Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the MINISO Group Holding Limited earnings conference call for the second quarter of fiscal year 2022 ending December 31, 2021. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the management's prepared remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. Please note this event is being recorded. Now, I'd like to hand the conference over to your host speaker today, Mr. Eason Zhang, Director of Capital Markets. Please go ahead, Eason.
Thank you. Hello, everyone, and thank you all for joining us on today's call. The company has announced its quarterly financial results earlier today. An earnings release is now available on our investor relations website at ir.miniso.com. Today, you will hear from our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Guofu Ye, who will start the call with an overview of our business. He will be followed by our CFO, Mr. Steven Zhang, who will address our financial results in more detail before we take your questions. Before continuing, I would like to refer you to the Safe Harbor statement in our earnings press release, which also applies to this call as we will be making forward-looking statements.
Please also note that we'll discuss non-IFRS measures today, which we have explained and reconciled to the most comparable measures reported under International Financial Reporting Standards in the company's earnings press release and filings with the SEC. With that, I will now turn the call over to Mr. Ye. Please go ahead, sir.
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Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to MINISO's December quarter 2021 earnings conference call. On today's call, I will share major developments of our business and then talk about the strategic upgrade of MINISO brand.
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I will begin with business review. During this quarter, we added 191 stores to our global store network, including 174 MINISO stores and 17 TOP TOY stores. Revenue reached RMB 2.77 billion, up 21% year-over-year, exceeding the high end of our guidance range. Adjusted net profit was RMB 214 million, up 155% year-over-year. Adjusted net margin of 7.7% was the highest in recent seven quarters since the pandemic broke out. During calendar year 2021, we added 615 stores to our global store network, including 531 MINISO stores and 84 TOP TOY stores. Revenue reached RMB 10.13 billion, up 34% year-over-year. Adjusted net profit was about RMB 619 million, up 90% year-over-year. Adjusted net margin was 6.8% compared to 4.8% in calendar year 2020.
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In December quarter, MINISO brand reported a revenue of RMB 2.6 billion, up 17% year-over-year. Revenue from China was RMB 1.88 billion, up 6% year-over-year. Revenue from overseas market was RMB 717 million, up 55% year-over-year. In China, our offline stores recorded a higher recovery rate than industry average in October. Total sales increased by 9% year-over-year from the high watermark of last October, and increased by 16% from the same period in 2019. Sales recovery rate was about 97% of the same period in 2019, among which tier one and tier two cities recovered to 95% and tier three and below cities recovered to more than 100%.
However, this growth was interrupted by the new wave of the pandemic in November, when total sales was down 6% year-over-year and 7% compared to the same period in 2019 separately. Total sales in December was down 7% compared to the same period in 2019. Thanks to the operating measures we took and the year-end promotion campaign, total sales was down by only 1% year-over-year.
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MINISO added 133 stores on net basis during this quarter and ended December with 3,168 stores in China. With a net addition of 400 MINISO stores in calendar year 2021, we have successfully completed our store expansion plan and nearly doubled the number from 225 in calendar year 2020, which demonstrates our rapid expansion ability and retail partners' strong confidence in our business. As we continue to penetrate into tier 3 and below cities and unlock these new markets, approximately 60% of newly added stores in this quarter are from there. By the end of December, we had more than 1,300 stores located in tier 3 and below cities.
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Moving to our online business. Revenue from e-commerce was RMB 117 million. Revenue from O2O business was around RMB 113 million, up 130% year-over-year. In total, online business, including e-commerce and O2O, contributed 11% of our revenue. In terms of user operations, sales contribution from members exceeded 50% for the first time in calendar year 2021. Meanwhile, we continue to strategically focus on private traffic and WeChat Mini Program. Our WeChat Mini Program had nearly 7.8 million MAUs in December, and our private traffic had accumulated over 14 million consumers. MINISO is strategically committed to deepening consumer engagement and driving repurchase by providing improved omni-channel experience to them. Take our very successful IP products in this quarter, Lotso, as an example. For the first time, we managed to invite consumers to participate in the product development process.
Consumers involved were asked to vote for their favorite product design. We also launched pre-sales for this IP product online. The statistics from the pre-sales were found, they are useful in production projection and merchandise preparation for offline stores. The Lotso IP products went viral on social media, attracting more than 12 million page views on Xiaohongshu. The secret to this success is to invite young people to become co-creators of our products, so that young people can have immersive and more friendly new shopping experience. Like what we did in lots of cases, we shall keep testing this tactic while driving user stickiness and repurchases, and eventually help to create a wonderful lifestyle for young consumers globally.
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Moving to overseas operations. Revenue for the same quarter reached RMB 717 million, up 55% year-over-year and 15% quarter-over-quarter, thanks to the recovery from pandemic and holiday spending. Overall GMV recovered to about 80% of the same period in 2019, up 26% year-over-year, with distributor markets recover to 80% and directly operated markets 70% of the same period in 2019. GMV in the U.S. market, for example, increased by 40% from the same period in 2019, and Europe increased by about 60%. Asian countries as a whole also delivered significant improvements from previous quarters. The positive trend in overseas markets has enhanced our confidence to actively expand our business after the pandemic.
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Average sales per store in overseas market in this quarter recovered to 70% of the same period in 2019, up 20% year-over-year, and 30% quarter-over-quarter. In the US market, sales per store surpassed the level in the same period in 2019 and increased by 10% after it recorded a recovery rate of 9% in the previous quarter. Sales per store recovered to 100% and 80% in Canada and Mexico separately. Total number of overseas stores reached 1,877 by the end of December, with a net addition of 41 stores during the quarter. In calendar year 2021, we have surpassed our store expansion targets and delivered a net addition of 131 MINISO stores.
There were 76 suspended stores in overseas market by the end of December, down from 157 such stores a quarter ago.
TOP TOY [Non-English content].
TOP TOY celebrated its first anniversary in December. As the first sub-brand incubated on the X strategy, TOP TOY has made remarkable achievements in its first year, established a brand image as a global collection store of art toys, forged a set of promising omni-channel capabilities, enlarged product offerings of art toys, and built a team of high potential talents. Revenue of TOP TOY was RMB 130 million, up 20% quarter-over-quarter. Total number of TOP TOY's offline stores was 89 by December, including 13 Dream Factory stores and 76 collection stores. Through its continuous efforts in online channels, TOP TOY has accumulated nearly 3 million fans and 1.5 million members.
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Product-wise, TOP TOY continues to make breakthroughs. Proprietary products have contributed 8% of offline sales and 30% of online sales in December separately. Merchandise gross margin of our proprietary products reached about 65% and plays a positive role in improving its overall gross margin. TOP TOY managed to combine esports, another popular pop culture element among young people, with art toys in an effort to attract consumers from different segments. Our partnership with EDG, Edward Gaming, in January highlighted TOP TOY's leadership in the industry. Sales of the co-branding products from this collaboration were encouraging and far exceeded our expectation. For example, the 1,000-piece Umasou plus EDG figures were sold out in 48 hours, again demonstrating TOP TOY's strong abilities of rapid product development and IP co-branding.
Behind this collaboration is TOP TOY's never-ending exploration to capture various trendy topics among young people, to reshape consuming environments, and to enlarge addressable market of art toys.
[Non-English content] MINISO [Non-English content], MINISO [Non-English content].
Next, I would like to introduce the strategic upgrade of MINISO brand. During the past eight years, MINISO brand has become a global household name, demonstrated by our entrance into 99 countries and regions, and our massive network of more than 5,000 stores worldwide, enabling hundreds of millions of consumers around the world to enjoy life's little surprise every year. It is very important for us to keep our strategy and brand positioning up to date. After careful deliberations, we have made the decision that 2022 will be the first year of an era to strategically upgrade MINISO brand.
[Non-English content] MINISO [Non-English content].
In China, we plan to further upgrade MINISO brand with a value proposition of wonderful life on the basis of our established advantages in product quality and affordability. With the call of our brand upgrade strategy being from product recognition to brand recognition, we'll make efforts in the following three aspects closely around the topic of interest-based consumption.
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Product-wise, the upgrade does not necessarily mean raising prices of all of MINISO's products. We currently estimate that prices of about 70% of our products will remain stable, and MINISO's brand promise to offer consumers value and affordability is not going to change. While new products will be more focused on interest-based consumption by offering more appealing usefulness and playfulness than we used to. We believe the strategic upgrade in product philosophy will drive a steady offering of such new products, which have higher premium and will fuel our future growth. We are also building a robust pipeline of new blockbuster products of strategic importance to effectively capture more consumer mindshare. Marketing-wise, we plan to take systematic approach and first launch our branding campaigns in tier-one and tier-two cities to enhance our brand image as a global brand.
By leveraging our edges in appealing, usefulness, and playfulness products, and sticking to our core strategy of product-driven brand upgrade. We strive to build a value proposition and brand image representing one for life among consumers. Channel-wise, we continue to penetrate into lower-tier cities. In tier one and tier two cities, we'll focus on optimizing the margin profile of MINISO stores with key initiatives such as product mix optimization, brand image upgrade, and price range extension. We are also committed to omni-channel strategy, enhance our operations in private traffic and WeChat Mini Program, and ultimately drive business growth across online and offline channels. When I founded MINISO brand in 2013, it was a time when e-commerce was booming and the brick-and-mortar retail industry was experiencing a cold winter. Just like today, the pandemic has changed consumers' shopping patterns and habits.
Neither the rising of e-commerce nor the pandemic will change consumers' pursuit of one for life. It is the promise of MINISO's brand and reason behind our past success that we enable consumers to enjoy lifestyle of surprise. Looking ahead in post-pandemic era, we are more capable and highly confident in constantly delivering long-term values to consumers and investors with our constant offerings of products that are more appealing, useful, and playful. That concludes my remark. I will now turn the call over to our CFO for financial review.
Thank you. Hello, everyone. I will start my remarks with a review of December quarter's financial result, and then provide additional color regarding March quarter. Please note that I will be referring to non-IFRS measures, which exclude share-based compensation expense and certain non-recurring items. Revenue in December quarter was RMB 2.77 billion, increased by 21% year-over-year, and 5% quarter-over-quarter. Above the high end of our guidance range of RMB 2.5 billion-RMB 2.77 billion. The year-over-year increase was primarily driven by the growth of our domestic operations and the recovery of our international operations. Revenue generated from our domestic operations was RMB 2.06 billion, increased by 12% year-over-year. Revenue generated from the domestic operation of MINISO brand was RMB 1.88 billion, increased by 6% year-over-year.
Revenue generated from TOP TOY was RMB 131 million compared to RMB 3 million in the same period of 2020. Revenue generated from our international operations was RMB 717 million, increased by 55% year-over-year, reflecting a consistent improvement of our sales recovery in overseas market as a whole. From a quarter-over-quarter perspective, revenue from our domestic operations remain flat. We estimate that the GMV loss for those influenced store in China during this quarter was comparable to that in the previous quarter. Revenue from international operation increased by 15% sequentially. Gross profit was RMB 863 million, increased by 34% year-over-year, and 19% quarter-over-quarter. Gross margin was 31.1% compared to 28% a year ago, and 27.4% a quarter ago.
Both of the year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter increase was primarily due to, one, revenue recognition contribution of international operation increased from 20.1% in the same period of 2020 to 25.9% in this quarter. As you know, international operation typically has higher gross margin than domestic operation. Number two, our expanding co-brand IP product offerings and its associated high gross margin in this quarter. Selling and distribution expense were RMB 371 million, increased by 21% year-over-year, and 15% quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year increase was primarily attributed to increase of personnel-related expense, licensing expense and the marketing expense that were in line with the year-over-year revenue growth and the brand awareness improvement for both MINISO and the TOP TOY.
The quarter-over-quarter increase was primarily attributed to increase in license expense and the rental-related expense. G&A expense were RMB 215 million, increased by 34% year-over-year, and 7% quarter-over-quarter. Both the year-over-year and the quarter-over-quarter increase was primarily due to increased depreciation and amortization expense of land use rights related to our headquarters building project. To a lesser extent, increased personnel-related expense and a professional service fee. Turning to our profitability. Operating profit was RMB 255 million, increased by 371% year-over-year, and 20% quarter-over-quarter. Operating margin was 9.2% compared to 2.4% a year ago, and 8% a quarter ago.
Adjusted net profit was RMB 214 million, increased by 155% year-over-year, and 16% quarter-over-quarter. Adjusted net margin was 7.7%, the highest in recent seven quarters, compared to 3.7% a year ago, and 6.9% a quarter ago. Adjusted basic and diluted earnings per ADS were RMB 0.72 in this quarter, compared to RMB 0.28 a year ago, and RMB 0.60 a quarter ago. Turning to our balance sheet. As of December end, the combined balance of our cash equivalents, restricted cash and other investments was RMB 5.37 billion compared to RMB 6.14 billion as of end-September. Turning to working capital. Turnover of inventories and trade receivables remain stable on both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter basis.
Looking ahead into March quarter of 2022, we expect our total revenue to be between RMB 2.4 billion-RMB 2.7 billion, which represent an increase of 7.7%-21.1% year- over- year. In 2022, we currently expect to open about 400 MINISO stores in China and about 350 stores in overseas market. We continue to operate in a time of significant uncertainty in regards to the timetable of pandemic recovery in our major market. We remain cautious in our outlook in terms of sales and the stores expansion and may update and adjust this operational plan based on the latest development of the pandemic.
We are encouraged by our efficient working capital management and the strong recovery in both top line and bottom line in this quarter. Before we move to Q&A section, I would like to reiterate our financial strategy, which has led us to the above-mentioned result. The idea of a disciplined investment runs through it. The same idea we also apply to the strategic update of MINISO brand. We have developed a thorough financial plan on this project, and we will have this plan quickly test in a small scale before it is implemented nationwide. We will also closely monitoring the performance and gather feedback from the consumers throughout the process to ensure we remain committed to MINISO's brand promise of enabling everyone to enjoy life's little surprise with products that are more appealing, more useful, and more playful. That concludes our prepared remarks.
Operator, we are now ready to take questions.
Thank you. We are now beginning the question and answer session. Your first question today comes from the line of Michelle Cheng from Goldman Sachs. Line open, please go ahead.
[Non-English content]. Uh, I have two questions for management.
One is for the brand operation. Chairman just mentioned that they are focusing on the brand upgrade, specifically 70% of the products will be still with stable price, but 30% of the products likely to have a more premium offering. What exactly are these product line? And also since we are penetrating lower-tier cities, how do we balance these penetration strategies versus the brand upgrade strategy? Second question is about overseas expansion. We have 350 stores opening target this year. Which areas will be the focus? And specifically U.S., what kind of store model are we focusing on? And also what will be the impact on the margins? Thank you.
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Hi Michelle, this is Mr. Ye, CEO, and thank you for your question. In terms of your questions on how to balance, you know the brand upgrade and maintain, you know, our value points. Here's my answer. I think brand upgrading is not incompatible with maintaining, you know, cost performance or maintaining our products' affordability. Basically the strategic upgrade of MINISO brand. You know, you should not, it shouldn't be simply interpreted as product-wise, product price increase. For MINISO, I think it is necessary to maintain our affordability to consumers, especially in offline channels. But simply emphasizing affordability and cost performance will fall into, you know, homogeneous competition, and especially in China's online channels in e-commerce landscape. Which is detrimental to our long-term development of MINISO brand.
We must differentiate MINISO brand from the competition. What can differentiate MINISO brand? I think we believe that our value lies in providing, as we mentioned, more appealing, more useful and more playful products and, you know, offer consumers the wonderful lifestyle that our products represent. In terms of your questions on the pricing strategy in lower-tier cities, the answer is we will not raise price across the board. As we mentioned, currently, we only expect about 70% of our products will remain stable in price. For other new products, we will, you know, focus on interest-based consumption. We'll have, you know, different pricing strategies. What we want to stress here again is that we will not
We will still adhere to our affordability of all products, so we'll not significantly increase the price. But we are appropriately adjusting pricing strategy for some products. For example, you know, we have adjusted the price of our IP products in 2021, and the preliminary results in the past several quarters is very satisfactory. For our star category, for example, such as Perfume, consumers of these products are less sensitive to price and have higher, you know, recognition of IP or either brand. We have shared for a few times that MINISO stores, you know, in the lower tier cities market have in terms of cross-selling rate, in terms of ASP, we have no significant difference with, you know, tier one, tier-two cities.
That means that the consumers in the lower tier city market, they choose MINISO products not simply because our products are cheap, but because they like the products themselves. In the, you know, implementation process of the strategic upgrade, we'll conduct, you know, partial tests and quick tests for trial and error. In this whole process, we will constantly adjust and optimize the pricing strategy. We hope that after our brand upgrade is completed, when consumers come to MINISO stores, they will not feel that we are getting more expensive, but we are getting, you know, more value than we used to. In terms of the second question about the overseas development. Okay. Thank you for the question, Michelle. This is Steven.
You know, based on the latest development of current overseas pandemic recovery, we expect a net increase of 350 MINISO stores overseas in calendar year 2022. About 35% of this will come from Asia, which was heavily affected by the pandemic in 2021. We noted an improved recovery in the December quarter. Asia is also our biggest overseas market.
With countries like India, we have continued to open new stores in the past year. About 30% of them are from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The number of stores in these two regions have grown very fast in the past two years. The recovery from the pandemic is also better than other areas. Another 30% well from America, including 20% from Latin America and 10% from North America. Yes, we will open more directly operated stores in the $10 N' Under new concept in North America, especially in the U.S. The remaining 5% of this new addition plan will be from other markets. Thank you.
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In terms of your questions on the U.S. market. In terms of GMV, North America market was up more than 10% in December quarter sequentially. On a per store basis, average sales per store was up 10% from you know the same period in 2019, including you know the United States market up 11% from the same period in 2019. In terms of the store opening. In the December quarter, we added 18 stores in the U.S. market. By end of December we had about 53 stores opened in the U.S.
The performance of the you know $10 N' Under stores in the past several months has exceeded our expectation. You know, combined with the positive impact of holiday spending in December, for example, the sales of this month in U.S. market exceeded you know our original plan by nearly 60%. Let's say we'll still wait and see. We need to observe a longer period and refine the business model. We are at the present stage, we are not in a hurry to make profits in this market, because it is strategically important to us.
[Non-English content], Stephen [Non-English content] Eason, [Non-English content].
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Lucy Yu from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Line is open. Please go ahead.
[Non-English content] Eason, [Non-English content] Lucy. [Non-English content]. So first question is on a year to date recovery rate for both domestic and overseas market. Could you please give us some guidance on 2022 revenue growth?
Second question is on a competitive landscape. The COVID has been going on for two years. Have we seen any changes in competitive landscape in both online and offline markets? Thank you.
OK. [Non-English content]. Lucy. [Non-English content]
This is Steven. Thank you for your first question. Yes, we have, you know, given this store opening guidance in our prepared remarks. Yeah. To conclude, we estimate open 400 new stores in mainland China on net basis and 350 stores overseas markets on net basis. Meanwhile, we also currently estimate that in the calendar year 2022, no matter if it is in China or overseas markets, it will still continue to recover from the pandemic, although there may be, you know, some fluctuations. I think the big trend here is the recovery.
The topic here is recovery. At the same time, we also believe that our e-commerce business can maintain a high double-digit annual growth rate in next year. TOP TOY, you know, our toy business. It will be TOP TOY's second full year, and we have a growth rate that more than 100%. Based on all these assumptions, I think in calendar 2022, our top line will have a double-digit growth compared to calendar 2021. I want to stress here that we usually do not give the annual guidance on revenue. This is basically an estimate based on the assumptions I mentioned. According to that, based on our business model that is quite clear and quite forceful. I think if we can deliver that kind of top line growth, our bottom line growth will be absolutely will be a very good result in calendar 2022.
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In terms of your questions on recent development of our business. In terms of overseas markets, basically, it's stabilized in the recent quarters. You know, considering in the December quarter, we have the holiday seasons and holiday spending. In the March quarter, we absolutely will see you know, sequential decline in overseas market. Compared to you know, normalized years before pandemic, I think the current situation we observed in overseas market is quite stable. In terms of China market, I think as all you may have realized that in recent months in China, the resurgence of you know, local cases of pandemic has influenced the whole offline retail industry.
Many cities have reported increasing cases. We have you know, got fully prepared for this, the pandemic resurgence in domestic operations. That is why we gave this the top line guidance for the March quarter. We pretty much based on all these observations. Thank you.
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Lucy, this is Mr. Ye. I will answer your second questions about the competition. So during the pandemic, I think we did three things right. The first is that we adopted a more robust business strategy and controlled the expansion rate of overseas. We did not pressure our overseas distributors. But instead we took, you know, various measures to actively help distributors to clear their inventory. And secondly, we also have, you know, actively expanded our online channels. And, you know, we have made it clear that the omni-channel strategy will be one of our, you know, the key driver in the future. And online now accounts for about more than 10% of company's revenue for several quarters.
The third thing is that we can begin to penetrate into lower tier cities in China and, you know, where the pandemic impact is less severe compared to tier one, tier two cities. We continue to, you know, bring stable returns to our retail partners. Getting these three things done right help us. You know, in China, we continue to make sure a relative healthy store growth rate every year. At the same time, we make sure that our retail partners have a good return on their investment. Over the past two years, you know, the total numbers of our retail partners has continued to increase as the average number per store.
Average number of stores per retail partner has remained stable, as we mentioned in previous quarters. In terms of overseas, we have seen that some competitors in some overseas markets have exited the markets. They have quit their business, quit the competition, because the pandemic has seriously affected their business and operations there. I think after the pandemic, we will undoubtedly you know gain a larger market share in these markets. Thank you.
There are no more questions. Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please contact MINISO Investor Relations Team. Our contact information can be found on today's press release. We will see you next quarter. Have a nice day.