Mercari Inc

TSE:4385

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q2

[Fumiaki Koizumi, executive]

Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to watch Mercari, Inc.'s result briefing for the second quarter of FY 2021 ending in June. I'm the President of Mercari, Koizumi.

Amid COVID-19, to ensure the safety of everyone, we are holding this session online. We thank you for your understanding. Myself and the new CFO, Eda, will be taking you through our second quarter results.

This is the agenda for today. I will first take you through the summary of our performance in the second quarter and introduce our investment principles for the second half of the year. Eda will then explain our results for the quarter in more detail. Then I will describe the circumstances surrounding each business and our initiatives undertaken to play an integral role in realizing a circular economy.

First, starting with a summary of the results and investment policy. Last August, when we announced the full year business results, we explained our business policy that is amid COVID-19, we will rein in investment and reduce costs to implement lean business management. We also mentioned at that time that if we see that there is a potential for growth, we will prioritize growth and begin reinvesting. We also explained how in the mid to long term we would like to play an integral role in realizing a circular economy.

It's been 6 months since this announcement was made. We have reined in investment due to COVID-19. But things have become a bit clearer. So we would like to begin to reinvest and to begin hiring talent to grow even faster.

With respect to Mercari Japan, GMV has grown at more than 20% year-on-year. And we also explained at the beginning of the fiscal year that we would like to achieve an adjusted op margin of more than 30%. And as of the second quarter, we are on track.

In the second quarter, we simplified packing and shipping to further improve user experience. And as we announced today, we would like to take our partnership with DOCOMO further by working not only online, but also offline to improve convenience.

Regarding Merpay, as we explained at the beginning of the fiscal year, we have begun charging service fees for the fixed amount payment service, installment payment service starting November. We will continue to improve our profitability by focusing mainly on the credit business.

Moreover, from the second quarter, we have strengthened our efforts in identity confirmation and anti-fraud measures. This is an important task for the entire industry. But we have implemented eKYC and other measures, which has enabled us to restart their new connections and charging functions with banks. We will continue to do our utmost to offer an even more safe and secure environment for our users.

Lastly, in the U.S., we were also impacted by COVID-19 and other circumstances, but the situation is beginning to settle down. We have continued to increase the number of users and marked high year-on-year growth as well.

We have also started charging users a payment processing fee in addition to the selling fee. This has improved our profitability. As such, we will invest in marketing and making product improvements so that we can aim for even higher growth.

That was the performance summary, and here is the summary of our KPIs. Our consolidated net sales grew more than 41% year-on-year to JPY 26 billion. And the consolidated operating income was JPY 1 billion, so we have been profitable for 3 consecutive quarters.

Mercari Japan grew steadily at more than 28% year-on-year. And we have also realized high profitability with an adjusted op margin of 32%.

Merpay users has also continued to grow to 8.5 million users as of the end of December 2020. We believe we are beginning to become a part of people's lifestyles.

And with respect to Mercari US, although as I mentioned we raised the take rate, the GMV more than doubled, growing by more than 107%. And MAU was 4.2 million -- more than 4.2 million, and we want to keep this trend going.

Next, regarding the investment policy in the second half of the year. As I mentioned earlier, while keeping an eye on user behavior, we have begun reinvesting. What is important is to maximize future growth, future profits. So we need to make investments while prioritizing growth but make adjustments regularly, as required, depending on the business environment. So we would like to make investments and remain flexible.

For Mercari Japan, continued growth is also important. So we will implement measures to increase listing and undertake marketing initiatives, both off-line and online, to make our service even more easier to use.

To strengthen profitability of Merpay, we believe it is important to focus on marketing initiatives that will improve awareness for Merpay Smart Payments, fixed rate payment and other credit services to increase the number of users. We will also invest to provide a safer, more secure environment.

And thirdly, this quarter is the first time we have introduced the Growing Wallet service, which will allow users to use the funds in their Merpay account for asset management. We would like to roll out this service as a third business in Merpay.

And regarding Mercari US, to achieve further growth, we will undertake product development and marketing initiatives to improve our awareness and acquire new users. So our approach will remain unchanged. We will run TV ads and sponsor events to improve our brand awareness and acquire new users.

Now on to the financial highlights for the second quarter. I would like to invite our new CFO, Eda, to introduce herself and take it from here.

[Sayaka Eda, executive]

Hello, everyone. From January 1, 2021, I have joined Mercari as Executive Officer and CFO. I'm Sayaka Eda. I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you.

I would like to take you through the financial highlights of the second quarter of FY 2021 ending in June. Starting with consolidated net sales. We had record high consolidated second quarter net sales of JPY 26 billion, which grew 41% year-on-year. The operating income for the second quarter was JPY 1 billion. So we have been profitable for 3 consecutive quarters.

Although we are making a profit, third quarter onwards, we may be prioritizing growth and making the investments that will maximize future profits. In this case, we may start to operate at a loss. We will flexibly decide on the scale and timing of the investment while keeping the COVID-19 situation and user behavior in mind.

Next, Mercari Japan's GMV and MAU. We continue to see impact from COVID-19 at the end of last year, but many people have begun to adjust to this new lifestyle. On the other hand, more people went out. But despite the situation, the GMV grew strongly at 28%. But as Koizumi mentioned earlier, the annual target of 20% GMV growth year-on-year remains unchanged.

With regards to MAU, the stable growth of the MAU will be important for the sustainable GMV growth. So we will continue to acquire new users to ensure sustainable growth in the following fiscal year.

Next, sales for Mercari Japan. Like the consolidated net sales, the net sales for Mercari Japan during the second quarter was record high. The adjusted operating margin was also high at 32%, but we will not be revising the target of 30% or higher for the fiscal year.

This is the cost structure of Mercari Japan. There are 2 key points here that I would like to mention. First, regarding the personnel expense ratio, we paid a onetime bonus to our employees in the first quarter. But this has come down to normal levels in the second quarter. Second, the promotion cost ratio increased as we began to prioritize growth and to reinvest in the second quarter in initiatives that we judged was necessary for future growth. Promotional cost has gone up in comparison to the first quarter.

From the third quarter onwards, for continuous growth, we believe we will need to acquire new users. So Koizumi will go into detail about the initiatives we will be implementing, but we will invest in marketing and off-line initiatives. So though we will keep an eye on the business environment, we may be spending the same amount as the second quarter or more in promotions in the third quarter. The adjusted op margin target of over 30% remains unchanged.

Next, Koizumi will explain the status of each business.

[Fumiaki Koizumi, executive]

Now I would like to explain the status of each business. With respect to initiatives for each business, starting with Mercari Japan, we have made efforts to increase listings since last fiscal year, and this has not changed. In the second quarter, we have especially focused on making packing and shipping easy.

During COVID-19, demand for contactless shipping has increased. So as you can see here on the left, we have made it possible for our users to ship with Yamato/Japan Post via convenience stores without going to those outlets by using Yu-Pack post services.

And it's not on the slide here, but we have also started to offer the option to leave packages at the door as part of our efforts to enhance contactless delivery. We have heard from our users that shipping can be a hassle for them. So as you can see in the center here, we have begun offering At-Your-Service Shipping, which does the packing and shipping, the sections in red, on behalf of the users. We believe this will help us acquire new users as well.

And lastly, at the conference last February, we introduced Mercari Post, which is an unmanned mailbox that lets user ship items themselves. And as of end of January, these posts are available in 20 locations. And we would like to continue to install these mailboxes in convenience stores and other locations people frequent.

And as we announced today, as part of our partnership with DOCOMO, these mailboxes will be set up in 1,000 DOCOMO shops across Japan. In addition to our work with DOCOMO, we have implemented a number of initiatives to encourage listing. First is ID integration. We have integrated 4.8 million IDs so far. In comparison to users who have not integrated their IDS, the ARPU for users who have integrated their IDs tend to be higher. We believe this is contributing to GMV so we will continue to encourage people to integrate their IDs.

In addition to Mercari Post and 1,000 DOCOMO shops, we would like to organize Mercari workshops, self-packaging materials and implement various measures to make Mercari easier to use.

Next regarding marketing, we would like to become a service that is loved and used by a wide range of age groups. The awareness among the middle age and older age groups still remains low, and it may still be difficult for them to use. As you can see here on the left, we have changed our creative from targeting youth to an older age group as well so that we can communicate that it's also easier for them to use.

And with respect to off-line initiatives, on the right, of course, we will adopt the necessary COVID-19 countermeasures, but we would like our users to be able to use Mercari at various touch points so we will continue to develop such environments. We are holding Mercari workshops online as well, but we will continue to undertake initiatives online and off-line to improve our exposure and increase our MAU.

Moving on to Merpay. As I mentioned before, payment, credit and Growing Wallet, we are currently focusing in these 3 areas. With respect to payment, we would like to have more merchants adopt ID payment and copayment to improve convenience.

Second, credit will play an important role in improving Merpay's profitability. As you can see here, we offer lumpsum payment and fixed amount payment as part of the Merpay Smart Payments service. The credit limit for each user will be set based on the user's past uses history on Mercari and Merpay. We will also be using third-party data as well to set the limit.

Moreover, using AI, we are implementing measures to avoid bad debts. By implementing a wide range of measures, we would like to expand the credit business.

Third, Growing Wallet. This is a new service we launched in the second quarter. As I mentioned before, users can use their Merpay balance for asset management, and we would like to see this service grow as well.

As a first step, we are using Funds, a lending investment services, to launch the Mercari sustainability front. I will describe this in detail later, but I believe many people are quite interested in this fund.

As we explained at the beginning of the fiscal year, for Merpay, we have entered the profitability phase so we will focus on the credit business and expand our reach even wider with the Growing Wallet.

With respect to the credit business, the photo on the left will help clarify what we mean. But the bottom on the left is a pay-by-installment option. And the number of people using smart payments with fixed amount payments is growing steadily.

From November, we have begun to charge a service fee for fixed amount payments. We have added these buttons and are undertaking marketing initiatives like the point campaign you see on the right here. But the awareness is still quite low so we would like to increase our marketing efforts.

Next, on ensuring safety and security. With respect to eKYC progress, in the first quarter, the industry was struck by unauthorized withdrawals. And of course, this is a very important issue that needs to be addressed. We have undertaken identity confirmation and implement the measures to prevent the same issue from happening again.

More and more users have confirmed their identities, and we have seen gradual progress. We are the first in the industry to be able to resume connections and enable new connections with these things indicated here like Japan Post Bank. Safety and security are imperative, so we will continue to not only work on improving convenience but safety and security as well.

With Merpay, we are working on synergies with Mercari. We have partnered with the largest Dry cleaning company, [ White Express ], to offer Merpay copayment but also sell packaging materials and have Mercari Post on the premises. So the Mercari Group will work together with other partners to ensure synergies across the group.

For Growing Wallet, as I mentioned, we are working with Funds. The Merpay balance can be used to invest in Mercari sustainability funds. The first series of the fund sold out in 41 seconds, so it did very well. The second series was announced on January 25 and launched on February 1. But it also sold out in about a minute. So we believe that there is a demand for a new kind of asset management using Merpay. Going forward, as part of the Growing Wallet service, we will undertake a diverse range of initiatives.

Lastly, the Mercari US business. During the second quarter, the impact of COVID-19 was less pronounced, but the GMV grew by 107%, more than double, so we continue to see really strong growth. We have continued to acquire new users as well, and we hope to continue to grow strongly.

In the U.S., we have begun charging a higher take rate for new listings from October and a higher take rate for all listings from January. That is an additional 2.9% and $0.30. As you can see on the right, in the past, we only charged a 10% sales fee, but we are also charging a payment processing fee as well. After implementation of the payment processing fee, we are on par with other companies with respect to the take rate so we have not seen a negative impact on the GMV.

We have also implemented Instant Pay, which many users had requested for, and authentication of luxury brand products, which will help us improve profitability. In the third quarter, the actual take rate will probably come out to be around 50%. So while improving profitability, we would like to invest in marketing as well in the U.S.

With respect to the ease of use, on the left, you will see shipping innovation. We are working with FedEx to provide SmartPost. It will take a few days longer to deliver, but it is a cheaper shipping option. So we hope this will help meet needs of many of our users.

On the right is item authentication. We are working with a third party to authenticate products from luxury brands. We have started with bags but are gradually adding more product categories. Authenticated products sell at a higher price, and the sell-through rate after listing is better. So we would like to provide reassurance but also increase GMV.

Next year, we have initiatives to improve ease of use amid COVID-19. Mercari Now service has expanded. You don't need to meet face-to-face, and products can be delivered to people within the same area on the same day. We started in San Francisco and expanded to New York as well as Houston. So the service is available now in more areas. We hope to add more cities to the list.

When we take a closer look at Mercari Now, we see people selling different types of products such as larger items like furniture and consumer electronics, as you would expect. And the price tends to be higher. So although the contribution to GMV may still be small, we believe there will be higher demand in the future.

We are also improving our web features and implementing various initiatives to encourage users to buy and sell via the web. We've added functions not previously available on the web such as transaction history as well as home screen personalization and a better seller dashboard than the app version. So for users with many products, we are providing functions to make it easier for them to manage their listing. Different countries means different needs, so we want to offer services optimal for the country to increase our user base.

With respect to marketing, we have focused on raising our awareness. To improve branding, we will continue to run TV commercials, radio and YouTube ads. We will improve our brand awareness then use online ads like the ones you see in the center to acquire users, then increase the frequency of use with CRM initiatives such as coupons and push notifications. So we will continue to invest in branding.

Lastly, Kashima Antlers. We were impacted by COVID-19. Fortunately, we have finished our matches, but there were many challenges, including the sluggish growth of spectators. The COVID-19 situation will continue for some time so we are implementing various new digital measures such as crowdfunding and gifting to improve profitability. That's it with respect to our business.

Lastly, I would like to talk about how we will become essential to the creation of a circular economy. As a marketplace, how can we be of service to society? This is something we would like to think about together with society. And we would like to continue to use our business assets to contribute to society.

First, as we announced recently, we want to play an integral role in creating a circular economy so we formed an experts committee on the ideal form of a marketplace. We discussed what role or function our marketplace should serve in society. And based on these discussions, we formulated key principles. And as a platform, we want to interact with society with integrity. Experts in economics, business ethics, ESG and many other fields gathered to discuss, and we introduced our key principles on January 27.

Please go to the URL for details. But the 3 key principles are safe, trustworthy and humane. Based on these 3 key principles, we want to create a marketplace that everybody can feel safe taking part in that is diverse and liberal. This is a bit detailed, but a liberal and diverse marketplace can only be realized if it's safe.

Based on the key principles, products for which supply and demand balance become significantly disrupted and cause confusion, we will begin taking action such as those indicated here. For example, due to COVID-19, during the state of emergency, there was a shortage of mask and sanitizers and other products essential to safety and health in the primary distribution. But going forward, we will quickly identify such products and prohibit their listing.

Even if that is not the case, sometimes users unknowingly purchase products for which prices have surged. We believe it is our responsibility as a marketplace to provide relevant information to them so that they can make an informed purchase. We will need to work with the primary distribution as well, but we would like to alert users, issue warnings so they can realize beforehand. These are some functions we will start adding from this summer, but we will continue to employ efforts to ensure safety of our users.

Next, to become a marketplace society needs, we need to help realize the society that uses natural resources carefully. We believe that is also important. On the left, you will find Green Friday. Black Friday is famous in the U.S., but it is a day when shoppers can enjoy a lot of special offers. And this has now become a global trend. But we believe users should have more options to enjoy fashion, and we should be more eco-conscious so we are organizing Green Fridays. We organize fashion shows with only secondhand products, and we would like to undertake more eco-conscious initiatives like this.

Moreover, at the end of the year, many people clean their house top to bottom. But working together with Bookoff and Aqutia, we are promoting cleaning with 0 waste. We believe throwing things away is neither great for the environment nor society, so we want to help people pass things on. Working together with partners in the industry, we want to encourage people to act differently.

Moreover, we are working to improve diversity and inclusion. With our CEO, Yamada, as the Chairperson, we have established a D&I council. We have undertaken various D&I initiatives. In Mercari Tokyo's office, nearly half of the engineering team is comprised of individuals from outside Japan. And we want to ensure that this diverse environment is a comfortable environment for all of our employees to work in.

Of course, it's not just about nationalities. So this council will address diversity from different angles. This is very important to ensure that we have the best talent in the industry as well. We will undertake various initiatives and also share them with our peers in the industry.

Finally, in the mid to long term, we want to work with the primary and secondary distribution with everyone to realize a circular economy. We want to make a departure from the mass production, mass consumption model of the past and create a new lifestyle to create a circular economy.

Going forward, working with various partners, we will endeavor to improve our customers' convenience and undertake different businesses, but we know that realizing a circular economy will take time. Nevertheless, it's an extremely important issue so Mercari Group will work together as one to address this challenge.

That's all for today. Thank you for listening.

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