Yan Li
Thank you everyone for joining us on the call today. In the fourth quarter of 2022 our total sales volume was 138,279 units, representing a year-over-year decrease of 41.9%. Specifically, sales in the China market drove by 42.5% year-over-year to about 118,000 units and the sales in the overseas market decreased by 38.7% to 20,000 units. Total revenue in Q4 was RMB 612 million, a decrease of 38% year-over-year. This results wrap up the entire financial year for 2022, which has been a year with significant challenges for us. The total sales volume was 831,000 units representing a year-over-year decrease of 19.8%. Total revenue for the entire year was RMB 3.17 billion, a decrease of 14.5%. Now, particularly, our operations in the China markets face headwinds from uncertainties stemming from the COVID resurgence and the increase in lithium-ion battery prices starting in Q2 2022. The total sales in the China market dropped by 28% year-over-year to about 710,000 units. Our total revenue in the China market dropped about 19% to RMB 2.36 billion in 2022. The COVID resurgence not only disrupt the market demand, but also delayed the launch of several key products, due to the month long lockdown in Shanghai where our R&D center is located, we’re unable to release several key products until September in 2022 causing us to miss the peak sales period. Apart from the COVID disruptions, we had also faced headwinds from lithium battery price hikes. The raw material price for the lithium-ion battery experienced a sharp increase for nearly 50% since March 2022, significantly slow down the penetration rate of the lithium-ion battery electric two-wheelers throughout the China market. The price hike had a more significant impact on us since the majority of our e-scooters used lithium-ion batteries. To maintain a healthy gross margin, we had to increase our price by average of 7% to 10% and to optimize our product portfolio towards the premium product started in Q2 of 2022. As a result, except the quarter one of 2022 where we achieved a year-over-year growth, the sales volume for quarter 2, Q3 and the Q4 in 2022 have decreased by 25% to 40% year-over-year due to the lithium price impact. Now, coming to our international market has experienced a significant growth in 2022 with a remarkable 142% year-over-year increase in the unit sales to about 121,000 units, a 51% year-over-year growth in scooter revenue to RMB 493 million. The micro mobility type sectors, specifically the kick scooters, was the main driving force behind the search accounting for more than 100,000 units in sales. However, the electric two-wheeler categories saw a 46% decrease in sales selling a total of 18,000 units in 2022. The drop in the electric two-wheeler sales was mainly due to the shutdown of the share market as most of the share operators did not raise additional capital for expansion. The loss in share market led to a decline in sales of over 11,000 units, which accounted for nearly 70% of total sales drop in the electric two-wheeler market overseas. Now, our overseas market like the China market also faced challenges from the lithium battery price hike that increased the lithium battery price coupled with the rising of euro and the U.S. Dollar exchange rate necessitated us to increase the selling price by an average of 22% in the European market where we sold 70% of our electric two-wheelers previously. The increased selling price had to impact our sales in electric motorcycles in the consumer market, particularly in Europe. Now, as we reflect on the past year, the shift in market dynamics has significant negative impacts on our operations. In China, the surge on lithium-ion battery prices has reversed the lithium ion penetration in the electric bicycle and motorcycle market and they render our entry level products, representing 35% of sales volume in 2021 uncompetitive in this market. In the international market, besides the lithium-ion battery increase, the shutdown of the share market has essentially zeroed one-third of our electric two wheeler sales volume or more than one-half our electric two wheeler revenue. We recognize that both of the shift may not be temporary and that we start to make strategic adjustments to adapt to the change in market conditions in 2022. Those adjustment did take time and resulting in some short-term setbacks in 2022, but it would create a sustainable quality growth in the long run. First, in product development in the China market, we have shifted our R&D focus to premium product lines, i.e. the Niu products and the high-end Gova product lines in 2022. In 2021, we’re mainly focused on entry level product to the mass market taking advantage of a low lithium-ion battery cost. However, although those entry level products contributed a one-time revenue surge. It had a negative impact on gross margin once the lithium-ion battery price increased. Additional customer recognitions suffered due to the short drive range and the brand image as well. In 2022, we pivoted our product development strategy to focus back on premium and mid-end products. We further introduced graphite lead acid battery solutions for our mid-end product lines for both electric bicycles and motorcycles, which allowed us to improve drive range at low cost. Our high-end product lines enabled us to improve our margins to strengthen our brand position and our mid-end product lines enabled us to achieve volume sales and gain recognition from the mass market with product combined design aesthetics, and practically functionality at affordable prices. To highlight our product development achievements so far in 2022, I'd like to mention the long-term revolution on the SQi and the new UQi+ in the high-end market. The SQi is our product debuted in the most high-end electric bicycle market. It boost innovative design and the cutting edge material technologies priced at RMB 9,000 plus. This [indiscernible] motorcycle like SQi was well received by the market with customers waiting for 5 to 6 months for deliveries. The new UQi+ is the newest addition to our all-time most popular U series. The new UQi+ has been enhanced with improved light design, smart controls, riding ergonomics and additional personalization functionalities. The UQi+ has garnered significant attention on social media and generated widespread trends since its launch with nearly 50,000 units ordered in the first month alone. This positive reception is a testament to our brand leadership and the capability in product creation and that we have more exciting products planned for Q2 2023. Now, on the mid-end product line, we introduced the V2and the G6 series in 2022. V2 is the electric bicycle with a simplistic design style, but it was the large form factor. It's about 10% to 30% larger than our popular G2 and F2, which were released in 2020 and 2021. The G6 is a light electric motorcycle designed with upgraded battery capacity, with a range of over 100 kilometer on a single charge with graphite lead-acid batteries. Even though all those products we introduced late in September, which missed the peak season, with the exception of G6, the newly introduced product quickly represent more than 70% sales during the fourth quarter in just three months of the launch. This also helped us -- our ASP to increase by 15% quarter-over-quarter in Q4 2022. This was also probably design our strategic adjustment work by focusing on the premium and mid-end products, we're gradually mitigating the impact of lithium-ion battery cost hikes and start to reclaim the gross margins. Now, fueled by the premium product introduction of SQi, new UQi+, but also pivoted our marketing strategy to be product focused and user centric. This allowed us to get a better ROI on our marketing investment and also help to continue enhancing the brand. Just to list a few example in 2022, the marketing campaign surrounding the launch of our new products of SQi and the UQi+ resulted in a total of 1.4 billion views across all platforms. We also launched a new innovative ambassador program, [a core to] [ph] user centric marketing strategy, I mean, what, 40 plus new users were also influencers to co-create with new and host local events. During the 2022 World Cup, we mobilized our ambassadors for World Cup seeing new Scooter shows. [Indiscernible] Scooter shows, demonstrated Scooters customized and painted those elements from the World Cup. Those demonstrated scooters gain a total of 3.7 million views across China's social media platform in just two weeks. Now, in our international market, our strategy has been diversified product portfolio beyond the electric two-wheelers that expand the geographic regions beyond the main European market for the past two years. This strategy demonstrates early success in 2022 over the growth in the new products and new markets has only partially offset downturns in the electric two-wheeler share market as the upfront investment improving in the new product and new market credit red line in the process. On the product portfolio expansion, we have achieved early success in 2022 in electric kick scooters. We launched the category in the last quarter of 2021 and has since strategically [indiscernible] our kick scooter product mix to enter this category and establish brand awareness in the market, we'll start with the high-end product priced at $800 and $900 and gradually introduced mid and the low-end product with price ranging from $300 to $500. This strategy caused a slow ramp up initially that helped with the brand building in the new entered categories. Niu was awarded the Riders' Choice Award 2023 as the best scooter company presented by a micro mobility award. Our high-end product K3 also received coverage from some of the top tech media outlets such as [Tom's Guide, TechRadar] [ph], and the [indiscernible]. In terms of sales channel, we also took a gradual approach with first launched the kick scooter category, focusing on online channels, like Amazon. Our kick scooter models ranked Number 1, Number 2 on Amazon bestseller list in multiple countries in Europe and North America during 2022 Amazon Prime Day campaigns. Ready with the momentum from the online channels, we started to enter the offline primary sales network like [indiscernible] in Europe and the Best Buy in the U.S. towards the second half of 2022. We believe those approach, though slow at first, due to solid foundation for sustainable growth in 2023 and beyond. Now, on the regional expansion part in the electric two-wheeler sector, we see the opportunity that growth in the market in the Southeast Asian market, mainly in Thailand, Indonesia and Nepal, we continued our effort in expanding the Southeast Asian market as we hope to grow the trend of transition from the traditional gas fuel two-wheelers to electric two-wheelers. In those high-growth Southeast Asian market, we spend a number of stores and working with local partners with a wide range of sales network. In 2022, during the G20 Summit in Bali, Niu product provided electric scooters to be used by Indonesian national police officials to support the local government's effort to green transportation. Now, as a result of those efforts, the electric two-wheeler sales in the Southeast Asia market increased from nearly 60% year-over-year. Lastly, as advocate of sustainable living, we're committed to providing our customers with eco-friendly smart vehicles that help reduce our impact to the environment. 2022 also marked another year of our dedication to promote the development in the entire two-wheeler industry in environmental-friendly direction. We released our first in – ESG report this year. As of today, the cumulative riding data reached 16 billion kilometers, which means reducing 4 billion kilograms of carbon emissions, compared with a few vehicles. To further spread the idea of building green futures through technology, we launched a review, a global sustainability initiative during our Earth Day campaign in 2022. The campaign included a global Earth Day cleanup, which mobilizes new users across four continents to clean up trash in the public areas, including in places like [Bali] [ph] [indiscernible] and Guatemala. Sustainability has been the core at our brand since its inception and we take pride in making positive impact on the journey of sustainability with our users. Now that 2022 is behind us, we are confident to regain growth in 2023 with a strategic adjustment we made in 2022, starting to have a positive impact in Q2 2023. When compared to the pre-price adjustment in Q1 2022 on a year-over-year basis, our Q1 2023 still shows a sign of negative impact due to the price increase and delay product launches and we hope to recover into Q2. Now, with the strategy in product development and branding marketing, and the sales channel expansion in place, we believe we are able to regain growth in 2023 as the whole year for both China and the overseas market. Now, particularly in the China market, we'll drive quality growth with new products in the premium mid-end segment to continue our leadership, product focused on this user-centric marketing to optimize ROI and the retail efficiency improvement to drive the same-store growth in the 3,000-plus franchise stores. On the product side, we have a product plan for a few key products in China, starting with Q2 this year. Those product lines will focus on premium new series, the high-end Gova series, covering from high-performance motorcycles, light motorcycles to premium and mid-end China electric bicycles with powertrain platform from NCM lithium battery, our [FD] [ph] lithium battery to graphite led-acid batteries. We started those product development in 2022, and they will be released on schedule in Q2 2023. Now, driven by the unique and differentiated product propositions, we continue to focus on building Niu as a leading lifestyle brand for urban mobility, and this company may extend beyond just our product. Besides the product [indiscernible] central market strategy, we also plan to expand our co-branding initiatives with brands with similar [philosophy] [ph] in lifestyle. In 2022, we successfully launched collaborations with leading global lifestyle brands such like Razer and Diesel with co-branded product designed with each partner, and we plan to continue success model in [2023] [ph]. Now on the sales channel, we have launched initiatives to focus driving same-store sales improvements that in Q4 2022, which recognize offline stores as a crucial center to [pilot sufficient] [ph] test drive and aftersales services. We are supporting the offline store, [indiscernible] generated from our online. And with this O2O approach, we're able to provide better pre and after-sale experience for our users and to sales number for our retail stores. We have also launched a project to optimize and standardize store layout and the marketing materials for each store to create a consistent, high-quality brand image. Additionally, we have a digitalization program to help the stores showcase their product and platforms, resulting better traffic and potential conversions. Those initiatives will aid over 3,000 stores in achieving health same-store growth. Now, for the international market, we'll remain laser focused with our diversification strategy in both product portfolio and geographic expansions. Those diversification effort in the last two years will start to contribute significantly in growth in both the revenue and the process. First, on the micro-mobility category, it has been a high growth in 2022 with near 7x volume growth in 2022. We'll continue the superfast growth of micro-mobility segment with comprehensive product portfolio building in 2022, and establish a sales channels both on and offline, with the retail partners like Best Buy and the Media Markt. With the comprehensive kick scooter product mix layout in 2022, we also plan to keep refreshing our product offerings in 2023 to enrich the product options for our users. Now besides the kick scooters, we also recently officially launched our first e-bike product, BQi C3 to the U.S. market in March 2023. The BQi C3 is a two-battery e-bike with two lightweight swappable batteries with maximum riding distance of over 90 miles. Now, with the established sales network we built up last year, the BQi C3 will be sold in 100-plus Best Buy stores along with the online channels in the United States and the plan to be [sold within] [ph] Canada in the near future. Now having invested in the micro-mobility market since 2020, we are confident that foundation will lay out in the last three years in both brand building, product portfolio and the channel building will drive the accelerated growth in 2023 and to make substantial contributions in both revenue and profit. Now in the electric two-wheeler categories, we had a setback, due to the shutdown of share operation market in 2022. We expect to be on the fast growth path again in 2023 through product expansion and geographic expansion. On the product side, we plan to do all the hyper performance new products such as quite electric motorcycle, RCi in order to compete in the electric two-wheeler product offerings, capturing the growth demand in Europe. On the geographic expansion in Southeast Asia, to build on the growth we have achieved in 2022, we plan to launch the batter swapping enabled products and solutions by partnering with several key operators in the countries like Indonesia, Thailand. Those trials are already underway, and we expect this will finally open up the Southeast Asian market for us, which hosted more than 20 million [petrol] [ph] motorcycle sales annually. Now, as we are implementing those growth strategies for both China and international market, we expect our total sales volume to grow to 1 million to 1.2 million units in 2023, representing a 20% to 45% growth, compared with 2022. Now, I will turn the call over to our CFO, Fion, to go through our financial results.