eCargo Holdings Limited (ASX:ECG) Group CEO Lawrence Lun presents on the eCargo service offering and business model, FY21 achievements and 2022 strategy.Hello everyone. I'm happy to have an opportunity to share a bit more about eCargo. So I'm going to jump right into the presentation.
So what is eCargo? eCargo simply put is a growth accelerator for brands. So we help brands by leveraging our distribution trading expertise, our end-to-end service capabilities and our technologies to really accelerate sales in Asia. For them when they're trying to grow at this part of the region.
Our service capabilities really relate to two major ones. One is what I call distribution and trading. And the other one is a service based model, which is focus rapid eCommerce services. In distribution and trading that refers to us taking distribution rights for brands of retailers to take their product and trade it either online or offline. Online, we do either via cross border or domestic e-commerce. Primarily we focus right now in China as our major market. So you'll see platforms like Tmall, JD, as well as Koala, VIP. These are our online platforms that we were traded on behalf of our brands.
Offline distribution refers to imported goods, what we call general trades. So we would bring the product imported into China and then we would then sell into our distribution network, which now spans over a hundred distributors across 15 provinces in China. Our business models on distribution and trading is simple. We make margin on products or commissions on sales, depending on the commercials that we've agreed with the brands. For services, that's really referring to our marketing services, our technology platform services, and also our operation outsourcing services, which is for a brand that may not want to go into a distribution model, but are looking for a partner to help them in a certain aspect in the value chain.
We can provide those services to them. Our business model in terms of revenue model comes in through a project fee basis and followed by retainer fees and commissions on sales that we generate.
But what does that really mean? When it talks about helping our customers, really comes down to combining our technology, our distribution and supply chain capabilities. If you look at this slide here, it's really around three areas that we really focus on helping our customers. The first one is supply chain efficiency, is you have to move goods and where our core capability is able to assess what is the best way to give you quicker logistics, better inventory management, so that you have better efficiency around logistics. And then also around cost savings.
The second is around distribution efficiency, and this really refers to how quickly we can get products for our brands into different channels, whether it's online or offline and building that capability in our business, we're able to really accelerate that when a brand comes aboard onto our ecosystem. So we're able to get onto online channels, really quick. We can sell through our own channels and we can also get to products onto shelves through our offline distribution partners, just really drive better, sell their rates across markets in Asia. Lastly is capital efficiency. And I like this. I think this is a really a new value proposition that we're able to offer to our customers, is that we combining our partnerships with financial intermediaries and FinTech. We can use alternative data such as sales data, logistic data to provide alternative funding to our customers so that they can drive better capital efficiency, whether it's to buy stock, is it better to invest into marketing or for working capital? This is where we can also provide value.
So how do we get here as a growth accelerator? Well, when we first started a business in 2014, we really focused around e-commerce and we were aiming to become a one stop shop where we have logistics all the way to store operations. As the business evolved, as well as the market evolved, we've really transitioned into becoming a full service partner, expanding our capability and offline distribution, as well as logistics market activation, as well as content generation.
Now, where we're now focusing on to drive further value is really leveraging technology and data. To make better decisions for our customers so that they can grow faster, they can sell through more. That way we can actually truly become a growth accelerator, for our brand principles.
With all that what have we achieved in 2021? If you look at this slide here, there's six key things I want to highlight. Number one is that we achieved our first group net profit in 2021, over about HK$900,000, which equivalent to be about AUD$150,000. Now the number may seem small, but it really demonstrates that we are on the right path compared to the previous years, if you looked at our performance. Our EBITDA has also grown 21%, year on year. So when in 2020, we reported our first group EBITDA profit positive. In 2021, we're able to continue to grow at that. So it demonstrates our trajectory in the right way. And the things that we're doing now are working, new technology launched. I'm very pleased to say that in 2021, we were able to launch two platforms as we set our technology course, one is called JJX and the other one's called PJF Wines. Now JJX is really a B2B cross border trading platforms, which allows our suppliers and our brands and our retailers to sell to our distribution network in China, Vietnam, and Cambodia, a lot more efficiently. And then we provide the services in between. PJF wines is a B to C platform that's focused specifically on fine and premium wine category that we launched last year. And this is purely to focus our on the cross-border e-commerce to Chinese consumers, given the demand for fine wine and the uniqueness of this particular category in that market. Both platforms launched last year have shown very promising growth.
We also reach profitability across our trading and distribution business for the first time, since we've acquired a number of companies back in 2018, 2019. So this demonstrates that strategy that we have in our trading and distribution business is also working. We've expanded into new product categories. So now we've now grown our focus in not just fashion apparel and also beauty, but we're also now able to do baby and mom products and personal care products. One of the brands I've highlighted here is Ella's kitchen, which if we looked at what we've been able to achieve in the last four months have been significant growth around channel, opening new channels, opening new retail partners. With all this we now fine tuned our services so that we're able to now clearly demonstrate our value proposition and also integrate our customers into our ecosystem a lot better.
Look at this slide. There's two main points I want to highlight now. So on the left side, our gross profit, despite the fallen revenue in 2021, due to the fact that we were discontinuing unprofitable businesses. Our gross profit was the highest ever since we bought, since we've been listed on the ASX. And also our margin has significantly improved compared to the previous years as well. On the right you'll see that inventory turnover period. If you look at the recent year, it has significantly improved compared to back in 2019, means that we're making better decisions on products we're selling through a lot higher, and we're also not taking as much product risk as we used to be.
What's our strategy going forward? If we look at 2022, I summarise it in really two key ways. One is supply chain digitalisation, which refers to which is the first point here is using tech platforms to make cross-border trade more efficient. We all know how cross-border trades are very complicated, whether it's through financial reasons, through government regulation, import customs, and also for logistics as well. So we were able to have platforms that enabled that. Second is streamline and accelerate is really taking what's working already in our business and growing that with new brands and also into new regions.
And we focus around supply chain digitalisation, and we've been building on what we've been developing, which is our eCoreOS platform. We've now develop the suite of new value propositions, which is highlighted here. One, I mentioned JJX, which is our B2B cross border trade platform that enable any oversea brands, that one is sell into Asia, whether it's through China or to other markets, they can easily do it by putting their products into our platform.
PJF wines our cross-border wine platform, which has grown now since we launched last year in September, have compounded monthly growth rates of 88%. It's really focused around selling fine and premium wines, right? Because this category is very unique. It's not easy for Chinese consumers to acquire fine wines, but they can do so through our cross-border platform. We have now grown that into over 15,000 wine offering and average order values of over 2100 renminbi, which is equivalent of about AUD$400 per an order. Our flow is the data driven funding platform that we're partnering with financial intermediaries at FinTech to utilize alternative data, to really support businesses with funding needs.
Streamline accelerate is if I look, if I could summarise that across three major points, it's really one we're focusing on becoming category specialists and that those categories involve baby and mom, personal care, premium food and beverage and health and wellness. So we basically have an anchor brand across each of these categories and we'll continue driving these category as specialists into Asia. Second is market expansion. We've been doing this in China for many years now, and now we're starting to grow into Southeast Asia with Vietnam and Cambodia as our first markets, but we'll continue to replicate our business model into new markets in Southeast Asia as well. That includes Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines.
Brand equity, this is something new, but it's basically because we've known that we are able to support brands in a very high growth manner that we are now also entering to the brand equity space, meaning using, combining the different models of services for equity and investments, we get to be partake in the same goals and performance indicators with our brand principles, so that we have also an influence on our brand strategy, but when we're also partners and not just a service partner in this case. So to summarise really across three major areas and for this presentation, number one, we are a growth accelerator for brands and retailers that want to look into coming to Asia.
Lastly, when you come to look the partners, the brands and the platforms that we operate on, this is the slide that's showcased some of the brands on the left side that we've worked with over the number of years. You'll see brands like Ella's kitchen, Blackmores, Fonterra, which is Australian dairies. And on the right side, you'll see are different platforms and retailers that we've worked with as well in Asia, including supermarket chains, online platforms and SaaS platforms that we leverage.
So to conclude really there's three main points that I want everyone to remember. Number one is we're a growth accelerator for brands and retailers at Asia. So anybody that wants to enter into this space, they can work with us to grow more accelerated faster. The second is we are on the right trajectory in terms of our financial performance, showcasing that if we look at the previous years compared to our last two years, we're seeing growth in all aspects. Number three is our key strategy going forward is really focusing on our tech platforms to drive more value for our brand principles, as well as replicating our business model into new markets and also expanding our brand portfolio. So with that, oh, thank you. And I'll pass this back to Tim.
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