Incident: The company achieved revenue of 1,280 million yuan in 2022, an increase of 57.92% over the previous year; the net profit of the mother was 190 million yuan, a decrease of 88.24% over the previous year. In the fourth quarter of 2022, the company achieved revenue of 392 million yuan, an increase of 64.56% over the previous year, and achieved net profit of 23 million yuan to the mother, an increase of 738.88% over the previous year. The company achieved revenue of 157 million yuan in the first quarter of 2023, an increase of 26.77% over the previous year; it achieved net profit of -33 million yuan, a slight increase in the year-on-year loss margin.
Comment:
Changes in the structure of lithium battery equipment have led to a decline in gross margin, and the charging station and energy storage business is growing faster. By business, lithium battery equipment revenue in 2022 was 1,019 million yuan, +58.40% year on year, gross profit margin 25.02%, down 16.56pct year on year, mainly due to changes in product structure. The share of high-margin 3C consumer electronics lithium battery equipment declined, and the share of low-margin chemical packaging equipment increased; testing service revenue was 96 million yuan, -17.34% year-on-year. This part of the business was mainly related to R&D investment and product development progress of major customers; other businesses achieved revenue of 162 million yuan, +249.27% year on year, mainly due to corporate charging piles And the volume of energy storage business.
Raise additional capital to boost charging piles and energy storage. The company issued a fixed increase plan to raise no more than 1.2 billion yuan to supplement working capital for the Nebula Energy Storage System and Battery Key Component Manufacturing and Testing Center projects.
The construction site of the project is located in Ningde City. The purpose is to further expand the business scale of industrial and commercial energy storage PCS, grid-side energy storage PCS, DC fast charging piles and DC modules, high voltage control boxes (S-BOX), and lithium battery testing services. In 2022, the company's products won honorary titles such as “Best PCS Supplier in China's Energy Storage Industry in 2022” and “China's Top Ten Charging Facility Innovators”, which shows that the company has achieved certain results in developing a series of products such as energy storage converters (PCS) and charging piles based on years of accumulated lithium battery testing technology and high-power electronic measurement and control technology.
According to the company's announcement on the forecast for daily related transactions in 2023, the estimated amount of energy storage converters, charging piles and other products sold by the company to Fujian Times Nebula and Nebula Intelligence (Fujian) in 2023 is 400 million yuan and 45 million yuan respectively. The company collaborated intelligently with Times Nebula and Nebula to build an ecosystem. As the project continues to advance, it is expected to bring performance growth to the company.
Profit forecasting, valuation and rating: The company lays out charging piles and energy storage fields based on lithium battery testing equipment.
Since the company is in a transition period and new business development expenses are high, we expect the company's revenue for 2023-25 to be 21.38/32.00/4,555 billion yuan (increase of 1.34% /increase of 4.53% /new forecast), and net profit of 1.50/271/423 million yuan (44.4% down/34.4% down/new forecast). The current stock price corresponds to PE in 2023. Considering that the company is in a critical period of changes in the business structure, the new business will develop smoothly and maintain the “buy” rating.
Risk warning: The progress of the new business fell short of expectations; the profit release fell short of expectations due to the high cost of promoting the new business.