Vipshop Holdings Limited (VIPS) Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, everyone, and welcome to Vipshop Holdings Third Quarter 202 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Ms. Jessie Zheng, Vipshop Holdings Head of Investor Relations. Please proceed.

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining Vipshop's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. With us today are Eric Shen, our Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO; and Mark Wang, our CFO. Before management begins their prepared remarks, I would like to remind you that the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those outlined in our safe harbor statement in our earnings release and public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which also applies to this call to the extent any forward-looking statements may be made. Please note that certain financial measures used on this call, such as non-GAAP operating income, non-GAAP net income attributable to Vipshop's shareholders and non-GAAP net income per ADS are not presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Please refer to our earnings release for details relating to the reconciliations of our non-GAAP measures to GAAP measures. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Eric Shen.

Good morning, and good evening, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining our third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Our third quarter results demonstrate tangible progress on our path back to growth. We are pleased with the clear top line expansion, lead primarily by notable improvement in customer trends and across our core categories. Total active customers regained year-over-year growth. Super VIP membership continued to deliver double-digit growth. In the third quarter, active Super VIP customers grew by 11% year-over-year, contributing 51% of our online spending. This sustained growth was primarily driven by continuous upgrade to SVIP exclusive product and service benefits, coupled with more target engagement initiative, which effectively convert regular customers. In terms of category performance, we saw accelerated momentum in apparel-related category through the quarter. Our team successfully delivered a powerful brand of quality, value and style. This was achieved through the merchandising strategy that highlights high-value brands, trending categories and popular selling points, all of which are deeply aligned with customer priorities. against a dynamic industry backdrop, we were navigating this operational environment with agility and efficiency. We are strategically realigned the organization for long-term success, implementing changes to strengthen our unique position as off-price retailer for brands. We focused on reinforce the flywheel from merchandising customer engagement to operation. At our core, we are a merchandising lead company. We compete through offering affordable and differentiated assortment. We continue to enhance our leadership in the deep discount product offering. and we are deepening our category specialization to curate product offering that deliver great relevance and distinct value. We start to see new momentum in customer and sales by acting upon engaging bright spots and customer performance. As an example, we are rebuilding our medal and child care division to better integrate relevant apparel and non-apparel categories. This reshaped assortment designed to foster cross-category growth and create lasting value for customers as they journey through different life stages. We are bringing this level of specialization across each category in our business. In addition, we have opportunities to scale through our differentiated product portfolio. One is Made for Vipshop, which again delivered strong sales growth in the quarter. We are deepening our collaboration with more high-value brand partners. The team has capitalization on our category insights to motivate brand to allocate and create more in-season and on-trend supplier and at competitive price. A compelling case in point is a leading running shoe brand, which drove 50% of its September sales on our platform from Made for VIP after making select popular items exclusive to us. Another case is a leading women's apparel brand, which built sales momentum by customized more deep discount, high-demand offering from its inventory fabrics. The other line of differentiate is a carefully curated portfolio of popular items, which we proactive source from both domestic and global brand partners. We've seen strong momentum when we offer the right brand of the quality, value and style and given the fashion relevance, it generates wide apparel to young and middle-class customers who increasingly come back to enjoy the fun of fresh sale and the treasure hunt. Beyond the merchandising is how we do better to apparel to customers. In addition to sustaining strong mind share with our core customer cohorts, we are actively experimenting with new marketing formats such as influence content and short-form dramas by adopting an integrated strategy across marketing, growth and engagement. We are seeing early win. This approach this approach enables a disciplined balance of cost efficiency and strategic reinvestment, improving our performance in acquiring actively and retaining customers. To further engage our customers along their journey, we focus on facilitating the broadening and discovering of the broad range of new and existing offerings. Our notable area of improvement is searching and recommendations. Our systemic upgrade of relevant models, algorithm and product operations have translated into the measurable gains. In the third quarter, enhancements in our search and recommendation systems lead to a tangible increase in commissions directly contribution to sales growth. We also continue to elevate the experience for our SVIP customers. We want them to feel special, valued and delighted with every visit, and we are delivering on this promise more consistently. In the third quarter, we launched a series of by invitation private sales. SVIP customer was granted exclusive access to the curated selection of mere brands at deep discount, which delivered a powerful sense of value and successful boosted membership loyalty. Lastly, we expect technology to play a strong role to tap into the potential of growth and efficiency. We are clear on the path to accelerate AI application across our business. Our immediate focus is on deploying AI agent to enhance key areas, including search and recommendations, customer service, external marketing and business analytics. We expect these innovations to create more engaging customer experience, empower brands with advanced tools, improve marketing efficiency and generate actionable business insights. As an example, we are seeing good adoption of our try it own AI feature. Customers really enjoy using it to virtual try to close, save looks and share with brands before buying. We have also gained traction with AI ads as a growing share of campaign new leverage AI to upgrade marketing creatives and media placements, boosting customers' acquisition efficiency. We are encouraged by the momentum in our business. Our operations are better aligned and our teams are collaborating at new level to unlock synergies. and we continue to adapt to stay ahead of market trends and customer experience expansions. The entire organization is leaning into the opportunities ahead of us. We have great confidence in our long-term road map for sustainable profitable growth. At this point, let me hand over the call to our CFO, Mark Wang, to go over our financial results.

Thanks, Eric, and hello, everyone. I'm pleased to report a set of healthy financial results for the third quarter. Total net revenues turned to growth and exceeded expectations, along with solid earnings expansion. This performance validates our disciplined model that balance growth investment with value creation, upholding our long-stated goal of achieving high-quality growth. Our strategic yet prudent growth investment focused on value-driven opportunities in merchandising expansion, especially into the differentiated portfolio, consumer-facing marketing, better engagement with customers as well as AI-centered technology advancements throughout our operations, all aligned with our long-term road map for success. We make sure everything we do should be powering our virtual flywheel within the business that translate into sustainable and profitable growth. As Eric stated, we are seeing the benefits of recent strategic change. We are engaged by the progress made so far and expect to see the impact of our initiatives built into the rest of the year and beyond. We have great confidence in our long-term outlook and our capabilities to delivering value for our stakeholders. Again, I would like to reaffirm our commitment to shareholder returns in 2025. which is no less than 75% of the RMB 9 billion full year 2024 non-GAAP net income. So far this year, we are firmly on track with the path have returned a total of over USD 730 million to shareholders through a combination of dividend payments and share buybacks. Now moving to our detailed quarterly financial highlights. Before I get started, I would like to clarify that all financial numbers present below are in renminbi, and all the percentage change are year-over-year change unless otherwise noted. Total net revenues for the third quarter of 2025 increased by 3.4% year-over-year to RMB 21.4 billion from RMB 20.7 billion in the prior year period. Gross profit was RMB 4.9 billion compared with RMB 5.0 billion in the prior year period. Gross margin was 23.0% compared with 24.0% in the prior year period. Total operating expenses were RMB 3.9 billion compared with RMB 3.8 billion in the prior year period. As a percentage of total net revenues, total operating expenses were 18.5% compared with 18.2% in the prior year period. Fulfillment expenses were RMB 1.9 billion compared with RMB 1.7 billion in the prior year period. As a percentage of total net revenues, fulfillment expenses were 8.7% compared with 8.4% in the prior year period. Marketing expenses were RMB 667.2 million compared with RMB 617.8 million in the prior year period. As a percentage of total net revenues, marketing expenses were 3.1% compared with 3.0% in the prior year period. Technology and content expenses were RMB 438.6 million compared with RMB 454.2 million in the prior year period. As a percentage of total net revenues, technology and accounting expenses were 2.1% compared with 2.2% in the prior year period. General and administrative expenses were RMB 984.6 million compared with RMB 957.8 million in the prior year period. As a percentage of total net revenues, general and administrative expenses were 4.6%, which remained stable as compared with that in the prior year period. Income from operations was RMB 1.26 billion compared with RMB 1.33 billion in the prior year period. Operating margin was 5.9% compared with 6.4% in the prior year period. Non-GAAP income from operations was RMB 1.6 billion compared with RMB 1.7 billion in the prior year period. Non-GAAP operating margin was 7.5% compared with 8.2% in the prior year period. Net income attributable to Vipshop shareholders increased by 16.8% year-over-year to RMB 1.2 billion from RMB 1.0 billion in the prior year period. Net margin attributable to Vipshop shareholders increased to 5.7% from 5.1% in the prior year period. Net income attributable to Vipshop's shareholders per diluted ADS increased to RMB 2.42 from RMB 1.97 in the prior year period. Non-GAAP net income attributable to Vipshop's shareholders increased by 14.6% year-over-year to RMB 1.5 billion from RMB 1.3 billion in the prior year period. Non-GAAP net margin attributable to Vipshop's shareholders increased to 7.0% from 6.3% in the prior year period. Non-GAAP net income attributable to Vipshop's shareholders per diluted ADS increased to RMB 2.98 from RMB 2.47 in the prior year period. As of September 30, 2025, the company had cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash of RMB 25.1 billion and short-term investments of RMB 5.9 billion. Looking forward to the fourth quarter of 2025, we expect our total net revenues to be between RMB 33.2 billion and RMB 34.9 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of approximately 0% to 5%. Please note that this forecast reflects our current and preliminary view of the market and operational conditions, which is subject to change. With that, I would now like to open the call to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Thomas Chong with Jefferies.

[Foreign Language] My first question is about the online shopping competitive landscape. Can management comment about the latest trend as well as the potential impact coming from quick commerce? And my second question is about the monthly GMV momentum quarter-to-date. How is the performance we are seeing in October and November? And how we should think about the 2026 outlook?

[Foreign Language].

Okay. So first, in response to your question on quick e-commerce, I think we are definitely not going into quick e-commerce, but we are looking at what appeals to customers that are attracted to quickly e-commerce and convenience is something that matters, but that matters more in grocery shopping, food delivery and some household essentials that are not spending advance, et cetera, not in apparel-related categories, which consumers typically do not care so much about fast delivery. But anyway, we've made progress with that convenience as part of our worry-free value proposition to customers. I think, for example, there are a few notable things. One is the delivery metrics. Next delivery has been rolled out for certain standardized categories -- products in some cities. Second is accelerating the delivery of apparel products in some key cities. And lastly, the logistics trajectories are actually optimized for customer returns to our warehouses, et cetera. So these efforts are still focused on driving refined supply chain management to support business growth as well as operating efficiency. Secondly, in terms of the recent GMV sales trend, if we look at October and November to date, actually, we are seeing a decent growth momentum. The entire Double 11 promotional period, we actually recorded a decent year-over-year growth. So we are reasonably positive on the business performance of the fourth quarter, which we guided 0% to 5% revenue growth. And for 2026, we do see there are opportunities in off-price retail brands. And we are -- on the other hand, we do expect consumer sentiment tend to normalize a bit more. So we will still have reasonable expectations for growth and -- but we are pursuing a road map for a balanced growth and profitability. So that's the road map for long-term success. That is simply high-quality development.

And our next question is going to come from Alicia Yap with Citigroup.

Management, can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Okay. Yes. [Foreign Language] The first question is, can management elaborate the details changes and the restructuring of your merchandising team? And do these changes help the latest quarter performance? And are these mainly on improving your predictions of the customer preference? Or is it true for improving your relationship on securing better merchandise that fits to your Super VIP members? And how do you anticipate the change? The changes could further help the financial performance? And second question is, can you also elaborate how AI has been helping VIP in terms of your financial growth? Can AI help to target the churn user and also attract them back to VIP platform?

[Foreign Language]. .

Okay. So first, on the recent organizational changes, it's simply that we we've realigned the entire organization for long-term environment. Actually, it's not one department change. It's across the entire organization between -- among different teams, including merchandising, customer operations and technology, et cetera. I think the major purpose of this organization change is to infuse more agility and efficiency into our business model, especially our founders, 2 founders actually are much more hands-on on daily operations. So the teams can make quick decisions and turn these decisions into actions. And also, we've replaced some of the senior leaders of the major merchandising teams with new talent. And so basically, we've refreshed the entire organization, and we make consistent upgrades so that teams can collaborate at new levels to unlock synergies. For example, on the merchandising side, as we mentioned on the call, for some of the divisions, we are trying to build a reshaped assortment, including apparel and nonapparel categories to focus -- to foster cross-category purchases. And on customer engagement, we've actually adopt an integrated approach from marketing growth and engagement so that we can become more efficient to attract and activate and retain customers through a series of adjustments. And also on the technology side, we focus on building the teams into the next phase of technology advancement, et cetera. So we are making -- we are implementing all these changes so that we can always stay ahead of market trends and customer expectations. On the second question about AI, definitely, we are trying to accelerate AI application across our business. Just a simple AI application can be very vital to driving business growth and efficiency. For example, we've added a lot of visualized model background to facilitate customer experience and try and -- virtually try on clothes and making better choices, et cetera. So actually, AI has had brought benefits to conversion directly contributing to sales growth. Also, we've made a lot of efforts on AI advertising. A growing share of our marketing campaigns actually leverage AI-generated content to upgrade marketing creators and media placement. This has actually boosted customer acquisition efficiency. Of course, we are also experimenting with AI agents to be used in solving problems like customer churn out or how to keep customers on our platform, how to improve their customer experience with our platform. We do believe AI has a lot of potential in driving efficiency as well as supporting our long-term growth.

Thank you. And our next question will come from Andre Chang with JPMorgan.

[Foreign Language] I have 2 questions. The first question is about the operation. We noticed the company delivered decent net profit growth in the third quarter. However, the operating profit and operating margin still delivered some decline year-on-year. Now management mentioned before that the increasing GMV and the revenue should help economy scale and the margin recovery. So we want to know when and through whatever the management expects that the operating margin and the operating profit can return to positive year-on-year growth. The second question is about the recent news talking about the management -- the company's thinking about Hong Kong listing. We wonder anything the management can share on this front.

I'm Mark. Thanks for your question. Your first question is regarding our gross margin. And actually, our gross profit margin declined in the third quarter and reflect our efforts to provide more customer incentive and especially for SVIP and other high-value customers and standardized products to maximize sales and revenue growth. And for the longer term, we expect the gross profit margin to be comparable to the level in 2024 and largely stable around 23%, depending on the change of product mix from quarter-to-quarter. So except that, regarding the marketing expenses, we also increased a little bit the marketing expenses to attract more customers. And we think that in the future, those merchandising capabilities and also the AI technology application and also the marketing expenses will also the main trigger for our GMV growth. And for your second question, actually, we have been closely followed the change for the market -- for the capital markets. And if there is any progress, we will update the market.

And our next question will come from Wei Xiong with UBS.

[Operator Instructions] Firstly, we've seen the active customer number and revenue growth have turned positive this quarter. Should we expect continued sequential improvement in the fourth quarter? What are our investment plan and the operational focus for users and for customers at the moment? And how should we think about the user growth and the revenue growth for next year? And secondly, just wondering, are we having any -- do we have -- what are our latest thoughts on the shareholder return program for next year?

[Foreign Language].

So let me first translate our response to your question on customer and revenue growth. for 2026 and beyond. I think for the longer term, we always stay focused on achieving steady growth in customer revenue and earnings. We believe the sustainable and profitable growth model -- revenue growth model should be driven by high-quality growth in customers as well as ARPU. So for the near term, we do expect customer growth will accelerate, for example, in Q4 as compared to Q3 in terms of year-over-year growth. And for 2026, we continue to believe that the revenue growth should be driven by growth in customer number and in addition to ARPU. We've made a lot of efforts in driving customer growth, and we are experimenting with a lot of new ways, whether it's marketing format or channel investment, et cetera. All these efforts are oriented to acquire new customers, high-quality new customers, activate dormant or inactive customers as well as continue to expand our SVIP high-value customer base. So we do have confidence that for the long term, we can drive the top line growth on the basis of both customer growth and ARPU expansion.

Okay. For the second question regarding the total return to shareholders. Our return to growth demonstrate our disciplined capabilities to manage the business to achieve balanced growth. And we are more confident that we can achieve relatively stable and healthy profit and cash flow levels. And for the past, we have returned over USD 3.4 billion to shareholders since April 2021 in the form of buyback and dividend. And for 2025, we are on track with our commitment to returning no less than 75% of the full year 2024 non-GAAP net income to shareholders. And as of the date we published the third quarter results, we have returned a total of over USD 730 million through dividends and buyback. And for the next year, actually, we will continue to invest in our business to grow and improving profit and generate cash to support our dividend payment and buyback. We will evaluate appropriate level next year. Thank you.

And I show no further questions in the queue at this time. I would now like to turn the call back to Jessie for closing remarks.

Thank you for taking the time to join us today. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact our IR team. We look forward to speaking with you next quarter.

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