Lyon: Maintaining a market outperform rating on ZTO EXPRESS-W (02057), upgraded earnings forecast for this year and next.

Lyon released a research report stating that Zhongtong Express (02057, ZTO.US) saw a year-on-year increase of 11% in third-quarter revenue and 7% in adjusted net profit. The adjusted net profit per order is about 0.27 RMB, an improvement from 0.21 RMB in the second quarter, as the core cost per order is expected to increase by only 0.02 RMB due to the new transit center coming into operation. Lyon maintains its "outperform the market" rating, with a target price of 152 Hong Kong dollars for the Hong Kong stock and a target price of 20 US dollars for the US stock. The bank pointed out that the industry's expectation of policies against internal competition will continue to be implemented, and it believes that regulatory authorities will continue to strictly control vicious price competition by setting price floors. Considering that Zhongtong's customer structure is better than its peers, Lyon expects the company's market share to rebound next year, and has slightly increased its net profit forecast for 2025 and 2026 by 2%.