A few days ago, Beijing Youbao Online Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Youbao"), an unmanned retail operator, submitted a listing prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, starting the journey to Hong Kong for listing.
This is not the first time Youbao has hit the secondary market.As early as February 2016, Youbao was listed on the New Third Board, but it was delisted three years later.During this period, Youbao also sought to be listed on the A-share Growth Enterprise Market, and signed a listing counseling agreement with CITIC Construction Investment Securities at the end of 2016, and then terminated the Growth Enterprise Market IPO counseling in February 2021.
From the perspective of equity structure, before the IPO, Wang Bin, founder of Youbao, and Chen Kunrong, who acted in concert, held a total of 21.99% of the shares, making them the largest shareholder; Shanghai Yunxin Venture Capital Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ant Group, held shares. 16.68%, the second largest shareholder.What is the quality of Youbao, who is backed by a giant?
The proportion of revenue from smart retail business is increasing year by year, contributing 70% of revenue in 2021
According to the official website information, Youbao was established in 2011. It owns smart retail products including Youbao smart containers, Youbao smart vending machines, Youka, Yousing KTV, etc., and provides customers with operations, advertising, marketing and other services.So far, it has deployed in more than 300 cities at home and abroad, operating more than 100,000 smart retail terminals.
According to the prospectus, from 2019 to 2021, Youbao's revenue was 2.727 billion yuan, 1.902 billion yuan, and 2.676 billion yuan respectively, showing a "V"-shaped trend as a whole, but the revenue in 2021 is still slightly lower than the level in 2019.
Youbao's revenue mainly comes from four parts: smart retail business, supply chain operation services, digital value-added services and other businesses (including mini KTV services, etc.).Among them, smart retail is its revenue pillar.
From 2019 to 2021, Youbao's smart retail business revenue was 1.54 billion yuan, 1.337 billion yuan, and 1.915 billion yuan, accounting for 56.5%, 70.3% and 71.6% of total revenue, showing a trend of increasing year by year. .
Youbao's revenue share of smart retail business is increasing year by year, which is not unrelated to its point-digit growth.According to the prospectus, from 2019 to 2021, the number of Youbao points will increase from 47,700 units to 102,700 units, with a compound annual growth rate of 29.1%.
As of December 31, 2021, Youbao had more than 102,700 vending machine locations in 288 cities in 31 provincial-level administrative regions across the country, of which 81.3% were concentrated in first-tier, new first-tier and second-tier cities.From the perspective of consumption scenarios, schools and factories are the main locations covered by Youbao.
Losses in the past two years have exceeded 1.37 billion yuan, and profit margins and gross profit margins have fluctuated in a V-shape
According to the prospectus, from 2019 to 2021, Youbao's net profits were 39.649 million yuan, -1.184 billion yuan, and -188 million yuan; adjusted net profits were 39.649 million yuan, -815 million yuan, and -170 million yuan, respectively. , the overall volatility is relatively large, and the trend is consistent with the revenue.
In other words, after Youbao turned from profit to loss in 2020, it will still be in a loss situation in 2021, but the loss has narrowed significantly year-on-year.Obviously, under the influence of the epidemic, Youbao's performance has fluctuated greatly in recent years.
In this regard, Youbao explained in the prospectus that due to the impact of the epidemic, the public venues where many of the company's vending machines and mini KTVs were closed, and the passenger flow and sales activities were negatively affected, which had a significant impact on its business.
From the perspective of profit margins, in the past three years, Youbao's net profit margin/loss margin, adjusted profit margin/loss margin, and adjusted EBITDA margin have also moved out of the "V" shape.
According to the prospectus, from 2019 to 2021, the net profit margin/loss ratio of Youbao will be 1.5%, -62.3% and -7%, respectively, and the adjusted profit margin will be 1.5%, -42.8% and -6.4%, respectively. Adjusted EBITDA margins were 11.7%, -25% and 2.5%, respectively.
In addition, according to the prospectus, from 2019 to 2021, the company's gross profit margins were 48.7%, 29.4% and 41.1%, respectively.This means that after a sharp decline in Youbao's gross profit margin in 2020, it has basically recovered to the level of 2019 in 2021.
In general, in addition to revenue, Youbao's core indicators such as profit, profit margin and gross profit margin all fluctuated in a V-shaped manner under the influence of the epidemic.
Sales and marketing expenses remain high, with partner operations exceeding 80% last year
In fact, Youbao turned from profit to loss in 2020, not only affected by the epidemic, but also related to its high sales and marketing expenses.
According to the prospectus, from 2019 to 2021, Youbao’s sales and marketing expenses were 1.024 billion, 1.084 billion and 1.077 billion respectively.Among them, the point operation and development expenses account for more than half, which is the largest component of this part of the expenses.
According to Youbao, point operation and development expenses mainly refer to the expenses paid or payable to point suppliers and point partners for the maintenance and expansion of Youbao point network.
It is reported that in order to mitigate the negative impact of the epidemic on the company, Youbao has shifted its marketing efforts to a partner model by introducing more point partners for its smart retail business to stabilize profit margins and mitigate the impact of outages.Since 2020, Youbao has changed its focus from the direct sales model to the partner model.
According to the prospectus, as of December 31, 2019, 2020 and 2021, Youbao had more than 63,400, 58,400 and 85,100 points nationwide respectively, of which 17.16%, 68.53% and 83.96% respectively. It operates under the partnership model.By the end of 2021, Youbao has cooperated with over 20,000 point partners, operating 71,480 points.
From 2019 to 2021, the revenue of Youbao from the smart retail business under the partnership model was RMB 250 million, RMB 762 million and RMB 1.479 billion, accounting for 9.2%, 40.1% and 55.3% of the total revenue, respectively.
The importance of points and partners to Youbao is self-evident.However, Youbao frankly pointed out in the prospectus that if the company cannot maintain the current scale of the partnership model, retain existing partners or attract new partners, or reduce the business scale of the partners, then its Network expansion plans may be disrupted, which could materially and adversely affect the company's business, financial condition and results of operations.
