Event: the company issues the 2021 annual report and the 2022 quarterly report. In 2021, the operating income was 1.298 billion yuan, an increase of 25.01% over the same period last year, and the net profit returned to the mother was 37 million yuan, down 38.27% from the same period last year. The non-return net profit was 33 million yuan, a decrease of 42.29% over the same period last year. In 2022, Q1 realized operating income of 243 million yuan, an increase of 15.81 percent over the same period last year, and net profit of 6 million yuan, an increase of 4.68 percent over the same period last year, deducting 5 million yuan of non-return net profit, a decrease of 8.67 percent over the same period last year. The performance is in line with expectations.
Xinchuang business increased significantly in 2021, and the rapid growth of database business boosted long-term profitability. 1) in 2021, the domestic digital economy had a strong momentum and strong market demand, and the company's Internet banking, channel China Taiwan and domestic databases and other information creation business increased significantly, with annual operating income of 1.298 billion yuan, an increase of 25.01% over the same period last year, an overall gross profit of 34.74%, a decrease of 7.97 pct over the same period last year, and a decrease of 38.27% over the same period last year. The customized development of the early project of the company's innovation business accounts for a relatively high proportion, and the running-in cycle is longer in the process of bank digital transformation, which leads to the high cost of implementation. With the improvement of innovative products and project maturity, gross profit margin will gradually return to a reasonable range.
2) in 2021, the company's database business ushered in rapid growth, made breakthroughs in market development, won the bid for the database software agreement supply procurement project of the central government organs in 2021, and realized an income of 54.0009 million yuan, an increase of 135.74% over the same period last year. The gross profit margin reached 83.52%, of which the domestic database business performed well, with an increase of 358.64% over the same period last year, accounting for more than 80% of the database business income. With the promotion of domestic substitution, the proportion of database business will be further increased, and the structural improvement of gross margin will gradually appear, which is expected to boost the company's long-term profitability.
The strength of independent research and development continues to improve, and the overall cost control is better. 1) the company's R & D investment in 2021 was 147 million yuan, an increase of 13.07% over the same period last year, accounting for 11.33% of revenue Prida. The number of R & D personnel in 2021 was 733, an increase of 12.60% over the same period last year, accounting for 13.69% of the total employee Prida. 13 invention patents and 106 software copyrights were added. By the end of 2021, the company had obtained 169 software copyrights and many patents. It has all the source code and independent intellectual property rights from the basic software to the application layer, and the strength of independent research and development continues to improve. 2) the overall cost control of the company is good, including sales expense rate 5.67%, year-on-year decrease of 1.94 pct, management expense rate of 9.43%, year-on-year increase of 0.09 pct, R & D expense rate of 9.14%, year-on-year decrease of 2.20 pct, financial expense rate of 3.26%, down 0.92 pct.
Revenue continued to grow in the first quarter of 2022, and gross margins improved. 2022Q1 achieved an operating income of 243 million yuan, an increase of 15.81% over the same period last year, and a net profit of 6 million yuan, an increase of 4.68% over the same period last year. The overall gross profit margin is 39.61%, an increase of 1.55 pct over the same period last year. It is expected that the gross margin will further improve with the increase of product maturity and the decrease of project running-in costs.
Huawei core ISV ecological partner, domestic database intellectual property rights and performance advantages. 1) the company is Huawei's core ISV ecological partner, and continues to deepen cooperation. At present, based on HarmonyOS development kit and technical support, the company has completed the development of financial security components for mobile financial transactions, and jointly launched an independent controllable transformation plan for the banking business platform with Huawei. With the official release of HarmonyOS 2.0 in June 2021, Hongmeng is expected to enter a large-scale promotion period, and cooperation with Huawei will further enhance the company's trusted security application capability on the mobile terminal side.
2) according to the forecast of iResearch Consulting, the scale of China's database market will reach 50.9 billion yuan in 2025. The company has developed more than 2000 sets of business systems for more than 500 financial customers, has mature distributed transactional database business software, and a complete range of front, middle and background products of the bank, which has adaptive advantages in database replacement. In 2021, the company's domestic database product SUNDB obtained a registered trademark, compared with the previous generation of products Goldilocks to achieve functional expansion and architecture optimization, and increase the capacity of national security needs and the improvement of domestic technological ecology, is the only domestic database product with complete independent intellectual property rights and complete independent control of core technology. The company's database products have outstanding advantages in intellectual property and performance, and continue to obtain orders and revenue verification, which is expected to enjoy the localization dividend of the 10 billion-level market.
With the gradual maturity of digital RMB products, the IT plate of the company's banks ushered in incremental business. 1) at the working meeting in 2022, the central bank proposed to "promote the R & D pilot of digital RMB in a safe and orderly manner". By the end of 2021, there had been more than 8.0851 million pilot scenarios, with a total of 261 million personal wallets and a transaction value of 87.565 billion yuan. covering a number of small and mass payment areas. With the opening of the pilot and scenario, the industry chain companies involved in digital RMB hardware, software products or systems will obviously benefit. 2) in 2021, the company obtained the software copyright of "Colin Digital Wallet Service platform V1.0", through which financial institutions can connect with digital RMB operators and provide digital wallet services. The digital RMB project between the company and a state-owned bank has completed technical verification and delivery. At the same time, the company has also entered the promotion stage of mobile banking stock customers, and has now undertaken the digital RMB related system construction projects of a joint-stock bank and a number of city commercial banks. In the future, the IT section of the company's banking sector will usher in continuous incremental business.
Maintain a "buy" rating. According to the key assumptions, the operating income from 2022 to 2024 is estimated to be RMB 1.633 million, and the net profit from 2022 to 2024 is estimated to be RMB 18.1 million. Maintain a "buy" rating.
Risk hints: the database business does not advance as expected; the risk of rising staff compensation; the risk that the forecast hypothesis is different from the actual situation.