Core views:
Due to the pandemic, the Q3 revenue growth rate was disrupted to a certain extent, and the increase in incentive expenses caused apparent profit losses in the first three quarters of 2022. In the first three quarters of '22, the company achieved operating income of 2.08 billion yuan, an increase of 11.5% over the previous year, net profit of 5.9.03 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 41.3%, after deducting net profit of non-attributable net profit of 59.51 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.9%. Among them, 22Q3 achieved operating income of 7.1 billion yuan, an increase of 6.7% year-on-year, net profit of 23.86 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 272.0%, net profit of non-attributable income of 24.11 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 303.6%. During the reporting period, the company's equity incentive amortization expenses were about 97 million yuan, and net profit after restoration was positive.
The autonomous driving business continues to make progress, and new orders from leading car companies have been placed. The company announced in August that it would cooperate with China's leading new energy vehicle company B to jointly develop integrated software and hardware solutions for L2 autonomous driving assistance systems. Subsequently, as the pace of mass production of L2 products at leading car manufacturers accelerates, it is expected that the company's performance will increase significantly.
The advantages of the data compliance business are outstanding. “Zhiyun”, “Zhixin”, “Smart Driving”, and “Smart Cabin” are fully deployed.
In the field of automotive data processing, the company's multi-dimensional capabilities, such as shareholder background, business qualifications, and autonomous driving, have established outstanding strategic advantages, which help empower the expansion of existing business and provide integrated services for OEMs. Currently, the company is shifting from a traditional license model to Tier 1 cloud SaaS based on the strong coupling of “compliance+map+algorithm+positioning”, and the profit model has been upgraded from simple map data sales to a “platform building+continuous data operation service” model.
Profit forecasts and investment recommendations. Considering the impact of the pandemic on 2022 Q2-Q3 performance, we lowered our profit forecast and estimated the company's net profit to be 103/411/662 million yuan in 2022-2024. Referring to comparable companies, considering that the company's data compliance business is in the rapid expansion stage, it was given 9 times PS in '22, with a reasonable value of 14.13 yuan/share, and a “increase in holdings” rating.
Risk warning. The progress of the data compliance business fell short of expectations; the progress of the high-precision map business fell short of expectations; the production capacity of upstream wafer manufacturers continued to be tight; and the epidemic was disrupted.