Huazhu Group Limited has announced the unaudited financial results for the first quarter of 2020.
Huazhu Group Limited reported net revenues of RMB2.0 billion (US$284 million) for the first quarter, a decrease of 15.7% year-over-year. However, the revenue was in line with the guidance in which the company has previously estimated decrease of 15% to 20%. While excluding Deutsche Hospitality (DH) it decreased 46.0% year-over-year.
Being one of the world-leading hotel group, it reported a total of 5,953 operational hotels or 575,488 operational hotel rooms and unopened hotels during the period were 2,375 that are in pipeline as of March 31, 2020. While excluding DH, operational hotels were 5,838 or hotel room as 552,362. Its net revenues collected from leased and owned hotels the quarter remained RMB1.5 billion (US$214 million) with an 11.1% yoy decrease and a decrease of 21.1% compared to previous quarter.
Company’s hotel turnover remained RMB5 billion for the first quarter, a decreased of 32% year-over-year. While excluding DH, it decreased 49%. The company says net revenue of Legacy-Huazhu minified by RMB1.1 billion year-over-year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company took cost mitigation measures for reducing the costs and expenditures however some measures were not proposed to affect first quarter like reducing rental, personnel costs and general and administrative expenses can show results in future quarters. Net revenue decrease directly affected the company’s operating income, EBITDA and net income.
It reported the net loss attributable of RMB2.1 billion (US$301 million) for the first quarter of 2020, compared to net income of RMB106 million attributable to the company during first quarter of 2019 and net income attributable of RMB619 million attributable to the company in the previous quarter.
Huazhu provided the earnings release on the its investor relations website at http://ir.huazhu.com/press-releases. Its management hosted a conference call following the announcement. The company held the audio call instead of visual Conference Call event amid the outbreak of COVID-19. A telephone replay of the call is available until August 7, 2020. Investors in US have to dial +1 855 452 5696, investors in China Mainland have to dial 400 632 2162, investors in Hong Kong have to dial 800 963 117 and investors from other regions have to dial +61 2 8199 0299 in order to listen a replay of the conference call. The reference of the conference ID is 6692286.