Tuniu Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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August 6, 2024

There are 5 speakers on the call.

Operator

Hello and thank you for standing by for Tuniu's 2024 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time.

Operator

I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's conference call, Director of Investor Relations. Mary?

Speaker 1

Thank you, and welcome to our 2024 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Joining me on the call today are Donald Wu, Tuniu's Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Anshian Chen, Tuniu's Financial Controller. For today's agenda, management will discuss business updates, operation highlights and financial performance for the Q2 of 2024. Before we continue, I refer you to our safe harbor statement in the earnings press release, which applies to this call as we will make forward looking statements. Also, this call includes discussions of certain non GAAP financial measures.

Speaker 1

Please refer to our earnings release, which contains a reconciliation of non GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Finally, please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during this conference call are in RMB. I would now like to turn the call over to our Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Donald Yu.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Mary. Good day, everyone. Welcome to our Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call. In the Q2, our business continued to maintain healthy growth with revenue from packaged tours to new core business increasing by 29% year over year. We also saw further improvement in our profitability with net income reaching a quarterly record high since our listing, up to RMB 43,000,000.

Speaker 2

During this quarter, the domestic travel market maintained steady growth with the number of trips booked during the 3 holiday periods increasing year over year. And with the full opening of overseas destinations and the availability of diverse product offerings, the outbound travel market continued to grow rapidly compared to last year with new popular destinations and the roads emerging. It is clear that tourism has increasingly become an essential part of many people's lives. Tuniu continues to steadfastly adhere to our mission of making travel easier and focusing on customer needs. We will continue to enhance our products, services and sales to offer more travel options, ensuring customers have an exceptional trip experience.

Speaker 2

In the Q2, we continued to strengthen our in house product development. Our new tour products maintained their high quality service, adding more destinations and new roles. In the Q2, the transaction volume of new tour products increased by more than 40 percent year over year. The primary customer base for our new tour products are middle to upper class customers, many of whom are senior travelers who value experience over price. Focusing on this growth, we have continuously upgraded new tours, offering small growth, higher standards for accommodation and dining, and more local sightseeing and restaurant options.

Speaker 2

For some of our outbound products, we employ local tour guides who speak Chinese, providing a more authentic cultural experience for our guests. By providing a constantly excellent customer experience, new tour products have built a large base of high quality repeat customers with a repurchase rate twice that of regular products. At the same time, we continue to partner with 3rd party suppliers who have made significant contributions to diverse our products and destinations, especially for outbound travel markets. In terms of sales, we focus on our own channels while maintaining open cooperation with various partners. As a customer focused company, Tuniu has long had a membership program specifically designed to serve our repeat customers.

Speaker 2

In addition to regular benefits, we hold a monthly membership day and occasional offline events to interact with our customers and gather feedback on our products and services. Those plays in the 2nd quarter, repeat customers contributed over 65% of the company's transaction volume. Meanwhile, we continued to attract new customers through various channels such as new media, offline stores and partnerships with high traffic online platforms. During the Q2, our live streaming channels maintained triple digit growth and the transaction volume of our offline stores increased over 80% year over year. Additionally, we collaborated with Jingdong Travel, Alipay Transport and others to boost the sales of other travel related products.

Speaker 2

Regarding live streaming channels, as the internet continues to develop and the user demand evolve, Information is increasingly consumed via video content as opposed to text and images. With users now frequently watching live streaming shows and short videos, Adapting to these changes in behavior is essential to maintaining our competitive edge. In the second quarter, we expanded our live streaming channels on both 2 new app and the mini program to adapt to changes in user habits. Also, we strengthened the expansion of new media channels such as more content placement on the little red book. In terms of products, we broadened the variety and the destination coverage of our live streaming product offerings, such as organized tour products at destinations and theme park packaged tours.

Speaker 2

For technology, our products now use system based verification, which significantly improves speed and accuracy compared to manual verification and enhancing the customer experience, leveraging our optimized product selection process and improved verification capabilities. The verification and the sales rate of our live streaming products has increased significantly. During the quarter, both the total payments volume and verification volume from our live streaming channels increased over 200% year over year. The contribution of live streaming channels to the company continued to rise and achieve quarterly net income again. We have also been pleased to share our expertise and accumulated experience in new media operations with our partners and jointly promote the development of the travel industry.

Speaker 2

We have assisted some destinations in using new media stores for marketing. And we have also collaborated with schools to establish internship programs providing practical opportunities for students and jointly cultivating talent with skills in both tourism and the new media, providing employment opportunities and benefiting the industry as a whole. In conclusion, with the arrival of the summer peak season, the travel industry is entering its busiest time. Tuniu is excited to meet the opportunity with more diverse products and higher quality services as we look forward to deliver strong value for our shareholders going forward. I'll now turn the call over to Anshan, our Financial Controller for the financial highlights.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Donald. Hello, everyone. Now, I will walk you through our Q2 of 2024 financial results in greater detail. Please note that all the monetary amounts are in RMB unless otherwise stated. You can find the U.

Speaker 3

S. Dollar equivalents of the numbers in our earnings release. For the Q2 of 2024, net revenues were 116,900,000, representing a year over year increase of 17% from the corresponding period in 2023. Revenues from packaged tours were up 29% year over year to $89,800,000 and accounted for 77 percent of our total net revenues for the quarter. The increase was primarily due to the growth of organized tours.

Speaker 3

Other revenues were down 10% year over year to $27,200,000 and accounted for 23% of our total net revenues. The decrease was primarily due to the decrease in commission fees received from other travel related products and revenues generated from financial services. Gross profit for the Q2 of 2024 was $84,400,000 up 29% year over year. Operating expenses for the Q2 of 2024 were 49,900,000, down 15% year over year. Net gain on disposals of subsidiaries, which was allocated to operating expenses, was 24 point $6,000,000 in the Q2 of 2024.

Speaker 3

Research and product development expenses for the Q2 of 2024 were $12,700,000 down 8% year over year. The decrease was primarily due to the decrease in research and product development personnel related expenses. Sales and marketing expenses for the Q2 of 2024 were RMB40,200,000 up 61% year over year. The increase was primarily due to the increase in promotion expenses and sales and marketing personnel related expenses. General and administrative expenses for the Q2 of 2024 was RMB21,700,000, which was in line with general and administrative expenses in the Q2 of 2023.

Speaker 3

Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders of Tuniu Corporation was RMB 43,000,000 in the Q2 of 2024. Non GAAP net income attributable to ordinary shareholders of Tuniu Corporation, which included share based compensation expenses, amortization of acquired intangible assets and net gain on disposals of subsidiaries was RMB20.8 million in the Q2 of 2024. As of June 30, 2024, the Company had cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash and short term investments of RMB1.3 billion. Cash flow generated from operations for the Q2 of 2024 was $105,300,000 Capital expenditures for the Q2 of 2024 were 8 point 5 million. For the Q3 of 2024, the company is expected to generate $183,500,000 to $118,000,000

Speaker 2

to $192,400,000

Speaker 3

of net revenues, which represents a 3% to 8% increase year over year. Please note that this forecast refers to new current and preliminary view on the industry and its operations, which is subject to change. Thank you all for listening. We are now ready for your questions. Operator?

Operator

Our first question comes from Coco Lin. Please go ahead, sir.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Hi, management. First of all, congratulations on this quarter's performance. For the Q2, what are the proportions of and outbound tourism in revenues respectively? And how about the recovery of outbound tourism?

Speaker 4

Are there any changes in top outbound destinations? And for the Q3, what are the primary reasons behind the slowdown in revenue growth? Can you share some trends of this summer's tourism market? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you for the questions. In the second quarter, domestic tours comprised about 70% of the total GMV and outbound tours comprised a bit more than 30%, compared to a bit less than 30% in the previous quarter. The proportion didn't change much from last quarter, because the Q2 is usually good for domestic tours due to the 3 national holidays. Domestic tours maintained steady growth this quarter as people in few design for traveling remain high. But considering the length of the holiday, self drive tours and city walks were prevailing, especially in Qingming and the Zhuangwu holiday.

Speaker 2

For outbound travel, although the Q2 is not a peak season, it still increased at a high year over year rate, mainly due to more choices of destinations and products compared to last year. Breakdown to destinations, Southeast Asia has entered off season since April due to hot and rainy weather. Japan was one of the star destinations in the Q2 due to mixed reasons such as pent up demand, Sakura season and the favorable exchange rate. Long distance outbound trips are usually not as popular as short distance trips in the Q2, but Europe became our top outbound destination. In this quarter, we strengthened our supply capacity and launched more new tour products.

Speaker 2

Currently, our new tour products cover most of the popular countries throughout Europe. We also increased coverage of our departing cities, providing more options for travelers from various parts of China. For the summer vacation, the market surges on a quarter over quarter basis due to seasonality. But compared to the strong growth last summer, the market grows moderately this summer. With the release of 3 year pent up demand and a few choices of outbound destinations, domestic travel market was exceptionally thriving during last summer, which formed a high base.

Speaker 2

This year, we see trends towards more self guided tours in domestic market. People tend to book more flexible products such as transportation or hotel plus x products. And the destination based package tools may become one of the choices of X. People also have more choices of products this year with the recovery of supply chain, especially for outbound travel products. For example, overseas islands have entered off season in summer, which offers favorable prices and attracted many tourists.

Speaker 2

Outbound tours will have a higher increase rate than domestic tours. But considering that some of the demands have already been released last year, the outbound travel market will incur a step by step increase instead of drastic recovery. Under the influence of overseas flight, product price and exchange rate, generally speaking, compared to the first half of the year, our top line will grow at a lower rate in the Q3, but we are still confident with the bottom line to achieve another profitable quarter. Thank you.

Operator

We are now approaching to the end of the conference call. I will now turn the conference over to Tuniu's Director of Investor Relations, Mary, for closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Once again, thank you for joining us today. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions.

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.

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