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Yunji Announces First Quarter 2021 Unaudited Financial Results

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Yunji Inc. (“Yunji” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: YJ), a leading membership-based social e-commerce platform, today announced its unaudited financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2021[1].

First Quarter 2021 Highlights

  • Total revenues in the first quarter of 2021 were RMB675.4 million (US$103.1 million), compared with RMB1,649.2 million in the same period of 2020, primarily due to the Company’s focus on upgrading its strategy of carefully curating products through the implementation of its megahit product pool initiative to refine its product selections across all platform categories, which is in line with the Company’s long-term growth plan. During the refinement process, the Company made adjustments to optimize its selection of suppliers and merchants across its platform, which caused sales decreases in both its marketplace business and merchandise sales.
  • Repeat purchase rate[2] in the twelve months ended March 31, 2021 was 80.6%.

Mr. Shanglue Xiao, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Yunji, said, “During the first quarter, we continued to pave the way for our long-term and sustainable growth by upgrading our product curation strategy. More specifically, this involved launching our megahit product pool initiative to introduce more products with strong repurchase potential and customer appeal as well as refining our product selections across all of our platform categories. Our progress on the product side and prioritization of lasting growth over short-term sales improvements have already garnered positive feedback from our loyal members and service managers. Looking ahead, as we continue to position our platform as the go-to location for members to purchase high-quality and cost-effective products, our service managers will be more motivated to receive additional benefits through sharing and engagement. We remain confident that such efforts will lead to more win-win relationships between our ecosystem participants as well as the healthy growth and development of our platform over the long run.”

“As we continued to upgrade and enhance our portfolio of product offerings, we also remained focused on improving our cost structures, achieving better operating efficiency, and maintaining a healthy financial profile. Going forward, we will stay disciplined in cost management while our new and improved product curation strategy will continue to fuel our long-term growth, allowing us to form more mutually beneficial partnerships with suppliers and thus generate greater shareholder value.” said Mr. Chengqi Zhang, Vice President of Finance of Yunji.

First Quarter 2021 Unaudited Financial Results

Total revenues were RMB675.4 million (US$103.1 million), compared with RMB1,649.2 million in the same period of 2020. This decrease was primarily due to the Company’s decision to upgrade its strategy of carefully curating products starting from the first quarter of 2021. As part of these upgrades, the Company launched its megahit product pool initiative, which focused on introducing more products with strong repurchase potential and customer appeal, and refined product selections across all product categories on its platform. During the refinement process, the Company made adjustments to optimize its selection of suppliers and merchants across its platform, which caused sales decreases in both its marketplace business and merchandise sales.

  • Revenues from sales of merchandise, net decreased by 60.4% to RMB571.9 million (US$87.3 million) from RMB1,445.9 million in the same period of 2020.
  • Revenues from the membership program were nil, compared with RMB25.1 million in the same period of 2020. From January 2020 until the end of March 2021, the Company allowed any user to become a member and enjoy membership benefits free of charge for one year by simply registering for an account on the Yunji app. The Company continued to grant free membership benefits to such members during the first quarter of 2021. As a result, there was no membership revenue in the first quarter of 2021, while membership revenues in the first quarter of 2020 were all from the deferred revenue of prior paying members. The Company has ceased allowing users to become members free of charge since April 1, 2021.
  • Revenues from the marketplace business were RMB95.4 million (US$14.6 million), compared with RMB158.1 million in the same period of 2020.
  • Other revenues decreased by 59.6% to RMB8.1 million (US$1.2 million) from RMB20.1 million in the same period of 2020.

Total cost of revenues decreased by 61.7% to RMB439.4 million (US$67.1 million), or 65.1% of total revenues, from RMB1,148.0 million, or 69.6% of total revenues, in the same period of 2020. The decrease was mainly attributable to the decline in merchandise sales, which recognize revenues on a gross basis. Total cost of revenues was mainly comprised of those costs related to the sales of merchandise revenue in the first quarter of 2021.

Total operating expenses decreased by 47.8% to RMB272.7 million (US$41.6 million) from RMB522.9 million in the same period of 2020.

  • Fulfillment expenses decreased by 53.0% to RMB64.8 million (US$9.9 million), or 9.6% of total revenues, from RMB138.1 million, or 8.4% of total revenues, in the same period of 2020. The decrease was primarily due to: (i) reduced warehousing and logistics expenses due to lower merchandise sales, and (ii) reduced personnel costs due to staffing structure refinements.
  • Sales and marketing expenses decreased by 61.7% to RMB96.3 million (US$14.7 million), or 14.3% of total revenues, from RMB251.7 million, or 15.3% of total revenues, in the same period of 2020. The decrease was mainly due to the decreases in member management fees and business promotion expenses.
  • Technology and content expenses decreased by 35.3% to RMB37.5 million (US$5.7 million), or 5.6% of total revenues, from RMB57.9 million, or 3.5% of total revenues, in the same period of 2020. The decrease was mainly due to the reduction in personnel costs as a result of staffing structure refinements.
  • General and administrative expenses decreased by 1.5% to RMB74.1 million (US$11.3 million), or 11.0% of total revenues, from RMB75.2 million, or 4.6% of total revenues, in the same period of 2020, primarily due to a decrease in share-based compensation expenses.

Loss from operations was RMB19.8 million (US$3.0 million), compared with RMB6.1 million in the same period of 2020.

Financial income, net was RMB20.5 million (US$3.1 million), compared with financial loss, net of RMB9.8 million in the same period of 2020, primarily due to a gain of RMB15.9 million (US$2.4 million) from the fair value change of equity securities with readily determinable fair value in the first quarter of 2021, compared with a loss of RMB23.4 million from the fair value change of equity securities with readily determinable fair value in the same period of 2020.

Net loss was RMB4.0 million (US$0.6 million), compared with RMB13.2 million in the same period of 2020.

Adjusted net income (non-GAAP)[3] was RMB17.1 million (US$2.6 million), compared with RMB26.1 million in the same period of 2020.

Basic and diluted net loss per share attributable to ordinary shareholders were both nil, compared with RMB0.01 in the same period of 2020.

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

In evaluating the business, the Company considers and uses adjusted net income/(loss) as a supplemental measure to review and assess operating performance. The presentation of this non-GAAP financial measure is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. The Company defines adjusted net income/(loss) as net income/(loss) excluding share-based compensation.

The Company presents adjusted net income/(loss) because it is used by management to evaluate operating performance and formulate business plans. Adjusted net income/(loss) enables management to assess operating performance without considering the impact of share-based compensation recorded under ASC 718, “Compensation-Stock Compensation”. The Company also believes that the use of this non-GAAP measure facilitates investors’ assessment of operating performance.

This non-GAAP financial measure is not defined under U.S. GAAP and is not presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. The non-GAAP financial measure has limitations as an analytical tool. One of the key limitations of using adjusted net income/(loss) is that it does not reflect all items of income and expense that affect the Company’s operations. Share-based compensation has been and may continue to be incurred in Yunji’s business and is not reflected in the presentation of adjusted net income/(loss). Further, this non-GAAP measure may differ from the non-GAAP information used by other companies, including peer companies, and therefore its comparability may be limited.

The Company compensates for these limitations by reconciling the non-GAAP financial measure to the nearest U.S. GAAP performance measure, all of which should be considered when evaluating performance. Yunji encourages investors and others to review its financial information in its entirety and not rely on a single financial measure.

For more information on the non-GAAP financial measures, please see the table captioned “Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Measures to The Most Directly Comparable Financial Measures” set forth at the end of this press release.

Conference Call

The Company will host a conference call on Thursday, May 27, 2021, at 7:00 AM Eastern Time or 7:00 PM Beijing/Hong Kong Time to discuss its earnings.

In advance of the conference call, all participants must use the following link to complete the online registration process. Upon registering, each participant will receive important details for this conference including the call date and time, a unique registrant ID, and a set of participant dial-in numbers to join the conference call.

Conference ID

7785047

Registration Link

http://apac.directeventreg.com/registration/event/7785047

A telephone replay of the call will be available after the conclusion of the conference call for one week.

Dial-in numbers for the replay are as follows:

United States Toll Free

+1-855-452-5696

International

+61-2-8199-0299

Conference ID

7785047

Safe Harbor Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the “safe harbor” provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as “will,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “aims,” “future,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “estimates,” “confident,” “potential,” “continue” or other similar expressions. Among other things, the quotations from management in this announcement, as well as Yunji’s strategic and operational plans, contain forward-looking statements. Yunji may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its periodic reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including but not limited to statements about Yunji’s beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: Yunji’s growth strategies; its future business development, results of operations and financial condition; its ability to understand buyer needs and provide products and services to attract and retain buyers; its ability to maintain and enhance the recognition and reputation of its brand; its ability to rely on merchants and third-party logistics service providers to provide delivery services to buyers; its ability to maintain and improve quality control policies and measures; its ability to establish and maintain relationships with merchants; trends and competition in China’s e-commerce market; changes in its revenues and certain cost or expense items; the expected growth of China’s e-commerce market; PRC governmental policies and regulations relating to Yunji’s industry, and general economic and business conditions globally and in China and assumptions underlying or related to any of the foregoing. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in Yunji’s filings with the SEC. All information provided in this press release and in the attachments is as of the date of this press release, and Yunji undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law.

Artificial Intelligence

SAS advances industry solutions with packaged AI models

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Tailored, lightweight AI models facilitate rapid deployment with low overhead
LAS VEGAS, April 17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — SAS INNOVATE — Today at SAS Innovate, SAS – a pioneer in data and AI solutions – unveiled a game-changing approach for organizations to tackle business challenges head-on. Introducing lightweight, industry-specific AI models for individual license, SAS is equipping organizations with readily deployable AI technology to productionize real-world use cases with unparalleled efficiency.

AI software provider SAS is uniquely positioned to flex its decades of expertise in applying scalable and trustworthy AI models for prominent global financial, health care, and manufacturing brands, as well as government institutions.
“SAS is evolving its portfolio to meet wider user needs and capture market share with innovative new offerings,” said Chandana Gopal, Research Director, Future of Intelligence, IDC. “An area that is ripe for SAS is productizing models built on SAS’ core assets, talent and IP from its wealth of experience working with customers to solve industry problems.”
In today’s market, the consumption of models is primarily focused on large language models (LLMs) for generative AI. In reality, LLMs are a very small part of the modeling needs of real-world production deployments of AI and decision making for businesses.  With the new offering, SAS is moving beyond LLMs and delivering industry-proven deterministic AI models for industries that span use cases such as fraud detection, supply chain optimization, entity management, document conversation and health care payment integrity and more.
Unlike traditional AI implementations that can be cumbersome and time-consuming, SAS’ industry-specific models are engineered for quick integration, enabling organizations to operationalize trustworthy AI technology and accelerate the realization of tangible benefits and trusted results.
Expanding market footprintOrganizations are facing pressure to compete effectively and are looking to AI to gain an edge. At the same time, staffing data science teams has never been more challenging due to AI skills shortages. Consequently, businesses are demanding agility in using AI to solve problems and require flexible AI solutions to quickly drive business outcomes. SAS’ easy-to-use, yet powerful models tuned for the enterprise enable organizations to benefit from a half-century of SAS’ leadership across industries.
Delivering industry models as packaged offerings is one outcome of SAS’ commitment of $1 billion to AI-powered industry solutions. As outlined in the May 2023 announcement, the investment in AI builds on SAS’ decades long focus on providing packaged solutions to address industry challenges in banking, government, health care and more.
“Models are the perfect complement to our existing solutions and SAS Viya platform offerings and cater to diverse business needs across various audiences, ensuring that innovation reaches every corner of our ecosystem,” said Udo Sglavo, Vice President for AI and Analytics, SAS. “By tailoring our approach to understanding specific industry needs, our frameworks empower businesses to flourish in their distinctive environments.”
Bringing AI to the massesSAS is democratizing AI by offering out-of-the-box, lightweight AI models – making AI accessible regardless of skill set – starting with an AI assistant for warehouse space optimization. Leveraging technology like large language models, these assistants cater to nontechnical users, translating interactions into optimized workflows seamlessly and aiding in faster planning decisions.
“SAS Models provide organizations with flexible, timely and accessible AI that aligns with industry challenges,” said Sglavo. “Whether you’re embarking on your AI journey or seeking to accelerate the expansion of AI across your enterprise, SAS offers unparalleled depth and breadth in addressing your business’s unique needs.”
The first SAS Models are expected to be generally available later this year. Learn more about SAS Applied AI and Modeling here: https://blogs.sas.com/content/tag/applied-ai-modeling/.
Today’s announcement was made at SAS Innovate, the data and AI experience for business leaders, technical users and SAS Partners. Keep up with the latest news from SAS by following @SASsoftwareNews on X/Twitter.
About SASSAS is a global leader in data and AI. With SAS software and industry-specific solutions, organizations transform data into trusted decisions. SAS gives you THE POWER TO KNOW®.
SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright © 2024 SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. 
Editorial Contact:Jennifer [email protected] 202-210-4180 sas.com/news
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Expanded SAS Viya uses generative AI to accelerate customer productivity

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Leading data and AI platform helps explain and integrate large language models to augment existing processes; SAS Data Maker will address critical challenges without compromising sensitive data
LAS VEGAS, April 17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — SAS INNOVATE — So many organizations have jumped on the GenAI bandwagon in the last year, but are those efforts delivering results yet? If the organization uses the SAS® Viya® data and AI platform, the answer is a resounding yes. Infused with large language model (LLM) orchestration strength, SAS Viya is already helping customers accelerate efficiency and productivity. Throughout 2024, SAS will continue delivering innovation by broadening its trustworthy GenAI footprint with the introduction of its own synthetic data generator – SAS Data Maker – and by offering industry-specific GenAI assistants.

Learn more about Viya LLM orchestration and other GenAI capabilities in this solution brief: Accelerate productivity with generative AI and SAS Viya.
“SAS’ guiding principle is everyone should be able to query data and perform complex analytical operations in every phase of the data and analytics life cycle, and generative AI is crucial in this democratization journey,” said Wiktor Markiewicz, Senior Market Research Analyst at IDC. “But most leaders don’t understand AI technology and how they can apply it meaningfully. Having an already trusted data and AI platform available removes the guesswork and kickstarts the generative AI journey.”  
Georgia-Pacific and wienerberger rely on Viya for AI and GenAI capabilitiesManufacturer Georgia-Pacific is a SAS customer using Viya. “When challenges emerge with our manufacturing equipment or process, we leverage sensor data, business rules, recommender systems and generative AI to suggest the appropriate next best action and resolve the problem,” said Roshan Shah, Vice President, Collaboration & Support Center, Georgia-Pacific. “Streaming analytics and intelligent decision management support from SAS Viya helps us capture immediate value by making the right decisions as events occur.”
About Georgia-Pacific, SAS Executive Vice President and CTO Bryan Harris said, “One of SAS’ core strengths is our deep bench of industry knowledge. We understand manufacturing, and we understand Georgia-Pacific’s unique challenges. We help them appropriately scale LLM orchestration and manufacturing-specific GenAI assistant strategies so their employees can use those cutting-edge applications to troubleshoot real-time operational issues.”
Global brick manufacturer wienerberger also uses SAS for AI support. The company reduces energy consumption, cuts greenhouse gas emissions and improves product quality using SAS on Microsoft Azure. “We use AI and IoT analytics from SAS to connect all our data streams and analyze the entire production process,” said Florian Zittmayr, Team Lead for Data Science at wienerberger. “SAS Analytics brings intelligence to the kiln by helping our engineers and employees to gain valuable information about each step and identify specific target values to make the drying and firing of bricks more economical.”
And a global consumer goods manufacturer uses Viya and its GenAI capabilities to optimize warehouse space, allocate inbound shipments and compare “what-if” scenarios based on product demand. SAS helped develop an LLM-based digital assistant by dynamically updating SAS Visual Analytics dashboards so the company’s supply chain teams can easily save time and improve warehouse space usage with in-depth analytics. This conversational assistant allows both technical and business users to generate fast and accurate results and improve decision making using SAS’ trustworthy, explainable analytics.
Organizations are enthusiastic about adopting and deploying GenAI, but there’s often a gap between preparedness and execution. Learn more by reading the US Executive Summary from a new study: Generative AI Challenges and Potential Unveiled: How to Achieve a Competitive Advantage.
Viya stands out in the GenAI crowd because of pragmatic, industry-driven applicationsAs organizations explore GenAI, SAS prioritizes identifying industry-driven and ethically applied use cases. SAS enables secure adoption and fosters accelerated productivity and trusted results across diverse industries and regulatory landscapes. SAS’ GenAI functionality lives in leading products like Viya and SAS Customer Intelligence 360:
GenAI orchestration: Viya integrates external GenAI models with existing business processes and systems, orchestrating LLMs for end-to-end enterprise use cases. These capabilities are now available in SAS Viya.Viya Copilot: Enhances productivity for developers, data scientists and business users with a personal assistant that accelerates analytical, business and industry tasks. Viya Copilot offers diverse tools for tasks like code generation, data cleaning, data exploration, marketing planning, journey design and knowledge gap analysis. The first iteration of Viya Copilot is available through an invitation-only private preview.SAS Data Maker: Addresses data privacy and scarcity challenges by generating high-quality synthetic tabular data without compromising sensitive information, enabling organizations to address data privacy. SAS Data Maker is now available in private preview.Customer engagement. SAS continues to infuse GenAI capabilities into its flagship MarTech solution, SAS Customer Intelligence 360, to help marketers elevate the customer experience. SAS Customer Intelligence 360 already offers GenAI assistance on streamlining marketing planning, journey design and content and creative development. SAS is now introducing three new capabilities in SAS Customer Intelligence 360 for marketers: using GenAI to build recommended audiences based on natural language prompts, a chat experience to interpret audience data and a GenAI suggestion service for email subject lines.The GenAI functionality of Viya makes a meaningful difference to customers planning to:
Accelerate innovation: Seamlessly integrate GenAI models into decisioning workflows, AI/ML applications and existing business processes by using decisioning flow tools like SAS Intelligent Decisioning.Protect data: Support user privacy and security with robust data quality measures, including synthetic data generation, data minimization, anonymization and encryption, so sensitive information remains safeguarded.Create trustworthy and explainable results: Data experts can apply natural language processing techniques to preprocess data and explain the generated output, minimizing hallucinations and token costs.Enhance governance: Use built-in tools to create workflows that validate the life cycle of LLMs, including model risk management.Make more precise decisions: Quantitative decisioning capabilities, critical for successful GenAI reasoning, are built into the Viya platform.Today’s announcement was made at SAS Innovate, the data and AI experience for business leaders, technical users and SAS Partners. Keep up with the latest news from SAS by following @SASsoftwareNews on X/Twitter.
About SASSAS is a global leader in data and AI. With SAS software and industry-specific solutions, organizations transform data into trusted decisions. SAS gives you THE POWER TO KNOW®.
SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright © 2024 SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. 
Editorial Contact:Laura Fleek [email protected] 214-803-6692sas.com/news
 
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LTA’s Padel Programme Teams Up with Skylab for Enhanced Performance Analytics

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MANCHESTER, England, April 17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Skylab, a UK-based specialist in sports technology and performance analysis, proudly announces its partnership with LTA Padel, solidifying its position as a premier provider of specialised services in the sports industry. This collaboration underscores Skylab’s commitment to excellence and showcases its ability to deliver innovative and diverse solutions tailored specifically for elite sports organisations like LTA Padel.

The LTA’s Padel performance programme in Great Britain will utilise Skylab’s Game Intelligence product and Performance Analysis services. The software will empower athletes and coaches alike with interactive and detailed match data, seamlessly integrated into intuitive dashboards that create automated video playlists. The Padel team at the LTA will gain a deeper understanding of padel at the elite level to support their talent identification, player pathway and coaching strategies as they strive to compete with the world’s best. 
“Previously, Padel players lacked accurate and robust performance data, which made it impossible to analyse the opposition in detail. Coaches couldn’t answer their players’ key performance questions quickly, and performance directors had to rely on gut feeling and experience when evidencing what elite Padel looks like. However, our product and services provide practitioners with insights into the technical and tactical aspects of the game, as well as the physical demands required for elite-level performance. This allows practitioners to understand and predict the future performance of their players, enabling them to make data-informed decisions” says Ciaran Skinner, Business Development Manager, Skylab.
Skylab is a first-of-its-kind sports technology firm, offering tailored, market-leading Performance Analysis services and bespoke web platforms to elite sporting clients. It revolutionises how elite sports teams and individuals interact, use, and visualise their data. By packaging performance analysis with industry leading UX and bespoke software, partners will be in the position to make better decisions in sport.
For more information about Skylab and its services, please visit skylab.com or contact [email protected] 
Notes 
Website: www.skylab.com 
https://skylab.com/padel-performance-insights/ 
Social:
LinkedIn – Skylab: https://www.linkedin.com/company/studio-skylab 
LinkedIn – Skylab: Elite Performance Analysis: www.linkedin.com/company/skylab-epa/ 
About Skylab      
Skylab is a first-of-its-kind sports technology firm, offering tailored, market-leading Performance Analysis services and bespoke web platforms to elite sporting clients. It revolutionises how elite sports teams and individuals interact, use, and visualise their data. By packaging performance analysis with industry leading UX and bespoke software, partners will be in the position to make better decisions in sport. Current clients include elite teams and organisations across Padel, Football, Athletics, Tennis, Rowing and more.
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