ZOZO Inc

TSE:3092

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Operator]

It is time to start the first quarter financial results announcement of ZOZO for FY 2023, ending in March 2024. We will only [indiscernible] live streaming this time. We plan to have the session until 5:35 p.m. And after that, we will have a Q&A session with institutional investors on a separate Zoom channel from 5:50 p.m.

I would like to introduce the presenter, Director, Executive President and CFO, Koji Yanagisawa.

Now CFO, Yanagisawa, will take you through the business results.

[Koji Yanagisawa, executive]

Hello. I'd like to walk you through the first quarter earnings results of FY '23 ending in March 2024. And by the way, the presentation document we will be using today has already been uploaded to the IR page of our website, so please take a look.

So under the theme of clear and approachable, in the financial results documents of this fiscal year, we decided to have our characters walk you through the key points, like what we'd like you to pay attention to and the background of the ups and downs of the graphs. And to make it approachable, here and there, we inserted information that describes who we are, so I hope you enjoy it.

So I'm wearing this attire and this is the same costume that my character is varying, too.

Okay. Let's jump right in. Here are the highlights of this quarter. If you can kindly hold on for 1 second. Here we go. Next slide, please.

As for the first quarter of FY '23, our gross merchandise value, GMV, excluding other GMV, went up 6.4% year-on-year, landing at JPY 123.3 billion. Operating profit rose by 10.8%, landing at JPY 15.8 billion. And our operating profit margin, OPM, was 12.9%, improving by 0.6 point year-on-year.

Offline sales gained momentum as people started to go out more, yet our GMV and operating profit both reached record highs for the first quarter. The progress rate of GMV, excluding other GMV, against the company plan was 23.0% and 26.4% for OP.

And here are the consolidated quarterly financial results. In the first quarter accounting period, GMV, excluding other GMV, increased 6.4% year-on-year. In general, all businesses are progressing as planned. Inventory supplied to ZOZO is increasing amid brisk sales at the brand's brick-and-mortar stores. And this has led to healthy progress.

Although expenses are attracting customers and sales promotion increased compared to the same period of the previous year, gross profit increased, thanks to the GMV and the ad business growth. And the shipping cost decreased due to the rise in order values. And for these reasons, our operating profit grew by 10.8% year-on-year. OPM turned out to be 12.9%.

Next, I'd like to share the details of our business results. This is Page 9 of the document. Let's look at the increase and decrease analysis of the operating profit. OP was JPY 14.31 billion in FY '22. In FY '23 it amounted to JPY 15.86 billion, up by approximately JPY 1.55 billion. Factors attributable to the growth of the OP were -- actually, there are 3 of them. JPY 2.16 billion coming from the gross profit growth, which is the result of ZOZOTOWN and Yahoo! Shopping business expansions. The second one is JPY 420 million from the sales increase generated by the advertising business. And the third one is JPY 660 million from the growth of shipping revenue and payment service revenue as a result of the GMV growth.

On the other hand, factors that drove down the OP were actually are mainly 4 of them. The first one is 290 million from the increase in fixed costs impacted by the rise in the number of employees on a logistic basis. Second, JPY 300 million from the increase in variable costs that rose in correlation to the GMV. And the third one is JPY 1 billion increase of actual promotion-related expenses associated mainly with expenses to attract customers and point related expenses. And the fourth one is JPY 100 million from other expenses such as [indiscernible] some outsourcing commissions to other accounts.

Next, this is Page 16 of your handout. This is the quarterly GMV trend. Although the summer sale had a slightly slow start, our consignment sales, which comprises the majority of the overall GMV, increased by 2.7 points, landing at 78.3%.

Next, this is a breakdown of SG&A on Page 20. The SG&A to GMV ratio was 22.0%, down 0.4 point from the same period last year. A factor that drove down the SG&A ratio is that the order value turned out to be higher than in the same period of the previous year, and this resulted in a 0.5-point shipping cost decline. On the other hand, what drove up the SG&A ratio was the web ad increase and recording of ad costs related to ZOZOFIT and niaulab, resulting in a 0.3-point increase in the advertising expenses.

And next is Page 23. So this is included in what I just talked about. Here is the actual promotion-related expenses trend. Our actual promotion-related expenses, which is the sum of our advertising expenses and point related expenses, turned out to be 3.3% of GMV. It was 2.6% in the first quarter of last year. So you do see an increase here.

Let's go to Page 21. Here are the OP and OPM trends. Although expenses for attracting customers and sales promotion increased compared to the same period of the previous year, gross profit increased due to the growth in GMV and the advertising business, and shipping costs decreased as a consequence of higher order value. And as a result, our OPM increased 0.6 point year-on-year, landing at 12.9%. So it's going quite well.

Moving on to the main KPIs of ZOZOTOWN on Page 25. And by the way, the KPIs hereafter do not include the results of Yahoo! Shopping or BtoB business, it's strictly the KPIs of ZOZOTOWN only.

First, the number of total buyers was up by 60,000 from the previous quarter, amounting to 11.47 million, of which active members was 10.35 million, increasing by 160,000. On the other hand, guest buyers decreased by 100,000, finishing at 1.11 million. And as for the increase of the active members, we managed to retain the newly recruited members from last year and also active TV commercial airing and web ad implementation during ZOZOWEEK and the main summer sale worked to attract more customers. Guest buyers continue to be on a downward trend as we enrich services for the members. But, as you can see in the comments, in the first quarter, the number of total buyers, and its increase is not increasing that much yet. And then, going forward, we'd like to make improvements here.

Next, this is Page 26, the number of shops on ZOZOTOWN. As of the end of the first quarter, the number of shops was 1,564, a net increase of 2 shops from the end of the previous quarter. But the number of new shops is 19 shops. So that's going quite well. So to name a few of the new shops, we now have MoonStar, a long-standing shoe manufacturer, and HACCI, a honey beauty brand created by a time-honored bee farm.

Next, this is Page 31 of your handout. With respect to the average retail price, it was JPY 3,726, up by 4.9% year-on-year. The growth is attributed to the price increases of certain products and decrease in the discount rate of products sold during the sales period. These factors pushed up the retail prices of merchandise sold at original and discounted prices both.

So in the second quarter, we expect to have higher prices for the average retail price. I believe that this trend will continue into the second quarter as well.

And then I'd like to talk now about the average order value. The average order value was JPY 8,177, up 6.2% year-on-year. The number of items per shipment increased along with average retail price, and this worked to bring up the average order value from the same period of the previous year.

Here are the full year consolidated earnings forecast and dividends for the ongoing fiscal year on Page 34. We're still in the first quarter, so there is no change to the full year plan.

I think we will be able to finish well before the planned finishing time, but I'd like to also talk about Page 5 of our handout as the last piece of information. Last but not least, concerning our governance activities, on June 28, 2023, we transitioned from a company with an Audit and Supervisory Board to one with an Audit and Supervisory Committee. And at the same time, some directors and corporate auditors resigned, and new ones were appointed. And as a result, the ratio of outside directors increased from 37.5% to 54.5%, and the percentage of female directors increased from 18.1% to 45.4%. So you see increases for both outside directors and female directors. That will be all from me. Thank you.

[Operator]

We'd like to close the first quarter financial results announcement of FY '23 ending in March 2024. Thank you very much for watching.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]