{$WISH} переводите guys, it's all over
Investment Thesis
ContextLogic (NASDAQ:WISH) went public back in late 2020 but its performance has been disastrous so far, with shares down over 98% from its IPO price. Despite the massive decline, I still think investors should stay away from the company. The business' fundamentals are weak with no competitive advantage, and its popularity continues to drop drastically. The deterioration is reflected in its latest earnings with both the top and the bottom line plummeting, not to mention the huge ongoing cash burn. The business looks extremely weak at the moment and I rate the company as a Sell.
Poor Management
ContextLogic, better known as Wish, is a California-based e-commerce company founded in 2010. The company brands itself as a "discovery-focused" and fun platform that sells affordable products. Thanks to its low-pricing products and marketing efforts, it gained significant traction after its initial launch. However, the management team did a poor job of growing the business. It failed to leverage the initial momentum to strengthen its position or build out any long-term leverage. Unlike other companies such as Amazon (AMZN) and Coupang (CPNG) which focuses on quality and customer experience to build a competitive advantage, the company only relies on marketing which turned out to be unsustainable.
For example, the company's delivery time usually takes at least two weeks due to inferior logistics, while Amazon only takes two days. A lot of its products are also low-quality items from China which fail to retain customers, not to mention making them reorder again. As competition intensifies, the company is starting to lose customers rapidly as they turn to better alternatives. During the latest quarter, the number of active customers dropped by 55%. According to the Google Trends chart shown below, you can also see that the company's popularity has been trending downward in the past few years. The missteps that resulted in the company having no competitive advantage with its branding deteriorating, are now hurting growth.
Disastrous Earnings
ContextLogic announced its fourth quarter earnings last month, and the results are catastrophic, with both the top and the bottom lines deteriorating substantially. The company reported revenue of $123 million, down a whopping 57% YoY (year over year) compared to $289 million. Most of the decline is attributed to marketplace revenue, which plummeted 72% YoY from $167 million to $46 million. Revenue continued to drop as the company is losing users rapidly. The number of active users during the quarter was 20 million, down 55% YoY. Logistics revenue performed slightly better, down 37% YoY from $122 million to $77 million. This is very concerning as the fourth quarter was supposed to be the strongest, thanks to the holiday season.
The bottom line was even worse, as the decline in costs and expenses remain minimal. Despite revenue plummeting, costs of sales remain elevated at $97 million. This resulted in the gross profit dropping 78.3% YoY from $120 million to $26 million. The gross profit margin was 21.1% compared to 41.5%, down 2,040 basis points. Operating expenses were also elevated, down only 22.3% from $184 million to $143 million. This resulted in the net loss widening 89.7% from $(58) million to $(110) million, or (89.4)% of total revenue. Operating cash flow also worsened by 122% from negative $(49) million to negative $(109) million. Net