Domestic steel wheel leader, stripping non-main business loss business to achieve profit repair. The company started in the steel wheel business in 1996 and has grown into a domestic leader. It is one of the few domestic enterprises that directly enter the OEM market and have access to Daimler, GM and other global platforms. It has seven wheel production bases worldwide and has a production capacity of 13 million wheels. In recent years, the company has stripped off the automotive aftermarket, photovoltaic and other non-main business loss business, focusing on the main wheel business, and actively integrate the upstream industrial chain resources, through group procurement to enhance procurement discourse, reduce costs, drive the company's profitability to gradually repair.
Avatar has the advantages of both steel wheel cost and aluminum wheel performance to achieve cost reduction and gain. Wheel sales are directly related to car sales and ownership, and the demand side is growing steadily. In 2023, the global demand for wheels is about 535 million, and the domestic demand is about 155 million. With the increasing demand for lightweight, high-strength and lightweight wheels represented by aluminum wheels have become the mainstream in the field of passenger cars instead of steel wheels in recent years, but commercial vehicles are still dominated by steel wheels based on load-bearing requirements. The Avatar wheel developed by the company has the advantages of both steel wheel and aluminum wheel: 1) compared with steel wheel, Avatar has lower cost, 30% weight loss, double precision, 2 times higher strength, 2.5% fuel saving per 100 km, and 15% tire wear reduction. As a result, the economic benefit is improved by 8%. 2) compared with aluminum wheels, Avatar can reduce costs by 41.5%, increase strength by 5-6 times, and reduce carbon emissions by 5-6 times. We expect that Avatar wheels will continue to replace aluminum wheels in passenger cars and steel wheels in commercial vehicles in the future.
Avatar capacity is released quickly, and its profitability is several times higher than that of traditional business. By July 2023, the production capacity of Avatar has reached 5 million pieces per year, and the company will rely on the mainframe plant to speed up the layout of the Avatar production base to solve the problem of capacity gap. It is estimated that the production capacity will reach 12 million in 2025.
The demand side of Avatar wheels will be released soon. At present, it has been supplied to several major domestic heavy truck mainframe factories, and the passenger car field has obtained fixed-point projects such as BYD, Chery, Zero run, Changan, GM and so on. With the continuous development of Avatar wheel customers and the gradual landing of production capacity, it is estimated that the revenue of Avatar in 2025 is expected to reach 1.155 billion yuan. With the increase in capacity utilization, the profitability of Avatar is expected to be gradually realized. The gross profit margin of commercial wheels and passenger wheels is expected to reach 30% and 35%, and the net profit rate is 10% 15%, significantly higher than that of traditional steel wheel products.
Investment suggestion: from 2023 to 2025, we expect the company to achieve an operating income of 34,40,695,734 million yuan and a net profit of 0.18 million yuan. The current stock price is times higher than that of PE in 381-38-19. Considering that the production capacity, revenue and profit of the company's new product Avatar wheel business are in the stage of rapid growth, we give the company a 12-month target price of 8.4 yuan per share. Correspond to 2023, 2024, and 2025, the PE is 420-47-23, with a "buy-A" rating.
Risk tips: Avatar promotion is not as expected, capacity construction is not as expected, raw material prices fluctuate, and the domestic car market is not as expected.