The company released its 2024 mid-year report. The company's net profit loss narrowed sharply, and the traditional application fields of 3D visual perception such as offline payments, medical insurance verification, and 3D scanning were developing steadily; the layout in the emerging field of robot vision was getting better: industrial robotic arms made significant R&D progress, and two series of binocular structured light cameras were released; overseas market expansion was also beginning to bear fruit, with revenue growth nearly tripling year-on-year, maintaining an increase rating.

Key points to support ratings

Losses narrowed in the first half of 2024, mainly due to a sharp reduction in expense ratios and a significant increase in overseas revenue. 2024H1's revenue was 213.3158 million yuan, +29.02% year over year; net profit attributable to mother was -53.3731 million yuan, a year-on-year loss reduction of 61.94%; net profit not attributable to mother was 80.906 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 52.14%. 2024H1 gross profit margin was 42.54%, +0.24pcts year over year. The narrowing of losses was due to the company's product strategy focusing on robotics and AI vision. Management expenses were -14.28% year-on-year, and R&D expenses were -37.03% year-on-year. The 2024H1 company's expense ratio is well controlled. The 2024H1 company's sales expense ratio was 15.92%, -4.60pcts; the management expense ratio was 25.43%, -12.85pcts; the R&D expense ratio was 49.71%, or -52.15pcts year-on-year.

The market for traditional applications of 3D visual perception is growing steadily. In the field of offline payments, the company and ecological partners have joined smart terminals to promote the application of 3D vision sensors in offline retail, self-service containers, restaurants, campuses, hotels, etc. In the field of medical insurance verification, the company's full-process “smart medical insurance face-brushing medical treatment” system has been implemented in Henan, Hebei, Hubei, Jiangxi and other provinces. The company provides it with a face recognition module, and the business is expected to benefit from the accelerated expansion of smart health insurance. In the field of 3D scanning, the company teamed up with the industry's leading company Creative 3D to launch two high-precision 3D scanners CR-Scan Otter and CR-Scan Raptor. The two products can fully meet the demand for high-precision, low-cost 3D scanning in the fields of 3D printing, reverse engineering, game design, medical protective equipment, AR/VR, etc. The company provides them with self-developed chips and optical solutions, which can fully benefit from growth in related fields in the future.

The layout of the robot vision field has been further improved. 1) In terms of industrial robots, major R&D breakthroughs have been achieved. In July 2024, the company integrated multi-modal large model technology, with data input from the Gemini 335L and Femto Bolt series deep cameras, and launched the 2.0 large model robotic arm demonstration program. It has achieved significant upgrades in language processing understanding ability, planning ability, and response speed, and can automatically perform a series of complex tasks such as making tea and arranging flowers based on voice instructions. The product is expected to be applied in practical scenarios such as lifestyle services and industrial production. 2) The new product focuses on robotic 3D vision. The Gemini 335 and Gemini 336 series binocular structured light cameras released by the company in 2024 are suitable for robotic and AI vision applications such as AMR, inspection robots, delivery robots, robotic arms, drones, and human reconstruction. The Gemini 335 series cameras are equipped with the MX6800 next-generation deep engine chip, equipped with an active-passive fusion binocular imaging system. The Gemini 336 series is an infrared-enhanced version of the Gemini 335 series. The series has excellent light resistance and is suitable for high reflection, strong light interference and high dynamic outdoor scenes. At present, the company has adapted related products to some humanoid robot customers, and is expected to benefit from the trend in the tangible robot market in the future.

Actively expanding overseas customers and connecting to the international core ecosystem are beginning to bear fruit. (1) Some of the company's 3D cameras have full support for the macOS platform, including the high-performance iTOF camera Femto Mega incorporating Microsoft's Azure Kinect DK technology, Gemini 2 and Gemini 2L binocular structured light cameras, etc. (2) In June 2024, the company's newly released Gemini 335 series and Gemini 336 series binocular 3D cameras officially entered the Nvidia robot platform. In the future, it is expected that high-quality overseas business platforms will be used to seize the overseas 3D vision sensor market.

valuations

Due to negative revenue growth in the company's 3D vision sensor business, but the company's various expense ratios have declined significantly, so we lowered the company's revenue growth forecast and increased the company's loss reduction rate. We expect the company's 2024/2025/2026 revenue of 0.487/0.648/0.838 billion yuan, corresponding market sales ratio of 19.7/14.8/11.5 times. Due to the company's great advantage in the field of 3D visual perception, it extends to the robotics industry and has a unique card position. Currently, the company has entered the adaptation stage with humanoid robot customers, and there is plenty of room for future growth.

The main risks faced by ratings

Unprofitable risk; risk of a sharp decline in performance or loss; risk of iterative innovation in 3D visual perception technology; risk of core technology leakage; macro-environmental risk.