Trip.com Group Limited American Depositary Shares 0 Earnings Call

Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Trip.com Group special conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Michelle Qi, IR Director. Please go ahead. Thank you.

Good morning and good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us on such short notice. We appreciate your participation today. The purpose of today's conference call is to discuss administrative penalty decision issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation of the People's Republic of China in connection with its antitrust investigation of Trip.com Group, and to provide additional context regarding the company's response and next steps. Before we begin, please note that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the regulatory actions and the potential impact on Trip.com Group's future business development and financial performance. These statements are made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements.

A number of potential risks and uncertainties are described in Trip.com Group's public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Trip.com undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by applicable law. Joining me today on the call are Ms. Jane Sun, Chief Executive Officer, and Ms. Cindy, Chief Financial Officer. Jane will provide a brief opening statement followed by a Q&A session. With that, I will turn the call over to Jane. Jane, please. Thank you, Michelle.

Hello, everyone. Thank you all for joining us today. As you are aware, over the weekend, Trip.com Group received the administrative decision issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation of the People's Republic of China. We sincerely accept the decision and will fully comply with the requirements set forth by the regulator. We appreciate the guidance provided throughout this process and remain committed to conducting our business in a manner that supports the healthy, orderly and sustainable development of China's travel industry. We view this moment not as a disruption, but as an opportunity to further strengthen our business. It marks an important milestone as we continue to refine our operating model and ensure it remains aligned with China's evolving regulatory and industry environment. More importantly, it reinforces our long-term focus on sustainable and high-quality growth.

Over the past several months, we have already been upgrading our operational practices to better align with the evolving industry standards and proactively shifting our focus toward sustainable, value-driven competition. We believe long-term success depends on creating value for merchants, consumers, and the broader travel industry. With this long-term perspective, we're implementing several strategic initiatives to further strengthen our platform, enhance partner collaboration, and create a more sustainable value for all stakeholders. First, we're evolving our partnership model toward a more transparent, balanced, and sustainable partnership structure that better supports the long-term interests of our partners and our broader travel ecosystem. We're ceasing our tier 1 delegated distribution program. Our related partner will transition to a new multi-tier partnership framework designed to promote greater flexibility, transparency, and shared growth. Second, we're refining our pricing ecosystem. We're discontinuing tier 2 delegated distribution program and continuing to enhance our platform mechanism.

Earlier in March this year, we voluntarily decommissioned our automated pricing tool and strengthened our pricing management processes as part of our efforts to foster a healthier competitive environment by encouraging healthy competition across a broader range of factors including service quality, product differentiation, customer experience, and overall partner performance. We aim to support more sustainable industry development and create greater long-term value for consumers and partners. Third, we're further strengthening our partner ecosystem. We're optimizing platform rules to improve transparency and ensure partners have clearer visibility into relevant policies and options. We're also streamlining promotional activities to reduce operational complexity for our partners. At the same time, we'll continue investing in data capabilities, technology services, and international marketing to support and help our partners improve service quality and capture new growth opportunities. Fourth, we remain committed to enhancing consumer protection.

We continue to strengthen our data security and personal information protection practices while ensuring that our technology and algorithms are developed and applied responsibly. We are committed to providing consumers with transparent, trustworthy services and continuously improving users' experience based on consumer feedback. Finally, we're enhancing our antitrust compliance management system, including strengthening the role of our compliance committee, establishing a normalized antitrust self-assessment mechanism, enhancing company-wide training, and embedding compliance consideration into every stage of product development and daily operations. We remain firmly committed to operating in accordance with applicable laws and regulations while supporting the long-term development of China's travel industry. We believe that a healthy, open, and high-quality ecosystem will create lasting value for our travelers, partners, shareholders, and society. Again, thank you for your continued trust and support. With that, we will now open the floor for your questions.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question now, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. A moment please for our first question. Our first question comes from the line of Yang Liu from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead, Yang. Your line is open.

Thanks for the opportunity. My question is, with the SAMR decision now delivered, can we consider regulatory risk for Trip.com Group fully behind us? Are there remaining areas of concern? Thank you. Thank you for your questions.

The decision represents the conclusion of the SAMR investigation, and it is an important milestone for our China domestic business practices. The SAMR provided guidance on the required operational adjustments, and we sincerely accept the decision and are fully committed to implementing the rectification measures in a timely and comprehensive manner. We view this as an opportunity to further strengthen our governance framework and support long-term development of our business. We remain committed to creating long-term value for partners and users by fostering competition based on service quality and user experience, and contributing to a healthier and more sustainable travel ecosystem. Like other leading technology and platform companies around the world, compliance will remain an important part of our day-to-day operations and will continue to work constructively with regulators while delivering value to our shareholders, the industry, and the society at large. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

We will now move to the next question. Our next question comes from the line of Alex Yao of JPMorgan. Please ask your question, Alex. Your line is open. Thank you, management, for taking my question.

What will replace the former tier 1 and tier 2 delegated distribution programs? With the new arrangements, what prevents hotels from shifting their inventory or lower prices onto competing platforms? Lastly, how should the investor think about the impact on your hotel ADR and take rate? Thank you. Thank you, Alex, for your question.

Firstly, we believe the decision aims to promote a healthy and more sustainable competitive environment across industry. We will continue to work with all hotel partners under a new multi-tiered partnership framework that promotes greater flexibility, transparency, and shared growth. Under our G2 strategy, which focus on first, globalization, second, great quality, we will strive to build long-term value to our hotel partners by helping them reach a broad base of high-quality leisure and business travelers and driving incremental demand across multiple travel scenarios such as inbound travel, the silver generation travel, as well as event-driven travel. For travelers, we remain focused on delivering the best overall value through our comprehensive one-stop travel ecosystem and trusted services. Our average daily rate or the ADR will continue to be driven primarily by market supplier and demand. We do not expect these changes to fundamentally alter the dynamic.

Similarly, our take rate reflects the overall value we created for travelers and hotel partners with normal fluctuations driven primarily by product mix, promotional activities, and partner incentive programs. Thank you. Thank you. We will now move to the next question, and our next question comes from the line of Simon Cheung of Goldman Sachs.

Please ask your question, Simon. Your line is open. Thanks, Jane, Cindy, and Michelle, for representation.

I just have one quick question. In your public announcement, you mentioned that some of the operational adjustments are already in place while others will be implemented gradually. Which adjustments do you think were already refactored in your second quarter guidance, and what additional financial impact the investors should expect in the coming quarters? Thank you. Thank you, Simon.

As we disclosed in the public announcement, we have discontinued our price checking and automated price matching tools starting in March. Based on what we know today, we believe the impact of those changes has been reflected in our Q2 outlook. Following the administrative decision, we are ceasing our tier 1 and tier 2 delegated distribution programs and taking other measures designed to strengthen our support for hotel partners and maintain high-quality services for our travelers. As this transition progresses, we may see some fluctuations in our financial performance. Moreover, given the continued macro uncertainty, such as fuel price volatility, visibility remain limited. At this moment, we are not in a position to provide specific guidance for the second half.

However, over the longer-term period, we strongly believe that our growth will continue to be driven by expanding our global footprint, continuously enhancing the quality of our products and services, and creating incremental demand through innovation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

We will now proceed to our next question, and our next question comes from Joyce Ju of Bank of America. Please ask your question, Joyce. Your line is open. Good evening, Jane, Cindy, and Michelle.

Thanks for taking my question. Could you please help us understand what is the financial impact of the penalty, and will it affect your operations and capital allocations? Thank you very much. Sure.

From an accounting perspective, we will recognize an expense of RMB 5.179 billion and a counter revenue of RMB 122 million in the second quarter. Our capital allocations priorities remain consistent, and our operations remain focused on executing our G2 strategy to bring the long-term value to all our stakeholders. Thank you. Thank you. We have now reached the end of the Q&A session.

Thank you all very much for your questions. I'd now like to turn the conference back to Michelle for her closing comments.

Thank you. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. If you have further questions, please feel free to reach out to the IR team of Trip.com Group. Thank you. Have a good day.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your participation in today's conference.

This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect your lines.