Yahoo Finance ZTO Express Cayman (ZTO) Down 14.6% Since Last Earnings Report: Can It Rebound?
A month has gone by since the last earnings report for ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc. (ZTO). Shares have lost about 14.6% in that time frame, underperforming the S&P 500.
Will the recent negative trend continue leading up to its next earnings release, or is ZTO Express Cayman due for a breakout? Before we dive into how investors and analysts have reacted as of late, let's take a quick look at its most recent earnings report in order to get a better handle on the important drivers.
ZTO Express Q4 Earnings Beat Estimates
ZTO Express’ fourth-quarter 2023 earnings of 38 cents per share beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by a penny and improved 2.7% year over year.
Total revenues of $1,495.7 million improved year over year.
Detailed Operational Statistics
Revenues from the core express delivery business jumped 8% year over year owing to 32% increase in parcel volume and a 18.2% decrease in parcel unit price. Parcel volume market share increased 32% from the year-ago reported quarter.
Revenues from freight forwarding services fell 6.9% year over year owing to declining cross border e-commerce pricing.
Revenues from sales of accessories (largely consisted of sales of thermal paper used for digital waybills' printing) climbed 43.1% in line with parcel volume growth. Other revenues were mainly derived from financing services.
Gross profit improved 12.8% from the year-ago reported quarter on the back of revenue growth and cost productivity gain. Gross margin rate improved to 29.5% from 28.1% in the year-ago period.
Total operating expenses came in at RMB373.2 million (US$52.6 million) compared with RMB312.7 million in the year-ago period.
Liquidity & Buyback
ZTO Express exited the fourth quarter of 2023 with cash and cash equivalents of RMB11.69billion compared with RMB 9.28 billion at the end of September 2023.
As of Dec 31, 2023, ZTO Express purchased 42,501,325 ADSs for $1,063.0 million, including repurchase commissions. The company has $437.0 million funds available under its share repurchase program.
The company’s board of directors has further approved changes to its existing share repurchase program, increasing the value of shares to be repurchased from $1.5 billion to $2 billion and extending the effective time by one year through Jun 30, 2025.
2024 Guidance
ZTO Express has provided its expectation for parcel volumes in 2024 to 34.73 - 35.64 billion. The updated guidance represents an increase of 15-18% year over year.
How Have Estimates Been Moving Since Then?
Analysts were quiet during the last two month period as none of them issued any earnings estimate revisions.
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ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc. (ZTO) : Free Stock Analysis Report
