Chinese concept financial report season: Manbang (YMM.US) submitted 2023 revenue and net profit to achieve a new high, and achieved profit for two consecutive fiscal years.

On March 7, the digital freight platform Manbang Group (YMM.US) released its fourth quarter and full-year performance report for the period ending December 31, 2023 before the US stock market opened. In the fourth quarter of 2023, Manbang achieved operating revenue of 24.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.3%, and a net profit of 7.3 billion yuan under non-US accounting standards, a year-on-year increase of 64.4%. For the full year of 2023, Manbang achieved record high operating revenue and net profit under non-US accounting standards. During the reporting period, operating revenue reached 84.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.3%, and the net profit under non-US accounting standards was approximately 28.0 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 100.4%, doubling from the previous year and significantly improving profitability. The financial report disclosed that in 2023, Manbang enhanced shareholder equity through continuous repurchases. As of the financial report release, Manbang had repurchased 30.67 million ADS shares from the open market, valued at approximately 200 million US dollars. Profit achieved for two consecutive full financial years The financial report shows that Manbang achieved a net profit of 22.3 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 440.7%, with impressive growth rate. The net profit for the same period last year was 4.1 billion yuan, marking the first annual profit since going public in 2021. By the end of the 2023 financial year, Manbang had achieved profitability for two consecutive full financial years. Trend of digital logistics replacing traditional logistics deepens with strong demand Manbang held an earnings conference call before the market opening, where the management team revealed that various operating data on the platform reached record highs in the fourth quarter of 2023. In terms of user data, the monthly active shipper reached 2.24 million, a year-on-year increase of nearly 19% to a historic high. Among them, the number of direct shipper customers continued to increase, with the increment mainly coming from low-frequency direct customers who are non-members. The number of active drivers in the past 12 months reached 3.88 million. The scale of users on both the shipper and carrier sides continued to expand. Digging deeper into the shipper side, as the platform penetration rate of high-quality direct shipper customers increased, the structure of shipper users continued to improve, driving up the fulfillment rate. In the fourth quarter, the proportion of fulfillment orders from direct shipper customers exceeded 45% for the first time, reaching a historical high. In terms of fulfillment data, the fulfillment orders in the fourth quarter reached 45.8 million, a year-on-year increase of over 40%, with a fulfillment rate of 32%, reaching a historical high. For the full year of 2023, fulfillment orders reached 160 million, a year-on-year increase of 33.4%. The continuous growth in user scale and order quantity reflects strong user demand, which aligns with the current trend of small and medium-sized enterprises increasingly seeking more efficient and cost-effective online logistics solutions. Compared to developed countries, China's social logistics costs as a proportion of GDP are relatively high, and logistics efficiency is low. In February of this year, the Central Finance and Economic Committee's fourth meeting emphasized the need to effectively reduce the overall social logistics costs, remove bottlenecks, and promote the development of new models such as platform economy and digital logistics. The management of Manbang believes that the platform's operational data confirms the overall trend of China's road logistics shifting from traditional inefficient offline models to cost-effective and efficient online models. As the trend of digital logistics replacing traditional logistics deepens, Manbang, as a platform that has been deeply cultivating for many years and has both advantages in pioneering and economies of scale, is in a development opportunity, and its growth space is worth paying attention to. Improving operations highlights the network effect flywheel The management of Manbang stated that in 2023, the platform continued to promote the online, digital, and intelligent development of the road freight industry while responding to the overall trend of efficiency improvement and cost reduction in the freight industry. The platform observed the urgent demand from millions of small and medium-sized enterprises in China for high-quality, highly flexible, cost-effective, and comprehensive service-oriented transportation capacity supply, and focused on building a one-stop logistics platform. By refining product features and improving operational efficiency, the platform can better empower small and medium-sized enterprise users with digital technology, effectively reduce their logistics costs, and bring better profits to their business flow. In terms of operations, the platform launched product features for simplified shipping and efficient transactions, effectively reducing the entry barriers for new direct customer users, further driving the growth of new users; the platform upgraded the driver tiered operating system, continuously optimizing transaction efficiency through rights incentives and precise matching, and promoting the continuous improvement of transportation capacity quality. At the same time, penetration rates of services modules such as Manbaobao, finance, insurance, energy, ETC continued to expand, forming a synergistic effect with matching businesses to serve diverse user needs. Leveraging its large and continuously growing user base, it jointly forms a growth flywheel of network effects, driving the platform to continuously achieve excellent performance. Attracting top institutions to increase holdings According to the latest 13-F filings from institutions, Norwegian Bank and Invesco, among other top long-term institutional investors, were at the forefront of increasing their holdings in Manbang in the fourth quarter. Norwegian Bank (whose managed investment institution NBIM is one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds) re-established its position in Manbang and increased its holdings, with a stake of approximately 1%. Invesco continued to be bullish on Manbang's business prospects this quarter and increased its holdings for three consecutive quarters. The combined holdings of these two long-term institutions amounted to nearly 3 billion US dollars.