Incident: The company released its 2024 quarterly report. 2024Q1 achieved operating income of 3.714 billion yuan, a decrease of 6.38%; net profit to mother of 20 million yuan, a decrease of 94.42%; net profit not attributable to mother - 171 million, a decrease of 149.66%. The performance was in line with expectations.
Q1 Industrial chain prices declined, battery production capacity cleared at an accelerated pace, and Q2 or profit recovery. The company shipped 10.08GW of 2024Q1 batteries, an increase of 110%. Among them, the P type shipped 1.52 GW, which measured a loss of 3-4 points per watt; the N type shipped 8.56 GW, and the estimated profit per watt was about 1 point. Prices in the entire 2024Q1 photovoltaic industry chain have been reduced, and profits continue to be under pressure; currently, the N-type penetration rate is close to 70%, and demand continues to be strong. According to Q2, the company expects TopCon to ship 10GW; silicon prices have bottomed out at an accelerated rate. Since April 2024, silicon wafer/battery prices have been reduced by 17%/14%, and upstream acceleration bottomed out to drive the gradual profit recovery of N-type batteries.
Deeply cultivate N-type technology to improve efficiency and reduce costs, and TPC products are continuously upgraded. At the end of 2023, the company's P-type assets were basically cleared. Currently, the company's product structure is 40GW N-type production capacity, taking the lead in completing the P-type to N-type product upgrade. The company's new technology continues to advance, and continues to promote the introduction of many cutting-edge technologies such as JRPoly, Neon Poly, and J-STF ultra-dense grids to increase TopCon mass production efficiency to 26% +; through the exploration and introduction of various efficiency and cost reduction measures such as metal composite reduction, passivation performance improvement, and 0BB technology, it continues to improve battery conversion efficiency and reduce non-silicon costs.
Increase overseas share, plan overseas production capacity, and wait to harvest overseas. The company achieved overseas sales of 431 million yuan in 2024Q1. Overseas sales accounted for a significant increase from 4.69% in 2023 to 11.62% in 2024Q1. Overseas customers covered various regions such as Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. The company is actively investigating overseas markets and planning to build 5-15GW production capacity in emerging markets such as the Middle East/Southeast Asia to further strengthen supply capacity in overseas markets. The company plans to list H shares. The application is officially submitted in February and is expected to be approved in June; the first phase of overseas production capacity is about 7 GW, and production is planned to be put into operation by 2025. Overseas production capacity will be implemented after Hong Kong stocks raise capital, and it is expected to enjoy the high premium overseas market.
Profit forecast and investment rating: We lowered our 2024-2025 profit forecast and added a 2026 profit forecast. We expect net profit of 10.2/13.5/1.67 billion yuan in 2024-2026 (pre-2024-2025 value was 1.40/1.36 billion yuan), an increase of 26%/32%/24%, corresponding PE is 12/9/7 times. Based on the company's leading position in photovoltaic cells, we maintain a “buy” rating.
Risk warning: Policies fall short of expectations, and competition intensifies.