Event: in 2019, the company achieved sales revenue of 988 million yuan, an increase of 43.70% over the same period last year, an operating profit of 227 million yuan, an increase of 96.16% over the same period last year, and a net profit of 191 million yuan belonging to the owner of the parent company, an increase of 95.65% over the same period last year, equivalent to 0.18 yuan of EPS. Net profit excluding non-recurring gains and losses was 170 million yuan, an increase of 100.76% over the same period last year. In 2019, the company plans to pay a cash dividend of 0.5 yuan (including tax) for every 10 shares.
The growth rate of the company's operating income increases quarter by quarter. The company strives to become the world's leading water metering function service provider and intelligent water overall solution provider. The main businesses include all kinds of water meters with intelligent water meters, especially Internet of things water meters as core products, water management application system, water investment and operation, production and marketing difference of water supply enterprises and DMA zone metering management, healthy drinking water service, construction of intelligent water data cloud platform, etc. In 2019, the company's NB-IoT Internet of things water meters were supplied in large quantities in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenzhen and some provincial capitals, successfully realizing a major transformation from small and medium-sized cities and customers to first-tier cities, provincial capital cities and other big cities and big customers, and the company's business income showed a quarterly acceleration. In the fourth quarter of 2019, the company achieved sales revenue of 402 million yuan, an increase of 110.82% over the same period last year.
The company's comprehensive gross profit margin has been improved, and the expenses have been well controlled during the period. In 2019, the company's comprehensive gross profit margin was 37.58%, an increase of 3.67 percentage points over the same period last year, mainly due to an increase in the gross profit margin of smart water meters by 2.62 percentage points compared with the same period last year, and an increase in the proportion of revenue from smart water meters with high gross margins in the company's total revenue. In 2019, the company's expense rate fell 0.53 percentage points year-on-year to 20.24%, mainly because the company's management expense rate and sales expense rate decreased by 1.20 percentage points and 0.65 percentage points respectively.
The impact of COVID-19 's epidemic on the company's first-quarter results was less than 10%. Due to the "COVID-19" epidemic, the company and the upstream and downstream units of the industry have been affected to a certain extent, especially the delay in resuming work and production on the demand side of the company's products and services, resulting in a small decline in the company's performance in the first quarter. It is estimated that the company's net profit belonging to shareholders of listed companies will decline by less than 10% in the first quarter of 2020. In 2020, the company will further improve the non-magnetic sampling technology, optimize the product structure of non-magnetic NB meters and the development and application of large-caliber non-magnetic NB meters and split non-magnetic NB meters; and improve the development, stereotyping and mass production of ultrasonic Internet of things water meters.
Profit forecast: we forecast that the company's net profit attributable to the owner of the parent company from 2020 to 2022 is 264 million yuan, 322 million yuan and 383 million yuan respectively, equivalent to 0.25,0.31 yuan and 0.37 yuan respectively. According to the closing price of 5.05yuan per share in the previous trading day, the price-to-earnings ratio is 20,16 and 14 times respectively.
Risk tips: 1) real estate investment continues to decline; 2) the risk of rising accounts receivable.