Event: The company released the 2023 Annual Report and the 2024 First Quarter Report. In 2023, the company achieved revenue of 850 million yuan, an increase of 30.8% year on year, and realized net profit of 60 million yuan to mother, an increase of 21.4% year on year.
In the first quarter of 2024, we achieved revenue of 190 million yuan, an increase of 14.9% year on year, and realized net profit of 0.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.8%.
Digital marketing is growing rapidly, and AI empowers informatization. In 2023, the company's digital marketing business revenue increased by 150.8% to 260 million yuan, accounting for 30.7% of total revenue, becoming another growth engine for the company. The main source of growth was the increase in consolidated revenue due to the company's completion of the acquisition of 51% of Yitong Jiayue's shares in '23. Yitong Jiayue is a digital marketing service provider centered on the home entertainment scene. After the acquisition is completed, it can further enrich the company's upstream and downstream resources and business teams in the OTT marketing industry, and empower the company's second growth curve.
In terms of mobile informatization, the company's mobile information business achieved revenue of 570 million yuan in 2023, an increase of 17.4% over the previous year. The company continues to explore the power of AI in information technology services, continues to develop in the fields of intelligent digital management, AI intelligent customer service, 5G messaging, etc., and has completed R&D plans for corresponding services and products.
The acquisition led to increased expenses, and the level of profit margins remained stable. In 2023, the company's sales expense ratio was 2.2%, up 1pp year on year; management expenses ratio was 2.1%, the same year on year; R&D expenses rate was 3.5%, up 0.5pp year on year. The increase in expenses was mainly due to the acquisition of Yitong Jiayue. In terms of profit margin, the company's gross margin in 2023 was 16.9%, down 0.8pp year on year, and net interest rate was 9%, which was the same year on year.
Digging deeper into AI's vertical capabilities, 5G messaging applications continue to be rich. The company's R&D investment increased 14.5% year-on-year in '23, and continued to increase R&D investment in intelligent digital management, AI intelligent customer service, 5G messaging, and digital rights marketing. For the development of artificial intelligence, the company has completed research and development of artificial intelligence applications such as pre-model training and general feature extraction platforms, Chinese scene dialogue pre-model training and visualization platforms, AI voice service platforms, and AI intelligent customer service systems. It can complete the application of scenarios such as scene dialogue recognition, monitoring, and automatic customer service response based on natural language processing, empowering the company's main digital marketing and informatization business to reduce costs and increase efficiency. In terms of enhanced 5G applications, the company continues to expand downstream application scenarios, explore new 5G video calling services, and signed a strategic cooperation agreement with ZTE to increase cooperation in 5G messaging and 5G new video calls, and achieve business cooperation in the fields of finance, insurance, government affairs, etc.
Profit forecast and investment suggestions: The company's 2024-2026 EPS is expected to be 1.04 yuan, 1.41 yuan, and 1.82 yuan, respectively, and the corresponding PE is 33 times, 24 times, and 19 times, respectively. Considering the steady development of the company's 5G value-added business, the high growth in digital marketing is expected to continue. Referring to the average valuation of comparable companies, the first coverage gave the company a “holding” rating.
Risk warning: Risks such as R&D project progress falling short of expectations, 5G message promotion falling short of expectations, etc.