Financial Services Association, June 5 (Reporter Xu Cihao) Since this year, the travel market for holidays such as New Year's Day, Spring Festival, winter vacation, and May 1st has continued to flourish. The county travel market is bursting with strong vitality. Good news about visas from many countries has continued, further inspiring everyone's desire to travel, and travel consumption has increased significantly. This has also helped CPC Tuniu Travel Network gradually “return blood”.

Recently, Tuniu announced the unaudited first quarter results report ending March 31, 2024.

According to financial data, Tuniu's revenue for the first quarter of 2024 was 108 million yuan, up 70.9% year on year; gross profit was 82 million yuan, up 111.0% from the same period in 2023; net profit was 21.9 million yuan, and adjusted net profit was 27.7 million yuan, reversing the year-on-year loss. As of March 31, 2024, the total amount of cash and cash equivalents, limited-use cash and short-term investments held by the company was 1.2 billion yuan.

“We are pleased to see that the company's performance continued to grow strongly in the first quarter of 2024.” Yu Dunde, CEO of Tuniu Travel Network, said that Tuniu achieved its first quarterly profit in the first quarter since its launch, indicating that the company's performance has gradually entered a healthy development path.

In addition to the recovery in performance, another notable aspect of Tuniu in the first quarter was the change in board members, namely JD's return to the second largest shareholder.

Affected by this news, when US stocks opened yesterday, Tuniu surged 12.61%, then went all the way down. At the close, Tuniu closed flat at 1.11 US dollars, with a market value of 137 million US dollars.

Live streaming transactions increased 71% year-on-year in the first quarter

Currently, Tuniu's revenue is mainly divided into two parts, namely revenue from packaged travel products and other income. Of these, revenue from packaged travel products has long accounted for more than 80% of Tuniu's revenue.

Specifically, the financial report shows that Tuniu's revenue for packaged travel products in the first quarter was 83 million yuan, an increase of 106.7% over the same period in 2023. In response, Tuniu explained in the financial report that it was mainly due to the growth of the group travel business. In addition, other revenue was RMB 25 million, up 8.5% from the same period in 2023

It is worth mentioning that another growth point for Tuniu in recent years has come from the live streaming of wine tours.

According to data revealed to reporters, Tuniu's live streaming transaction volume exceeded 440 million in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 71% over the previous year. Furthermore, the write-off rate of Tuniu live streaming products increased dramatically. Among them, the write-off amount increased 138% year on year in the first quarter of this year, and the write-off amount increased by more than 400% year on year in January-May. By the end of May this year, Tuniu's live streaming transaction volume and write-off amount had exceeded the full year of 2023.

According to reports, Tuniu's live streaming trial began in February 2020. After the outbreak of the epidemic, in order to stabilize the customer base and cope with the impact of the epidemic, Tuniu launched an online “cloud tour” through short videos and live broadcasts. During this period, many visitors already had travel plans after the epidemic and began consulting in the live broadcast room.

While achieving breakthroughs in the self-broadcast business, Tuniu has also developed an MCN agency business, founded MCN for small players, expanded talent in all channels, and provided one-stop live travel live streaming training solutions for travel destinations and partners through forms such as proxy broadcasting, live streaming, and live streaming training to help destinations build a sustainable self-operated live streaming system.

According to the 2023 financial report previously released by Tuniu, the total amount of Tuniu live streaming transactions exceeded 1 billion last year, of which Tuniu's supply-side live streaming payments exceeded 800 million. During the reporting period, Tuniu has built a wine travel live streaming talent matrix with more than 60 self-operated live streaming accounts, over 40 full-time anchors, more than 130 incubators, and more than 200 agency contract anchors.

Financial reports also show that in March 2024, Tuniu's board of directors approved a share repurchase plan. According to this plan, the company can repurchase up to $10 million worth of common shares or American depository shares representing common shares. As of May 31, 2024, the company has repurchased a total of about 3.5 million American Depositary Shares from the open market in accordance with the share repurchase plan, with a total consideration of about US$2.9 million.

JD returns to second largest shareholder

Notably, in February of this year, Tuniu issued an announcement stating that Chen Jie had resigned as a member of the board of directors and a member of the board remuneration committee, while Zhang Rui had been appointed as a member of the board of directors and a member of the remuneration committee. The above adjustments took effect on February 29, 2024.

What is behind this adjustment of Tuniu's board of directors is personnel rotation after the equity transfer was cut.

According to the announcement, Zhang Rui, a new entrant, joined JD in 2023. He is currently responsible for the JD lifestyle and travel business division, and has more than 25 years of experience in the tourism industry. Prior to joining JD, Zhang Rui worked in Meituan's Overseas Business Department, Alibaba's Travel and Leisure Tourism Department, and China Travel Group's Outbound Tourism Department, while Chen Jie was the chairman of another travel company*ST Caesar.

On May 28, 2020, Caesar Travel issued an announcement stating that JD will transfer all Tuniu shares held by its subsidiary companies to Caesar Group. At the time, Caesar said that it will further mobilize the superior resources of the three parties, strengthen online and offline business linkages, and actively develop business collaboration with Tuniu.

However, in December of last year, JD, Caesar, and Tuniu signed a termination agreement, and Caesar Group returned more than 78 million shares of Tuniu to JD, accounting for 21.0% of Tuniu's issued common shares.

In fact, the relationship between JD and Tuniu dates back to 2014.

At the time, in the Chinese travel market, with the exception of the three leading companies Ctrip, Elong, and Qunar.com, Tuniu had the best momentum. After listing on the US stock market in April 2014, Tuniu's stock price in August reached 24.99 US dollars/share, with a market capitalization of more than 3,076 billion US dollars (about 21.7 billion yuan).

Therefore, on December 16 of that year, JD chose a strategic investment of 50 million US dollars to take a stake in Tuniu Travel Network and reached a cooperation with Tuniu on a cruise business. At the time, JD responded, convinced that Tuniu's current business model, product strategy and management team would make it an industry leader.

Half a year later, on May 8, 2015, JD announced that it would subscribe to Tuniu shares for 350 million US dollars and become its largest shareholder. This amount of 350 million US dollars includes 250 million US dollars in cash and 100 million US dollars in resources and operating support provided to Tuniu. Tuniu will receive exclusive 5-year commission-free management rights for the JD Travel and Vacation Channel website and mobile devices. At the same time, JD will also provide Tuniu with big data, financial services, traffic and other operating resources.

By 2016, HNA had invested 500 million US dollars in Tuniu to replace JD as the majority shareholder, and JD's shareholding ratio was diluted to 21%, making it the second largest shareholder.

However, as Ctrip gradually integrated with Elong and Qunar.com, Tuniu's stock price fluctuated and fell, and received several delisting warning notices from NASDAQ due to its long-term stock price falling below 1 US dollar.

Up to now, BHR Winwood (HNA Group), JD, and Sequoia Capital are among the top three shareholders, holding 24.44%, 20.99%, and 12.56% of the shares, respectively.

“The return of JD and the addition of Zhang Rui will inject new impetus into Tuniu's future development.” Gao Songyuan, head of the Asia Lodging Big Data Research Institute in China and founder of Space Exploration, told the Financial Federation that JD's return as a Tuniu shareholder has undoubtedly injected strong capital support into Tuniu. It can not only enhance Tuniu's market competitiveness, but also help Tuniu obtain more resources and support in tourism resource integration, marketing, etc.

According to Takamatsu Yuan, Tuniu can use JD's capital support and Zhang Rui's industry experience to accelerate the layout and expansion of the travel market and further enhance its brand influence and market competitiveness. Tuniu can also take advantage of JD's e-commerce advantages to strengthen its layout and operation in the travel e-commerce field, enhance the degree of integration between online and offline, and provide consumers with a more convenient and high-quality travel service experience.