Editor's note:

From January 25 to 26, 2024, the China Securities Regulatory Commission held the 2024 System Work Conference and emphasized the need to highlight the investor-centered concept. In order to help investors better understand the true development situation and value of the enterprise and further protect the legitimate rights and interests of investors, etc., the Financial Federation and “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” jointly created the “Direct Access to Shareholders' Meeting” column.

The “Direct Shareholders' Meeting” column focuses on the long-term strategies, major decisions, management policies, etc. of the enterprise by confronting the chairman of the listed company and other core management at the shareholders' meeting in the form of a live report. The aim is to enhance the corporate capital market image, optimize investor relationship management, and improve the relevant governance and development of listed companies.

Company of the current issue: Opt

▍ Company Profile

Opt was founded in 2006 and listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in 2020. Mainly engaged in R&D, production and sales of core software and hardware products for machine vision. The independent product line has fully covered vision algorithm libraries, intelligent vision platforms, deep learning (industrial AI), light sources, light source controllers, industrial lenses, industrial cameras, smart barcode readers, and 3D sensors.

▍ Company Highlights

Opt is a leader in machine vision application technology, the earliest leading manufacturer in the machine vision industry in China, and a leading domestic machine vision core component.

▍ Profit Model

Opt relies on a technical system formed by the accumulation of product and solution research and development to provide customers with machine vision core software and hardware products with technical added value, and obtain revenue and profit from them.

“Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily”, March 15 (Reporter Yu Jiaxin) Chang'an Town, Dongguan, Guangdong, is bordered by Shenzhen City in the east and the Pearl River estuary in the south. It is home to a number of electronic information industry chain enterprises such as OPPO and Vivo, and is known as the “major center of China's electronic information industry.” Among the low factory rooms, two brand-new buildings stand. This is the “new location” Opt has officially moved into for a year.

Recently, the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter walked into Opt's headquarters and attended the company's first extraordinary shareholders' meeting in 2024.

▍ Investment in fund-raising projects is slow

Opt was listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in 2020. According to the latest disclosed data, the total capital investment raised in the company's initial IPO is still 60% for the time being, and several fundraising projects have been adjusted.

Among them, the current shareholders' meeting focused on two proposals, including plans to adjust the internal investment structure of the “Marketing Network Center Project” (hereinafter referred to as the “Marketing Center Project”) and increase the amount of investment in some fund-raising projects.

Just in January of this year, Opt announced that it had received a warning letter from the Guangdong Securities Regulatory Bureau. Among them, it was mentioned that the company failed to fulfill review procedures and information disclosure obligations in accordance with regulations, and that the information disclosed on the use of funds raised did not match the facts.

Specifically, in March 2023, Opt disclosed the final report on the marketing center project. The marketing center project actually raised 54.499 million yuan of capital. After investigation, the actual amount of wages paid to new personnel for the Opt Marketing Center project was 20.4038 million yuan, which exceeded the planned usage amount of 15.368 million yuan in the prospectus; of these, 9.3662 million yuan of salary was actually paid to new personnel at the machine vision manufacturing center at the headquarters of another fund-raising project.

In response, Xu Xueliang, deputy general manager and secretary of the board of directors of Opt, told the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter, “This is mainly because the preliminary plans between the fund-raising projects were not clear, but the funds for the fund-raising projects were distributed normally to the project, and no funds were misappropriated.”

Regarding the new salary adjustments, Ye Jianping, the company's financial director, told the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter, “The initial plan for the fund-raising project had low salary expectations. Coupled with the increase in the number of new employees in the company, the overall salary was drastically adjusted.”

The “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter noticed from the disclosure of financial reports that Opt has continued to expand its personnel in recent years, and related sales, management, and R&D expenses are on the rise. Among them, from 2020 to 2022, the sum of the company's sales expenses and management expenses was 116 million yuan, 170 million yuan, and 232 million yuan, respectively, with year-on-year increases of 43.38%, 45.73% and 36.33%, respectively; R&D expenses were 76.4415 million yuan, 137 million yuan, and 191 million yuan, respectively, up 31.38%, 79.36% and 39.32% year-on-year.

It should be noted that Opt's project progress in East China has been postponed over and over again. In May 2023, Opt announced that the scheduled usage dates for the company's “East China Machine Vision Industrial Park Construction Project” and “East China R&D and Technical Service Center Construction Project” were adjusted from July 2023 to July 2025.

In response, Xu Xueliang told the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter, “The overall progress of the East China project was delayed due to the complex design structure of the theme building. In order to ensure the quality and safety of the construction, construction engineering design drawings were repeatedly verified and revised, and various pre-construction permits were obtained later than expected, compounded by reasons such as imperfect municipal distribution networks in the early stages.”

“Although the company's overall fund-raising project has been delayed, some products can be outsourced for processing, and production capacity is not a bottleneck for the time being. But in the long run, as new products expand, the current space is definitely not enough.” Xu Xueliang confessed.

▍ First decline in annual results

According to GGII data, China's machine vision market size in 2022 was 17.065 billion yuan (this data does not include the scale of automated integrated equipment), an increase of 23.51% over the previous year. It is estimated that by 2027, China's machine vision market will exceed 56 billion yuan.

Looking at Opt's performance, since its listing, the company's performance has shown a steady upward trend year by year, but the 2023 results declined for the first time. In 2023, the company achieved revenue of 966 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 15.38%; realized net profit to mother was 208 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 35.89%.

At the shareholders' meeting, some investors were concerned about the reasons for the company's current decline in performance and future development. In response, Xu Xueliang, Deputy General Manager and Secretary of the Board of Directors of Opt, said, “From an industry perspective, due to the slowdown in investment in the new energy industry, slow recovery in the 3C industry, and a decrease in demand for terminals, this has led to a contraction in overall performance.”

The “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter learned that currently Opt's revenue is concentrated in the 3C and new energy sectors, and Optech is seeking to expand its business and product lines. Among them, in November of last year, the company announced that it signed a letter of intent to invest in shares with Dongguan Tailai to pay cash to acquire 51% of Dongguan Tailai's shares by transferring shares from existing shareholders of Dongguan Tailai and increasing capital.

According to information, Dongguan Tailai is mainly engaged in R&D, production and sales of precision transmission components; its main products include linear motors, DD motors, linear modules, precision marble linear motor platforms, etc., which are used in downstream fields such as precision laser processing equipment, precision measuring instruments, LCD panel equipment, semiconductor equipment, lithium battery equipment, and photovoltaic equipment.

Xu Xueliang said, “The acquisition will enable the company to use Telai to expand product components and accelerate the deployment of semiconductor and photovoltaic industries.”

The “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter saw through a live visit to the Optel product exhibition hall that currently covers various products such as light sources, light source controllers, industrial lenses, industrial cameras, smart barcode readers, 3D sensors, etc., and are used in various fields such as 3C, lithium batteries, semiconductors, photovoltaics, automobiles, etc., and simulation workbenches related to the inspection processes in the above industries are also placed in the exhibition hall.

Xu Xueliang told the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter that machine vision has extensive and in-depth applications in the automotive and semiconductor industry, such as quality inspection of automotive parts, assembly and positioning of assembly processes, chip defect detection, wafer positioning and cutting, and packaging process inspection in the semiconductor industry. With the rapid development of new energy vehicles, advances in semiconductor process technology, and increased demand for localization, local machine vision is expected to accelerate penetration in the automotive and semiconductor industries.

Overseas, he revealed, “Exports of new energy products face inspection requirements such as carbon emissions in production processes from Europe and other places, and demand for machine vision applications is expected to grow.”

▍ AI helps the defect inspection market

Currently, the high-end market in the international machine vision market is mainly occupied by American, German, and Japanese brands, including American Cognex (Cognex), German Basler (Basler), Japan's Keyence (Keyence), and Omron (Omron). According to Forward-looking Industry Research Institute, the CR5 for the global machine vision industry in 2021 was 69.1%, with the market share of industry leader Jienshi being 54.9%.

In contrast, domestic enterprises are still relatively small. Xu Xueliang said that at present, demand in the domestic machine vision market is still being gradually released, and there is no large-scale effect. “Many domestic 3C companies are our customers, but the penetration of machine vision applications still needs to be deepened.” However, he believes that overseas market demand is very mature, and overseas will be one of the company's major breakthroughs in the future.

The “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter noticed that AI is becoming part of Opt's quest for a breakthrough. Since 2023, Opt has set up a dedicated deep learning (industrial AI) application development team and set up a dedicated laboratory to support the development of projects such as cosmetic defect detection for core major customers. In early December 2023, the company released DeepVison3, a third-generation deep learning product with self-developed algorithms.

Xu Xueliang told the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter that as the application of AI in the industrial field superimposes an obvious demand for cost reduction, defect detection will be a huge incremental market, which brings new opportunities to Opt. It mentioned that the company will continue to increase cooperation with major core customers in this area.

According to our understanding, machine vision has four major functions: positioning, recognition, measurement and inspection. Among them, the inspection function is the most difficult and widely used. Industry insiders expect that the application of AI in the field of vision will improve system computational processing capabilities and the work efficiency of machine vision, and may broaden the application scenarios of machine vision.

However, as for the future, Xu Xueliang said that AI is a direction, but it cannot completely replace traditional algorithms. “In fact, our 2D algorithms, 3D algorithms, and AI algorithms are common to many projects. Whichever algorithm is more stable and can solve problems, use whichever one is more stable. Some algorithms are very simple and stable, so there's no need to get complicated.”

It is worth mentioning that unlike most companies, the shareholder structure behind Opt is relatively simple. According to the disclosure announcement in January of this year, prior to the shareholding increase plan, the company's controlling shareholders and actual controllers Lu Zhilin, Lu Shenglin, and Xu Xueliang, their co-actors, directly and indirectly held 71.69% of the company's shares.