Jane Jie Sun
Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead
Thank you, James. Good morning, everyone. I would like to start with a quick recap of the previous quarter. Total net revenues in Q2 declined by 64% year-over-year. This reflected the strong sequential recovery of our China domestic businesses, offset by a steep decline in our international operations. Throughout the second quarter, the company quickly adapted operational priorities and mindfully balanced cost control with marketing needs to stimulate consumer demand. We are pleased to have been able to minimize operating expenses in the quarter, while capturing additional market share as the industry recovered. First, domestic travel recovery is well on track. Extending upon the observation we shared in the last call, domestic travel in China saw meaningful recovery during the quarter. This was led initially by short-haul activities, followed by cross-preventional long-haul travel, which has picked up substantially since May. Consumer confidence was further boosted by sustained containment of COVID-19 infection across the majority of the country. During the past couple of months, we witnessed full recovery in succession across several of our product line in China domestic market, including accommodation, air ticketing and various in-destination services. On the whole, pricing remained significantly reduced on a year-over-year basis, but the gap has narrowed month-by-month. Our team quickly identified early shifts in consumer demands and adapted product and marketing strategies accordingly to suit a prevailing preference for short-haul activities. In recent months, we have observed positive year-over-year growth of more than 20% for short-haul travel reservation across accommodations, attractions, and car rental services. We further strengthened our relationship with suppliers, especially high-end hotel partners. The number of the hotels designating us as their preferred distributor increased by more than 10% sequentially from the first quarter. Over the past months, our high-end hotel reservation reached double-digit growth year-over-year. We also affirmed market leadership in the Transportation segment. During the month of August, our domestic air ticketing reservation achieved positive year-over-year growth, meaningfully outpacing the industry at a time, where overall China domestic flight passenger volume was down 15% to 20% compared to the last year’s level. As James mentioned, we have adopted live stream as an innovative means of directly engaging with customers, which has allowed us to accurately capture demand amongst our mid to high-end customer base. To date, products sold through this channel have been priced at an average of RMB1,200, and more than 60% of customers made repeat purchases throughout one or more live stream sessions. In the second quarter, corporate travel also saw strong recovery momentum, as business trips resumed. For packaged tour, it was largely restricted throughout the second quarter. However, we were glad to see that the restriction on the domestic group tours were lifted in July. Next, on the international business. Overseas market hit the bottom in April and green shoots of recovery have since been observed in many regions. Customers have started to travel domestically and hotel reservation have shown initial signs of recovery. In order to further stimulate customer interest, we initiated Travel On campaign and extended our travel revival incentives to overseas market. We reinforced the relationship with global partners to attract – to offer attractive deals, leveraging our successful live stream experience in China. We localized this model for targeted international markets, which earned us both market share and customer loyalty against the current backdrop of turbulence and volatility in these markets. In addition, we utilized the business downtime to refine our internal capability. For example, our ChatBot has improved its efficiencies to 3x compared to last year’s level. Our outbound travel has remained minimal since the initial outbreak in China due to healthcare concerns, along with limited supply and demand. However, we are glad to see the relaxation to cross-border flight controls coming into effect on the basis of prudent evaluation. Despite an uneven pace of recovery across our international business, we remain optimistic about the long-term growth prospects. We’re encouraged by the global efforts in the development of the back of the vaccine and medical treatment and look forward to the resumption of travel activities worldwide. Operationally, we further adapted the company to suit the challenging environment through the comprehensive scrutiny of each expense categories and reexamination of efficiency. Owing to our largely flexible cost and expense structure and efficient operational management, our total cost and expenses decreased by around 50% year-over-year in the second quarter. We continue to take necessary measures to ensure that our organization remain lean and efficient, while proactively preparing to capture the opportunities during the recovery. The first-half of 2020 has been challenging for the travel industry. I would like to thank all of our staff again for their dedication throughout this unprecedented period. As we have said before, our talented employees are our most valuable assets. We are committed to ensuring that Trip.com Group remains an inclusive and attractive workplace, where our employees can reach their full potential. Overall, taking into consideration of the development of the past few months, we’re encouraged by the pace of the recovery in China and look forward to seeing more of our business segment returning to positive growth in the near future. In view of recent progress made by medical community and indication of reopening the borders around the world, we are optimistic about the trajectory towards the incremental recovery for our overseas and outbound businesses. With that, I will now turn the call to Cindy.