CHINA YOUZAN: Adjusted EBITDA profit of approximately 35.52 million yuan in 2023, fully embracing AGI

According to the Zhitong Finance and Economics APP, CHINA YOUZAN (08083) announced its 2023 annual performance on March 21. In 2023, the company maintained a "cautiously optimistic" attitude and operated meticulously, helping merchants to do business through products and services, and continuously improving its own operating results. The company's operating cash inflow in 2023 was approximately RMB 77 million, and the adjusted pre-interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization profit was approximately RMB 35.52 million, achieving annual operating profit for the first time. In 2023, the GMV generated by merchants through CHINA YOUZAN's solutions was approximately RMB 102.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of about 1%. The GMV of the store SaaS business was approximately RMB 50.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of about 19%. The number of new paying merchants in 2023 was 21,851; the number of existing paying merchants was 63,512, with e-commerce SaaS merchants accounting for about 66% and store SaaS merchants accounting for about 34%. In 2023, CHINA YOUZAN's revenue was approximately RMB 1.45 billion, with subscription solution revenue of approximately RMB 840 million and merchant solution revenue of approximately RMB 610 million. The merchant ARPU increased to RMB 22,805, a year-on-year growth of about 27%. The gross profit amount was approximately RMB 1 billion, a year-on-year increase of about 4%; the gross profit margin increased to 69.2%, a year-on-year increase of about 5 percentage points. The gross profit amount of the subscription solution was approximately RMB 680 million, a year-on-year increase of about 2%; the gross profit margin of the subscription solution increased to 80.5%, a year-on-year increase of about 6 percentage points. The gross profit amount of the merchant solution was approximately RMB 330 million, a year-on-year increase of about 9%; the gross profit margin of the merchant solution increased to 53.8%, a year-on-year increase of about 4 percentage points. The company's sales expenses decreased by about 21% year-on-year, administrative expenses decreased by about 47% year-on-year, and other operating expenses decreased by about 39% year-on-year, showing significant cost reduction and efficiency improvement. The adjusted pre-interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization profit was approximately RMB 35.52 million. In 2024, CHINA YOUZAN made the most significant upgrade to its brand and value positioning in the past decade. The new value positioning of CHINA YOUZAN is: starting from helping merchants to do well in public domain content marketing to acquire new customers, then providing private domain operation and distribution group buying systems to increase merchants' customer repurchase rate and profit margin, while also providing more intelligent solutions for final sales conversion such as independent mall, store digitalization, chain management, multi-channel data, etc. CHINA YOUZAN's core value is no longer just "private domain e-commerce and store digitalization" services, but also provides a more comprehensive "intelligent consumer operation" system with product combinations such as CHINA YOUZAN CRM, CHINA YOUZAN Smart Shopping Guide, CHINA YOUZAN Enterprise WeChat Assistant, transforming from a single core to a dual core Starting from 2024, CHINA YOUZAN will evolve from providing "digital software" for small and medium-sized merchants to truly becoming a provider of "intelligent consumer operation systems" for brand retailers, covering the entire process from public domain to private domain to final sales conversion, spanning the full spectrum of merchant operations. In the future, benefiting from years of accumulated best practice data in service, CHINA YOUZAN will undergo a comprehensive intelligent upgrade of its product system. It will utilize an AI assistant (Copilot) to help merchants simplify the use of products for online and offline operations, employ automation (Agent) for more efficient task completion, utilize business consultants (Insight) to generate more targeted and effective business strategy recommendations, and use AIGC to generate better marketing ideas. This will assist brand retailers with tens of millions to hundreds of millions of loyal customer fans in enhancing customer repurchase rates and increasing profits