Atour Lifestyle Holdings Ltd (ATAT) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Atour Lifestyle Holdings fourth-quarter and full-year 2023 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) Today's conference is being recorded.

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Alison Zhang, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you, operator. Good morning and good evening, everyone. Welcome to our fourth-quarter and full-year 2023 earnings call. Today, you will hear from our Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Mr. Wang Haijun; and our Co-Chief Financial Officers, Mr. Wang Shoudong and Mr. Wu Jianfeng.

Before we continue, please be aware that today's discussion will include forward-looking statements under federal securities laws. These statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ significantly from what is stated or implied in our comments today. The company is not obligated to update any forward-looking statements except as required by applicable laws.

Additionally, during this call, our management will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures solely for comparison purposes. For a clear understanding of these measures and a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial results, please refer to the earnings release issued earlier today. Furthermore, a webcast replay of this conference call will be available on our website at ir.yadou.com.

Now I will turn the call over to Mr. Wang, our CEO.

(interpreted) Thank you, Alison. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining Atour's fourth-quarter and full-year 2023 earnings call today. 2023 was an exceptional year for Atour, wherein we unveiled our strategic vision for expanding our portfolio to 2,000 premier hotels nationwide by 2025 and establishing the Chinese Experience as the industry benchmark.

Throughout the year, we worked diligently to enhance digitalization, organization, and corporate culture as well as our management and operations capabilities, which have become the pillars of our sustainable growth as an experience-driven business. Today, our signature Chinese Experience is resonating deeply with people, evoking a profound collective response.

Moreover, we have achieved significant milestones in our hotel network expansion. In 2023, we opened a total of 289 new hotels and signed additional 576 projects, surpassing the targets we set at the beginning of the year and laying a solid foundation for our goal of 2,000 premier hotels by 2025.

2024 is poised to be a year of innovation and breakthroughs as we build on this success. To advance our Chinese Experience strategy, we will remain dedicated to providing our customers with multi-faceted services and exceptional experiences that go beyond accommodation. First, we will promote greater awareness of our cultural inviting and interesting experiences, cultivating lasting bonds with our discerning customers. Second, we aim to establish a virtual cycle fostering seamless customer crossover between retail and accommodation to bring our unique deep-sleep experience to all of our members.

Finally, we will continue to advance digitalization, empowering experiential upgrades and elevating the Chinese Experience to new heights. In terms of our network expansion strategy, we will continue to solidify Atour's leading position in the upper mid-scale market while expanding Atour's brand awareness in the mid-scale market and establish a sustainable, mutually beneficial franchisee ecosystem to help drive our hotel networks' steady growth.

Now I would like to provide more details on our performance for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2023. Let's begin with our hotel business. In the fourth quarter, our RevPAR recovered to 109% of 2019's level, with both ADR and OCC exceeding 2019's level for the fourth consecutive quarter. Specifically, RevPAR's recovery rate for October, November, and December was 109%, 107%, and 110%, respectively, compared with the same periods in 2019.

These results underscore the resilience of our hotel business, which is primarily fueled by business travel demand. Additionally, our mature hotels in operation for more than 18 months performed well during the quarter. Their same-hotel RevPAR recovery rate reached 110% of 2019's level in the fourth quarter, aligning with the overall performance of our hotel business.

Meanwhile, we have assembled a highly competitive development team with an efficient organizational structure and a unified development strategy in core business districts to empower the rapid expansion of our hotel network. In the fourth quarter, we opened another 100 hotels, a record high on a quarterly basis, resulting in a total of 289 new openings for the full year.

As of the end of 2023, we had a total of 1,210 hotels in operation. Furthermore, our new signings remained robust in the fourth quarter, with our pipeline continuing to expand. As of December 31, the number of hotels under development reached 617, representing a 70% year-over-year increase.

Atour Light 3.0, our mid-scale offering, continued to garner market recognition as evidenced by 27 new signings during the fourth quarter, accounting for over 15% of our total new signings for the period. As of the end of 2023, we had a total of 25 Atour Light 3.0 hotels in operation, which progressed swiftly through the ramp-up phase and began demonstrating robust operational performance upon entering the mature stage.

Particularly in the core business districts of higher-tier cities, these hotels have emerged as leaders in both operating performance and customer experiences, highlighting Atour Light 3.0's strength across products, services, and brand influence in the mid-scale market.

Furthermore, we officially established an independent branding department for Atour Light in the fourth quarter, with a primary focus on crafting a differentiated accommodation brand image preferred by young customers. We introduced a series of distinctive services represented by Blue Friends, allowing customers to deeply explore local tourism, cultural, and culinary specialties.

These initiatives and efforts are dedicated to providing each of our Atour Light customers with a simple, pure, and relaxing accommodation experience. In addition, to better cater to young business travelers' preferences, we introduced our innovative, exclusive Atour Light privilege services.

Embracing the concept of life at ease, Atour Light 3.0 fulfills young business travelers' demand for a stylish, personalized, and high-quality accommodation experience and is earning increasing recognition among customers. As the next flagship brand we are propelling towards the 1,000 hotel mark, we are confident in Atour Light 3.0's tremendous potential and firmly believe that it will lead the comprehensive upgrade of China's mid-scale hotel market.

In the upper mid-scale market, we launched Atour 4.0 in November last year, capturing widespread attention and acclaim from the market upon its release. Guided by even more stringent criteria, we have successfully identified a batch of projects within carefully chosen properties across target cities. The very first Atour 4.0 hotel is progressing smoothly and is scheduled to open soon. We are confident that as we gradually unveil Atour 4.0 hotels, they will take our entire upper mid-scale portfolio to the next level.

Moving now to our prime memberships, bolstered by Atour's escalating brand recognition, our membership base grew substantially in the fourth quarter of 2023. As of December 31, our registered members surged by 78% year over year, exceeding 63 million. Furthermore, a key digitalization initiative this year is to seamlessly integrate retail scenarios into our membership benefits, and establish a unified OneID Atour membership, which will ultimately encourage mutual access and growth between these two major business segments.

Moving forward, we will augment premium benefits across all scenarios, unlock value through smooth integration of our corporate and individual membership ecosystems and foster deeper brand collaborations across diverse industries.

Despite the softening of leisure travel demand during the fourth quarter, business travel activity remained solid. Atour, as the preferred brand for business travelers, experienced an increase in room nights sold through our CRS to 65.1% for the fourth quarter and 63.4% for the full year. Coupled with the rapid expansion of our corporate membership, the contribution of room nights sold to corporate members rose to 20.8% in the fourth quarter.

Last but not least, our retail business experienced a dramatic surge in 2023, with full year GMV reaching RMB1.14 billion, approximately 3 times higher than last year. Online sales accounted for over 80% of the total GMV, with significant breakthroughs on content e-commerce platforms. For instance, GMV contributed by Douyin soared to RMB400 million in 2023, a remarkable 16-fold increase compared with the previous year.

Meanwhile, our Deep Sleep products emerged as a market powerhouse in 2023. Throughout the year, our retail business concentrated on sleep scenarios to gain a deep understanding of customers' sleep-related needs and address their sleep difficulties. With the goal of offering customers a relaxing and comfortable sleep experience, Atour Planet's product capabilities continued to strengthen in 2023 with several blockbuster launches in our Deep Sleep series.

Among them, our Deep Sleep Pillow PRO sold over 1.2 million units across the year, topping sales charts in pillow segments on Tmall, Douyin, and JD.com during the Double 11 Shopping Festival. We also maintained our top position as the most mentioned pillow product on Xiaohongshu. Also, our Deep Sleep Temperature Control Quilt, a key addition to Atour Planet's ever-expanding product portfolio, surpassed 100,000 units in sales in 2023. Fueled by our relentless pursuit of innovation and product development, Atour Planet's Deep Sleep portfolio is poised for further expansion.

We made significant strides in our retail business over the past year as we focused on deep-sleep scenarios and curated exceptional experiences. Following our Chinese Experience strategy, we achieved an industry-leading shopping experience across leading third-party platforms. Moreover, by merging retail and accommodation scenarios, we offered our customers the opportunity to experience and enjoy the comfort provided by the Atour Deep Sleep Pillow PRO through our A-PLUS services during their stay with us, which has attracted a vast pool of customers and recorded more than 400,000 orders to date.

Leveraging our invaluable Deep Sleep insights, we maintained our product growth trajectory in 2023, consistently launching premier products finely attuned to the evolving demands of this era. This strategic approach contributed substantially to the record expansion of our retail business. At the same time, we boosted our efforts across brand building and upgrades as well as product development.

Drawing upon extensive feedback from our members' real sleep experiences, we continually optimize our Deep Sleep offerings, thereby amplifying our brand and product strength. As we move into 2024, our focus will remain on brand-driven growth and establishing a comprehensive brand value continuum. We will continue to enhance our products' competitive edge and expand product categories, utilizing our efficient product development mechanism providing our customers with diverse and superior sleep products.

Furthermore, we intend to propel synergistic development between our retail and hotel businesses, leveraging our hotels to create a closed-loop experiential ecosystem that will allow our customers to engage in a truly immersive sleep experience during their stays.

Over the past year, we have witnessed a gradual recovery in domestic business travel demand coupled with explosive growth in leisure travel. Looking into 2024, we expect a sustained upward momentum in business travel and the popularity of experience-driven leisure tourism to persist. As a leading upper mid-scale hotel chain in China, Atour's unique neighborhood-style services and innovative deep-sleep experience will continue to provide customers with unparalleled accommodation experiences, further enriching Atour's brand value and expanding the mindshare of the Chinese Experience.

Now I'll turn the call over to our co-CFO, Mr. Wu Jianfeng, to discuss our financial results.

Thank you, Haijun. Now I would like to present the company's financial performance for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2023. Our net revenues for the fourth quarter of 2023 grew by 140.4% year over year and 16.3% quarter over quarter to RMB1,505 million. Net revenues for the full-year 2023 increased by 106.2% year over year to RMB4,666 million. The strong increases were driven by the robust growth in both hotel and retail businesses.

Revenue from our manachised hotels for the fourth quarter were RMB851 million, up by 133.3% year over year and 9.0% quarter over quarter. For full year 2023, revenue from our manachised hotels increased by 98.8% year over year to RMB2,706 million. The increases were primarily fueled by the ongoing expansion of our hotel network and the increase in RevPAR. The total number of manachised hotels increased to 1,178 as of December 31, 2023, up by 31.0% year over year and 9.1% quarter over quarter, while RevPAR recovered to RMB353 and RMB371 for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2023, respectively.

Revenues contributed by our leased hotels for the fourth quarter were RMB195 million, representing an increase of 40.4% year over year and a decrease of 18.1% quarter over quarter. For full year 2023, revenues from our leased hotels increased by 51.9% year over year to RMB880 million (sic - see Press Release, "RMB840 million"). The increases were primarily due to the increase in RevPAR, which recovered to RMB495 and RMB517 for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2023, respectively. The quarter-over-quarter decrease was mainly due to the seasonality and the closure of one leased hotel in September.

Revenue from the retail business for the fourth quarter increased by 315.6% year over year and 75.3% quarter over quarter to RMB412 million. For full-year 2023, revenues from our retail business increased by 283.2% year over year to RMB972 million. The increases were attributable to widespread recognition of our retail brands and compelling product offerings as well as improved product development and distribution capabilities.

Now let's move to costs and expenses. Our hotel operating costs for the fourth quarter increased by 106.0% year over year and 18.9% quarter over quarter to RMB733 million. The year-over-year increase was mainly due to the increase in variable costs, such as supply chain costs associated with the ongoing expansion of our hotel network.

The quarter-over-quarter increase was mainly due to an impairment loss of RMB47 million from our leased hotel booked in the fourth quarter of 2023 compared with RMB13 million booked in the previous quarter. Hotel operating costs for full-year 2023 were RMB2,241 million, an increase of 60.8% year over year. Gross margin for our hotel businesses was 29.9% and 36.8% for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2023, respectively, compared with 29.3% and 27.2% for the same periods of 2022.

Retail costs for the fourth quarter increased by 295.4% year over year to RMB232 million. For full-year 2023, retail costs increased by 238.1% year over year to RMB513 million. The increase was associated with the rapid growth of our retail business. Gross margin of our retail business was 43.7% and 47.2% for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2023, respectively, compared with 40.8% and 40.1% for the same period of 2022. The increases were attributable to increasing contribution from higher-margin online sales.

Selling and marketing expenses for the fourth quarter of 2023 increased by 283.2% year over year to RMB207 million. Selling and marketing expenses for full-year 2023 increased by 235.6% year over year to RMB470 million. The increases were mainly due to our increased investment in brand awareness and online channel development associated with our retail business.

General and administrative expenses for the fourth quarter of 2023 were RMB105 million, including RMB2 million share-based compensation expenses, compared with RMB217 million, including RMB160 million share-based compensation expenses for the same period of 2022. For full-year 2023, general and administrative expenses were RMB451 million, including RMB162 million share-based compensation expenses, compared with RMB350 million, including RMB160 million share-based compensation expenses for full-year 2022.

The increases, excluding the impact from share-based compensation, was primarily due to the increased costs related to management personnel and professional services expenses. Technology and development expenses for the fourth quarter of 2023 increased by 39.7% year over year to RMB22 million. Technology and development expenses for full-year 2023 increased by 16.8% year over year to RMB77 million.

Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter of 2023 was RMB251 million, up by 116.1% year over year. Adjusted net income for the fourth quarter increased by 175.8% year over year to RMB222 million. Adjusted net profit margin for full-year 2023 was 19.4%, up by 8 percentage points year over year.

The significant increase in gross profit margin in both our hotel and retail businesses, along with our optimizing operating leverage, led to an improvement in the group's overall net profit margin. Notably, we have maintained a healthy cash position with stable growth momentum. As of December 31, 2023, our cash and cash equivalents totaled RMB2.8 billion. Among them, net cash was approximately RMB2.8 billion.

That concludes our financial highlights for the fourth quarter and the full-year 2023. With that, let's open for Q&A.

(Operator Instructions) Lydia Ling, Citi.

(spoken in foreign language) Hi, management. This is Lydia from Citi. So congratulations on the results. And so my question is mainly focused on the growth outlook for 2024. And so basically, first is on Light Hotel opening plan and we saw, actually, Light further growth in the pipeline in fourth quarter. So what would be your spot opening plan for this year?

And the second part is on the RevPAR trend, which actually rebounded well last year. So what's your latest expectation for RevPAR trend for this year and also your revenue guidance? And if any color on the first quarter trend, that will be very helpful. And as the Qingming and the Labor Day holiday is approaching, so what will be your expectation on the RevPAR performance for these two holidays?

And so lastly is on the margin trend. And so what would be your latest guidance looking into the 2024? And we see some actual increase in the Light expect ratio in the fourth quarter, so what would be your expectation for the Light 2024? Thank you.

(interpreted) Thanks, Lydia. Let me answer your question on the new openings. In 2023, we opened 289 new hotels, and the total number of hotels in operation by the end of the year was 1,210. And that was a 30% increase. And we aim to keep that growth rate as well in this year. So this year, our target for new openings would reach 360. And among those 360, about 200 to 220 will be Atour hotels, while 60 to 80 will be Atour Light hotels. And all of this would help us to march towards the 2,000 premier hotels by the year of 2025, and that is our goal.

Okay. Now Lydia, let me try to answer your second and third question. First, regarding the development trend of RevPAR, well, from the perspective of RevPAR structure, this year, we will maintain a 30% growth rate of new hotel openings as those new hotels will account for a relatively higher proportion than those of our peers. Meanwhile, the expansion momentum of our mid-scale offering, Atour Light, was strong.

And that means with more Atour Light hotels to open, they may have a certain impact on our overall RevPAR. And considering what we already have from Q1's data and taking some uncertainties in the external environment into account, overall, we hold a cautiously optimistic attitude for this year's RevPAR growth. We aim to match last year's RevPAR levels.

And as for the Qingming and May 1 holidays, looking from the reservation data we have, we've seen some very active traffics. And obviously, they're going to turn out to be pretty nice results for those two holidays. And also, let me try to update our revenue guidance a little bit as well. As in revenue with the rapid development of both our accommodation and the retail business, we expect 2024's full-year revenue to grow by around 30%.

One more note on revenue, that 30% growth will be a leading growth across the industry. And as for profit, we have the confidence to improve it in each of our business segments, along with our cost structural optimizations and the increase of management and operation efficiency. However, our overall profit margin may be subjected to changes in the contribution of each revenue streams. We do expect our profit margin to continue with the trend of a relatively stable and moderate growth. Thank you.

Thank you, Lydia. Let's have next question.

Sijie Lin, CICC.

(spoken in foreign language) So I'll translate my question to English. Thank you, management. We have talked about the new opening. I have a follow-up question on the new signing. So what's the target of the new signing this year? And what's the progress in Q1? And do we see obvious changing the franchisees' confidence and interest since this year? Thank you.

(interpreted) Thank you, Sijie, for your question. As for new signings, we signed 576 projects in the full year of 2023, which was an outstanding performance. And now entering Q1 2024, we have maintained that strong momentum on signings overall. And as we see it, the franchise market is still active. In 2024, we are confident that by leveraging Atour's growing brand influence and with our newly launched product competitiveness, more franchisees are to be attracted into Atour's system for certain.

Thank you, Sijie. Let's have next question.

Dan Xu, Morgan Stanley.

(spoken in foreign language) My question is about scenario-based retail business. You reported a very exceptional performance last year. I would like to ask about the management's 2024 strategic plan on this segment, especially on your product plans. And also, any rough revenue guidance contribute to the total revenue 30% year-over-year growth revenue guidance? Thank you.

(interpreted) Well, thank you, Dan, for your question. Retail business as our second growth driver has achieved outstanding results in 2023 with a full-year revenue of RMB970 million, accounting for 20.8% of our total revenue. In 2024, we will continue to drive the healthy growth of retail business and to keep on strengthening the building of our basic capacity to further focus on the brand and our products.

And in terms of branding, we do have the plan to focus on Atour Planet and our Deep Sleep products. We will consistently improve our R&D capability for retail products to further tap into the Deep Sleep categories. In 2023, we availed of the momentum from three pillow products with 100 million sales each, successfully launched our Deep Sleep Temperature Control Quilt, which had won the consumers' favor and very decent sales. In this year's March 21 -- I mean, 2024's March 21, on the World Sleep Day, we launched yet another new product. The Atour Planet Deep Sleep Summer Cool Quilt as a continuous expansion of our product portfolio.

At the same time, we will also continue to strengthen the combination of retail business and our accommodation scenarios to place more Deep Sleep products into our Atour hotels this year to create an immersive deep sleep experience scenario for our consumers and to keep on strengthening the mindshare of Atour Deep Sleep experience.

And you probably have noticed that beginning with this latest financial report, we started to disclose information of the retail business as an independent business unit. We also plan to enhance the fundamental capabilities in retail, including capabilities in organization, R&D, data infrastructure, channels, et cetera. We try to build a solid foundation for our longer-term steady growth. Since the beginning of 2024, our retail business continued its positive momentum, and we do expect 2024's full-year retail revenue to grow more than 50% reaching RMB1.45 billion. Thank you.

Thank you, Dan. Let's have next question.

Xin Chen, UBS.

(spoken in foreign language) This is Xin Chen from UBS. I have two questions. The first is that I have noticed that the effective tax rate has decreased significantly in the fourth quarter. May I know the main reason? The second question is that -- about the company's plan on the use of cash. Is the company considering about raising dividend payout or share buyback to increase the shareholder returns? Thank you.

(interpreted) Well, thank you, Mr. Chen. As for the taxation question, we do have an entity which enjoyed preferential tax policies in 2023, and there was a one-off tax exemption in the fourth quarter. As for your second question on cash utilization, well, thanks to our robust business growth and our asset-light mode, the group's cash flow maintained healthy growth.

On December 31 last year, our group's net cash and short-term investment at banks reached a total of RMB3.5 billion. And in this year, we will thoroughly consider various means and different ways of rewarding the shareholders such as dividend payout, share buybacks, et cetera, to continuously enhance the efficiency of our cash utilization. Thank you.

Thank you, and we can take one more question.

Candice Zhang, Bank of America.

(spoken in foreign language) Thanks for the opportunity to raise my questions. This is Candice Zhang from Bank of America. My questions are specifically on Atour Light 4.0. Management has just shared hotel openings target for 2024. Would you have any goals for new signings of Atour Light 3.0 in this year? And how is the performance and current operation status of those open hotels? Lastly, can management share their views on the competitive landscape of the mid-scale hotel segment overall? Thank you.

(interpreted) Well, thank you, Candice. Atour Light 3.0 is our mid-scale offering targeting young business travelers, and it has been quite popular with the franchisees since its launch in February last year, evidenced by more than 90 new signings in 2023. Atour Light 3.0 focus is on core business districts in higher-tier cities, aiming to set a benchmark for quality in the mid-scale hotel segment.

And by now, we had Atour Light 3.0 hotels opened in 21 cities, including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, all with quite decent operational performance. For instance, the average RevPAR for our exemplary hotel, the Atour Light Hotel at Guangzhou Pazhou Exhibition Canton Tower Subway Station, since its opening in November last year, it has exceeded RMB600 in its RevPAR, far exceeding the performance of the surrounding competitors.

And regarding your second question on the competition in the mid-scale market. We believe that the scale of this market has been verified already. Because with Atour Light 3.0's design catering to the aesthetic feel of the young people and the consistent service experience we offer, it can well match the young business travelers' need for high-quality accommodation experience, and it has been successfully recognized by the consumers.

And as I previously said, the operation performance of Atour Light 3.0 hotels are very competitive in their business districts. And the advantage in the cycle of return on investment is quite obvious. We believe that with its powerful competitiveness and the extensive market recognition, Atour Light is poised to become our second brand within Atour Group to hit the scale of 1,000 hotels. Thank you.

And that concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Alison Zhang for any additional or closing comments.

Thank you for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact our IR team. We look forward to reconnecting with you next quarter. Thank you and goodbye.

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

Portions of this transcript that are marked (interpreted) were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call. The interpreter was provided by the company sponsoring this event.