As two major players in the unmanned retail field, Ubox Online (02429) and Qunabox Group (00917) successfully listed on the Hong Kong stock market in 2023 and 2024 respectively. From the stock price performance, they have many similarities, both experiencing significant increases after listing. Ubox Online doubled its stock price within 58 trading days from the IPO price, while Qunabox Group achieved this within 20 trading days.

The difference lies in the fact that after the surge, the current stock price of Ubox Online has fallen back to near the IPO price, showing a roller coaster-like feeling, while Qunabox Group's stock price, although currently in a downtrend, still has an increase of over 80% from the IPO price as of September 27.

It is worth noting that Qunabox Group was officially included in the Hang Seng Composite Index on September 9. However, in the following 6 trading days, the stock price of Qunabox Group continued to decline, with a maximum decline of over 11%, indicating that some funds have taken this opportunity to "escape".

The question that investors are more concerned about is that by November 26, Qunabox Group will soon face the lifting of the shareholding restrictions, which will undoubtedly put pressure on the company's stock price. Will the future stock price trend of Qunabox Group replicate Ubox Online? This calls for in-depth exploration.

The lifting of a large number of shareholding restrictions is too concentrated.

From the perspective of the lifting of shareholding restrictions, Qunabox Group's stock price faces considerable challenges, as this involves three pressures from pre-IPO investors, controlling shareholders, and cornerstone investors lifting restrictions simultaneously.

据招股书显示，成立于2013年的趣致集团在IPO前共经历了种子轮、天使轮在内的共计9轮融资。在2023年6月29日趣致集团与F轮投资者签订融资协议时，趣致集团的估值约为4.159 billion人民币。F轮融资又分为F-1轮、F-2轮，对应的每股价格分别为7.2805元、14.6632元，较发售价的中间价27.35港元折让约70.69%、40.96%。

若以9月24日趣致集团45.35港元每股的收盘价计算，即使融资估值最高的F-2轮投资者，所获收益接近3倍，已十分丰厚，那么前几轮的投资者收益将更高，这意味着该等投资者兑现浮盈的预期也将更为强烈。

从股权结构来看，在经历了共计9轮融资后的趣致集团，其股权十分分散，18位首次公开发售前投资者共计持有趣致集团53.23%的股份，其中便包括了上海源与趣、厦门建发新兴产业股权投资、上海弘玖趣、

QFUN、刘小鹰先生、QFUN Tech、上海源及致、上海源与趣、源趣三期等，该等所有投资者的股份将于2024年11月22日正式解禁。

部分发售前投资者的持股数量及解禁日期

同时，趣致集团控股股东的股份也将于2024年11月26日有条件解除禁售。据发售文件显示，趣致集团的控股股东由6位一致行动人组成，共计持有趣致集团39.27%的股份。这6位一致行动人的股份将在2024年11月26日迎来首个禁售承诺的届满日期，控股股东可于该日期后出售或转让股份，但必须在确保仍为控股股东的前提下进行。而到2025年5月26日时，控股股东第二个禁售期届满，届时控股股东的出售或转让将无任何条件限制。目前并不排除控股股东在首个禁售期结束便开始减持的可能。

The number of shares held by the controlling shareholder and the lifting date of the restriction.

In addition, cornerstone investor Jinlitong, which holds 1.19% of the shares of Qunabox Group, will also have its restriction lifted on November 26, 2024. Jinlitong is a limited partnership fund registered in Hong Kong on November 10, 2023, mainly engaged in private equity investments. China Northern Securities Group Limited is the sole general partner of Jinlitong, and the sole investment manager and fund manager is China Northern Global Asset Management Co., Ltd.

The reason why Qunabox Group introduced Jinlitong as a cornerstone is because one of the limited partners of Jinlitong is the chairman and general manager of one of Qunabox Group's top five clients, who then introduced Jinlitong. During the global offering of Qunabox Group, Jinlitong purchased $10 million worth of shares of Qunabox Group at a price of HK$25, with a total of 3.1276 million shares. Calculated at the closing price of HK$45.35 per share on September 27, the investment by Jinlitong has yielded over 80% profit.

It can be seen that the lifting of the restrictions on Qunabox Group's shares faces challenges such as overly concentrated lifting time, a large and dispersed quantity of lifted shares, etc. At the same time, investors and shareholders at each stage have made substantial profits, which means that once the restriction period ends, the desire to realize profits from all parties may be more urgent. The resulting selling pressure may put pressure on the company's stock price.

Industry recovery, all three major businesses driving performance growth in unison.

The key factor in withstanding the post-restriction selling pressure lies in the company's fundamentals. If the future development prospects are attractive, then the selling pressure may be relatively reduced, and there may be relatively more bidding in the market, thereby creating a cushion against the selling pressure. Therefore, conducting an in-depth analysis of the fundamental aspects of Qunabox Group becomes very necessary.

Qunabox Group and Ubox Online are both strong players in the unmanned retail vending machine operation sector, but they have distinct differences in global strategy direction and business models. Ubox Online positions itself as a domestic asia vets professional retail platform service provider, with the majority of its revenue coming from commodity sales. In the first half of 2024, revenue from Ubox Online's unmanned retail and commodity wholesale accounted for a high proportion of the company's total revenue, reaching 86%, while revenue from advertising and system support services only accounted for 4.5%.

On the other hand, Qunabox Group positions itself as an interactive machine marketing services provider, viewing unmanned retail vending machines as a marketing medium. It integrates online and offline channels to create a complete ecosystem that provides convenient and enjoyable shopping experiences for consumers while offering efficient and precise marketing services for brands. Therefore, Qunabox Group's main source of revenue comes from marketing services. In the first half of 2024, marketing service revenue accounted for nearly 80%, while commodity sales revenue accounted for 15.23%, and revenue from other services including IT system development and software development accounted for about 5%. Thus, from a revenue structure perspective, Qunabox Group appears more like a marketing company.

In the first half of 2024, Qunabox Group's marketing service revenue accounted for nearly 80%, while commodity sales revenue accounted for 15.23%, and revenue from other services such as IT system development and software development accounted for about 5%. Therefore, in terms of revenue structure, Qunabox Group resembles more of a marketing company.

Specifically, Qunabox Group's marketing services are divided into two main parts: standardized marketing and value-added marketing services. The former involves designing and launching customized marketing activities for fast-moving consumer goods brands, showcasing the image and value of the provided fast-moving consumer goods on various types of media to effectively attract and motivate target consumers to make purchases, for which Qunabox Group charges relevant fees.

Value-added services refer to Qunabox Group deepening consumers' impressions of products through interactive and immersive game-themed activities, and providing relevant data to optimize brand marketing strategies and product design.

In terms of performance, Qunabox Group has achieved continuous growth since 2021 and delivered an impressive performance in the first half of 2024. In the first half of this year, Qunabox Group's revenue increased by 41.7% to 0.515 billion yuan, while adjusted net income grew by 48.8% to 80.269 million yuan, achieving growth in both revenue and net income.

Breaking it down, all three major business segments on the revenue side have experienced rapid growth, which is directly related to the recovery of domestic consumption demand after the end of the pandemic and the steady expansion of the consumer market overall. Specifically, revenue from marketing services grew by 41.1%, mainly driven by the strategic enhancement of delivering standardized marketing services through social media platforms. The company provided marketing services to 171 brand clients during the period, an increase of 41 clients compared to the same period last year. The number of major clients serviced was 30, and the average revenue per major client from these clients was 10.6 million yuan, showing growth in both the number of major clients and average revenue per client.

The growth in commodity sales revenue by 48.8% is mainly due to the significant recovery in foot traffic and consumption during the reporting period. Ubox Group's unmanned vending machines also saw a year-on-year increase, leading the company to implement a more cost-effective pricing strategy, further enhancing the terminal's ability to sell goods. During the period, the single-day sales revenue per terminal increased by 25.2% to 58.9 yuan compared to the same period last year. Other service revenue increased by 30%, mainly driven by the increasing number of IT system and software development projects driven by industry client requests and commissions, thereby promoting the expansion of this business.

It can be seen that on the basis of a significant industry recovery, the three major businesses of Ubox Group have collectively driven the company's high revenue growth. At the same time, Ubox Group's gross margin has remained stable, with total operating expenses being controlled within a reasonable range, leading to the rapid growth of net income during the period.

Overvaluation and Facing Two Major Operational Challenges

It cannot be denied that the mid-term performance of Ubox Group is indeed impressive. However, it is worth noting that since the release of this performance on August 15, as of the close on September 27, Ubox Group's stock price has dropped by over 5%, while the Hang Seng Index has risen by 22% during this period. This means that after releasing impressive performance, Ubox Group's stock price has underperformed the broader market by nearly 30%. Why is this?

According to the Futu Securities app, there are mainly two factors contributing to this situation. Firstly, the continuous rise since going public has resulted in the company becoming overvalued, prematurely consuming the stock price gains, leading to a situation where the impressive performance is not well received.

According to wind securities' consistent forecasts, Ubox Group's net income for 2024 and 2025 are projected to be 0.199 billion and 0.253 billion, with corresponding growth rates of 51.94% and 27% respectively. As of the close on September 27, Ubox Group's market cap was 12.3 billion Hong Kong dollars, corresponding to 2024 and 2025 PE valuations of 55.63 times and 43.75 times, respectively. The valuation multiple for 2025 is significantly higher than the net income growth rate, highlighting the overvaluation of Ubox Group in the liquidity-discounted Hong Kong stock market. Its valuation may undergo a round of 'water squeeze' in the future.

Secondly, in addition to being overvalued, Ubox Group's business development faces potential operational challenges. First and foremost, it should be understood that the key reason for Ubox Group's accelerated performance growth since 2023, besides the industry recovery, is the significant enhancement in delivering standardized marketing services to customers through short video platforms. This is clearly reflected in the prospectus, where revenue from online platforms increased from 65.478 million to 0.313 billion yuan in 2023, a staggering 378% increase.

Although short video platforms have injected new vitality into Qunabox Group's growth, this model has certain drawbacks, namely, Qunabox Group needs to purchase traffic resources from third-party media, which clearly reduces the gross margin of its marketing business.

According to the prospectus, in 2023, the gross margin of Qunabox Group's marketing business was 59.4%, a nearly 14 percentage point year-on-year decrease. Among them, the gross margin of standardized marketing services decreased by 18 percentage points year-on-year to 55%, thereby dragging the company's overall gross margin for 2023 down by about 7 percentage points to 53.2%.

Although in the first half of 2024, the gross margin of Qunabox Group's marketing services remained stable year-on-year, intensified market competition and increasing costs of short video platform traffic will impact the group's marketing business. It can be confirmed that from a long-term perspective, the cost of traffic on short video platforms will trend upwards, while the current gross margin of Qunabox Group's marketing services remains above 50%, there may be further compression space in the future as traffic costs rise.

In addition, Qunabox Group's business model actually requires a higher standard for the positioning of unmanned vending machines. As of December 31, 2023, Qunabox Group owned a network of 7,543 vending machines, covering 22 cities in 14 provincial-level administrative regions in China. The vending machines are mainly located in first-tier and new first-tier cities, accounting for 98.4%. There are almost no unmanned vending machines in second-tier cities and lower-tier markets owned by Qunabox Group, and the number of unmanned vending machines in second-tier cities is gradually decreasing. On the contrary, Qunabox Group continues to increase its coverage density in first-tier cities, with the number of unmanned vending machines in first-tier cities continuing to grow. Qunabox Group has also indicated that it has officially launched its internationalization strategy and is exploring the Middle East market.

Compared with the expansion strategy of Ubox Online, Qunabox Group has taken a different path. In the mid-2024 interim report, Ubox Online stated that it will further penetrate the coverage areas of first-tier, new first-tier, and second-tier cities, and gradually develop third-tier and lower-tier cities with faster economic growth.

Clearly, while Ubox Online chooses to deepen its presence in first and second-tier cities while penetrating the domestic lower-tier markets, Qunabox Group chooses to deepen its presence in first-tier cities while expanding overseas. Different expansion strategies are actually due to differences in business models, where Qunabox Group's predominantly marketing-based model requires high population density, high consumption levels, and strong liquidity in the location of its network points in order to achieve high turnover at a high unit price, attracting brand merchants to purchase marketing services. Therefore, this approach by Qunabox Group has basically limited its potential to penetrate lower-tier markets, as this approach may fail in these markets. Therefore, in order to expand its fundamental network coverage, Qunabox Group can only expand to first-tier cities in overseas markets.

In fact, qunabox group's current business model has greatly affected the company's coverage network penetration in the domestic downward-sinking market. The long-term growth potential is questionable, and it is uncertain whether opening up overseas markets can compensate for the limitations on growth space in the business model.

Overall, qunabox group has achieved rapid growth in performance after the industry recovers and marketing business integrates into short videos and other multimedia channels. However, due to the overvaluation, the stock price trend deviates from the outstanding performance, and the valuation needs further digestion. From an operational perspective, qunabox group faces challenges such as intensified competition leading to increased traffic acquisition costs affecting the company's gross margin level, and potential limitations of its business model in expanding into the lower-tier market. These undoubtedly discount the fundamentals of qunabox group. Moreover, with the large-scale concentration of restricted shares of qunabox group being lifted, the possibility of the downward trend in its stock price is increasing.