Earnings Labs

LightInTheBox Holding Co., Ltd. (LITB)

Q4 2019 Earnings Call· Thu, Apr 23, 2020

$2.11

-3.21%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+0.86%

1 Week

+2.16%

1 Month

+3.45%

vs S&P

-3.72%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the LightInThebox Fourth Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Christian Arnell for opening remarks and introductions. Please go ahead, sir.

Christian Arnell

Analyst

Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to LightInTheBox's Fourth Quarter 2019 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's CEO, Mr. Jian He, who will give an overview of the company's strategies and recent developments; followed by Ms. Wenyu Liu, the company's acting Chief Financial Officer, who will go over financial results in more detail. Before we proceed, I'd like to remind you of our safe harbor statement. Please note that the discussion today may contain 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 expectation. 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 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on April 29, 2019. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements as required under applicable law. At this point, I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. He. Mr. He, please go ahead.

Jian He

Analyst

Thank you, Christian, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. 2019 was a transformative year for our business. On the one hand, we set ourselves ambitious targets as well as driving great operational efficiency, improving margins, completing the integration of Ezbuy and generating sales and sustainable growth. I'm pleased to report that we delivered on these targets as we successfully improved our gross margins through prudent inventory and capital management. We also delivered a positive net operational cash flow in 2019, the first time we have done so since 2014. Our achievements last year not only reflects our strong commitment to turning this business around but it also forged the way for us to optimize our cost structure. Even better, we'll use this momentum to build and grow our business at scale going forward. Revenue growth accelerated during the quarter, increasing 29.9% year-over-year to $74.7 million. Gross margin expanded significantly to 40.4% from 34.6% during the same period last year, once again driven by our continued efforts to grow revenues from categories with higher margins as part of our efforts to improve the optimization of our product mix. Adjusted EBITDA remained stable when compared to a year ago. Most importantly, this quarter, we delivered our second straight quarter of GAAP profitability, also the first time since 2014. And our cash position improved, allowing us to finish the year with $40.4 million in cash and cash equivalents, which is giving us greater flexibility in achieving growth going forward. Our strong cash position can be attributed to our disciplined approach to product optimization and the innovative use of technology to generate faster and healthier inventory turnaround. Inventory leverage remained healthy with approximately 46% earmarked for shipment, which [indiscernible] 1/2 month of cost of sales. Our results encouraging indicated that our strategy…

Wenyu Liu

Analyst

Okay. Thank you, Mr. He, and thank you, everyone, for joining our call. I will now review our financial results. Let me remind that all numbers quoted are in U.S. dollars. As Mr. He mentioned, we are very excited to see continued growth momentum in our top line and bottom line, overall profitability and stronger balance sheet. We are confident in our current operations and growth trajectory will yield further increases in profitability when taking that into account. Total revenue was $74.7 million, up 29.9% year-over-year from $57.5 million in the same quarter of 2018. This was mainly driven by growth in product sales, which was $71.7 million, up 29.2% year-over-year as a result of the continued optimization of our products towards higher-margin categories and stronger sales around the 11/11, Black Friday and other events around the Christmas holidays. Revenues from service and others were $3 million, up 47.3% year-over-year. We will continue to prioritize high-quality growth by serving the needs of our user base and by improving operational efficiencies in the long run. We will also continue to look for unique opportunities to partner with our suppliers and focus on product categories that scale well while we also focus on improving profitability. Gross profit was $30.2 million compared with $19.9 million during the same period last year. Gross margin improved to 40.4% compared with 34.6% in the same quarter of 2018 primarily due to our continued effort to drive revenue growth from categories with higher gross margins. Total operating expenses in the fourth quarter of -- were $34.5 million and increased from $21.6 million during the same quarter of 2018. The increase was primarily due to an increase in selling and marketing expenses and the inclusion of Ezbuy, which had not been consolidated during the same period last year.…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] As there are no questions at this time, I will hand the call back over to Christian Arnell for any closing remarks.

Christian Arnell

Analyst

Thank you. This concludes our fourth quarter earnings conference call. Thank you for your participation and ongoing support of the company. We look forward to providing you with updates on our business in the coming weeks and months ahead. If you have any further questions or comments, please don't hesitate to reach out to the IR team. Thank you, and have a good night.

Operator

Operator

That does conclude our conference call for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.