H World Group reports Q4 EPS (RMB 0.04) vs. (RMB 0.15) last year

Reports Q4 revenue RMB 3.35B vs. RMB 3.7B last year. As of December 31, 2022, H World’s worldwide hotel network in operation totaled 8,543 hotels and 809,478 rooms, including 132 hotels from DH. During the fourth quarter of 2022, our Legacy-Huazhu business opened 244 hotels, including 5 leased and owned hotels and 239 manachised and franchised hotels, and closed a total of 109 hotels, including 13 leased and owned hotels and 96 manachised and franchised hotels. During the fourth quarter of 2022, the Legacy-DH business opened 6 hotels, including 2 leased hotels and 4 manachised and franchised hotels. As of December 31, 2022, H World had a total of 2,580 unopened hotels in our pipeline, including 2,544 hotels from the Legacy-Huazhu business and 36 hotels from the Legacy-DH business. Jin Hui, CEO of H World commented: "We are very glad to see the strong resilience that our company has shown over the past years despite the tremendous difficulties and challenges brought by COVID. Also, we extend a hearty thanks to our customers, franchisees, employees and business partners who have helped and supported us to get through this tough period together. Now entering the post-COVID era, we will ‘stay the course’ with our "Sustainable Quality Growth" Strategy comprising three areas of key strategic focus. Firstly, we will continue the quality expansion of our hotel network, especially in the less-penetrated areas. Secondly, we will further develop our midscale and upper-midscale segments through our multiple-brand strategy. Lastly, we will further strengthen our operational capabilities to achieve higher efficiency, and provide better products and services to our customers as well as franchisees." "Moving to our business outside China, we are also happy to see our Legacy-DH business well on recovery trajectory. For the year of 2023, margin improvement will still be a top priority for Legacy-DH. Moreover, loyalty program, direct sales channel development, as well as further digitalization will also be our key areas of focus in 2023."