Matters:
On August 23, the company announced its 2024 semi-annual results: in the first half of 2024, operating income was 14.867 billion yuan, up 1.59% year on year; net profit to mother was 1.81 billion yuan, down 8.42% year on year; net profit after deducting non-return to mother was 1.762 billion yuan, up 0.43% year on year.
Commentary:
Revenue continues to grow, and profits are under pressure in the short term. With 2024H1, the company achieved revenue of 14.867 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.59%, and achieved continuous revenue growth. In Q2 alone, revenue was 8.686 billion yuan, an increase of 0.79% over the previous year. 2024H1 achieved net profit of 1.81 billion yuan, down 8.42% year on year, mainly affected by the increase in three fees, reduction in exchange income, and decline in gross margin. Among them, in terms of expenses, 2024H1 R&D expenses, sales expenses, and management expenses were 1.901 billion yuan, 2.268 billion yuan, and 0.511 billion yuan, respectively, +4.78%, +3.54%, and -11.00%, respectively. The total amount of three fees increased 2.21% year on year, higher than the revenue growth rate; in terms of gross margin; The gross margin of 2024H1 was 41.27%, down 1.57pct from the previous year; financial expenses were -0.25 billion yuan, compared to -0.42 billion yuan in the same period last year, mainly due to exchange rate fluctuations and a decrease in exchange earnings.
Enhance global core competitiveness, and overseas business surpasses domestic business for the first time. The overseas side achieved revenue of 7.485 billion yuan, an increase of 9.08% over the previous year, accounting for 50.35% of revenue, surpassing domestic business for the first time. The main reason is that the company continues to deepen distribution system construction, comprehensively promote grid coverage, explore the operation of third-level customers, accelerate new business pipeline layout, and optimize plan refinement in smart cities, urban transportation, education, energy, etc., to achieve model building, accurate promotion and rapid effective replication. At the same time, it accelerates the construction of overseas supply centers, continuously improves overseas delivery capabilities, and enhances global core competitiveness.
Continue to innovate and incubate to expand the company's new growth points. The 2024H1 innovative business achieved revenue of 2.461 billion yuan, an increase of 8.95% over the previous year, accounting for 16.55% of revenue, an increase of 1.11pct over the previous year. The main reason is that the company continues to explore emerging businesses and expand new growth points for the company based on in-depth understanding of the diversified needs of customers and years of experience in the field of smart IoT.
Investment advice: Considering the weak economic recovery in 2024, we expect the company's revenue in 2024-2026 to be 34.42 billion yuan, 37.704 billion yuan, and 41.496 billion yuan, corresponding growth rates of 6.8%, 9.5%, and 10.1%; net profit to mother will be 3.715 billion yuan, 4.305 billion yuan, and 4.974 billion yuan, corresponding growth rates of -49.5%, 15.9%, and 15.5%, respectively; corresponding EPS (diluted) was 1.13 yuan, 1.31 yuan, and 1.51 yuan respectively. In terms of valuation, with reference to comparable companies, we gave the company 17xPE in 2024, corresponding to a target price of 19.21 yuan, maintaining the “recommended” rating.
Risk warning: Uncertainty about innovative business development; increased industry competition; risk of exchange rate fluctuations; overseas market expansion falls short of expectations.