Junling Liu
Analyst · 6 Dimensions. Please go ahead
Thank you, Tip. Hello, everyone. In reviewing our strong Q1 performance, I'd like to emphasize a few key points. First and foremost, our net revenue was up 98.5% year-over-year at RMB 655.6 million and up 17.6% quarter-over-quarter, exceeding the high-end of our guidance. This growth was driven by a robust performance in our B2B segment. Gross profit improved significantly as well, up 43.9% from the fourth quarter 2018 with improvement in both B2C and B2B segments. Second, let's take a closer look at the growth in our B2B segment on Slide 4. Over the past few quarters, we kept a fast pace, acquiring new pharmacy customers. In the first quarter of 2019, we added 20,000 pharmacies into our virtual pharmacy network and are now serving 170,000 pharmacies. Our goal is to reach 230,000 pharmacies by the end of 2019, about 50% of the total number of retail pharmacies in the domestic market. During the quarter, we processed 141,650 orders with a compound quarterly growth rate of 60.7% since the first quarter of last year. This increase was primarily due to the competitive advantage we have with our Smart Sourcing System and Price Intelligence System. Our Smart Sourcing System proactively tracks products and monitors competitor prices using big data technology. The Price Intelligence System has automatic pricing tracking and the pricing functions to ensure that pharmacy customers are provided with the most cost-effective products. As a result of the expanding number of pharmacies and the increasing total number of orders, our B2B revenue was up 246.5% year-over-year and 39.2% quarter-over-quarter at RMB 459.5 million. Between the first quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, the compound quarterly growth rate of revenue in our B2B segment was 36.4%. Third, during the quarter, we have made further progress in building our ecosystem, which includes patients, medical professionals, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, governments, and more. By leveraging this ecosystem, we aim to improve drug accessibility and eventually reduce costs. Slide 5 shows some of the concrete steps we accomplished during the quarter. We are now directly sourcing from 98 pharmaceutical companies. We signed a memorandum of understand of strategic cooperation with Eli Lilly, a global pharmaceutical company to roll out a fourth sales channel solution by focusing on big data, e-prescriptions up to services and patient medication education. We successfully cohosted and presented at the Internet + Healthcare Development Summit during the World Health Expo in Wuhan in early May. Turning to Slide 6, we have made further progress in strengthening our supply chain management. We're playing an important role in the transformation of pharmaceutical distribution by leveraging our extensive experience in supply chain management and our large user base and technological resources. With continuous improvement in our four operating centers in North China, West China, East China, and South China, our fulfillment cost as a percentage of net revenue decreased from 4.3% in the first quarter last year to 3.2% this quarter. As shown on slide seven, we're doing business differently. Our innovative and scalable cloud-based platform is built upon a technology infrastructure that is capable of analyzing massive amounts of data to facilitate customization. As a result, we gain better knowledge of pharmacies' shopping patterns and behaviors. Compared to traditional drug distributors, we have been able to reach pharmacies in more effective and efficient ways, such as One Drop mobile app, physical field visits, and tele-sales. Our built-in smart sourcing system has also helped to simplify the shopping process and improve customer experience. Last but not least, I will talk about the initiatives we are taking in our B2C business. We are now focusing more on medical-type users who are high-value customers rather than consumer-type users. In the quarter, we have enhanced our chronic disease CRM system, which has made it possible to move from passive repurchasing across our network to continuous prescription management, providing in-depth service to patients with chronic conditions. The healthcare delivery model in China will be transitioning from hospital and doctor-centric to a patient-centric model. And we are building a platform which is patient-friendly. Our B2C business will be focusing on building the capabilities of the patient lifecycle management, with modules such as patient education, drug adherence management, automatic refills, and so on. One of the trends worth noticing in the healthcare space in China is that commercial insurance will be experiencing rapid growth. We are uniquely positioned to provide PBM-type of services to commercial insurance companies so they can have clear visibility into the whole process from drug purchasing to patient service. In conclusion, we're embracing the recently healthcare reforms initiated by the Chinese government. And it is our belief that China will ultimately have one of the most efficient healthcare systems in the world. 111, Inc. is ideally positioned to benefit from this, given the unique capabilities we have built, including our smart supply chain, the nationwide footprint of our virtual pharmacy network, the largest in China, and our integrated B+C platform. Our value proposition remains focused on the basis of transparency and efficiency. As a leading integrated online and offline healthcare platform in China, we play a crucial role in enabling the pharmaceutical ecosystem through our unique P2B2C business model to provide improvements in both customer and business – consumer and business-oriented healthcare services. Before I pass the call over to Luke, I'd like to take a moment to announce that Dr. Leon Lian Yong Chen is joining our Board of Directors. He will be replacing Harry Hui, who unfortunately has decided to step down for personal reasons. I would like to thank Harry for his dedication and substantial contribution to 111 during many years he served on our board. However, we couldn't be happier to welcome Leon. Leon has extensive knowledge and expertise in life sciences, pharmaceuticals, and the biotech sector, as well as broad experiences in management, strategy, and the capital markets. He will make a great addition to the team. With that, I will hand the call to Luke to walk through our financial results in this quarter.