When facing thousands of listed company announcements every day, which ones should you read? What are the key points to take away from the dozens or hundreds of pages of material announcements? Are the many professional terms in the announcements bullish or bearish? Check out Caixin's "Quick Read Announcement" column, where our reporters across the country will provide you with accurate, fast and professional interpretations on the night of the announcement.

Since the beginning of this year, the global automotive industry has been shaken by the competition among upstream component manufacturers and has been putting their overall strength to the test. At a time when price wars among downstream automakers are intensifying, Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp. (600699.SH) continued to push for cost reduction and efficiency enhancement, and its gross margin increased against the trend in the first half of the year, supporting the continued rise of the company's Q2 net profit.

Joyson Electronic Corp. announced its financial results on the evening of the 29th, achieving operating income of ¥27.08 billion in the first half of 2024, basically flat compared with the same period last year, and net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of ¥0.638 billion, an increase of 34.14% year-on-year. Previously, several brokerages had forecast Joyson Electronic's revenue growth to be around 9.88% year-on-year in 2024, and net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company to increase by around 35% year-on-year.

Looking at quarterly figures, Joyson Electronics' revenue has remained flat year-on-year for two consecutive quarters. In the announcement, the company mentioned that the automotive industry is currently facing a series of difficulties, such as a slowdown in the development of the European and American new energy automotive industries, Chinese car companies competing for overseas markets, and increasingly fierce competition in the domestic automotive market, which is affecting the pace of customer project order deliveries.

The good news is that the company's newly acquired orders still showed significant growth year-on-year. In the first half of the year, the company accumulated global new orders with a lifecycle value of approximately ¥50.4 billion, an increase of 19.43% year-on-year. The company said that the increase in the scale of newly acquired orders was mainly due to the company's continuous increase in the penetration rate of intelligent electric vehicles, the continuous increase in the market share of Chinese domestic brands and leading new forces brand, and opportunities in the domestic automotive market.

In terms of net profit performance, Joyson Electronic's Q2 net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company is expected to be ¥0.331 billion, an increase of 20.36% year-on-year, and an increase from the first quarter's ¥0.307 billion. The company stated that in recent years, the significant effects of various cost reduction and efficiency enhancement measures it has been working on have led to continuous optimization of costs, resulting in a steady year-on-year increase of 2.4 percentage points in overall gross margin in the first half of the year, reaching approximately 15.8%, and a slight increase in gross margin on a quarterly basis in Q2 as well.

Caixin journalists have noticed that after experiencing the adjustment period of its global business, Joyson Electronics' profitability performance has gradually moved towards stable growth rather than fluctuation. Out of confidence in the company's prospects, its controlling shareholder Wang Jianfeng has increased his control of the company by announcing that he will increase his shareholding through the use of his own funds and internal transactions. In addition, on July 27th, Joyson Electronic announced that in order to enhance its control, it plans to acquire a portion of the shares of JASH for $0.283 billion. JASH is a controlling subsidiary of the company's main automotive safety business.