BEC is making strides in quality development and the value generation for our brand partners. Our ongoing progress in omnichannel and content creation initiatives is transforming customer engagement and the shopping experience. We also improved the quality of our product sales model, achieving both healthy top-line growth and the gross margin expansion. In addition, we are leveraging technology and AI applications to build a leaner and efficient organization. These innovations set a clear path for margin expansion for BEC and foster a culture of excellence. Within BBM, both Gap and Hunter are performing ahead of expectations. Our efforts to localize teams, products and merchandising plans for Gap are yielding strong results. As Gap China continues to innovate and grow, we remain committed in delivering exceptional value for customers. Meanwhile, Hunter expanded product offering category, achieved strong sales growth and received widespread recognition. To capitalize on this momentum and further strengthen Hunter's footprint, we will open 3 new stores simultaneously this May in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou -- and Hangzhou, sorry. Overall, we closed the quarter with a constant positioning to accelerate our transformation through 2025. Notably, 2025 marks Baozun's 18th anniversary, a symbolic and strategic milestone. I'm proud of how far we've come. In China tradition, 18 signifies a time of renewed vigor, maturity and ambition. We view this milestone as a reflection of our transformation into an innovation-led platform focusing on long-term value creation. Now I will turn the call over to our team for a deeper look into our financials and business performance.

Thanks, Vincent, and hello, everyone. Now let me provide a more detailed overview of financial results for the first quarter of 2025. Please turn to Slide #3. Baozun Group's total net revenues for the first quarter of 2025 increased by 4.3% year-over-year to RMB 2.1 billion. Of this total, E-Commerce revenue grew slightly by 1.4% to RMB 1.7 billion, while Brand Management revenue rose by 23% to RMB 387 million. Breaking down E-Commerce revenue by business model. Services revenue remained flat at RMB 1.3 billion. BEC product sales revenue increased 7.3% year-over-year to RMB 423 million, driven by strong performance in new categories. BBM product sales totaled RMB 387 million, representing a 23% year-over-year growth. This growth was mainly driven by the strong performance of the Gap brand with both online and offline channels delivering healthy gains. Please turn to Slide #4. From a profitability perspective, our blended gross margin for product sales at the Group level was 32.4%. Gross profit increased by 18.9% year-over-year to RMB 262 million for the quarter. Breaking this down by our key business lines. Gross margin for E-Commerce product sales expanded to 15%, a 130 basis point improvement compared to 13.7% a year ago. This margin expansion was primarily driven by product mix diversification. Gross margin for BBM was 51.6% compared with 53.1% a year ago. The decrease was mainly due to product offering adjustments and optimization of commercial plans for the Gap brand. Now turning to bottom-line items. Please refer to Slide #5. During the quarter, our adjusted loss from operations totaled RMB 67 million. This included an adjusted operating loss of RMB 46 million from E-Commerce segment, a decline of RMB 58 million from the same period last year. The decline was mainly due to low seasonality for E-Commerce retail in Q1 as well as personnel adjustments and strategic investment initiatives to transform and realign with our operational tactics. We incurred approximately RMB 18 million in restructure costs related to human resource reform in the quarter. BBM's adjusted operating loss totaled RMB 21 million, an improvement of 28% from the same period of last year. Lastly, please turn to Slide #6. We published our 2024 sustainability report, highlighting tangible progress across environmental, social and governance metrics in April. We achieved a 36% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions versus our base year 2021 and we are on track with our commitment to reduce by 50% by 2030. These initiatives demonstrate our commitment to building sustainable and responsible business. Let me now pass the call over to Junhua to update you on BEC, our E-Commerce business.

Thanks, Catherine, and hello, everyone. Since resuming full active duties in March, I'm pleased to report that BEC is now firmly aligned with our commitment to profitability and sustainable growth. In Q1 2025, we made meaningful progress across key strategic priorities, revitalizing E-Commerce, enhancing our value proposition, expanding omnichannel capabilities and driving technology-led efficiency improvements. These early achievements align closely with the objectives of our 2025 annual operating plan, which emphasize integrated business management, profit-focused execution and a leaner, more agile organizational model. Now let me quickly walk through some of our operational highlights in the E-Commerce segment for the first quarter of 2025. BEC revenue totaled RMB 1.7 billion, largely flat compared to the same period last year. However, our strategic investment in enhancing distribution capabilities is beginning to yield compelling results. Please turn to Slide #7. In Q1, BEC's product sales grew by 7%, driven by standout category performance in Home and Furniture, Alcohol and Health and Nutrition. Gross profit margin also improved by 130 basis points to 15%, supported by breakthroughs in new categories and renewed terms with several existing brand partners. Turning to BEC service perspective as shown on Slide #8. While BEC service revenue remained flat, we made structural mix change aimed at quality enhancement. Revenues from online store operations grew by 12% year-over-year, driven by strong performance in the luxury and apparel categories as well as continued progress in omnichannel initiatives. Notably, we achieved strong double-digit revenue growth on JD and Douyin and triple-digit growth on RedNote for the quarter. Recently, Baozun was nominated as part of the first batch of brand partners, uniquely among traditional Tmall partners. In the contracting segment, revenue from warehouse and logistics as well as digital marketing and IT each declined by a middle-single-digit year-over-year. The decline in warehouse and logistics revenue was mainly due to reduced volume from several key clients in the sportswear segment. While we anticipate the challenges to persist with certain clients, we have proactively focused on expanding our B2B business and business development in emerging segments such as outdoor and FMCG category within our warehouse operations. In our digital marketing business, we prioritize value-added marketing, while optimizing passive performance marketing to enhancing profitability and capital allocation efficiency. As content becomes increasingly critical to success in E-Commerce, we are committed to innovating in content creation capabilities to stay ahead of the curve. Recently, our content creation efforts were recognized in the Alibaba Ecosystem Conference, where we received awards for top performance team in Taobao operations and top data-driven investment team as well as the Alibaba Future Business Award. Q1 2025 demonstrates BEC's focus and precise execution. E-Commerce is regaining momentum, distribution is scaling profitability, omnichannel platforms are advancing and technology investments are driving measurable efficiencies. These results validate our annual plan profit centric framework. With solid execution and a clear strategic mandate, BEC is poised to deliver lasting value throughout 2025 and beyond. Now I'll pass the call to Ken for an update on Baozun Brand Management.

Thank you, team, and thank you, all. Please turn to Slide #9 for additional insights into BBM. I'm happy that we carried our strong momentum into Q1, achieving 23% year-on-year sales growth and an acceleration from 70% in the previous quarter. Total BBM revenue for the quarter was RMB 387 million, driven by improvements across key operating metrics, including same-store sales growth, traffic growth and the conversion rate. Overall, our same-store sales growth improved to 5% for the quarter. As discussed in our previous call, our strategic priorities moving forward are clearly defined: Channels, merchandising and marketing. In the first quarter, we achieved growth in both online and offline channels, even amidst ongoing macroeconomic challenges. Throughout 2024, we conducted a comprehensive store network optimization and collaborated with key strategic partners to tap into emerging markets. In the first quarter, we closed another 4 stores. Our optimized offline network has achieved healthier productivity with double-digit growth in sales per square meter compared to a year ago. More encouraging, stores opened in the second half of 2024 have generally achieved higher efficiency. Year-to-date, we have secured an opening pipeline of more than 40 new stores with about 10 set to officially open in the second quarter. Our merchandising strategy remains closely attuned to market dynamics. In the first quarter, we focused on responsive product planning and a compelling pricing strategy, all of which have strengthened customer engagement, hence traffic and the conversion. We also leveraged data analytics to identify and target high potential customer segments in emerging markets, tailoring our product offerings to meet their specific needs. Our marketing initiatives in Q1 further deepened Gap's brand resonance through localized storytelling. A standout example was our collaboration with the Forbidden City during Chinese Spring Festival, which showcased our ability to blend China's rich culture heritage with Gap's brand DNA, emphasizing comfort, safety and quality. By the end of first quarter, the Forbidden City collaboration had generated total sales of RMB 10 million and also recorded the highest sell-through rate for any IP collaborations in our history during the same period. Building more local culture relevance is one of our key strategies in China. We will continue to explore and engage in more collaborations with Chinese culture IPs to enhance our market influence. In January, we kicked off our community engagement trial, Brannan Bear Events at our flagship store in Shanghai. This initiative is designed to create memorable experience for families and children, while fostering a positive brand image. We also amplified our reach by leveraging social media platforms and influencers to better connect with younger audience. Our Brannan Bear campaign deepened emotional connections with consumers, contributing kids and baby to be the highest growing sector during the quarter. We plan to expand such community engagement initiatives to other cities in the coming quarters. Overall, gross margin for BBM grew 20%, with the blended gross margin remaining healthier at 52% for the quarter. Operationally, we made continuous progress in efficiency enhancement. Our adjusted operating loss narrowed by 28% year-over-year to RMB 21 million, thanks to disciplined cost management and better unit economics. Looking ahead, BBM's partnership with Gap Inc. continues to strive, fueled by our local expertise and strong execution. With double-digit top-line growth and clear view for 2025, we are in a strong position to further unlock new avenues for growth and improve profitabilities as we keep scaling. That concludes our prepared remarks. Thank you. Operator, we are now ready to begin the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Alicia Yap with Citigroup.

I have a couple of questions here. One is that just if management can give us update in terms of what's your expectation for this year 6/18? And then any preliminary result that you can see from just the past like 1 week or so on the promotion? And then across your different E-Commerce platform, how do you think it is actually trending, which platforms is actually generating or getting more traction? And then second question is that, I know we've been working on the IT and also logistics service, wondering any of the -- can we -- have we actually able to get more brands actually onboarding to use our IT services and also the logistics services?

Okay. Thank you, Alicia, for the question. This is Junhua. So let me address your first question about the campaign of 6/18. So this 6/18 is the longest campaign by far. So it started from the 13th of May to the 20th of June. So it's about a 37 days campaign. So if you're talking about the -- some kind of difference between this 6/18 with the others is they provide a lot of instant discount at day 1. And without giving a lot of threshold discounts, they provide some lower tiers with a sliding scale starting from 200 minus 20 to 5,000 minus 500. So as you can see that this is only about like 8 days after 13th of May, so I can only share with you the first wave result. So as far as we're concerned and we observed from our number, so the first wave came really well. A lot of brands, they keep ramping up their presales stage and their existing transactions convert rate is really pretty well. And in terms of the cancel rate, now the current data suggests that we have a single-mid-digit lower down than the last year, so which means a better result. The return rate is also relatively lower than last year, which is also a better result. But as far as we still have about 50% of the shipments still ongoing. So maybe we can share the data later on after the next wave or someday in the middle of June. So in the category differentiation, we look forward to see -- of course, the first one is home appliance category and consumer electronics category is ramping up very well because of the subsidies from the government. And also luxury category and the fashion apparel category is also very catching up. So we can see that the home appliance category and the fashion luxury category is leading the 6/18 by far. And the second thing is about the IT services and logistics services. So for the IT part, so you can see that our revenue growth has a little bit declined year-over-year because the cadence of IT services is very different from the regular store like our flagship store operations. So they have to just sign a new client. And based on different kind of the solution they provide, the revenue contribution period and cadence is very different. But a lot more brands, they are focusing on the new one-stop solution to leverage their online inventory with their offline inventory, especially with their offline flagship stores. So more and more brands, they are exploring the possibility with Baozun's IT team to think about the one-stop solution. So we have a strong confidence that in the coming Q3 and Q4, we can catch up the revenue growth. For the logistics service traction, so we can say that right now, as you might know that we are focusing on several key clients as like the report just said. So we focus on several key clients and their business is remaining flat. Some of them are declining. So us keep supporting those clients. So we need to just keep supporting them and increase the quality of the services and also have a new development of new B2B and some kind of return reverse warehousing and logistics services as a complement. Okay. I hope that makes sense to you.

The next question will come from Jiawei Yin with Citic.

Congratulations on this quarter's strong performance. My first question is regarding the BBM sector. Is there any update for the Gap operation strategy? And how does the company plan to balance scale expansion with profitability? And is Baozun considering acquiring more new brands? That's my first question. My second question is concerns the recent collaboration between RedNote and Tmall. What is Baozun's strategy? And have company seen brands allocate more resource to RedNote?

Okay. This is Ken. I will answer the first question about the strategy of Gap. I think from 2025, our strategy is quite clear in product marketing and channels for products that we are further enhancing the Gap's DNA. We are trying to enhance our key Gap categories, including Gap Denim, Gap Khaki, Gap Sweatshirt and the kids and baby category. And in the same time, we want to be more balanced between the local assortments and global products to bring more value to our Chinese customers. And for marketing, we are creating more local culture relevance, including the IP collaboration with the Forbidden City we just did and we will continue to do this year. And starting from last month, we also launched a series of RedNote campaigns with the key KOLs, delivering our connections with our customers through music and dance. And the third one about channel. I think for online channels, we are expanding in all channels and our advantage is our faster response to every platform. And we are further improving our supply chain for our online exclusive products. And for offline, we are partnering with a number of strategic partners in different regions for us to further expanding our local stores in emerging markets. So in terms of balancing our scale and profit, I think we are continue looking for the increase of scale. As we mentioned, we will keep a double-digit increase this year. We target to open 50 stores -- new stores this year. So with the increased scale, it will help us to balance our back office cost and in the end to breakeven. So we want to keep this momentum quarter-by-quarter to deliver solid results and in the end to reach a breakeven point in the last quarter. But of course, we are -- when we are balancing the scale and profit, we are also considering our brand. So we will still continue investing in our brand marketing. But yes, it's really a challenge, but in the same time, I think we are confident by working with the Gap Inc.'s team together for the branding part.

[Operator Instructions]

I think the second question regarding the RedNote and Tmall and also whether the company's plans for acquiring new brands and not just yet. Maybe Mr. Junhua, you can share.

Maybe you can say something about the RedNote and Tmall first.

Yes, yes. I believe that you were asking about the Red Cat initiative. So let me explain that to you, use it before and after kind of scenario. So before the Red Cat initiative, we used to spend a lot of marketing spending on RedNote for seating, for new arrivals and for driving some keys for consumers can really just get a lot of content on RedNote before they drop in transaction. So like 10 years ago when a consumer made their decision for purchasing, they used to go open an PDP and then reading a lot of reviews of the product and then make the decision. And now they are using RedNote for UGC content platform to getting a lot of information from different angle and then make place a transaction on the Tmall, JD or wherever they are familiar to. But the Red Cat project has directly provided way to just link directly from the content or a different link or different heat, a different forwarding from RedNote directly to Tmall transaction PDP page. You can seamlessly experience that kind of things. So the Red project to us is more related to the performance marketing part. So for now in the 6/18 campaign several of brand partners already reallocate some of their online performance marketing budget from the -- in Tmall search performance marketing budget to the Red Cat project. So we can directly just invest on driving traffic on RedNote from all the seats, all the content and getting the transaction done. Compared with the ROI for now, the ROI is relatively higher than the one on the Tmall inside performance marketing results. So because this is very new, the Red Cat initiative only just opened for 2 weeks and we have only several brands for trying that kind of the initiatives and we will get back to you with a more detailed result after we have a significant awareness and balancing all those kind of ROIs in a stable way. Yes, hope that makes sense to you.

Okay. This is Vincent. I'm making some comments for your third part of the questions, which is a new brand acquisition plan for the -- I think it is for the Brand Management part of our business. BBM, actually our strategy is the portfolio strategy, which means that we will do multiple brands and trying to build up the synergy in different brands. So that is the strategy. So far we have 2 brand already. First one is Gap, second one is Hunter, both doing quite well. And for other new brands, they can be either onboard for BBM platform or if it is majorly distribution model, it can be also onboard our BEC platform. So we have home platforms for the new brands to onboard. And sometimes you can imagine that BEC and BBM will meet in the middle. So that gives the potential brands more opportunities to work easier, more focused on products, development or channel development. So we always have a quite strong pipeline for BEC and also BBM. But recently given the macroeconomic situation, we are quite careful and cautious in onboarding new brands. But we are seeing more and more synergies between brands and it's the brand in BEC and BBM and also between BBM and BEC. Yes, hope that answers your question.

The next question will come from [ Chris Kao with Haitong Securities. ]

I have 2 questions. The first question is about apparel and sports. And I think these 2 categories are performing very well this quarter compared to the overall weak market consumption sentiment. Could you please share the key drivers behind it and how should we think about the future trends of these 2 categories? And my second question is about BBM sector. As 6/18 campaign approach, how should we think about the potential opportunity of integration of the BBM sector and BEC sector during the 6/18 campaign? These are my 2 questions.

Okay. Chris, this is Junhua. The first question is regarding the apparel and sportwear category, so this is for me. So yes, indeed, the apparel, especially sportswear and luxury apparel category they are the key in the battlefield across different platforms, especially as far as you might know that JD has been restructured and hired some kind of key players to in charge of their apparel category, which used to work for Tmall. So apparel and sportswear and luxury, they are rat racing in a very heavy way especially in those big campaigns like 6/18. They've been spending a lot of -- providing coupons and instant discount in this category. So yes, as far as the momentum currently for apparel and sportswear industry, everybody is catching up and some of the leading brands they are ramping up. So they've been spending a lot of drivers in different consumers. They spend a lot of investment into segregate different kind of consumers by different tiers like they set up the apparel into trendsetters, quality chasers, pragmatic consumers and price sensitive consumers. So based on the consumer study, so we've been spending a lot of time finding the right assortment, leveraging the right message, using the right marketing approach way to send a group of assortment to the right group of consumers to make the right transaction. So for apparel, sportswear and luxury category, so more and more resources are spending into the day-to-day operations based on data bank they provide, based on historical data, based on a lot of merchandising and assortment collections we can work with our brand partners. So we look forward to foreseeing this category have a better momentum in this 6/18 and maybe across this year.

Okay. And then for the second question, for the synergies between BBM and the BEC, I think we mentioned that the synergies we are having from the beginning, because for BBM, our brands, both our brands Gap and Hunter, we are working very closely with BEC for TP service, DP service, logistics service, IT service, digital marketing service. It's not just for 6/18. It's for our day-to-day work. And especially mentioning to the 6/18, I think the advantage is we have more -- for BBM, we have more all channels information in advance and the resources management. So we can anticipate what we should respond to each platform. And the BBM is a platform that can produce products itself. Our advantage is to make our word supply chain more responsive, faster response to the different platforms' needs. So I think this is a major advantage between BBM and the BEC when we are facing fast changing platform strategies. Hope it answers your question.

[Operator Instructions] This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you, operator. On behalf of the Baozun management team, we would like to thank you for your participation in today's call. If you require any further information, feel free to reach out to us. Thank you for joining us today. This concludes the call. Thank you.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.