Incident: Yunda Co., Ltd. released its third quarter results report. The company achieved operating income of 32.84 billion yuan in the first three quarters, -6.8% year-on-year; net profit of 1.16 billion yuan, +56.1% year-on-year; and net profit of 970 million yuan after deduction of non-treasury net profit, +39.1% year-on-year. In the third quarter, the company achieved operating income of 11.26 billion yuan, -9.2% year-on-year; realized net profit of 300 million yuan, +51.5% year-on-year; and realized net profit after deducting 180 million yuan, +10.2% year-on-year.
Revenue and cost analysis: In terms of operating income, the company's third-quarter revenue was -9.2% year-on-year. Looking at the spin-off, the company completed 4.87 billion express delivery services in the third quarter, +6.4% year-on-year (market share in the third quarter was 14.5%, up 0.5 percentage points from the second quarter, down 1.4 percentage points from the same period in 2022); the average single ticket revenue for the third quarter was 2.22 yuan, -14.2% year on year. In terms of operating costs, the company's operating costs in the third quarter were -10.2% year-on-year, mainly benefiting from improvements in the company's single ticket costs. In the third quarter, the company's total operating cost per ticket was 2.11 yuan, down 1.7% from the second quarter and 15.6% from the third quarter of 2022.
Q3 net profit for a single ticket was basically the same as the previous year: in the first three quarters, the company achieved a cumulative net profit of 0.09 yuan, +54.3% over the same period; net profit from a single ticket was 0.07 yuan, +37.5% year-on-year. In the third quarter, the company achieved net profit of 0.06 yuan per ticket, +42.4% over the same period; net profit from non-return from single ticket was 0.04 yuan, +3.6% over the same period last year.
Expect peak season price increases to bring phased profit recovery opportunities: September 2023 is the first time since February this year that single ticket prices for all accessible companies have rebounded or remained relatively stable month-on-month. Among them, Yunda's single ticket price was +5.5% month-on-month, an increase greater than Tongda's other two companies. We believe that the recovery in single ticket prices in the industry in September is a positive sign, and we look forward to further easing of price competition after entering the peak season and bringing phased profit recovery opportunities to the company.
Profit forecasts and investment advice. The 2023-2025 EPS is expected to be 0.72 yuan, 0.89 yuan, and 1.15 yuan, respectively, and the corresponding dynamic PE is 12.8 times, 10.3 times, and 8.0 times, respectively. The company was given 14 times PE in 2024, and the corresponding target stock price was 12.46 yuan, maintaining the “buy” rating.
Risk warning: Affected by the macroeconomic situation, the decline in the growth rate of online shopping consumption has led to volume growth in the express delivery industry falling short of expectations, and price competition in the express delivery industry has intensified.