China Youzan Achieves Q1-Q3 Revenue of $184 Million, Operating Losses of $119 Million

According to a financial report released by Chinese software as a service (SaaS) provider China Youzan on Wednesday, the company has achieved revenue of 1.176 billion yuan ($184 million) in the first three quarters of this year, down 9.9% year-on-year. In the same period, its operating losses totalled 759 million yuan, higher than the 356 million yuan seen during the same period last year.

China Youzan, formerly China Innovationpay Group Limited, is an investment holding company principally engaged in the merchant service business. The Hong Kong-listed company helps merchants to open stores online, engage in social marketing, improve retention and repurchasing, and expand omni-channel new retail business.

In the past few years, China Youzan has received strategic investment from Tencent and Baidu. Since this year, it has launched some new SaaS products, including WowShop, Youzan WeCom Assistant, Youzan Salespeople Assistant and Youzan CRM, to cater to its merchants’ evolving needs and grow its merchant base.

Among the revenues achieved by China Youzan, the revenue from subscription solutions was 737 million yuan, representing a decrease of 2.8% compared to the same period last year, while the revenue from merchant solutions was 427 million yuan, representing a year-on-year decrease of 20%.

In terms of the number of merchants, the financial report shows that in the first three quarters of 2021, the number of new paying merchants of China Youzan was 32,700, of which the number of new paying merchants in the third quarter was 13,700, up 6% year-on-year. The number of newly-added paying merchants for SaaS products in China Youzan’s stores doubled year-on-year, accounting for 43% of the total newly-added merchants.

As of the end of September, the number of existing paying merchants on the platform was about 90,300, an increase of 3% compared with that at the end of June.

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In addition, in the first three quarters of 2021, the research and development expenditure of China Youzan reached 480 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 50%. So far, the company has obtained eight authorized invention patents and 52 Chinese computer software copyrights related to SaaS products and technologies. In the first six months of 2021, 103,250 updates were launched for its SaaS products. So far, the proportion of technical and product developers in the company has reached nearly 40%.