Restaurant revenue increased by 30%. Haidilao's revenue exceeded expectations last year, with a year-on-year net profit increase of 174.6% | Financial Report Insights

On the evening of March 26th, after the Hong Kong stock market closed, Haidilao announced its 2023 performance as of the end of last year.

The financial report shows that Haidilao's revenue last year was 41.453 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33.6%, exceeding the market's expected 41.1 billion yuan. The net profit for the whole year was 4.495 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of approximately 174.6%, exceeding the market's expected 4.39 billion yuan.

The company also announced a plan to distribute HKD 0.824 per share, totaling approximately 4.05 billion RMB in dividends, accounting for 90.1% of the company's annual net profit.

As of today's closing of the Hong Kong stock market, Haidilao fell slightly by 0.35%.

In the post-epidemic period, restaurant traffic increased, Haidilao's restaurant revenue increased by 30%, but the average consumption per capita fell below 100 yuan.

In terms of revenue, the restaurant operation revenue, which accounts for the majority of Haidilao's revenue, increased by 35.7% year-on-year to 39.267 billion yuan, accounting for 94.7% of the annual total revenue. Haidilao stated that the increase in restaurant revenue was mainly due to the lifting of COVID-19 control measures and the recovery of the Chinese economy, leading to an increase in restaurant traffic and improved operations.

In 2023, Haidilao's overall table turnover rate was 3.8 times/day, a year-on-year increase of 26.7%. The table turnover rate for the 950 same-store restaurants was 3.9 times/day, an increase of about 30%. Haidilao's restaurants received nearly 400 million customers throughout the year, an increase of 43.7% from the previous year.

However, due to increased discounts, the average consumption per customer at Haidilao fell below 100 yuan, decreasing from 104.9 yuan in 2022 to 99.1 yuan.

Throughout the year, only 9 new stores were added.

In the financial report, Haidilao stated that its primary goal for 2023 is to improve the profitability and operational efficiency of existing stores, hence the slowdown in new store openings.

As of December 31, 2023, the company operated a total of 1374 Haidilao restaurants, including 1351 in mainland China and 23 in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Throughout the year, 9 new Haidilao restaurants were added, 26 previously closed restaurants were reopened, and 32 Haidilao restaurants were closed In addition to the traditional hot pot delivery business, Haidilao has also innovated its home delivery business by launching two business lines: "Haidilao Delivery • Happy Banquet" and "Haidilao Rice and Hot Pot Dishes". They are also exploring innovative service scenarios such as ski resorts and amusement parks.

Haidilao also disclosed in its financial report that in November last year, a dance video titled "Subject Three" spontaneously organized by frontline store employees went viral on the internet, with over 5 billion views on Douyin, becoming a global phenomenon.

As of the end of the reporting period, Haidilao had a total of 153,747 employees. For the fiscal year ending December 31, 2023, the total employee costs of Haidilao (including salaries, wages, allowances, and benefits) amounted to RMB 13.04 billion