BingEx Limited (FLX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to BingEx's 2025 Second Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Helen Wu from Piacente Financial Communications. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. During this call, we will discuss our business outlook and make forward-looking statements. These comments are based on our predictions and expectations as of today. Actual events or results may differ materially from those mentioned in today's news release. And in this discussion, due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those mentioned in our most recent filings with the SEC. The non-GAAP financial measures we provide are for comparison purpose only. The definition of these measures and our consolidation table available in the news release we issued earlier today. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. In addition, a webcast replay of this conference call will be available on the FlashEx company's IR website at ir.ishansong.com. Furthermore, throughout the call, we will consistently use the company brand name FlashEx to refer to its publicly listed entity, BingEx Limited. Joining us today from FlashEx senior management are Mr. Adam Xue, Founder, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Hongjian Yu, Co-Founder, Director and Executive President; and Mr. Luke Tang, Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Adam Xu.

Thank you, Helen. Hello, everyone, and welcome to FlashEx's Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. In the second quarter, the industry saw rapid shifts with new competitive dynamics and challenges emerging in quick succession. Amid this changing landscape, FlashEx stayed true to its mission, focusing our core efforts on enhancing and elevating product and service quality. FlashEx executes a tiered and refined operation strategy, conducting in-depth analysis of different user groups, characteristics and the news of various business scenarios. This allows us to deliver tailored, personalized services, ensuring that every request receives the most attentive and efficient response. Through this unwavering commitment to product and service quality, FlashEx has stood out in a highly competitive market and maintained a strong reputation. Growing brand recognition and loyalty have further strengthened our position in customers' minds, laying a solid foundation for the company's long-term growth. In the second quarter of 2025, FlashEx recorded total revenue of RMB 1.02 billion with gross margin rising 1.2 percentage points year-over-year to [ 25%. ] Adjusted net profit reached RMB 45.59 million. Despite intense industry competition, FlashEx business demonstrated strong resilience. In the first half of 2025, market competition intensified as the instant delivery industry continued to show steady growth. Among all categories, flowers and cakes maintained a significant share, driven by their unique market demand. With tailored efficient services designed specifically for the flower and cake categories, FlashEx has effectively met market demand and secured a strong position in this niche, maintaining a stable market share. At the same time, we have actively expanded partnerships with merchants, broadening our reach to cover more types of merchants with deepening collaboration to achieve mutual benefits and growth. For example, during holidays, demand for flowers, cakes and similar categories often surged within a short period. To address this challenge, we deployed on-site support teams to certain core merchant locations to assist with order sorting and distribution, ensuring smooth, efficient deliveries. This proactive approach not only demonstrates our keen sensitivity to users' needs and rapid response capabilities, but also enhanced merchant satisfaction and resilience, laying the groundwork for strengthening and expanding future partnerships. For 3C digital products, which are vulnerable to issues such as damage and delays during delivery, our team conducted onset research at our client stores and worked closely with them to review the entire delivery process from packaging to handover. Based on these insights, we implemented targeted improvements, including optimizing packaging materials and strengthening delivery personnel training. These efforts have further strengthened high-value clients trust and confidence in the FlashEx brand. In addition, we have sharpened our focus on high-frequency clients, enhancing after-sales support. By streamlining service processes and improving response time, we ensure that every customers receive timely and effective solutions whenever issue arise, significantly boosting satisfaction. The implementation of these measures has not only improved client retention, but also notably increased engagement, providing strong momentum for FlashEx's continued growth. To deliver high-quality, more personalized service and fully meet users' diverse needs across different scenarios, we continue to expand our service offerings in quarter 2. We analyzed user behavior and demand patterns to identify key everyday needs. such as luggage delivery, hotel storage, clothing shipping and package pickup, unlocking new service areas with strong potential and unique value. Throughout this process, we have maintained a rigorous and responsible approach using small-scale tests and feedback collection to continuously refine and optimize service details aiming to deliver a smoother and more satisfying user experience. Currently, the application of the specialized services is steadily expanding and has received positive user feedback. By continuously exploring new scenarios, we are not only broadening FlashEx service portfolio into more aspects of daily life, but also embedding the brand's value more naturally and meaningfully into users' everyday routines. While the contribution of the newly expanded services to order volume and revenue may be limited in short term, we firmly believe that they represent a critical step in FlashEx's path towards refined operations. These initiatives allow us to accurately identify and deeply address their needs, users' needs, enrich product usage scenarios and strengthen our engagement, users' engagement, from a long-term perspective. Those efforts will drive continuously improvement and serve as a cornerstone for FlashEx's sustainable growth, ensuring we maintain a leading position in a highly competitive market. In quarter 2, capacity management emerged as a key lever for enhancing service quality and strengthening our market competitiveness. We focused on refining operations on the supply side, taking precise actions across multiple dimensions to optimize the entire delivery process to provide users with a higher quality and more efficient service experience. At the delivery planning level, we leveraged advanced algorithms and big data analytics to optimize routing. By incorporating real-time traffic, order distribution and weather conditions, we provide riders with the most efficient delivery routes, enhancing overall efficiency. At the same time, we developed an intelligent rider allocation system that precisely adjust resources based on order fluctuation across different areas and time periods. We recognize that the riders are the heart of FlashEx's service with their stability and professionalism directly affecting service quality and company growth. To support them, we constantly strengthen our comprehensive rider support system, encompassing subsidies, training and rewards. Subsidies are structured based on clear standards to ensure fair compensation and boost motivation and income. Regular professional training helps riders enhance their SKUs and service quality, enabling them to handle complex delivery scenarios and customer needs. Through rewards such as the monthly outstanding rider award, we provide both material and recognition-based incentives, fostering dedication and a healthy competitive spirit. This holistic approach ensures riders are well supported, engaged and empowered to deliver the best possible service. It is FlashEx's long-standing comprehensive support and care for readers that has enabled us to maintain a stable, professional and efficient delivery team. Even amidst intense market competition in quarter 2, this team not only strengthens our reputation and market standing, but also provides a solid foundation for the company's sustainable growth. Looking ahead to the second half of 2025, we will continue to embed the principles of refined management across every aspect of our operations and business lines. Through this approach, we aim to achieve optimal resource allocation, maximize efficiency and maintain effective cost control, supporting the company's high-quality growth. At the same time, we will actively explore innovative brand promotion strategies to strengthen the FlashEx brand value in more creative and engaging ways. By executing a series of scenario-based and event-driven marketing initiatives that closely align with users' daily lives and training topics, we aim to integrate the FlashEx brand naturally into everyday routines. Additionally, we will continue to deepen collaborations with high-value merchants, extending from order delivery to tailored logistics solutions that help enhance end user satisfaction and drive repeat purchases. Through these initiatives, we aim to strengthen the emotional connection between users and our brand. enhance user loyalty and engagement and elevate brand value. By reinforcing Flash X as a top-of-mind choice in on-demand dedicated career services, we are driving the company towards long-term stable and sustainable growth. That concludes my remarks. Now I will hand the call off to our CFO, Luke Tang. Thank you.

Thank you, Adam. Hello, everyone. This is Luke. Let me walk you through our second quarter financials. Before I begin, please note that all numbers are in renminbi and all percentage changes are on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise noted. In the second quarter of 2025, we successfully navigated a competitive market environment by executing our refined operation strategy and focusing on service quality. Our unique on-demand dedicated courier model continued to demonstrate strong resilience supported by stable user growth and targeted initiatives to optimize efficiency and resource allocation. This strategic focus is clearly visible in our gross profit margin, which rose to 12% from 10.8% in the same period last year, directly reflecting our success in operational efficiency and cost management. Our revenues for the second quarter reached 1,024.6 million compared to 1,176.7 million in the same period of 2024. The year-over-year decline was primarily driven by lower order volumes as competitive dynamics in the market remained active throughout the quarter. Our cost of revenues for the quarter decreased by 14.1% to RMB 901.9 million. This was primarily in line with the decline in revenues along with our ongoing focus on improving operating efficiency. Our gross profit was RMB 122.7 million for the second quarter compared with RMB 127 million in the same period last year. Gross profit margin grew by 1.2 percentage points to 12% for the second quarter. Turning to operating expenses. Our total operating expenses for the second quarter were RMB 103.4 million, consisting of selling and marketing expenses of RMB 48.2 million. General and administrative expenses of RMB 36 million and research and development expenses of RMB 19.2 million. Excluding share-based compensation expenses, our non-GAAP income from operations was 31.9% for the second quarter compared with RMB 42.3 million in the same period of 2024. Other income was RMB 1.3 million for the second quarter compared with RMB 9.5 million in the same period of 2024. The year-over-year decrease was primarily due to a lower amount of government grants. Our non-GAAP net income for the second quarter was RMB 45.6 million compared with RMB 59.1 million in the same period of 2024. Our cash position remains healthy with cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investments totaling RMB 827.8 million as of the second quarter end. In summary, despite the intense competition in the food delivery market, our second quarter performance underscores the durability of our business model, supported by targeted initiatives and a stable user growth or focus on delivering differentiated, high-quality on-demand service continues to foster strong customer loyalty. Looking ahead, we remain committed to optimizing resource allocation and capturing emerging opportunities to drive sustainable and long-term growth. That concludes our prepared remarks. We would now like to open the floor to your questions. Operator, please go ahead.

[Operator Instructions] The question comes from the line of Stephan Zhang from CICC.

Thank you, the management team I've got two questions here today. My first question is, could you please share the company's order volume and ASP for this quarter, broken down by 2B and 2C business. How do you project the trend for order volume and ASP in the second half of the year? And my second question is due to platform competition this year, we heard there have been pressure on rider supply across the industry. How would you assess riders stickiness and retention metrics, what trajectory should we anticipate for rider incentive budget this year?

Thank you, Stephen. And I think maybe Adam will answer the first question, and I will take the second.

Thank you for your question. In the first half of this year, we fulfilled 123 million orders despite a complex market and industry environment with stayed true to our strategy prioritizing our operational efficiency. We pursue growth cautiously and steadily ensuring operational projects remain at healthy levels. Our first half data show that ASP held steady compared with last year, while the share of fee and orders saw a slight but positive increase. Current industry trends indicate that the competition is gradually stabilizing and returning to a more normal state. In this environment, FlashEx is strengthening its service system and improving operational efficiency. At the same time, we are exploring new service scenarios to better integrate into our users' daily life, expanding offerings and boost engagement. Additionally, we have a clear expansion plan to grow the FlashEx team and broaden service coverage. This will allow us to better meet users' needs and improve overall service quality and experience. With these strategies in place, may optimistic about the second half of 2025 and expect a recovery in overall order volume. Thank you.

I will take the second question. In the first half of 2025, competition in the food delivery market remain fierce and creating some pressure on the on-demand dedicated core industry. especially for our riders. Nevertheless, we continue to center our strategy on our rider team, regardless of short-term market fluctuations or isolated challenges. Our registered and new rider numbers remain strong. And given the differentiated business model and the distinct rider profiles, there has been no notable impact. On the operational efficiency front, we have continued to make significant improvements. We have optimized our intelligent dispatch system and delivery rules enabling precise allocation of delivery resources and significantly boosting rider productivity. The system dynamically adjust the older assignments in real time, ensuring rider's earnings remain stable. Meanwhile, we have developed a comprehensive rider development and incentive system covering subsidies, training and reward mechanisms. These framework provide riders with a clear career progression path, allowing each of them to see opportunities for growth and a defined future with the FlashEx platform. In managing the rider incentive budget, we adhere strictly to the principle of recession and efficiency, implementing dynamic adjustment mechanism to ensure resources are allocated optimally. For -- from medium- to long-term perspective, we are actively leveraging technological innovation to gradually reduce resilience -- reliance on traditional subsidy model or a newly upgraded intelligence dispatch system, enables more efficient order allocation while optimized navigation on the rider app has significantly improved delivery efficiency. In addition, we have deepened collaboration with key merchants to enhance delivery planning, during peak periods, such as holidays, further optimizing overall resource allocation and making our delivery services more precise and efficient. FlashEx's long-standing comprehensive support and thoughtful care for our riders is precisely what has enabled us to maintain a stable, professional and highly efficient delivery team amid the intense market competition in this Q2. This term serves as a solid backbone for navigating market challenges. Overall, compared with competitive dynamics in the current food delivery and e-commerce sectors, FlashEx's unique on demand dedicated core model offers users more personalized and differentiated premium service experience, which is our core competitive advantage. We are already seeing riders return to our platform, demonstrating that our business model is both competitive and sustainable. At the same time, we firmly believe that for the industry to achieve long-term, sustainable and house growth fire and reasonable competition should be actively encouraged -- based on this, we view the current market competition as having only a short term and limited impact on FlashEx. Looking ahead to the second half of 2025, we are seeing signs that the industry competition is beginning to ease -- at the same time, we have clear plans to further expand our business and our delivery team. strengthening our operational capacity to support the company's continued growth, that's all. Thank you

And this concludes the question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call over to Helen Wu for closing remarks.

Thank you once again for joining Flash's 2025 Second Quarter Financial Results and Business Update conference call today. If you have any further questions, please contact the IR team and FlashEx or Piacente Financial Communications. Thank you, and have a great day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.