111, Inc.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by for 111 Inc.' 's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2020 conference call. At this time, all participants are in the listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. I would now turn the meeting over to your host for today's call, Ms. Monica Moo, Investor Relations Director. Please proceed, Monica.

Thank you, Operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for 111's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2020 conference call. On the call today from 111 are Dr. Gong Yu, co-founder and executive chairman, Mr. Junling Liu, co-founder, chairman, and CEO, Mr. Luke Chen, CFO of our major subsidiary, Mr. Harvey Wong, co-COO, Mr. Barry Zhu, co-COO, Ms. Tiffany Zhuge, IR and BD Senior VP, Ms. Monica Mu, Investor Relations Director, and Mr. Alex Still, Finance Director. As a reminder, today's conference call is being broadcast live via webcast. In addition, a replay will be available on our website following the call. The company's earnings press release was distributed earlier today and together with our earnings presentation are available on the company's IR website at ir.111.com.cn. Before we get started, let me remind you that this call may contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are based upon management's current expectations and current markets and operating conditions, and relate to events that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, all of which would cause actual results to differ materially. For more information about these risks, please refer to the company's filings with the SEC. 111 does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise except as required under applicable law. Please note that all numbers are in RMB and all comparisons refer to year-over-year comparison unless otherwise stated. Please also refer to our earnings press release for detailed information of our comparative financial performance on a year-over-year basis. With that, I will turn the call over to our CEO, Mr. Junling Liu.

Good morning and good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining this call today for our fourth quarter and the full year 2020 results. Let me begin with an update on the COVID-19 pandemic. The past year plus has been difficult for all of us. But the global effort and the commitment to overcome this terrible disease has also shown the resilience of the human spirit. We'll continue to be in awe of the first responders working tirelessly throughout these unprecedented times, and together we will persevere and beat this disease. With the hard work from our dedicated employees and the safety and other operational protocols we have put in place, 111 has been able to service our customers and deliver critical care to patients without interruption throughout this difficult period. With the vaccine rollout, we are optimistic that an end to the pandemic is in sight as we continue to stay vigilant for the potentially more dangerous variants of the coronavirus. Moving on to our earnings, I'll begin with a brief look back on what we accomplished in 2020, our extraordinary journey of growth in Section 1 of the DEC, and a look ahead on 2021 and beyond. Then I'll hand it over to Luke to take you through the financials in Section 2. We will conclude our prepared remarks with guidance for Q1 2021 before we take your questions. In the fourth quarter, net revenue rose 96.1% year-over-year to 2.64 billion RMB, bringing the number for FY 2020 to 8.2 billion, more than doubling the net revenue of 3.95 billion achieved in FY 2019. This is the 10th consecutive quarter of revenue growth since our IPO. Non-GAAP net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders as a percentage of net revenues also decreased significantly from 22.3% in our first quarter post-IPO to 3.7% in this fourth quarter. Our business recorded a close to nine-fold increase from $959.5 million in FY 2017 This stellar performance was set in motion by our S2B2C model, which has continued to drive our multifaceted growth strategy and has allowed us to lead the charge in the digital transformation of the healthcare system in the new era of industry internet in China. Our mission is clear, to digitally connect patients with medicine and healthcare services. Our S2B2C model was built in two stages. Firstly, we developed the supply chain infrastructure, the S, that enables the model. From 1.1.1's inception, we have in our mind to build an innovative digital platform that would allow us to benefit from disrupting the status quo. But our supply chain infrastructure is more than the platform. It also encompasses our network of suppliers, pharmaceutical companies, distributors, marketplace vendors, and other service providers. This infrastructure is then digitally connected to our rapidly growing network of retail pharmacies, one of the bees in our model, offering them the capability for vast selection of products and assortment, cloud CRM, cloud clinic, speedy home delivery services, all of which enable them to better serve customers with enhanced efficiency and reduced cost. The same supply chain platform is also designed to bring value to doctors, the other B in our model. They are able to enjoy our service modules of cloud clinic, Cloud Pharmacy doctor-patient platform to provide follow-up care to patients, which improves the doctor-patient experience and drives positive care outcomes. Every day, patients travel to distant cities for medical care, and one of the challenges faced by doctors is being able to provide efficient and effective follow-up care once these patients return to their homes. On our platform, geography will no longer be a limitation, preventing doctors from engaging and interacting with their patients. Conducting regular post-discharge consultation and online refill of medicine can help reduce readmissions by detecting and mitigating potential complications early. Having established a robust foundation We then extended this model to bring value to patients, the C in S2B2C, by digitally connecting them to medicines and healthcare services. Through our supply chain platform, doctors and pharmacies are able to leverage different service modules to offer a variety of services to patients that never existed before. Our company takes great pride in creating a platform where customers from all around the country enjoy either pure digital or a combination of online plus offline services, which leads to better health outcomes. But our work doesn't end there. In the second stage of the build-out of our model, we seek to continually strengthen our infrastructure to further empower our network of retail pharmacies in service of patients. which is the S to P to C part of our model. From our cloud-based supply chain platform, we have applied AI and the big data analytics to help our retail pharmacy customers better manage their product selection, inventory control, and the timeliness of product delivery, resulting in high efficiency, lower cost, as well as greater engagement with more satisfied end consumers. We're making significant investment in the S to D to C space as well. In addition to AI, we're also investing in digital reps to make the doctor's life easier in patient care. For our network of suppliers, we continue to deepen and broaden our relationships with pharmaceutical companies through our omni-channel product commercialization services. adding value to all stakeholders in our ecosystem. For pharma companies, they gain access to a broader market for their new products while lowering marketing and distribution costs. For our retail pharmacy customers, they gain a wider selection of the latest products at a lower cost. For our doctors, they are able to access a variety of services so they can serve patients digitally. And for our end consumers, they benefit from being able to access the latest innovations brought to market by our supply chain platform. The advantages of our S2B2C model continues to attract new partners and has led to the rapid growth of our ecosystem in 2020. The number of global and domestic pharmaceutical companies we have a direct relationship with totaled over 330 as of Q4 2020, while our network of retail pharmacy customers is now the largest virtual network in China. With the support of our eight regional fulfillment centers, we provide 24-hour delivery to more than 300 cities in China. As we increase the number of our fulfillment centers and upgrade logistics management, fulfillment costs as a percentage of net revenue has improved significantly from 3.6% in Q4 2019 to 2.6% in Q4 2020. For the full year 2020, it improved from 3.3% to 2.8% year-over-year. During 2020, we continued to build on our momentum and deepen our market positions Through our main operation subsidiary, YaoFang Shanghai, which has raised two rounds of financing that amounted to 143 million US dollars from third-party investors, with the second round financing at a pre-money valuation of 10 billion RMB, or 1.5 billion US dollars. In connection with IPO on Shanghai Stock Exchange's SciTech Innovation Board, Looking ahead, we will continue to pursue the enormous market opportunities from the digital transformation of the healthcare market in China, which given the country's vast population, provides us with the opportunity to connect millions of people in lower tier cities to first rate healthcare services that have traditionally been available only to those living in tier one cities. In order to bridge the gap In patient access in 2021, we will focus on strengthening every facet of our S2B2C model and advancing our strategic plan to expedite business expansion. On the infrastructure side, we'll keep improving the AI and data processing capability of our technology, upping its power to handle higher volumes with greater predictive ability. With this, we'll be able to provide radiopharmacy greater control and the cost efficiency to drive their store sales growth and at the same time, further deepen the share of wallet among our existing radiopharmacy customers. The platform's enhanced capability will also allow us to virtually deploy more digital medical reps to further improve the effectiveness of our commercialization services. Doctors will be provided with tools to access latest innovations in medical science, and they are empowered to deliver better care to patients. On the supplier side, the services we provide to pharmaceutical companies in support of their commercialization effort help deepen our relationships with them. allowing us to source an even wider selection of medications for our pharmacy customers and doctors to benefit in consumer. These commercialization services also represent a major growth opportunity for us. Globally and in China, medical innovations have been happening at an unprecedented rate. As more and more new medications and devices come onto the market, competition becomes increasingly intense. 111's support during a product launch can improve a company's market position and increase the likelihood of a successful launch. Ultimately, our S2B2C model is a win-win for all, as we help to transform the healthcare system for the better. We believe that there are significant opportunities for us in the age of industry internet to expedite the digital transformation of healthcare system in China. We will work relentlessly to strengthen this model and pursue growth opportunities as we stay on track for a star listing and delivering even greater value to our shareholders. With that, I will hand the call to Luke to walk through our financial results. Thank you.

Thank you, Junling, and good morning or evening, everyone. I want to begin by thanking all of our colleagues for their resilience and hard work over fiscal 2020 as we navigated a challenging environment for making operational changes at the onset of the pandemic to support our fast-growing business. We remained resolute in our focus on taking care of all our stakeholders including our staff, customers, partners, and shareholders, and it was this focus that enabled us to report another phenomenal fourth quarter and fiscal year result today. Moving to the financials, my prepared remarks will focus on a few key business and financial highlights. You can refer to the details of the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2020 results from slides 14 to 17 in section two of our presentation. Again, all comparisons are year over year and all numbers are in RMB unless otherwise stated. Let's start with the fourth quarter results. Total net revenues for the quarter grew 96.1% to 2.64 billion. which exceeded the top end of our guidance range. We are pleased to report that our gross profit for the quarter has grown at 143.7%, which is much faster than the revenue growth. Strong top line growth for the quarter was mainly attributed to our B2B segment revenue growth at 108.7% to 2.47 billion. The gross profit for B2B segment has increased by 335.4%, with gross margin up from 1.4% to 3%, which reflected our ability to rapidly expand our business scale while steadily improve our margin. Our B2C segment revenue grows 3.9% to $168 million. with gross margin improved from 15.7% to 17.5%. Total operating expenses for the quarter were up 17.9% to $248 million. As a percentage of net revenue, total operating expenses for the quarter was down to 9.4% from 15.6% as we continue to enhance our operating leverage and optimize our operational efficiency. Fulfillment expenses as a percentage of net revenue for the quarter was 2.6%, down from 3.6% in the same quarter last year. Sales and marketing expenses as a percentage of net revenue for the quarter was 4.5%, down from 7.6% in the same quarter of last year. G&A expenses. as the percentage of net revenue for the quarter was 1.2%, down from 2.6% in the same quarter last year. Technology expenses accounted for 1.2% of net revenue, down from 1.5% in the same quarter last year. The total amount of technology expenses have increased by 54.5% as a result of our continuous investment in tech solutions. As a result, the gap debt loss attributable to ordinary shareholders for the quarter narrows to $98 million as compared to $144 million in the same quarter last year, which accounted for 3.7% of net revenue down from 10.7%. As for our fiscal full year 2020, I would like to run through a few highlights. Again, you can refer to the details in our deck and earnings release. Our comparisons are to full year 2019. Net revenues were $8.2 billion, up 107.6% from $3.5 billion. Our B2B segment revenue grew 127.8% to $7.51 billion from $3.3 billion due to strong growth attributable both from existing customers and new customers in our network. Our B2C segment revenue grew 5.7% to $691 million from $654 million. Our B2B gross margin was 3% up from 1.4%, while our B2C segment was 20.1% up from 18.1%. Overall, our gross profit grew by 121.5% to $366 million, and the combined gross margin was 4.5%, up from 4.2% a year ago. For full year 2020, total operating expenses were up 27.4% to $839 million. As a percentage of net revenue, total operating expenses was 10.2%, down from 16.7% last year. And then gap net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders for the year was 380 million, and accounted for 4.6% of net revenue, down from 11% as compared with last year. This means that we have reduced our bottom line loss by about $54 million, while doubling our revenue scale to $8.2 billion. As to the guidance for the first quarter of 2021, on slide 19, the company expects total net revenue to be between $2.53 billion and $2.6 billion, representing a year-over-year growth of approximately 61% to 65% or 87% to 93% if excluding the impacts of certain one-off sales of pandemic supplies in the first quarter 2020. The above outlook is based on the current market conditions and reflects the company's current and preliminary estimates of the market and operational conditions. as well as customer demand, which are subject to change. Please refer to slides 22 to 24 of the appendix section for our selected financial statements. A quick note on our cash position as of December 31, 2020. We had cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investments of IMB 1.62 billion compared with $697.7 million as of December 31, 2019. This concludes our prepared remarks. Thank you. Operator, we are now ready to begin the Q&A session.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press the pound or hash key. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, it's star and the number 1 on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Zoe Bien of Citi. Please ask your question.

Hello. Thank you for taking my question. This is Zoe Bien from Citi. May I ask management three small questions? The first is, how many pharmaceutical companies now partners with you? And other than procurement, have you seen any progresses of of other ways of cooperation such as e-prescription or your marketing services. And the second question is on your B2B segment. I want to check if you have seen a rising trend of the scale of procurement from 111 in those retail pharmacy sectors. And what are the levels in chain versus independent pharmacies? Is there a cap? And the third question is about the progress of your . Thank you.

So let me first answer your first question. You probably have seen that lately you have started partner with many pharmaceutical companies worldwide. We also announced that we have a direct strategic partnership with 330 pharmaceutical companies. So we started to become the preferred partner for pharmaceutical companies due to several major reasons. One is that we are fully compliant, and we have a high efficiency and transparency, and we have provided detailed solutions. pharmaceutical companies and us have complementary strengths they can offer products the medicine experts and the medical expertise and certainly they have their pain points of coverage how to commercialize their products through all regions and channels so we have the capability to So we are the preferred choice for pharmaceutical companies for their omni-channel product commercialization for more regional coverage and the channel coverage. And also our data can help the pharmaceutical companies to provide customer insights. And also our systems, for example, our CRM system can help them to improve the customer medicine compliance and duration of treatment. So our ProElite training answered the other questions.

The second question, this is Harvey, I will take the second question regarding the procurement from pharmacies, I think including both trans stores and independent pharmacies. In the past quarter, we have been seeing our customers keep increasing their purchase volume quarter over quarter since they became our customers. According to the sales data of 2020, existing customers contribute about 80% of our sales. So both chain stores and independent pharmacies are increasing their purchase volumes. Moving forward, with the further expansion of our supply chain network, we will offer more selection with a better price and provide a better service. We strongly believe there is still a large room to enhance our cooperation and to improve the quality of our customers.

Yeah, it's Luke. To answer your question on our progress on the star listing, Yes, first of all, we are making progress according to the schedule. We have achieved a couple milestones. One is on December 2020, we have completed a new round of capital injection from third-party strategic investors. And we have, in total, raised close to 143 million U.S. dollars, so close to one billion RMB. And the second round of financing was at the pre-money valuation of RMB 10 billion, which is approximately 1.53 billion. Now, with this third-party investment introduced, we have, according to the law, we convert this limited company to a stock-holding company, which is prerequisite for start listing. The third-party investors, including Shanghai Structure Fund, which is under Shanghai Guosheng, and Huasai Fund, which is under Shanghai Siling, they are both investment vehicles under Shanghai Municipal Government. There are also investors, namely Shanghai Science and Technology Venture Capital, Zhangjiang Technology Venture Investment, and the Pudong Science and Technology Venture Capital as well. They are the tech investment arm in Shanghai, together with independent PE firms like SAIFU, like UK Investment. Currently, we are with assistance from the security firm Haitong, And the accounting firm is Deloitte and Touch. And the law firm is Jing Du. So we are making progress according to the schedule. And we will also make formal and public announcement in due course. Zoe, can we answer your questions?

Yeah. Thanks a lot for .

Your next question comes from the line of Rachel Yang of HSBC. Please ask your question.

Okay, thanks for taking my question, and congratulations for another very strong quarter. Actually, I have two questions. The first one is to Luke. Can you help us to understand the overall GMB size of your B2C model? and how you are reporting and booking the revenue of the service fees versus the overall topics, I mean the top line, how you are going to booking the revenue and what is the structure. The second question is on your promotion model. In the sense you started to promote publicity and content is for Lily and Novavis, and it has been a while. So how the two drugs have been performing, and is there any possibility that we will strengthen our collaboration with our partners to make them an exclusive partnership? Yeah, those are the two questions for me. Thank you.

Rachel, can you repeat your first question?

The first question is regarding the structure of your B2B business and overall GMV size. I understand you took some of the revenue as a service fee, that is you were only charging half of the net profit of the service you provided to them. and some of the revenue you are putting in the top line, the sales price. What should be the revenue after the sales price? So I just want to understand how big the overall GMV is, and among your revenue, what part of that is put at revenue, and what part of it is put at top line sales? Okay. If you...

look at our early release, I think in the page three we have disclosed our segment revenues. We have not disclosed the GMV because our main major business is a self-operating business. We have marketplace business as well, but overall the size is not big. So if you want to know the GMV, I think One way is you can use our revenue times the VAT, which is 13%, to come up with a quick answer. In terms of structure, a major part of revenue contribution is due to B business, which is the revenue to the retail pharmacies, private clinics, private hospitals, Samsung distributors, et cetera. We have 2C business as well. The proportion is like 93% to 7%. Yes, we are now derived income or service revenue from our digital marketing with farm companies, the commission from those marketplace vendors, as well as some service fee from our supply chain service. Now, we believe with our S2B2C model, we will continue to see more and more revenue coming from the service side. So that's something we are expecting.

Richard, I'll take on your second question about promoting drugs. In China, by law, we're not allowed to promote any drugs, but we do help pharmaceutical companies in commercializing their drugs. So that's why we built out an omnichannel platform for us to help those pharma guys to launch new drugs and follow that lifeline of that particular drug. So initially, once a pharma company obtains NDA from CFDA, So they launched the drug, but it usually takes a fairly long time for the drug to be able to gain access to hospitals. So there has to be an outside of hospital supply chain to help the pharma guys to maximize sales in a limited time window. And that's why we have been trying to build a supply chain platform. And our supply chain platform enables us to actually help the pharmaceutical company from day one to get the drugs delivered to customers' homes or to clinics or to hospitals. And you referenced a few pharma companies, and of course our list is growing every quarter. And we are pretty confident that the model we have been building is going to be a great tool for all the pharmaceutical companies when it comes to new drug launch or even after they gained access to hospital, we have digital reps to help them continue to disseminate the medical information. And even when they get to VBP or into retail, of course, our over 300,000 pharmacies across the country will be a great channel for them to capture more sales. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. So how well are the two drugs have been doing in the

So, so, so, so, so, so, What's the other one? Novartis? Cosanti. They're doing exceedingly well. So usually you do a CAGR, right? But we do actually on a monthly compounded growth rate. So both drugs actually, I think for the limited time we had it since last May, it's been growing at a monthly growth rate close to 70%.

And we are introducing many more new drugs. As you can see, we just announced a partnership with Beijing. And also, we are launching new drugs through our platform.

Yeah, we also noticed that. So how many new drugs can we expect for the year of 2021? Many more.

Many more. Many more to come.

Okay, okay, okay. Thank you. Looking forward to that. That ends my question. Thank you.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Christopher Louis of Jefferies. Please ask your question.

Hi, this is G, and I'm asking questions on behalf of Chris from Jefferies. And my first question will be on the whole industry outlook. What do you think is the biggest change for the internet healthcare industry today compared with three years ago, especially with the new norms of reimbursement, deregulation, national and state centers, and those opportunities for pharmaceuticals within the context of the internet industry? And my second question is about competition. We see that after nearly 10 years of development, some of the players in this industry have grown big and some failed and vanished. What do you see our companies positioning in today's Internet healthcare market? And how shall we compete with those big players like Avi Health or Staten Health? how do we differentiate ourselves and what market share are we expecting in the long term? And my last question would be on the company's new progress in the construction of smart supply chain. And that's all from me. Thank you.

So, Gene, let me answer your first question, and then you can answer the second question. So, first of all, we feel very, very fortunate. So, we are facing unprecedented window of opportunities. You can see that the whole healthcare industry is growing double digits for the past few years and for the next decade to come. And in 10 years, the whole healthcare industry will exceed the automobile and real estate industry to become the largest industry in China. So certainly we need to grab that window of opportunity. Certainly the reasons are very apparent. One is rapid aging in China. Second is that disposable income is increasing every single year. And more importantly, the government policy start to favor telemedicine and online healthcare. So I think, you know, added advantages are the penetration of a mobile internet and also now the digitalization, digital technology. So we must grab this opportunity and heavily invest our digital health technology I especially really boost our S to B to C model to build our core competency. So I'll leave Junying to answer second.

I probably can answer the third question. Right. So competition. Yeah, you referenced Ali Health and JD Health. First of all, I think we admire the market cloud they command. Of course, the traffic they have is tremendous. But our path is very different. As we have explained in my remarks, our model is actually an S2B2C, the supply chain platform to enable businesses to service or better service consumers. And our focus is actually to create value for pharmacies and doctors. Those are the two Bs we want to empower. So by working together with the supply side, such as the pharmaceutical companies, the distributors and marketplace vendors and other service providers to have a better supply platform. And companies like us, without the background with super big companies, we can only rely on our own ability to innovate and our ability to execute. And the fact that we survived to date proved our ability to innovate and execute.

So the third question is about our supply chain infrastructure. So we were a bit conservative before and we didn't anticipate such a fast growth. So now I think it became a bottleneck, the supply chain infrastructure. So we added new two fulfillment centers, one in northeast, one in northwest. And the other six are all in the process of enlarging capacity and throughput. So we are really trying to improve our total capacity. At the same time, we are upgrading our service management system. So we are optimizing, while we're optimizing our supply chain network, we're also optimizing our categories and assortments. So all these organizations are down through data models and algorithms. So we formed a new team called BPI, Bins Process Improvement, really apply the lean processes to apply to every single of our business process. So we foresee that we will continue to improve not only our infrastructure, but also our processes.

Understood. Thank you, management.

Your next question comes from the line of Ashif Dengfeng of CICC. Please ask your question.

Hi, this is Shifeng from CICC. Thank you for taking my questions and congratulations on the company progress. Well, actually, I have two little questions. And the first one is, well, actually, I noticed that the company has achieved high growth since IPO in 2018. and recording around nine-fold increase in revenues over the past three years. So I just wondered, what has been the key driver for this growth? And on the other hand, what is the new revenue stream of the company in 2021? What should we expect in 2021? And this is my first question. And my second question is about your B2B business. Well, we see that C2B represents a large portion of your business revenue type, and how is this C2B business different from traditional distribution businesses? And what makes you outperform those traditional distribution names? That's my question, thanks.

Thank you, Xipeng. I think, let me take the questions. So we really enjoyed the growth in the last three years. It's really the S2P2C model that's propelling the growth. For any business to sustain this level of growth, you've got to have a model to propel that growth. So secondly, it's really the execution of the model. For instance, we started the S2P2C business in the middle of 2017 from zero. We made it a strategic imperative to take on more than 50% of all pharmacies across China. And within three years, we're serving more than 300,000 pharmacies. Of course, it's one thing to formulate a strategy, and it's another to execute the strategy. 111 is very proud of its capability in execution. Because of the above two factors mentioned, I think we're very confident in sustaining a high growth rate in future years. And obviously, we have such a wonderful market. It'll be a long time before we can reach the ceiling of the industry. The new revenue streams, really, you know, obviously, we already have a fantastic revenue stream, but we have very innovative models. By building that supply platform, we should expect not only revenue streams, but also profit streams or margin streams. And, you know, we're going to extract more margins out of our e-commerce, the traditional e-commerce, as everybody else does. That's easily understood. And of course, we want to create a lot of service modules where we can receive fees. For instance, we have a business model or a business unit internally called JVP, or Jubao Pen, and if you translate it into English, it's called the Treasure Box, where we attract a lot of little distributors on our platform. And we charge them a fee for providing logistical services and marketing services for them. And of course, we also can build revenue streams out of commercialization for pharmaceutical companies. And there is also digital services and marketing fees, etc. So your last question about the B2B's representation in our revenue and the differences with other distributors and so on, that's a very interesting one. I want to approach your question from this angle. If you look at a traditional distributor, it is just a one big B. you know, if we are talking about Sano Farm or Shanghai Farmer or Jiu Jiu Tong, et cetera, right? There are many limitations for one big B in servicing customers in today's digital world. Obviously, 111 is a technology company, and our focus is to build a supply platform to enable small Bs on our platform as well, so we can actually service consumers collectively. I want to give you an example to better illustrate our differences. I spoke about the treasure box or the JVP in our internal organization. So in that business unit, if you look at what we do is that we allow those commercial distributors to put their inventory into our fulfillment centers and they manage their own stock, in stock rate, out of stock rate, and also they manage their own prices. Once an order is placed, we aggregate that order and deliver to the customer in one package. We have thousands of those partners on our platform. So before, this particular distributor, he or she can only service the pharmacies in the local city. And now they suddenly have access to over 300,000 pharmacies across the country. Even if it is a single item, we can also deliver in one package with minimum marginal cost. But let's also look at the impact on the pharmacy side. Before, they have to work with a few dozens of those distributors. And now they can simply place one order on our app, and everything will be delivered in one order. So instead of a dozen orders, they just need to handle one order. Think about the moment when they receive the package, you know, just one instead of many. In every order, they have to go through quite a number of steps administratively to be able to be compliant according to the regulations here in China. So not only do we help the distributors, the pharmacies, the customers, all the consumers, we also create tremendous value for the industry. Think about how much shipping costs we can save over time. So the traditional distributors are not really doing business the way we do. Thank you, Xifeng. I hope I answered your question.

Yeah, that's very clear and exactly those same points are clear from the core logic. And I think we can be more excited on the future achievement of the company. And congratulations again on the company's progress. Thanks.

Thank you. Thank you, Xifeng.

Your next question comes from the line of Yunxiu Park. Please ask your question.

Hello. Kudos to everyone at 111 for the strong performance last quarter. I have a question. What are your projected revenue and gross margin for 2021, and when will you become profitable?

Yeah. Thank you for the question. We have given guidance on revenue on a quarterly basis. So for Q1 2021, our guidance for the revenue for the quarter is between IMB 2.53 billion to IMB 2.6 billion. So that will represent, if you're taking out the one time pandemic impact for the first quarter last year, that will represent like 87 to 93% growth. So internally, we continue to drive this business close to 100% growth. So that's our aim. And you have seen that we rapidly expand our business scale while steadily improving margins, especially on the B2B segment. We believe we will be able to do that, continue to do that, because we are building more and more direct sourcing partnership with farm companies, and we ask the team to focus more on those profitable items, drug items, you know, selling through the channel. In terms of profitability, I mean, If you look at our OPEX for the year 2020, it's around 10%. If we double our size again in 2021, and our expenses normally grow like 20% to 30%, so that OPEX will be lower to like 5% to 6% of total net revenue. So if we improve our margin from 4.5% now to 6%, then you see that we're almost even status. So we do not have an exact date for when turning profit, but we think it's quite near. And we are very optimistic about it.

OK, that's great. I'm optimistic, too. Thanks.

Thank you.

Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone. Your next question comes from the line of Jingyuan Zhang of IDG Capital. Please ask your question. For the line of Jingyuan Zhang of IDG Capital, your line is now open.

Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Yes, please go ahead. I have three questions. My first question is, as you just mentioned, there's a big opportunity for the digital transformation of healthcare industry in China. But we know there's very fierce competition between companies, especially for those big players. even though you just mentioned that the big players are not doing the same thing as the company. But I assume that it's quite easy for them to just enter the market as the company. So what do you think is the biggest entry barrier for those companies, those competitors? And my second question is, So in the future, do you consider the company as a 100% SaaS tool in the future? Like you only charge the service fee instead of the current business model. And my third question is, So I think there are a lot of, I know there are a lot of small pharmacies in China, but I think there's a big trend for the big pharmacies to acquire those small ones. So what do you think about that? Like if the big ones acquire the small ones, I think there will be like smaller opportunities for the companies. That's my question.

Yes, thank you, Jingyuan. Let me try to provide some answers to your questions. First of all, on the competition in the digital transformation, that's great news, right? So we have many, many companies participating in that transformation, and the 111 is being one of them. And how do we differentiate? I provided some answers just now, and obviously you want to dig deeper. And obviously, nobody is going to take the whole piece of the cake. And even if you're the biggest player in the healthcare space. So our focus is really on drug commercialization or medicine. And if you look at our mission, it's very different from others. If you look at the naming of the company, when you talk about whatever health, that is a very obvious B2C play. And our positioning is a S to B to C. So, you know, obviously we focus on doing the best job in drug commercialization. And that is our differentiation. That is, you know, our view because the supply side can be pretty big and complex. And one company has always got limitations. So in the traditional sense, B2C and B2B play quite an important role. But we anticipate that moving forward, a more innovative model is going to be S2B2C. That is why we're investing in resources in building that supply platform. With regards to if we're going to be a pure SaaS company, I would say no. We are a technology company, but being a SaaS player, Obviously, that's not something we are guiding the company towards to. So we're not going to be a software company, although software is going to be an important part of our business. So the way we see in the future is that our basic model is S2B2C, but within that model, there is going to be an element of SaaS. And we're actually having very encouraging adoption from many, many pharmacies. And we've already signed up a lot of them. And we are expecting more and more of them are going to sign up some of the SaaS services we provide. And the third question about the market consolidation, I have to agree with you that the consolidation is taking place. And obviously, it's not anything new. Over the last 10, 15 years, that consolidation has been taking place. But even if you look at where we are today, the fragmentation is still the main theme. Even if you take the top five, top six, even the top 10%, I would say that only takes about 10%, 12% of the total market share. And the 80-plus, close to 90% of the market are still single stores and small chains. And obviously, the bigger chains are becoming bigger, but the fragmentation was still going to be the reality, and they are not going to go away completely. We like Fragmentation as a technology company because we believe our S2B2C model is a perfect fit to help those smaller guys to stay in business by having access to a variety of services on our supply platform. And that's the way we see forward. Okay, the bigger are getting bigger, but the smaller ones are still going to be there for a long time. That is our view. Thank you.

Let me also add a point that more than 50% of top 100 pharmacy chains are enjoying our services.

That's also true.

Thank you for answering my questions. I have a little question regarding your answers. Does that mean that following this trend of consolidation, the remaining pharmacies are not in good condition, so the remaining market for us is not that big? And also for the first question, do you think that because we are doing the digitalization thing, do you think the big players... have more database and data, consumer data, larger consumer database than the company, so they have a big advantage for the digitalization of the healthcare industry.

I happen to hold the view no. Obviously, they have more consumer data, but for patient data, it is not the same as consumer data. It is one thing to sell a whole bunch of nutrition products or food supplements. But when it comes to prescription drugs, B2C is the right model because when it comes to prescription, it is always the doctor to issue those prescriptions. That is why we define pharmacies and doctors as our B, and our model is very much focused on really enabling those small Bs to better service consumers. or patients in that matter.

Okay. Thank you so much. Yeah, that's my question. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference back to Ms. Monica Ng for any closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. In closing, on behalf of the entire 111 management team, we'd like to thank you for your interest and participation in today's call. If you require any further information or have any interest in visiting us in China, please let us know. Thank you for joining us today. This concludes the call.

Ladies and gentlemen, you may now all disconnect your line. Thank you for participating.