On April 9, a good student in the express delivery industry, A-share big white horse Shunfeng fell the limit at the beginning of trading, contracted the financial and economic news pop-up window and hot search that morning, and became bear shares of the day. There is no other reason-on the evening of April 8, SF Forecast said it expected a net profit loss of Rmb900m to Rmb1.1 billion in the first quarter of 2021, compared with a profit of Rmb910 million in the same period last year.

Shunfeng officials gave the following reasons-cost pressure caused by pre-investment in new business, cost pressure caused by temporary increase in investment in order to alleviate capacity bottlenecks, high subsidies to employees for "on-the-spot Spring Festival" and no Spring Festival holiday for peers. Scattered Shunfeng's bulk order business.

However, the capital markets are not convinced of this explanation. At the beginning of trading on April 9, the share price of Shunfeng plummeted by the daily limit. Compared with its peak a year ago, the share price has shrunk by more than 40%, and the total market value of SF has lost more than 200 billion yuan.

On April 9, Wang Wei, chairman of SF, apologized at the 2020 shareholders' meeting, saying that there was negligence in management and that similar problems would not occur again. The CFO of Shunfeng described the company's first-quarter performance as "temporary labor pains".

Industry insiders pointed out that increasing capital expenditure at this stage can further enhance SF's advantage in the industry in the long run. In the next competition, the express industry will enter the "price war 2.0 mode", while SF will jump out of the "high-end battlefield" and compete with other competitors in the low-price express field and express field. SF is expected to have a profit inflection point after October.

The reason why SF is in such a hurry to increase investment and compete for the market is that today's express delivery industry is in the time window before the listing of companies such as franchised express integration reshuffle, JD Logistics, Inc. and extreme Rabbit Express. In a wordIf it's too late, the opponent will be stronger.。

Does the top student hand over the bad examination paper, Shun Feng is gone with the wind?

SF and its investors will remember this day. Because since records began in the first quarter of 2009, SF has never suffered a loss in the first quarter. Even in the tough first quarter of 2020, the net profit was 907 million yuan.

The confusion and surprise of many investors are overstated-how can the big white horse with thick eyebrows and big eyes "explode"?

Everyone's surprise is not without reason. Because in the annual report disclosed on March 17, Shun Feng still looks like that top student. According to the 2020 annual report of Shunfeng, the operating income in 2020 was 154 billion yuan, an increase of 37.3 percent over the same period last year; the business volume was 8.14 billion votes, an increase of 68.5 percent over the same period last year; the return net profit was 7.33 billion yuan, an increase of 26.4 percent over the same period last year; and the non-return net profit was 6.13 billion yuan, an increase of 45.7 percent over the same period last year. Key indicators rose, SF and investors are very affectionate.

Less than a month later, Shunfeng suddenly "fell out"-sorry, I lost money, you feel free. The question of whether to sell, hold or increase positions is left to investors.

SF listed five reasons for its losses in its announcement.

Reason 1:The company is in a critical period of new business development, in order to expand market share and build long-term core competitiveness, the company continues to increase pre-investment in new business.

The announcement does not point out what the "new business" is. Combined with past data, Shun Fung's "new business" refers to its "four-net financing" strategy. At the 2020 annual results conference held by Shunfeng in March, the relevant responsible person put forward for the first time when talking about the direction of future business measures.Four networks financingThe concept of ". The "four nets" mainly refers toShunfeng big net (direct marketing timeliness network), Fengwang network (aiming at sinking electricity commercial parts market, adopting joining mode), express network (Shunfeng express + Shunxin Jetta big parts network) and warehouse network。

Reason 2:The epidemic slows down the pace of the company's capital expenditure investment, and the business volume is growing rapidly, resulting in capacity bottlenecks in multiple links of express transportation. From the fourth quarter of last year, we began to increase the input of temporary resources to undertake the increment, resulting in cost pressure.

It is worth noting that Anxin Securities pointed out that in the same period last year, express delivery companies had more cost dividends. In the first quarter of last year, express delivery companies enjoyed a 44-day toll exemption, saving about 180 million to 200 million yuan in passage fees. This year, the cost will be reflected as usual.

Reason 3:In the initial stage of integration, there is overlap of resources.

The integration here is the above-mentioned "four-net financing". However, Wang Wei said that this part of the factor is within SF's expectations. "in the process of the rapid development of the business, we have also seen some shortcomings, such as the lack of sharing of venues, capacity, manpower, system architecture chassis, etc., so we began to plan to solve these shortcomings from the fourth quarter. In the process of integration, there are bound to be some overlapping costs, which is what we expected. "

Reason 4:In the first quarter, the company gives high subsidies to the first-and second-line on-duty personnel during the Spring Festival.

Wang Wei said at the shareholders' meeting that this was not expected. The cost of transport capacity at the peak of the Spring Festival is higher than originally expected.

Reason 5:The arrangement that peers do not close during the Spring Festival in some areas has divided part of the bulk order business, and the growth of the bulk order business in the prescription parts is lower than expected; the economic business in the stock customers is growing rapidly, and the company's e-commerce parts gross profit is under pressure.

Wang Wei said that the first quarter aging parts did not achieve the expected growth, and then superimposed the factors of economic parts, resulting in a false high cost.

These reasons failed to quell fierce skepticism. On the afternoon of April 9, Chen Xiwen, director of investor relations at Shunfeng, said on the afternoon of April 9: the first quarter (loss) is not a long-term problem, but the investment has been increased, and the fundamentals are not too big. It is simply that the volume of business is too much and the investment is too fast, so that (profits) go down at once. Profits will pick up in the second quarter.

In short, SF says that it is not a big problem, but that the pace is too big.

Is SF dangerous?

What happened to Shunfeng, which made the capital market react violently? SF's calculation is to cover the lower price band and find the second growth curve.

as everyone knows,Prescription parts (mainly for business customers, express shipments with high requirements for limitation and service) are the basic dishes of SF.It is also the way to start a business that distinguishes it from other express companies. With the time-limited parts with higher unit price, Shunfeng sits firmly on the high-end track and gets the dividend at the top of the industry pyramid. However, in recent years, SF has begun to think: no, SF will attack downward and outward to eat more market share.

Shen Wanhongyuan research newspaper pointed out that prescription parts are the main source of profit for SF. Due to the fact that other express delivery companies do not close for the Spring Festival this year, diverting part of the demand, and superimposing the impact of last year's high base, it is expected that the growth rate of aging parts of Shunfeng in the first quarter of this year will be between 5% and 10%, which is periodically lower than the company and the market had expected. The lower-than-expected aging parts lead to the temporary mismatch of the company's production capacity, and the estimated gross profit margin of aging parts decreases greatly, which directly affects the profit scale of aging parts.

In terms of image,Before, Shunfeng always opened a five-star hotel, taking the high-end and business route, but now SF not only wants to open a five-star hotel, but also wants to open a snack bar in Sha County and take the affordable route.. During the Spring Festival, Shunfeng thought that his peers were closed, and many guests could only come to their five-star restaurant for dinner, prepared a large table of dishes, prepared for the Spring Festival, and prepared for a wave of results, but as a result, their peers did not close the door. Many guests went to other people's houses for dinner, some of the dishes were wasted, and the expected money was not earned.

The above research paper pointed out that with the arrival of the peak season in the second half of the year and the revision of the company's own expectations, the high probability of capacity utilization has rebounded to a reasonable level, promoting the repair of the company's time-limited business profits.There is no need to worry too much about the temporary fluctuation of the profits of time-limited parts.。

Investors focus on SF's aging products, believing that the size, growth and unit price of these products are very important factors in determining the stock price. In fact, shareholders are more worried about when Shunfeng can produce new business and products that can replace the contribution status of time-limited products to the company's performance. "At the shareholders' meeting, Huang Han, chief strategy officer of SF, expressed his anxiety about SF's second growth curve.。

He believes that from a strategic point of view, SF should not be limited to product segments, but should open up a larger market to meet the needs of more customer groups. For SF, not only focus on the domestic market, the international market will become a more important business for the company in the next two to three years. The cooperation with Kerry Logistics is progressing steadily. Shunfeng will accelerate its layout in the international market and become an important driving force for the company's performance. "

Some brokerage researchers said to Shenjing that SF's explanation for the loss is relatively objective and sincere. Shunfeng is in the stage of horse-racing enclosure in e-commerce, supply chain and cross-border market, and the loss is temporary. After the success of the enclosure, SF can eat more profits. In his view, Shunfeng did not have much strategic or management problems, and it is still a high-quality white horse stock.

"even if we have to judge the fundamentals of Shun Fung, the annual report and semi-annual report are more valuable than the results of a single quarter," says Jiang Han, a senior researcher at the Pangu think tank. The special express delivery and digital transformation that SF is vigorously developing require large-scale investment, and temporary losses do not need to cause panic.

The express business has assumed the role of SF's new growth engine. The above-mentioned securities researcher judged that Shun Feng's four-net financing strategy and express speed increase also had an impact on profits this year. And the price of raw materials in the upper reaches of this year has risen, and merchants are more sensitive to prices. Companies have invested in it, but they are unable to raise prices or even have to subsidize and reduce prices in the short term. However, after the network convergence of Shunfeng, it can reduce the cost and increase the efficiency, the loss can be controlled, and the profit will pick up.

Who is besieging Shun Feng?

Although there is no particularly fatal problem with the fundamentals, SF has to be in a hurry. The weakness of SF's performance is already on the horizon in its 2020 annual report. SF's market share shrank by about 2 per cent in 2020, with net profit growth of 16 per cent in the fourth quarter, a marked slowdown from net profit growth of more than 50 per cent in the previous two quarters.

Just like "not all milk is called Trensu", SF takes the lead in market capitalization by virtue of its single-ticket income far exceeding that of its peers. In 2020, however, Shun Fung's advantage weakened. In 2020, the single ticket revenue of Shunfeng express logistics business was 17.77 yuan, down 18.99% from the same period last year, and the gross profit margin dropped from 17.42% to 16.35%.

And behind Shun FengZTO Express, JD Logistics, Inc. and Ji Rabbit chased it and nibbled away at its market share.. In the March 18 results communication meeting, Shunfeng said of the extreme rabbit, "No matter how large the scale is, we can't keep the market. This is a very profound lesson we have seen from a strategic point of view." "

When Shunfeng lost money, the extreme rabbit had a fierce momentum.

Recently, it has been reported that extreme Rabbit has just completed a financing of 1.8 billion US dollars, led by Boyu Capital, Hillhouse Capital and Sequoia Capital. The post-investment valuation reached $7.8 billion, surpassing established delivery companies such as Yuantong, Shentong and Yunda, and currently second only to Shun Feng (about $50.6 billion), JD Logistics, Inc. (known as $40 billion) and ZTO Express ($24.1 billion). Some media reported that extreme Rabbit plans to conduct an IPO with a scale of more than 1 billion US dollars in the United States.

At the shareholders' meeting, Huang said that many changes have taken place in the express delivery industry this year, and the two key words are sinking the market and cross-border logistics. He said that the stratification of domestic consumption is becoming more and more obvious. In addition to high-end consumption in first-and second-tier cities, demand in third-and fourth-tier cities is also booming. "thirdly, many colleagues in cross-border logistics have made a lot of money. Originally, it was estimated that cross-border logistics was only a short-term development during the epidemic, but it is actually more positive than expected and the development is quite good. "

In the "booming" sinking market, in the Shunfeng key layout of the e-commerce parts market, the price war has not stopped. In Yiwu, where the price war is the most fierce in the forefront of e-commerce, in March 2021, the lowest price of delivery in Yiwu was broken through to less than 1 yuan. Price war spoiler extreme rabbit use subsidy, "more than ten thousand pieces of large and small pieces can achieve 1 yuan delivery."

The price war is too "ferocious" and leads to regulatory dissatisfaction. On the same day as Shunfeng's share price fell by the daily limit, according to the 21st Century Economic report, a person from the Yiwu Post Administration confirmedAs a result of "low-price dumping", extreme Rabbit Express and Best Express were cracked down, and the main measure was the outage of some distribution centers, which were implemented on the same day.. The cruelty of the war can be seen in the fierce language of the Postal Administration-"our bureau has repeatedly informed your company and warned you not to dump at a price well below cost, but so far your company has not carried out rectification as required." Your company is required to complete the rectification by April 9. "

In this environment, Shunfeng is also unbearable. Huang said that by the end of this year, at least 3-4 peers will become listed companies.

However, it should be noted that under the ferocious price war, life may not be easy for other express delivery companies in the first quarter of 2021. Because Shunfeng is the first to issue a notice.

According to the forecast of the first quarterly report of the express delivery industry recently released by Anxin Securities, in the first quarter of 2021, the tone of the entire express delivery industry is "short-term performance pressure"-"industry price competition, express delivery enterprises to expand investment, cost dividends in the same period last year and other factors, may cause express delivery enterprises to face performance pressure."

According to the data of the State Post Bureau, the average unit price of the industry from January to February in 2021 decreased by 20.2% compared with the same period last year. Among listed express delivery companies, the single ticket income of Yunda, Yuantong and Shentong fell by 24.2%, 15.6% and 19.7% respectively from January to February compared with the same period last year.

To some extent, Shun Fung's performance "thunderstorm" blew up the plight of the industry. In order to seize the sinking market, Shunfeng participated in the low-price "inner volume war", which eventually affected profits.

Competition in the express industry is still intensifying, which increases the pressure on corporate performance growth. Perhaps this "rollover" of Shunfeng is just the beginning.