According to the annual report released by the event company in 2022, the company achieved an operating income of 76.567 billion yuan in 2022, an increase of 16.41 percent over the same period last year, a return net profit of 203 million yuan, an increase of 14.13 percent over the same period last year, and a non-return net profit of 170 million yuan, an increase of 14.09 percent over the same period last year.
Industrial data services and steel trading services have maintained a steady trend of development. In 2022, the company's business developed steadily. In terms of business, industrial data services achieved operating income of 691 million yuan, an increase of 13.51% over the same period last year, with a two-year compound growth rate of 20.38%, of which data subscription income was 419 million yuan, an increase of 21.97% over the same period last year. The two-year compound growth rate is 23.79%. The total transaction value of the steel trading service platform was 240.488 billion yuan (including tax), and the settlement volume of the platform was 52.9715 million tons, an increase of 14.8 percent over the same period last year, with a two-year compound growth rate of 10.24 percent.
Both the gross profit margin and the expense rate for the period decreased slightly, and the net operating cash flow increased significantly. The company's gross profit margin in 2022 was 1.62%, a decrease of 0.32pcts compared with the same period last year, mainly due to a reduction of 0.31pcts in steel trading services. The expense rate during the period was 0.97%, which was reduced by 0.19pcts compared with the same period last year, and the sales expense rate, management expense rate and financial expense rate were 0.57%, 0.19% and 0.05%, respectively, compared with the same period last year. The decrease in management expense rate was mainly due to the adjustment of share payment fees due to the fact that the 2022 performance appraisal target did not reach the trigger value. The decrease in the rate of financial expenses is mainly due to the decrease in the current borrowing of the subsidiary steel silver e-commerce and the decrease in the interest paid. The net cash flow generated by operating activities was 1.154 billion, an increase of 59.06% over the same period last year.
Take advantage of the data elements Dongfeng, to AI empowered data services, the company has great potential for growth. The capability of industrial data services has continued to improve. On data sources, it has added 119 data sources, more than 330000 new indicators and more than 1.2 billion items of data. At the same time, in addition to continuously strengthening the collection system of nearly 3000 people, it has also creatively marked satellite remote sensing, shipping, cargo flow and other alternative data, combined with AI technology, clearly showing the trend of the industrial chain that was difficult to detect in the past. The company has used AI technologies such as knowledge graph, NLP and deep learning in its information website, APP and "Steel Union data" terminal products to provide powerful search and recommendation functions to enable users to work more efficiently. In addition, the company tries to develop a large language model of vertical classes in the industry based on the open source large language model, and strives to achieve automatic or auxiliary generation of information content through AIGC technology, so as to improve the company's content productivity at low cost. The company's cooperation with the Shanghai Digital Exchange is expected to strengthen the ability to realize data and protect the property rights of data. Up to now, the company has successively completed the listing of five commodity index series, eight commodity industry big data series and commodity data application services (data terminals) on the Shanghai data Exchange. Against the international giant, the company has great potential for growth.
Investment suggestions We expect the company to achieve revenue of 880.7099671Universe in 2023-2025, an increase of 15.02%, 13.17%, 12.21%, and a net profit of 2.53, 3.49 / 476 million, an increase of 24.48% / 38.19%, 36.25%, and the corresponding PE is 54.94 / 39.76 / 29.18, respectively, maintaining the "recommended" rating.
The risk indicates the fluctuation risk of the steel industry, the risk of intensified competition in the industry, the risk that the policy promotion is not as expected, and the risk of credit default of customers on the steel and silver platform.