On August 16, Cailian Press (Reporter Wu Xin) reported that Vanjee Technology (300552.SZ) gained a lot of attention in the first half of the year due to the popular concept of "car-road-cloud", but this evening it released a semi-annual report of "not-increasing revenue".

In Q1 of 2024, the company achieved year-on-year revenue growth of more than 50%, and net loss also narrowed year-on-year. Therefore, the market believes that the performance has entered an upward channel. However, the answer sheet released tonight shows that it is not easy to turn losses into profits in the short term.

The semi-annual report shows that the company achieved revenue of 0.378 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.28%; net loss attributable to shareholders was 0.15 billion yuan, and the loss expanded year-on-year by 17.33%; after deducting non-recurring items, the net loss was 0.158 billion yuan, and the loss expanded year-on-year by 13.85%.

Although revenue growth was flat, operating costs increased significantly. According to the semi-annual report, the company's operating costs rose by 39.34% year-on-year to reach 0.272 billion yuan, mainly due to revenue growth and changes in product structure. In addition, sales expenses increased by 9.42% in the first half of the year. The company stated that it mainly increased its market expansion efforts to respond to the launch of the car-road-cloud integration and highway business in the second half of the year.

In response to the development of the car-road-cloud collaborative ecosystem, Vanjee Technology has developed intelligent connected vehicle products such as car-mounted lidars and car-mounted V2X communication terminals, as well as Roadside Intelligent Highways and car-road-cloud integration products.

Among them, the dedicated short-range communication products that contributed the most to Vanjee Technology achieved continuous growth in the first half of the year, with revenue of 0.24 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 38.06%. However, Vanjee Technology revealed in the semi-annual report that the market competition had intensified, which led to a decline in some product prices and a decrease in its gross margin and overall gross margin.

Revenue for both the smart connected vehicle and lidar businesses declined in H1. The lidar business achieved revenue of 0.038 billion yuan in the first half of the year, a year-on-year decrease of 4.52%. The smart connected vehicle business achieved revenue of 0.017 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 35.93%. It is worth noting that the gross margin of both businesses also decreased, with the former decreasing by 10.48 percentage points and the latter decreasing by 27.2 percentage points.

Lidar is gradually becoming a standard feature of smart automobiles, but the market competition has been intense for a long time. It can be imagined how much power Vanjee Technology can exert in this field.

According to Gasgoo, the domestic lidar market has shown a significant growth trend from January to May this year, and the penetration rate of lidar-equipped cars has increased from 1.5% in the same period in 2023 to 4.7% this year. However, companies such as Speeding Jouway, HeSaitech, and Huawei Technologies have already divided most of the market, leaving a very limited market share for Vanjee Technology and other manufacturers.

It is worth noting that with the arrival of the car-road-cloud integration policy bonus window, more and more manufacturers are eyeing this cake. Companies such as China Transinfo Technology, Shenzhen Genvict Technologies, Beijing E-Hualu Information Technology, and Gosuncn Technology Group are all accelerating their layout to seize market space.

After five consecutive years of year-on-year decline in net profit for the whole year, it will take time to verify whether Vanjee Technology can take advantage of the popularity of the car-road-cloud and reverse the trend.