Both revenue and net profit increased. Previously, due to changes in major customer plans, which affected performance, the difficult situation has now been successfully reversed. In 2023, we achieved total revenue of 754 million yuan, an increase of 98% over the same period of the previous year; net profit to mother was 180 million yuan, an increase of 88% over the previous year.
Q4 achieved sales revenue of 264 million yuan in a single quarter, up 211% year on year and down 9% month on month; net profit to mother was 88 million yuan, up 181% year on year and 26% month on month. The results slightly exceeded expectations.
The performance of Q3 and Q4 companies continued to increase, mainly benefiting from the volume of the microprism business. According to IDC data, the global shipment volume of Apple phones in 2023 was 235 million units, an increase of 3.7% over the previous year, and topped the global smartphone shipment list with a market share of 20.1%. The company has been deeply involved in the cold processing process of optical prisms for a long time, and the microprism business, a major customer, has entered the mass production and shipment stage. Taking over the previous long lens business has become a new core driving force for the company's performance, and there has been a significant increase in overall shipment volume and sales revenue.
Intelligent driving increased demand for automotive lenses and lidars, and the glass aspherical lens business has fully benefited. As ADAS develops to a higher level, the number of in-vehicle lenses continues to increase. According to Gaogong Smart Auto, 440,300 new front-mounted lidars were delivered in the Chinese market from January to December 2023, totaling 579,900 units, an increase of 341.19% over the previous year. As a key component in automotive lenses and lidars, glass aspherical lenses benefit from their explosion. The company successfully applied high-precision molded glass aspherical lenses in the field of automotive lenses in 2017. Currently, production capacity is sufficient and downstream customer resources are abundant.
Through measures such as product structure upgrades and cost optimization, the company's overall gross margin has increased, and the profit side has performed well. In the first half of 2023, the company's R&D expenses rate was 14% for the development of new products and technologies. Although mass production of microprism products used in smartphone periscope camera modules has begun, and with measures such as product structure upgrades and cost optimization, the R&D cost rate fell to 5% in the third quarter of '23, gross profit margin was 39%, and the net profit margin was 24%; the net profit rate in the fourth quarter was 33%, up 9 pcts from month to month.
Net profit returned to mother in '23 was 180 million yuan, up 88% year-on-year, with a net profit margin of 24%.
The profit forecast was raised and the holdings increase rating was maintained. The forecast for net profit due to mother for 23-25 was raised to 180/310/395 million yuan. The original forecast value was 1.51/2.45/311 million yuan (considering the increase in models equipped with periscope cameras for major customers). The company's current stock price for 23-25 PE is 44/26/20X, respectively. I am optimistic about Lante's core competitiveness in the fields of microprisms, aspherical automotive glass, AR, etc., and as more models are equipped with periscope cameras in the future, Lante Optics has sufficient growth momentum and maintains an increase rating.
Risk warning: the risk that sales of new products from major North American customers will fall short of expectations; the risk that the penetration rate of intelligent driving will not grow as fast as expected; the risk that demand for consumer electronics will weaken due to macroeconomic, epidemic and other factors.