Shunfeng Spent The "Dark Time"? In April, The Market Share Decreased Slightly Compared With The Previous Month, And The Price Of Single Ticket Stabilized

After the first quarter performance "Thunderbolt", the domestic private express leading enterprise Shunfeng holdings passed a period of "dark moment".

Wang Wei's apology failed to prevent SF holding's share price from going down. In March and April this year, the company's stock price fell by 22.81% and 20.17% respectively. It is worth noting that on May 10, the share price of SF holdings was as low as 60.61 yuan / share, which was "cut back" from the high point three months ago.

However, investors did not seem to give up the 100 billion white horse stock, and discussions about whether there is a "golden pit" in SF holdings have been one after another. Recently, the company's share price has rebounded for several consecutive days. As of May 19, the share price of SF holdings once exceeded 71 yuan.

So when will express Mao return? The loss of the first quarter, so that the outside world is quite concerned about the operation of SF holdings in the second quarter. The company's latest April operating data show that SF holding's recovery will take time.

SF Holdings has recently updated the fixed increase plan and plans to raise no more than 20 billion yuan for investment in multiple projects. IC photo

The market share declined slightly in April

According to the operation situation of the postal industry in April released by the National Bureau of statistics, during the reporting period, the business volume of national express service enterprises completed 8.5 billion pieces, a year-on-year increase of 30.8%; Business income reached 82.39 billion yuan, up 14.3% year on year.

The second quarter is the traditional off-season period of express delivery industry. Compared with the situation in March, the business volume and operating income of the national express industry in April decreased. In this context, SF Holdings' business volume and revenue growth in April exceeded the industry level. But 21st century economic reporter found that the company's market share declined slightly compared with March.

According to the operating briefing released by SF holdings in April, the company realized 13.208 billion yuan of operating revenue in that month, with a year-on-year increase of 14.86%; The business volume was 834 million, with a year-on-year increase of 36.50%. It is worth mentioning that the supply chain business of SF holdings continued to maintain a high growth rate in April, with an operating revenue of 872 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 60.29%, and an increase of 34 million yuan compared with March.

21st century economic reporter noted that since the opening of supply chain business in 2016, this business has become the fourth main source of income of SF holdings after five years. In 2020, SF holding's supply chain business realized revenue of 7.104 billion yuan, accounting for 4.61% of revenue.

But the most external concern is still the express business of SF holdings.

In the first quarter of this year, SF holdings lost nearly 1 billion yuan. Behind this, the express business involves many reasons beyond Wang Wei's expectation.

At the performance presentation meeting held in April, Wang Wei, in answering questions from investors, said: "there are indeed several reasons that we can not predict: first, the growth rate of time effective parts in the first quarter was lower than expected, and the due profits did not appear; The growth of superimposed economic components leads to the virtual high cost; This is part of the reason for the loss. Secondly, the cost of transportation security is high during the Spring Festival, but the business volume of time effective products is insufficient, which leads to higher cost input. Third, this year, in response to the government's policy of staying in place to celebrate the new year, the government has given employees nearly 1 billion yuan of overtime allowance for the Spring Festival, which is 300-400 million more than the original expectation. This is beyond our expectation. "

"The big loss in the first quarter of this year is mainly due to the pressure on the cost side, including the increase of depreciation in the current period caused by a large amount of capital investment in the early stage, and the labor cost expenditure during the Spring Festival." An institutional analyst told the 21st century economic report that, in particular, the investment in upgrading the automation of transfer warehouses in the early stage can only take effect from the second quarter, and gradually begin to ease the bottleneck of production capacity.

How is the express delivery business of SF holdings in the first month of the second quarter (i.e. April)?

Under the off-season, the company's revenue growth in April was 1.47 percentage points higher than that in March. In addition, in terms of business volume, the business volume growth rate of SF holdings in the current month was 5.7 percentage points higher than that of the industry, and the growth rate in the first quarter was lower than that of the industry.

The 21st century economic report reporter found that in April, SF holding express business accounted for 9.81%, a slight decrease of 0.12 percentage points compared with March. But in the eyes of the industry, it is the sign of stable operation of SF holdings.

"SF Holdings' revenue and business volume growth in April was relatively stable. In particular, its supply chain business should set a new revenue record. " Zhao Xiaomin, deputy director of the postal express special committee of Shanghai Communications Commission, told reporters of the 21st century economic report that if the follow-up price war stabilizes, it will be conducive to the improvement of SF holding's business volume.

The 21st century economic reporter noted that the single ticket income of SF holdings in April was 15.84 yuan, 0.1 yuan higher than that in March.

Cost reduction measures focus on automation upgrading

In fact, whether SF Holdings has passed the "dark moment", part of the reason will also depend on the competitive environment of the express industry.

Since the introduction of special products in May 2019, the overall bargaining power of SF holdings is no longer as hard to shake as the medium and high-end time effective parts.

"Price war" is the most easy means of competition to achieve its goal when the market is in disorder. " In an interview with the 21st century economic reporter, Yang Daqing, an expert in logistics industry, said that the current price war in China's express delivery market is caused by many factors: first, the express market itself has not established an intensive market, and the market competition is tight, so the "price war" is directly and effectively fought; Second, new market players such as Jitu and some traditional express delivery enterprises expand the market with new models and are more willing to win the situation by "price war"; Third, digital technology is changing the market pattern of traditional enterprises. During the digital lane changing period, the existing pattern will be gradually loosened, and the enterprises who intend to gain the upper position will be willing to break through the "price war".

In the first quarter of this year, domestic express industry prices continued to decline. In particular, the "agitation" of new entrants, such as polar rabbit, has intensified the price competition of express delivery industry to a certain extent.

In the face of irrational price competition, the regulatory authorities took measures in time. On April 9, Jitu express and Baishi Express were punished by Yiwu post administration for "low price dumping". Subsequently, the industry price competition slowed down.

"We expect that by the end of the second quarter and the beginning of the third quarter of this year, the single" price war "mode will basically enter a relatively slow stage." Zhao Xiaomin told the 21st century economic reporter.

The 21st century economic reporter has noticed that the industry is optimistic about whether the "price war" is slowing down. Nie Tengyun, chairman and general manager of Yunda Co., Ltd., said at a recent performance presentation meeting: "according to the monitoring of monthly and quarterly market data, we believe that the intensification of competition in the express industry in the second and third quarters of 2020 is a short-term phenomenon and phased behavior, and the operating environment of the express industry is recovering and improving quarter on quarter, Combined with the recent introduction of relevant policies to regulate the order of the industry, it is optimistic that the market environment will continue to improve in 2021. "

However, "price war" is still the most unstable variable factor in the current industry competition. Based on the fact that the single ticket cost still has room for decline, there are trigger factors for the decline of express price. This means that cost reduction is still the core direction of the operation and management of major express enterprises. Among them, increasing investment in automation equipment upgrading has become the focus of major express enterprises in the near future.

Recently, SF holdings recently updated the fixed increase plan, and plans to raise no more than 20 billion yuan for investment in multiple projects. Among them, the company plans to use 30% of the fund-raising amount for the automation upgrading project of express transportation equipment.

The total investment of the project is 6.238 billion yuan, which is mainly used to purchase all kinds of intelligent automatic conveying equipment, intelligent automatic sorting equipment, storage automation equipment and other supporting equipment. SF Holdings said, "the project will help the company simultaneously improve the intelligent level of express sorting and transfer business process and warehousing operation, reduce human costs, and improve service efficiency and overall efficiency."

Coincidentally, Yunda shares also accelerated the fund-raising efforts and invested in automation.

On May 18, the company issued a plan for the public issuance of convertible bonds, with a plan to raise 2.5 billion yuan, all of which will be used for the automatic upgrading project of sorting equipment.