LightInTheBox Holding Co., Ltd. Q1 FY2021 Earnings Call

Good morning, everyone and welcome to the First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call for LightInTheBox Holding Company Limited. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Rene Vanguestaine for opening remarks and instructions. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, Annie. Hello, everyone and welcome to LightInTheBox first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. The company’s earnings results were released earlier today and are available on the company’s IR website as well as through PR Newswire. Today, you will hear from LightInTheBox CEO, Mr. Jian He, who will give an overview of the company’s strategies and recent developments, followed by Ms. Yuan Jun Ye, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, who will go over financial results. Together with them today is Wenyu Liu, the company’s Chief Growth Officer. All will be available for Q&A at the end of this presentation. Before we proceed, I would like to remind you of our Safe Harbor statement. Please note that the discussion today may contain certain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. To understand the factors that could cause results to materially differ from those in the forward-looking statements, please refer to our Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21, 2021. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law. At this point, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. He. Mr. He, please go ahead.

Thanks, Rene and thank you everyone for joining us today. We have a very solid first quarter, kickstarting the year with revenue of $105 million, up 118% from the same period of 2020 and in line with our prior guidance. As we continue to execute our established strategy, we are pleased to see growth across all of our major operating regions. Our gross profit margin in Q1 was 42.6%, largely flat compared with the same period of 2020, while adjusted EBITDA grew by close to 60% year-over-year. Product sales increased 119% compared to Q1 last year and revenues from apparel increased 166%. Among all categories, apparel remains the largest, contributing 53% of total product sales in Q1 compared to 43% in Q1 last year. This category has a full spectrum ranging from adult fashion, casual wear, sportswear, children’s clothes, and so on, which covers customers’ daily needs for various occasions. We have been leveraging technology to improve operational decisions and build a strong foundation for cross-border e-commerce. R&D spending came to $4.9 million in Q1 2021 compared with $3.5 million in the same quarter last year. As we continue to invest in R&D, we gain better insights into our customers’ needs and wants, which drive improvements in the supply chain, maintenance of product quality, design, and production cycle. We can also be more proactive to the faster-changing and diversified consumer needs with the help of technology. For 2021, we will continue to implement strategies to achieve sustainable growth and enhance our platform to be more responsive and user-friendly so that customers will enjoy the convenience of online shopping even more on other websites and our mobile app. I will now hand the call over to Yuan Jun to go through the financial results.

Thank you, Mr. He, and thank you everyone for joining the call. I will now review our financial results for the first quarter. Let me remind you that all numbers quoted are in U.S. dollars. Total revenue was $112 million, up 117.5% year-over-year from $51.5 million. This was mainly driven by strong growth in product sales, which were $109.4 million versus $49.9 million in the same period in 2020, and growth in services and others, which was $2.6 million compared with $1.6 million in the same quarter of 2020. Included in product sales, revenues from apparel increased by 166% to $57.6 million in the first quarter of 2021 compared with $21.7 million in the first quarter of 2020. Gross profit was $52.3 million compared with $23.9 million during the same period last year. Gross margin was 46.6%, slightly higher than 46.4% in the same quarter of 2020, primarily due to our continued efforts to optimize the supply chain. Total operating expenses were $50.9 million compared with $27.1 million during the same quarter of 2020. The increase was mainly due to the rise in selling and marketing expenses. Of operating expenses, fulfillment expenses were $7.2 million compared with $5 million in the same quarter of 2020. As a percentage of total revenue, fulfillment expenses were 6.5% compared with 9.8% in the same quarter of 2020 and 6.7% in the fourth quarter of 2020. Selling and marketing expenses were $35.6 million compared with $14.8 million in the same quarter of 2020. As a percentage of total revenue, selling and marketing expenses were 31.8% compared with 28.7% in the same quarter of 2020 and 33.1% in the fourth quarter of 2020. G&A expenses were $8.4 million compared with $7.3 million in the same quarter of 2020. As a percentage of total revenue, G&A expenses were 7.5% compared with 14.1% in the same quarter of 2020 and 7.9% in the fourth quarter of 2020. Included in G&A expenses, R&D expenses were $4.9 million compared with $3.5 million in the same quarter of 2020 and $4.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. Adjusted EBITDA, which represents income from operations before share-based compensation expense, interest income, interest expense, income tax expense, and depreciation and amortization expenses was $2.3 million in the first quarter of 2021 compared with $1.4 million in the same quarter of 2020. Net income was $1.4 million compared with $0.7 million in the same quarter of 2020. Net income per ADS was $0.01 compared with $0.01 in the same quarter of 2020. As of March 31, 2021, we had cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash of $60.1 million compared with $65.5 million as of December 31, 2020. Finally, for the second quarter 2021 guidance, based on information currently available and business seasonality, we expect net revenues to be between $130 million and $145 million, representing a growth rate between 14% to 27% compared with the second quarter of 2020. Excluding the net revenues from sales of personal protective equipment, which are no longer showing 2021, the year-over-year growth in net revenue for the second quarter of 2021 will be 48% to 65%. This concludes our prepared remarks. At this point, we are ready to take some questions.

Thank you. Good evening, it’s a great quarter, certainly on the top line that the third quarter and fourth quarter in a row where you have all shown tremendous growth on the top line. I have a question for you though. The profitability is not at the same level as your top line growth. Last quarter, you actually had a small loss even though you were up 100% or something similar, and then in this quarter you have a small profit and a small increase in EBITDA. Can you give me a reason for that please?

Thank you for the question. It was actually the first quarter we had the Chinese New Year, so due to some management issues we had a slightly lower profit in terms of operational efficiency.

I am sorry. I missed that. You are saying that for this first quarter you actually had a slightly smaller gross profit or what have you? I didn’t catch that, because it looked like it came in at $0.01 like last year, but your EBITDA was slightly higher...

Sorry. Let me rephrase my answer. Due to our Chinese New Year seasonality issue in terms of the supply chain efficiency, it’s slightly lower as compared to last year’s fourth quarter. So, yes, that is the reason why the bottom line didn’t really grow alongside the top line.

Alright. Is there – what is your strategy, your game plan to increase the bottom line or are you just reinvesting most of your revenue gains back into the company? You have a very nice balance sheet with cash slightly lower than last quarter, but you are an e-commerce company and you are trading well below one-time sales, which is quite unusual. So, there is a big opportunity here for investors like myself to be able to invest in a company whose business model has changed in the last few years, your product mix and what have you, so that if you can see some money fall into the bottom line, this stock could be several times what it is currently. But obviously, at the end of the day, you got to make some money or if not if you could explain the strategy as to one just focusing on growth versus profitability or is profitability going to come in the near term?

Okay. As you have been seeing for the past 2 years, we have already stabilized the overall efficiency and we have better bottom line performance over the past 2 years and in this coming year we are even more focused on driving that forward. Definitely, our growth priority will be, first of all, revenue growth; second will be cash flow; and thirdly, it will come to profit. So as an e-commerce company, we can’t only have good profit without any revenue growth. So I believe we are trying to maintain healthy and sustainable growth followed by good cash flow, followed by bottom line performance.

I see. So, you expect for the year. Seasonally, your first quarter is not your strongest. So, that’s what made this quarter very exciting as far as your performance. Do you expect to be profitable for the year on a net income basis?

That’s a good question. I can’t make any conclusion right now. I can’t really give you any guidance. I’m not any fortuneteller. But definitely, we are running this company, and we hope we can achieve sustainable growth, and then so does the profit performance. What we are trying to do, as you can see for the past 2 years, we are trying to stabilize operational efficiency in order to reduce overall costs. In this coming year, even though we are expecting better revenue growth, we are still closely monitoring all cost factors to stabilize the bottom line as well.

Alright. I mean as long as, ultimately, that’s your goal. If I look back at, say, you were on Amazon for many, many years. They were not profitable, and it was part of their strategy to grow and to reinvest any cash flows they had back into the company. So it was not falling to the bottom line. They were not profitable. However, they were growing dramatically. And I’m hoping that you all have a similar strategy because, for many years, your company did not grow, but you’ve had really strong growth over the last year. And presumably, you have a much larger customer base that are repeat customers. And that, on a run rate right now, it looks like you’ll do $500 million at least this year assuming that this is the seasonally weakest quarter. And for a company whose market capitalization is significantly below expectations, as an investor, I would expect to see dramatic growth in your share price. So hopefully, that’s the goal of your company to see a higher share price.

Okay. I think I’m going to address this concern in three points. First of all, as the online retail e-commerce platform, cash flow is very important. Even though Amazon was not profitable, it had positive cash flow. That’s why we are also emphasizing our cash flow. I believe for a healthy retail company, positive cash flow is essential. Certainly, as you mentioned, we have a substantial customer base. So in the past few years, we have sought to improve the supply chain, providing our customers with better quality products at lower costs. We need some time to establish a stronger customer base so that we can have more returning customers and reduce marketing costs.

Alright. That sounds good to me. Alright, thanks so much for your time. And again, congratulations on a great quarter and for some very strong guidance you gave for the second quarter. Thank you.

Thank you for your questions. Thank you.

Thank you. There are no questions in the queue. I would now like to turn the conference back to Mr. Rene Vanguestaine for closing remarks. Please proceed. Thank you, Annie. This concludes our first quarter 2021 results.

Thank you. And this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.