Sales continue growing for Vipshop Holdings Ltd., but the Chinese online discount retailer missed its sales guidance for the first time since it went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2012.
Vipshop, No. 4 in the Internet Retailer 2015 China 500, reported revenue for the third quarter of 2015 increased 63% to 8.67 billion yuan ($1.36 billion), up from 5.33 billion yuan ($8.345 billion) in the prior-year period. The company attributes that growth to increases total active customers, repeat customers, total orders and the growing orders from mobile devices.
But the 63% revenue growth rate in the third quarter is not fast enough to meet Vipshop’s goal of year-over-year revenue growth of 71%-74%.
Vipshop CEO Eric Shen told analysts, “We didn’t meet our top-line guidance due to unexpected seasonal patterns, over-optimistic forecasts and conservative marketing investments.”
The number of customers for the third quarter increased to 14.6 million, up 48% from 9.8 million in the same period of 2014. The number of total orders grew 58% to 44.8 million from 28.3 million in the same period last year.
For the last quarter of 2015, Vipshop expects its revenue to be 12.0-12.5 billion yuan, representing a year-over-year growth rate of 43%-49%.
To continue its growth, Vipshop is expanding from only selling fashion and beauty products. The company is emphasizing the baby and parenting products category this year and plans to grow more sales from home and electronics products in 2016.
For the third quarter ended Sept. 30, Vipshop also reported:
- Net Income of 292.9 million yuan ($46.1 million), a 113.8 % increase from 137.0 million yuan in the same quarter of 2014.
- 79% of gross merchandise value generated from mobile devices
- Cross-border e-commerce business grew 164% compared with Q2 and represents 5% of its GMV.
- Warehouse capacity reached 1.6 million square meters (17 million square feet), and orders handled by the in-house shipping team reached 80%.
For the first three quarters of 2015, Vipshop reported:
- Net revenue of 26.27 billion yuan ($4.11 billion), a 78.3% increase from 14.73 billion yuan in the same period of 2014.
- Net Income of 1.02 billion yuan ($159.8 million), up 106.1% from 494.8 million yuan.