111, Inc. (NASDAQ:YI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

But besides the technology and tools, I think even more important is our relationship with the pharmaceutical companies. To further reduce our procurement costs, we have direct source from various pharmaceutical companies to lower the cost of product. And we now source from over 500 global and domestic pharmaceutical companies. We will continue to deepen our strategic relationship with these companies. And just for everyone’s information, in the past two months in this year, I have personally visited over 50 pharmaceutical companies. And we all €“ we have a very deep discussion on post-COVID, the environment, the customer behavior change. They all agree to tighten our direct relationship and to find a strategic way to better serve the patients and customers in post-COVID period.

So, we definitely expect the momentum to continue. And furthermore, with the increase of demand of our customers, with the volume growth, we will definitely see more scalability in our business which will translate into better profit in our business. Thank you.

Junling Liu: Yes. So Tom, if I heard your question correctly, it’s about OpEx, right. So, what is driving the OpEx down and can it sustain, I want to answer the question from the second part, can it sustain. Absolutely, we are very confident of that. And we believe there is still much room for our OpEx to improve. And the short answer to what drives down the OpEx, the short answer is really our investment into technology. We advocate digitization and we must demonstrate us, ourselves being digital-first. And if you show up in a conference room today or anywhere or if you are traveling in some remote areas with a mobile phone, we actually exactly know what happens on the day in terms of sales. So, not only do we know the overall company’s sales, and we know precisely what happens, let’s say, in Northeast China, in East China, in Northwest China, and in what customer segment, in what categories, in even some SKUs. So, knowing all that, it will give us a huge advantage in decision-making.

And each morning, we have over 1,000 people be on the ground sales. Each morning, those ground sales people will be assigned a list of tasks for today’s work. That assignment is not done by the manager. It’s actually by system. So, being digital has a lot of advantages. So, moving into the future, with the new technologies like there are more areas we can work on to be more efficient. And as we speak, we will have a few projects going on, and we are experimenting and see how it can further reduce our OpEx. And the other factor that contributed to the driving down of the OpEx is really we spent money wisely and we have to grow. Once our scale grows, and obviously, we can scale down the operating cost. And of course, in conclusion, we still have a lot of confidence to improve a lot more into the future.

Thank you.

Tom Craig: Thank you. I am looking forward to the performance next quarter. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. And our next question today comes from Francis Yang at BSV Capital. Please go ahead.

Francis Yang: Thank you, operator. This is Francis from BSV Capital. Congratulations again on your great performance. I have got two questions. The first one is the percentage of non-GAAP operation loss to net revenue has significantly narrowed. What’s the main reason for this trend? And how does the company plan to maintain this trend? My second question is, does the company have any new technological developments in recent times? I would love to hear you share about it. Thanks.